It was crazy. If this were anywhere else, the police would have been all over the place. You didn’t burn people at the stake anymore. But this wasn’t anywhere in the world. This was the Meadow. To anyone passing on the street, this would look like nothing more than an empty construction site.
Mrs. Fowler’s boys rushed up with torches and stood around us in formation. Also part of the plan, I guessed, to make the spectacle as entertaining as possible for her audience.
Tomorrow they would all shake their heads and say how sorry they were that those three young people had to die, as if they had played no part in it. As if by doing nothing, they had not given permission.
I knew why Eric was not manifesting the Darkness. He didn’t have to. It was all around us.
Black smoke curled up from the torches slowly, like fog. Like evil.
“Katy.” It was Peter. He was straining to hold his hand out from beneath the ropes that bound his wrists. Quietly he asked, “Will you be handfasted to me?”
I wasn’t expecting that. Being burned at the stake can wreak havoc on your love life. But that was Peter. He always knew what was really important.
I smiled. “Okay,” I said.
He spoke first, words of sanity in a world gone mad long ago. “I, Peter Prescott Shaw, declare my love for thee, and offer thee my heart for a year and a day, that thou may love me as well.”
It was my turn. It was so hard to breathe. The wood at our feet hadn’t yet been lit, but the heat from the torches was warm enough to make me sweat, a hint of the agony to come. But that was later, I told myself. Another time, a universe away. For now, there was only Peter and Eric and me, and what we had together.
“I, Serenity Katherine Ainsworth, declare my love for thee, and offer thee my heart for a . . .” I pressed my lips together. “Forever,” I said. “I love you, Peter.”
“I love you, Katy.”
Forever.
CHAPTER
•
FORTY-FIVE
EXALTATION
“Light the fire,” Livia ordered.
I wished I could have held him then, held both of them, through the coming ordeal.
Eric started to cry. There was nothing I could do to comfort him, nothing at all. Against my will, a lightning bolt of fear shot through me. I swallowed and stood up as straight as I could, but my body was trembling like a leaf in the wind as the first tendrils of hot smoke snaked into my lungs.
“Sing, Katy,” Peter said.
“What?” I looked around wildly. “Now?” Who would hear me now? The trees weren’t singing. The wind wasn’t blowing. There was no music. Not anywhere. “I can’t even hear the song,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Peter said.
I was shaking like crazy. “It doesn’t?”
“Just listen,” he said.
“Do you hear it?”
He smiled. “No, but you will.”
Listen.
All right. Maybe it was somewhere beyond my hearing.
Somewhere.
I began to sing.
“Lady of Mercy . . .”
My voice quavered pitifully, and was all but lost in the cacophony that filled the meadow.
“Save us from our madness . . .”
Only Dingo heard me. Softly, sitting respectfully in front of us, he began to howl. One of Mrs. Fowler’s boys kicked him. Dingo yelped and scurried away, limping.
I coughed, choking. “Let us see the truth . . .”
I sobbed. I couldn’t. Just couldn’t.
Then, from far away, I heard Dingo singing again, giving me the melody.
“Of our sublime divinity,” I croaked. “Lady of Mercy, save us—”
FROM OUR MADNESS!
It came like cannon fire from everywhere at once: the music, sudden, unexpected, magnificent. And at that moment, I remembered.
“They’ve come,” I whispered as the spirits from the Summerland rushed around us. The trees bent double and the wind began to sing along with the ghosts who had come to keep their promise. Together, their music was as loud as the birth of a planet, and as perfect as the formation of a flower. It was a force of nature, stronger than a hurricane or a tsunami.
Livia Fowler was blithering around trying to control things, issuing commands that no one heeded, chattering like a magpie while her followers stood dumbstruck, blinking at the awesome power that had been unleashed around them. Her army—a puny bunch of adolescent boys, I saw now, willing to sell their souls for a few moments of false authority—were quaking and looking for places to hide, behaving like the cowards they really were.
