“Then you have to help me.” I looked around. It was my only chance. “All of you.”
“What is it you need, child?” Serenity asked.
I took a deep breath. “The witches in Whitfield are waiting to burn a little boy to death,” I said. “Because no one can hear the ‘Song of Unmaking’.”
“Fools,” Ola’ea said. “It is everywhere, all around them! All they ever had to do was listen!”
“Nevertheless, I doubt if we would have heard it ourselves if you hadn’t been there to point it out,” Serenity observed.
“That’s what I’m asking,” I said. “Will you come to the ritual? Teach them the song?”
“I have told you, it cannot be taught!”
“It can be heard,” I said. “Let them hear it. That’s all I ask.”
“But . . . They can hear it from you.”
“They could if they would listen.” I looked at my feet. “But they won’t. I mean, who am I? Why should they think I know something they don’t?”
Serenity looked nonplussed. “Why, because you’d be telling the truth,” she said.
Ola’ea shook her head. “You forget, my sister. These people cannot tell truth from lies. They think that because they are witches, they are enlightened beings. But in the end they are all just human.”
“In that case, they wouldn’t listen to us, either,” Serenity said.
“Would you try, though?” I begged. “Please, to save Eric?”
“To save you from your madness,” Ola’ea said.
There was a long silence. Then Serenity took my hand. “We will try,” she said. “That is all we can do.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling the most tremendous relief of my life. “I can go now,” I said.
Ola’ea took my elbow. “All right, then, come,” she said. “Quickly, before you rot.” We took off, moving too fast to see anything. “You realize, of course, you won’t remember any of this.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Not to mention that you may die a horrible death at the hands of those idiots before anyone ever hears the song,” she muttered. “And for what? For nothing.”
“No one dies for nothing,” I reminded her.
She looked into my eyes then, and my heart filled with her sadness and compassion. “We are almost there,” she said.
“Good.”
“By the way, what was said in the Meadow was true. None of this has been a mistake.”
“I know.” I held out my hand in farewell.
“Try to listen,” she said as she fell away like a veil into the wind.
I felt something brush against my lips. A kiss. From Ola’ea? I wondered. No, of course not. What had given me that idea? It was Peter. Who else would kiss me with such tenderness, such perfect, healing love?
I opened my eyes. Eric’s face—Eric’s, not Peter’s—was poised above mine.
I shivered involuntarily when I thought that I might be looking straight at the Darkness. Then I saw that the eyes were really Eric’s, happy, open, guileless. It was Eric who had kissed me, I realized. That was a first. I tried to smile at him, but I don’t know if I succeeded or not.
The second thing I saw was Peter’s arm wrapped around me. Overhead, the moon shone full. The rain had stopped. In the distance, the horseshoe cliffs of Whitfield Bay stood out in silhouette against the white moon, and beyond them, the dark shape of Shaw Island.
“We made it,” I said. At least that had been my intention. My throat was so parched and dry that my words just sounded like mush.
As soon as I spoke, though, I felt Peter’s knees jerk upward beneath me. “Did she . . . you . . .” he stammered.
“Kaaay,” Eric crooned sweetly. He kissed me again. I smiled.
Peter’s face, tearstained and filthy, came into view as he craned his head over his arm. He stared at me, blinking incredulously, for a long time. Finally I reached up to touch his mouth.
“Sometimes you don’t need magic,” I said. I’d literally come back from the dead to tell him that, even though all that came out was “Some.” I tried again. “Love,” I managed. He could figure out the rest.
Peter’s eyes flooded. He held me against him so closely that I felt as if we were melting together into one person. For as long as I could, I let myself be where I was, next to him in that moment and nowhere else, with nothing else in my mind, feeling his strong body beneath his clothes, taking in his heat, his scent, his aliveness.
I was happy. For the first time in my life, I wanted nothing more than I already had.
Then he pulled away from me, holding me at arm’s length, his expression a mask of amazement. “Your face,” he whispered.
