Because it had been her fault, and this was how to make amends.
Jenny shook her head, and Amy could see her expression breaking down. "I'm going to town, where there's people. I don't want to see what happens to you next." That last bit must have been meant sarcastically, but Amy could hear the note of truth in it. Jenny had more feelings hiding away than she wanted admit.
"I'll see you later," Amy said to her. Hope and defiance rolled into one.
"Later," said Jenny, and left.
Cordelia had been hanging back through all of this, clearly unhappy to have it under her roof, but she came forward as soon as Jenny was gone.
"Why don't we call it a night?" she said. "It's getting late. If you're still set on this tomorrow, Amy, ring me and I'll see what we can do by daylight."
Amy couldn't try this ritual alone.
No – she shouldn't try it alone. What she couldn't do was pass the night with Jessica's face hanging over her.
"I don't have time," she said, and saw Cordelia back away again. "Look, I won't ask you to help me but can you at least lend me that book? I promise I'll return it when it doesn't work."
Cordelia didn't answer, and Amy didn't know what further to say.
Her phone sounded. She mumbled "excuse me," out of habit, a little unsettled still by the neatness and smartness of Cordelia's house, and pulled it out to check.
Terry, claiming he was with Jessica.
Amy nearly let go of the phone.
Had that been what those lights were? Had Jessica not been gone, not taken but simply with that Terry, letting him touch her letting him kiss her letting him be with her the way she'd taunted Amy about? She felt sick, Terry always made her sick with that smug face and those horrible hands that took people as if they were dolls.
No, wait, that didn't fit.
"What is it? Are you feeling all right?" Cordelia had come forward again, all control and concern. Things were back in her comfort zone, Amy thought, now that she had someone else's problem to fuss over.
"I'm okay," Amy lied.
If Jessica was with Terry she wouldn't have sent that message. The lights wouldn't have been on no matter what Terry told her. That shape –
– flapping, scraping –
– wouldn't have been at the back door.
Which meant Jessica was gone, really gone. Amy could feel the tears welling up again despite everything she'd told herself earlier. Wouldn't it have been better if Jessica were alive and with Terry? To her shame, she couldn't convince herself of that.
That meant Terry was with something else. Something he thought was Jessica, that looked like her, maybe even behaved like her until it was too late.
Good. Just like Tom, he had it coming. Amy made herself believe that; and she really was okay after all.
"I'm doing this tonight," she said to Cordelia again. "I have to. Um, I'm sorry."
Cordelia's face was unreadable. She clenched those long clever fingers into fists, and her next words came as a complete surprise.
"In that case, I'm going to have to come with you. Aren't I?"
Thirteen
Amy wasn't sure if she'd heard correctly. "I thought you were – "
"I am," said Cordelia, bundling up the books, "but I can't let you go trying this on your own. What kind of sisterhood would we be then?"
She ducked into the hallway and had returned with coat and bag before Amy had worked out what to say.
"Thanks," was all Amy could manage.
"To be honest with you," Cordelia slung the bag over her shoulder, "I don't believe it's going to work. I just don't like the idea of you leaving yourself open when you're already this worked up."
That spoiled things a little, but Amy smiled at Cordelia and offered to carry the bag.
"Shall we head over to mine then?"
"If you're certain I can't persuade you to wait until tomorrow," said Cordelia, and Amy shook her head. She'd made herself plain enough by now.
Door shut and coats on and then they were outside. It was late enough that the traffic had stopped altogether, and Amy could hear distant shouts and footsteps from the town centre.
"I'll have to be back in a couple of hours," Cordelia said, "or it won't be fair on the boys."
"I'm sure it won't take that long." Amy started to lead the way down Bellman's Crescent, remembering that the other woman had never been to her flat before, and nor had any of the Coven – she'd felt too ashamed of its smallness, its obvious poverty. Amy wondered how she could have cared so much about something so trivial.
It was a cold walk over to her own street, the kind that Cordelia normally called brisk. The other woman didn't say anything of the kind tonight, and only looked thoughtful when Amy tried to make conversation, giving uncharacteristically short replies. Nonetheless Amy kept trying – she could feel the weight of guilt hanging over her, and the easiest way to stave it off was with chatter and small talk.
The flat was dark and cold, and Amy started switching lights on as soon as the front door was open – both to make the place feel more alive, and because she remembered the words Cordelia had read from that book. If other lights were what she needed, lights were what she'd have.
"So this is where you live." Cordelia had recovered some of her usual poise, and was looking around the flat with the manner of someone inspecting it for sale.