Hattie pushed past them and stood before the fire that contained Peter and Eric and me, raised her arms in the manner of the high priestess, and spoke the words of Ola’ea’s spell:
Love’s unbreaking tie
Unmake the Darkness, do not die
No death shall come, good souls, to thee
For by the sacred fire set thou free.
A brilliant blue light suddenly surrounded us. The fire around us leaped up, twenty feet tall. I screamed reflexively before I realized that the fire was no longer hot. The ropes binding us fell away. I reached out my hand to touch the flames, blue and cool and comforting as a mother’s arms.
The sacred fire.
My hair stood on end as every cell in my body was infused with the magic of that fire. I felt new, washed clean, as if for this one moment, and never again in my human life, I was utterly free of evil.
This was how Eric must feel all the time, I realized. He never mistook himself for the Darkness, even when it controlled his body . . . even though everyone else did.
The music grew louder as the spirits settled among the living, hundreds now, filling the whole Meadow with an eldritch glow. I saw Serenity Ainsworth among them, and her daughters. Henry Shaw’s wife Zenobia’s eyes met mine, and I understood at last why she had willingly gone into the fire for someone she might have hated. “It was not her dying that saved Henry; it was her willingness to die,” Ola’ea had said. Zenobia had given her husband her life—all that was good and true within her. She, too, had stood in this fire and felt the balm of forgiveness coat her like honey.
Ola’ea was there as well, dressed like an African queen. There was Dorothea Lyttel and her family, and Constance Ainsworth, who was burned in 1929. With them stood all of the witches who’d been tortured and murdered by the evil that they themselves had been accused of harboring.
There were generations of them, the spirits of the families of Whitfield who had seen the Darkness and had come to show us where it truly lived.
To save us from our madness.
I saw my grandparents, young and vibrant, and beyond them, my mother, Agatha, smiling at me with my own green eyes, bright now in the waning moonlight.
Maybe, in some way, I had helped to make up for her crime—a crime she had never considered even to be a crime. She had thought that by killing Eric those years ago, she was eradicating evil. Instead, without knowing, she had perpetrated it. She had fed the Darkness that was already living inside her, as it lived in all of us.
What I’d learned from the Darkness was that it wasn’t really necessary for it to possess anyone in the way it possessed Eric. That was just a catalyst, a way to bring the Darkness that was buried deep in the hearts of good people to the surface. Because inside the best of us, I knew, was enough evil to destroy the world. And we didn’t even know it, because evil was so easy. All it took was the willingness to forget who we can be. What, when it matters, we really are.
I held out my hand to my mother, and she reached out to me. On opposite sides of the living blue fire, our palms touched. I felt her love move through the fire and into my heart. My eyes welled with tears, blurring my vision, but that last image of her, happy, peaceful, her face shining with love for me, would stay in my heart forever.
Eric, who had watched the drama unfold around us as if it were a stage play, now began to tremble and cry in pain
.
“It’s all right,” I said. “This is a magic fire. This is—”
With a roar of rage and anguish, something stretched out of Eric like bubble gum, forming a series of hellish faces as it threw itself against the impenetrable blue barrier of the sacred fire.
It was a red devil with horns. It was the face in the fire that had chased Peter and me through the Shaw mansion, the ventriloquist’s dummy face of Eric as he tortured his brother. Against the barrier pressed an ever-changing stream of faces, those who had been possessed by the Darkness, and those who had killed them. Now, at last, we were able to see the true face of evil:
It looked just like us.
Eric himself, the real Eric, was limp, his eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth open as the thing inside him struggled against the forces that were drawing it out. I knew that it wouldn’t do any good to call him now. What was going on was beyond anything any of us could do. So I just held on to Eric with one hand and Peter with the other, and tried to tell them with my heart that I loved them.
Then there was an explosion of golden light, a column so bright that I was nearly blinded by it. It was the same light I’d seen when I was flying to the Summerland with Ola’ea. Could it have been Olokun, I wondered? The Lady of Mercy?