Oh. That. But then, did I expect that he wouldn’t notice that I’d been torn to pieces? “That bad, huh?” I raised my hand to my face.
Then I saw it: my hands. The thumb had nearly been cut off one of them. But it wasn’t cut anymore. It looked as if it had never been injured. I held up the other hand then, the one that had been flayed to bare flesh. It was clean. Unmarked. I moved my fingers. The moon gave me a good light. The wound was gone, healed without a trace. “Just like your wrists, Peter,” I said, astonished. But Peter was still staring at my face. I reached up to touch it. The skin was smooth and warm, as if it had never been marred.
How could that be? I wondered. My face had been scraped against rocks, kicked, slashed open, packed with mud and pebbles, and smashed by falling debris.
“My eye?”
“It looks fine. Can you see?”
I nodded.
Then we both looked at Eric. He patted my cheek.
“Mrs. Ainsworth didn’t heal my wrists,” Peter said, dazed. “It was my brother.”
“And the eagle on the island. That was Eric, too.”
Peter bit his lip. “Katy, when we got to shore, you had no heartbeat.”
“I know.” I was going to try to explain. No, it wasn’t a miracle, it was Ola’ea’s ghost who took me to the Land of the Dead by mistake, and then . . .
But of course that wasn’t possible, I realized. I must have been in some sort of demented dream that, even now, was falling away.
“We have to get to the Meadow,” I said.
Eric touched my face, and I felt the peace of eternity wash over me. Everything about this moment was right. Right, and inevitable, and perfect. This was how real magic worked, I now knew, when all the parts of the universe worked together perfectly, at the perfect time.
“You’re a healer, Eric,” I said. I turned toward Peter. “More than a healer. He’s stronger than death. Stronger than the Darkness.”
We looked at one another, we three who we knew now stood at the center of the magic.
Let us see the truth
Of our sublime divinity
All of it was perfect. No matter what happened to any of us from now on, we would always know who we were.
“Let’s go,” Peter said.
CHAPTER
•
FORTY-FOUR
BALEFIRE
They were waiting, their candles making dots of light, hanging in the night like accusations.
We walked in silence. Finally, as I began to make out the first faces in the moonlight, I asked in a small voice, “Are you scared?”
He squeezed my hand. “Yes,” he said.
“Do you think maybe they’ll spare . . .” I was going to say us, but I didn’t want an argument now. “. . . you?”
“No,” he said. “How could they? But they’ll spare Eric. They’ll have to.”
If the Lady of Mercy really can save us from our madness, I thought.
As we approached, I got a look at the faces of our friends. None of these people wanted to see Eric killed. I’d even have bet that every one of them, except maybe for the Fowlers, would have traded places with Eric if they could have.
At least we had that alternative, I told myself. Someone would be able to take Eric’s place. Peter thought he would be the one, but I woul
d make sure it was me.
It was Eric himself who told us when to begin. I hadn’t even known where we were going, and I doubted if Peter knew, either. But Eric started fidgeting and kicking his legs just about where Mr. Haversall was standing.
The old man took an uncertain step backward. I didn’t blame him. The last time anyone had seen Eric, he was sending knives flying through the air.
Well, the ones who wanted retribution for that were going to get it. But Mr. Haversall wasn’t one of those. He was a little disconcerted at the attention Eric was giving him, but he didn’t walk away from us.
Trying to be unobtrusive about it, I checked out Eric’s face. I thought I was sufficiently acquainted with the Darkness to be able to recognize it in Eric’s eyes. It hadn’t appeared since the three of us had made it back to Whitfield, but you never knew. Just because the real Eric had come through didn’t mean the Darkness was gone. Not by any means. Until his talent as a healer emerged, the Darkness had been growing steadily stronger in him.
I wondered if his gift had actually been helped in some way by the Darkness itself—strengthened, somehow, by having to push through that cloud of evil inside him. It made sense, in a way. Steel that’s been welded is stronger than newly forged metal. It was just a thought. I would never know for sure, unless Eric learned to talk.