"The living room's this way." Amy lead her from the hallway, sat her on the sofa beside the broken lamp. The big standing lamp in the corner was working, though, and she switched that on as well as the main room light. "Tea?"
"No thank you." Cordelia had her bag open and was pulling the book out. "It only says candles in here, but we'd feel more at ease with some other protections up. What tools do you have in the house?"
Amy noticed how the other woman insisted on saying house rather than flat, as if she were trying to be polite. "None," Amy admitted, "but I've got some chalk if you want to set up a Pentacle."
Cordelia sat back among the sofa cushions. "No need for that, I think, but as well as the candles you'd better bring us a kitchen knife. Your best one, with some proper steel in it."
"Didn't you bring your own tools?" Amy paused in the doorway.
"I didn't think of it," Cordelia said, and Amy couldn't tell if she was lying.
The plain candles were kept in a bag under the kitchen sink. Amy had scented ones as well, stored away in the bathroom cabinet, but the idea of using those didn't seem quite right to her. She got out tealights and taller standing tapers – the latter rammed into old glass holders – and carried them all through to the living room. Cordelia looked wordlessly at the pile, then rose to her feet and started placing them around the furniture.
Amy headed back to the kitchen and picked her only sharp knife from the back of the drawer, as well as the plastic-handled kitchen scissors. She forgot the matches that second trip, and had to go back a third time to fetch them when Cordelia raised an eyebrow.
It took some minutes to light all the candles, and by then the room was suffused with firelight, a golden glow coming off every polished surface. Amy had forgotten to shut the curtains, and as she went to draw them caught sight of the mass of tiny flames reflected in the dark glass, looking like a second sky. It was beautiful in a way that made her feel wistful and sad all at once, and Amy found herself gazing at the images for some moments until Cordelia broke the spell by saying "Well, shall we get this over with?"
Two tall candles sat on the table beside the sofa, and another pair on the coffee table next to the television. Cordelia had balanced a tea-light on the bottom of the television stand, and then placed several more around the edges of the floor, keeping all of them away from curtains and drapes and cloth.
The last candle, which was in the sturdiest and largest holder, had been placed by Amy in the middle of the floor so that the other lights and flames formed a rough circle around it. The papers said nothing about any pattern to the lights – she'd checked – but having this kind o
f order to it all made everything feel more ritualistic, more right.
Amy could understand some of Cordelia's scepticism – the instruction in the old papers were too loose compared to the spells she'd encountered with the Coven, almost informal. Although Amy's earlier determination remained, kept pushing her onwards, she more and more suspected that nothing was going to happen.
The other half of her was pointing out that old magic would have been more informal because nature itself was – the tribes who had once roamed these islands would have had no need for complex instructions or elaborate tools, just fire and water and words. Elemental power and belief. Wasn't that where the real magic lay?
Some of the candles were starting to burn low. It was time.
"Give me the knife, please," Cordelia said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Amy handed it to her before she thought to ask why, and when she did Cordelia would only say "In case something goes wrong."
Amy guessed at what she meant. Iron was a safeguard against elemental spirits, shield and weapon both.
"And the scissors." Cordelia reached up to her hair, but Amy didn't want to be led in everything. This was her decision, her risk to take. "No, I'll do it." She sat opposite Cordelia, candle in between them.
"Are you sure about this?" Cordelia was asking, but Amy already had hold of the scissors by their chunky orange handles and was placing a lock of her hair between the blades.
Snip.
She had a chunk of green hair. Amy tried not to think about what it had done to her hairline – no time for that, not now – and separated a single strand from the others, holding it between thumb and forefinger.
"Ready?" She asked Cordelia, who said "As long as you're ready to be disappointed." From the sound of that, Amy realised Cordelia hoped to be – that she wanted the ritual to be nothing more than scribblings.
The older woman was afraid, though she only showed the barest traces of it, and understanding this shook Amy herself. Cordelia had always been so steady, so in control. She almost scrapped the whole idea at that moment, but then Jessica's name sneaked back into her head and Amy felt she could only go on. The alternative was letting herself be devoured by regrets and what-ifs.
Holding her breath, Amy held the strand out to the candle flame and watched it flare and blacken. A tiny wisp of smoke curled up, and brought an unpleasant smell with it.
"It isn't doing anything," Cordelia said, but Amy pointed past the other woman to the back of the room. Whether by chance or design, one of the tealights along the back wall had flickered out.
"That matches, doesn't it?" she said. "It says keep calling until all other lights are out."
"That could be down to anything," Cordelia said, but she settled back down and watched Amy carefully, one hand on the handle of the knife.