“The name we use for her does not matter,” Ola’ea had said, “if we know her true name.”
Yes, I remembered. Her true name: Love. That was the spell, the only real magic there was.
The Darkness swirled around the inside of our blue globe, faster and faster, until its changing faces were no longer discernable and they all blended together into what looked like smoke. Then, with a wail of sorrow that captured all the suffering in the world since the beginning of time, it moved upward, congealing into a cone that shot out of the fire, shattered the magic circle as if it were a dome of glass, and flew into the night.
The blue fire vanished. As Eric collapsed, Hattie ran toward us and caught him. “My baby,” she said, cradling him in her arms.
Eric squirmed away from her just long enough to embrace Peter’s broken leg.
“Thanks, buddy,” Peter said, handing him back to Hattie.
He smiled at her. “Mama.” He touched her face. “Mama.”
I could only stare stupidly at my own hands and feet, marveling that we’d all come out of this mess alive. After a while, Peter touched my hand with a trembling tentativeness. “Did you mean the words of the handfasting?” he asked.
I buried my face in his chest. “You don’t have to ask,” I said.
Below us, Livia Fowler bustled up to Hattie. “I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Scott,” she said, “But really, you had no right to take over the ritual. As reigning high priestess—”
“Oh, shut up, Livia,” Hattie said wearily.
The look on Mrs. Fowler’s face was enough to make anyone laugh out loud. “Can you believe her?” I muttered.
“Now, now, we mustn’t be uncharitable, dear.” My great-grandmother was climbing over the mound of firewood at my feet, clutching a blanket. “Here, put this over your shoulders,” she said.
“I was almost burned at the stake, Gram,” I said crankily. “I’m not cold.”
“She’s grateful,” Peter said, draping the thing over me. “It’s easier this way,” he whispered. I knew he was right.
“Where’s Miss P?” I asked.
“Agnes has her. We’re all fine. Just be careful of the crush of people. Everyone will be leaving, you know.”
“As if nothing’s happened?” I asked hotly.
She sighed. “As if we were always good people,” she said, patting my hand. “Give them that much, Katy.”
I strained my eyes to see through the smoke that still lay thick across the Meadow. The first signs of dawn were appearing in the sky, streaks of light that dulled the once-bright light of the full moon. The woods were full of animals, deer and rabbits and birds, that had sensed the change in the air.
It was a new day.
We were headed out of the Meadow with Hattie when Eric began to wave his arms agitatedly.
“What is it, honey?” she asked.
“Maybe he’s telling you to stay,” someone said behind them. It was Becca Fowler.
“Is there something you want?” Hattie asked coldly.
Becca shook her head.
Hattie sniffed and turned away.
Tentatively Becca reached her hand toward Eric, then withdrew it quickly, unsure. Annoyed, Hattie swivelled her head around, making a sound of impatient disgust.
Eric responded by blowing bubbles through his lips. Then, showing all his crooked teeth in a big smile, he reached out to the girl, his straight arms waving urgently, wanting to touch her.
“Becca! You get away from there, now!” Livia Fowler called.
Becca took a step backward, her eyes downcast.
“Come on, baby,” Hattie said to Eric. With more vigor than was necessary, she swung him away from Becca.
“Becca!”
“Go to your mama,” Hattie spat.
But Becca didn’t go. Ignoring her mother, she held out her arms to Eric, her hands cupped, her head bowed. Even from where I was standing, I could see that it was supplication.
Gently, perhaps sensing her need, Eric placed both his hands on hers.
She looked up, astonished, relieved, smiling.
I didn’t know what had been wrong with Becca. Sometimes people have pain you can’t see.
Afterward, she walked slowly to her mother and held her, just held her. Mrs. Fowler looked suddenly smaller than I’d ever seen her. She cried as she held Becca, hanging on to her daughter as if her life depended on it.
You didn’t always need to use magic. Even Eric’s nuclear-strength healing couldn’t hold a candle to the miracles that were all around us every day. And, riddled with the Darkness as we all were, I knew that we fit into the magic, too.