But I’d be gone by then. Everything seemed to come around to that: Life was short. It would be shorter for Peter and me than most, but it was never long enough for any of us. Perhaps one day, in the Summerland, where only the truth is heard, I would learn the secret of Eric’s great gift.
Which, incidentally, Mr. Haversall knew nothing about as Eric waved his arms at him frantically.
“I think he wants to touch you,” Peter said. “To find out what’s wrong.”
“With me?”
“With your body,” Peter said.
“Shoot, practically everything,” Mr. Haversall said. He looked inquiringly at his dog. “What do you say, Dingo? Should I let the doctor here have a look at me?”
Dingo sat down with a dignified nod of his head.
“Well, all right,” he said with a sigh. “I’m an old man. I’ve lived my life.” He swallowed, then stepped forward bravely into Eric’s embrace.
“Oo,” Eric cooed, slapping Mr. Haversall in the center of his chest.
The old man winced, but stuck out his chin, prepared for another onslaught.
There was none. Dingo barked once.
“Is that it?”
“I guess so,” Peter said.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Mr. Haversall admitted. “To tell the truth, my chest feels like a hundred-pound weight’s been lifted off it.” He bent down and patted Dingo on the head. “But you knew that would happen all along, didn’t you, fella?”
“Woof,” Dingo said.
Eric’s next stop was in front of Gram. “Mmm,” Eric said, taking her gnarled hands in his.
“Land sakes!” she exclaimed as her swollen knuckles shrank before her eyes. “Look at this!” She opened and closed her fists. She swiveled her neck, swung her hips from side to side, and hitched up her dress to show her shapely knees.
“Grandmother!” Agnes whispered.
“My arthritis! It’s gone!”
Then an odd thing happened. People began to emerge from behind the trees and rocks, looking curiously at Eric. Some of them looked astonished, hopeful. Others had closed, careful faces, their bodies hidden behind crossed arms and tightly held children. Around Livia Fowler was a group of young men. I recognized some of them from school. They must have been the ones I’d heard about, the ones Gram said were just some sports team. From the arrogant looks on their faces, though, I kind of doubted that.
Boldly, a young man wearing a cast on his leg—I think he was Gram’s mailman—limped up to Eric with a what-have-I-got-to-lose attitude. He left with his crutches under his arm.
After that, a crowd began to form around Eric.
“Get away!” a woman called, her voice shrill and cutting. “Get away from him. Now!” Livia Fowler pushed her way to the front of the assembly. Defiantly, she took a gaudy brooch from the front of her gown and raked the pin across her hand. Her face never registered the slightest discomfort as the blood welled and spilled across her fingers.
“Heal that,” she demanded, thrusting her hand at Eric.
He touched her with infinite gentleness. The wound healed perfectly.
“It’s the Devil,” she hissed.
“It’s Eric, Mrs. Fowler,” Peter corrected.
“A trick to win us over to the Darkness. We know how you work.”
“Hey, he helped you!” I put in. “Which is more than I would have done, considering you scratched yourself just to see what would happen.”
“Katy, please,” Peter said.
There appeared at his side a small boy with dirty hands and matted hair. His lips were blue. Aside from that, everything about him was gray, from his gray face to his gray ragged clothes. Eric reached out for him.
“No!” a woman screamed, rushing through the crowd. “Don’t you touch him!”
Eric’s hand remained poised in the air as the woman grabbed the child by the collar of his shirt and dragged him back among the onlookers, who slowly slid back to widen the circle around the three of us. There was an odd silence as people decided whether or not to allow Eric to help them.
Then the boy with the blue lips broke free and ran back into the circle, wheezing and panting, his arms outstretched. He touched Eric as if he were playing a desperate game of tag.
Instantly his face transformed. The gray cheeks grew pink, the blue lips reddened. The line of his mouth softened, and the pinched look of his eyes vanished, replaced by a clear green-blue gaze.
He smiled once, briefly, then ran back. On the way he tripped on a stone and lay sprawled and surprised on the ground, his scraped knee reddening before him.
His mother let out a blood-curdling cry that caused the little boy to look up in alarm. “See what they’ve done!” she shrieked. “My boy! They’ve killed my boy!”
The boy tried to scramble to his feet, but the crowd—led, not surprisingly, by Mrs. Fowler’s cadre of young thugs—closed around him.
“Nothing’s wrong with the boy,” I heard Gram shout as loud as she could, but I doubt if anyone heard her.
Suddenly the air seemed charged with danger and terror as the little boy cried out in panic. The crowd murmured, its collective voice rising and falling, occasionally bursting with hysteria, but always with an undertone of suspicion and fear. Once merely curious, they had turned into a swarm.
“Now!” Livia Fowler screamed. “Now!”
And the swarm came for us.
Livia’s vanguard appeared at the front of the crowd, moving purposefully. Three of them grabbed Peter and Eric and me, while others acted immediately to subdue anyone who might have objected, strong-arming Hattie and Agnes and Jonathan, and taking wands from the others.
This was all planned, I realized. Orchestrated down to the last detail.
Mrs. Ainsworth screamed as two burly boys threw a cloth over Miss P’s head and carried her out of the Meadow.
“Djinn!” I shouted. “You can make them stop! You can—”
“She can’t work unless her mind is clear,” Peter said. “They’re going to make sure she can’t think straight.”
In response, the men holding us yanked our arms behind our backs. Eric whimpered in terror as they wrenched him from Peter’s arms.
“She trained them,” I said quietly, wishing it weren’t true. Wishing that everything that was happening wasn’t real.
A separate group of Livia’s boys scurried behind the trees, emerging with armloads of wood. It was dry, despite hours of torrential rain. The wood had been kept dry. And I knew why.
Three tall stakes were placed into the ground. The holes for them had already been dug. The three of us were dragged over to them.
“Kaaay!” Eric sobbed. �
�Kaaay!”
“It’s okay, Eric,” I said, although I could feel my heart breaking. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen.
And yet it was the way it had happened, again and again. Through the centuries, people as innocent as we were, as young as Eric, had been put to death with the explicit consent of righteous people who thought they were acting for the good of humanity. Those smirking thugs who were tossing the firewood at our feet were all calling themselves agents of God, or warriors in a good cause, or the swords of justice. Every one of them.
“No!” Peter shouted. “Not them! Katy doesn’t have anything to do with this!”
The saddest thing about human beings, I realized, was that no matter what terrible things we did, what horrors we committed, none of us ever thought of ourselves as evil.
“Please!” Peter begged, even though I think from the way he was standing that one of his legs might have been broken. “I can take Eric’s place! Just me, not them! Listen to me!”
Listen. That was a joke. These people weren’t going to listen to anything. They’d already made up their minds about what they wanted to hear. I should have known better than to think the truth would matter to them.
“Through love’s unbreaking tie,” Mrs. Fowler warbled. “Unmake the Darkness, do not die . . .”
The wrong song. Again. Dingo started barking, evading kicks from all directions. As Livia sang, if you could call it that, her boys stacked firewood hip deep all around us.
For the first time ever, I hoped that the Darkness would make an appearance. It would at least give us a chance to get out of there.
But Eric only looked up at me with his trusting eyes and smiled as he sank into the ropes that bound him, blinking away his tears.
Livia sang louder and more horribly as she drew a binding circle around us with her wand. A magic circle that no one could enter or leave. The three of us were truly alone now.
“No death shall come, good soul, to thee . . .”
Who was she kidding, I thought. Plenty of death was going to come. Just like it always did.
Tears filled my eyes. Nobody ever learned anything.
“Bring the torches!” Livia commanded. She hadn’t even finished the song.
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