Let us see the truth
Of our sublime divinity.
Nothing less.
Livia and Becca Fowler walked up to Hattie together. “I want you to see something,” Mrs. Fowler said. She didn’t speak the way she normally did, with that loud, imperious voice that made you want to punch her. She was humble. Her shoulders hunched forward. Her hands, I saw, were wrinkled and trembling, claws on her wide pigeon body.
Hattie nodded, circumspect. She didn’t have my great-grandmother’s grace, but she wasn’t cruel. She knew when someone was apologizing, even if they didn’t use the right words.
She handed Eric over to me, and then followed Mrs. Fowler to the botte containing the Great Book of Secrets. As they approached, Livia waved her wand over it in an arc, removing the barrier she had constructed to keep the rain—and any of us—away from it. Gently she closed the book, then opened its front cover. There was a piece of parchment inside, carefully preserved over centuries.
“This belongs to you,” she said, giving it to Hattie. “I found it last night, when I put the protective spell around the botte.” Hattie peered at the document, squinting as she tried to read the unfamiliar handwriting.
Unable to contain her curiosity, Gram leaned over Hattie’s shoulder to read it along with her. “Why, it’s . . .”
“It’s the deed to the Meadow,” Livia said. “Serenity Ainsworth signed it over to your ancestor Ola’ea Olokun in 1728, two years before she died. It was witnessed by Henry Shaw . . . and Veronica Fowler, from my family.”
Hattie staggered backward, leaning heavily on Gram and Peter, who had come over to help. “The deed,” Hattie said, dazed. “Do you think . . .”
“We’ll see that it stands up in court,” Agnes said.
“But . . . does this mean . . .” It was almost too good to be true. “Wonderland . . .”
Gram snatched the deed from her and held it aloft. “To hell with Wonderland!” she shouted, and a cheer went up that resounded through the entire Meadow.
We were all so busy hugging and whooping that no one seemed to notice the tall el
derly man who had come into the crowd and was talking intently to Hattie. I wouldn’t have paid any attention to him at all if Gram hadn’t staggered back and clutched my hand.
“What is it?” I asked, alarmed. “Gram, are you okay?”
She waved the nearly three-hundred-year-old deed in front of her face like one of her handkerchiefs. “Good heavens,” she whispered. “It’s Jeremiah Shaw.”
I think you could have heard my gasp in Rhode Island. Jeremiah Shaw, a witch! My gaze drifted over to Peter, who stood silently, polite but alert as the old man strode over to him. “Peter Shaw, isn’t it?” he asked, holding out his hand.
Peter shook it. “Yes, sir.”
“Are you the one who burned down my house?”
“It was my house, sir,” Peter answered without a moment’s hesitation.
Jeremiah chuckled. “That depends on which house you’re talking about. I believe there were two.”
Damn. I’d forgotten about the cabin.
“Mr. Shaw’s going to rebuild the restaurant,” Hattie said excitedly, taking Eric out of my arms. “For free.”
I was ready to whoop again, but Peter’s expression never changed. “What are you getting out of it?” he asked Mr. Shaw.
Jeremiah’s smile faded. “Is that any of your business?”
“I believe it is,” Peter said. “Hattie Scott is my guardian. My family,” he said pointedly.
The old man put his hands in his pockets. “Well, if you must know, I’m trying to avoid a long series of lawsuits and countersuits,” he said. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in court.”
“Me neither,” Hattie said gently. “It’s the best thing all around, Peter.” She squeezed his shoulder before being swallowed by a happy mob of well-wishers.
Jeremiah looked Peter up and down, assessing him with narrowed, farseeing eyes. “I’d like you to come visit me sometime,” he said.
Peter frowned. “Why?” It was bald, aggressive, and rude. But honest.
Jeremiah put his hands in his pockets. The two of them, both tall and thin, with long fingers and aristocratic noses, stared silently at each other. They might have been mirror images of one another, separated only by years.
Legacy Page 33