Amy pulled out another strand and held it over the candle. The flame caught the tip of her fingers, and Amy snatched her hand away and let the hair fall, charring and crumbling as it landed.
The tea-light on the television went out, as if the wind had caught it.
Cordelia noticed that one, and was looking more and more ill-at-ease. Her expression mirrored what Amy felt, but Amy ignored her stinging fingers and selected another hair.
This one burned so quickly she thought it might evaporate. She looked around the room, and saw one of the tall candles beside the sofa flare up before it was extinguished. Amy couldn't feel any breeze or disturbance, and a prickling sensation made its way up her back.
Cordelia breathed in, and shuddered as she let it out again. "Amy, this doesn't – " she paused, closed her eyes, put her free hand to her forehead. "Do you think we should stop?"
"It's – it's too late for that," said Amy, who couldn't let herself hesitate in case she ran from the room. Another strand of hair found its way between her aching fingers, and the candle ate this one as eagerly as the others.
The air was still. Half the flames along the back wall went out, and the shadows deepened behind them.
Amy's throat was filling up as it sometimes did when she was nervous. She coughed, swallowed. Cordelia reached out with her free hand, past the candle, and patted Amy on the knee. "You're doing fine," she said, confidence back in her voice. Amy didn't know where her friend was finding the strength.
She sorted another hair out from a tangle of split ends, wincing as she did, and put it to the flame.
The smell in the room was starting to get quite strong by now, a thick burnt odour that stuck to the inside of the nostrils and the back of the throat. Amy coughed again, nearly knocking the candle over, and only then did she see that the lights on the coffee table had gone out. The far side of the room was filled with dead candles and blackened wicks, illuminated only by electricity.
Would the light-bulbs go too? Amy hadn't really thought about that. Hadn't thought about what it'd be like to sit in the dark again, like she had with Jessica –
Stop that. She needed to keep going. Needed to call the thing behind all these events, this Lamplighter, and hold him to account. Make him give her friends back.
Licking her fingers to moisten them, Amy selected another hair. The lock she'd cut off had shrunk to half its size now, but that was fine – she had a headful if need be.
The strand burned. The other candle on the side table went out, and so did the few surviving tealights, until Amy and Cordelia were left with only the standing lamp and light fitting for company.
"It's getting dark," Cordelia said, and looked at the surviving candle then back up to Amy. She shifted the knife to her other hand. "Come on, let's get this over with."
It was all a front, Amy realised. Cordelia made herself sound strong so that she would herself believe it – behind that cool facade she was every bit as anxious and apprehensive as Amy.
Knowing that made Amy feel somehow stronger. If Cordelia could be reduced to near-panic by a few blown-out candles, then she, Amy, could cope with it – she'd seen much worse today, and was prepared to again.
Three hairs left. She placed one of them in the candle-flame, and as it curled and stank the overhead light began to blink, to flicker. There was a loud ping and it went out altogether, leaving two-thirds of the room in shadow.
Amy looked around, but there was no sign of anything strange in her living-room besides the many candles. It was still the same familiar room, as comforting as she always found it. Her territory. Even now, despite what was going on around them, she somehow doubted that the ritual would work – that anything fantastical would appear in this most mundane of settings.
Two hairs remaining. One hair burned, and the standing lamp went out with a sound like a gunshot.
The room was dark now, the single flickering flame at its centre failing to do any more than show how deep the shadows were. Amy could see Cordelia's face lit from below, giving it new and sinister lines.
She burnt the last hair and nothing happened. Something had been nagging at Amy this whole time but she still didn't understand it – none of this ritual fit with what had scared Jessica or Jenny or with the shadow Amy had seen. Light had been the danger there but all this ritual did was breed darkness, and none of it fit together.
She was forgetting the final step. Amy looked to Cordelia and saw the other woman's eyes filled with fear, saw her start to mouth words that Amy could already predict – please, stop.
No going back.
Amy leaned forward and blew out the candle. The wick glowed red for a couple of seconds, smoke wisping off it, then dulled and left them in the dark entirely.
Moments passed.
Amy could hear Cordelia breathe out, sit back. Relief sparked inside her, threatened to overwhelm her thoughts. For all she needed this to work, Amy realised she'd never been sure she wanted it to – the lights going out had got to her, undermined her shaky confidence. Now they were simply two people sitting in a room with the lights off, and that was all there was to it.
The air moved, a breeze striking chills along Amy's exposed skin.
She was sure the window had been closed, and yet there was a draft from somewhere.
A sound came out of the far darkness. Metal scraping against metal.
"Amy." Cordelia's voice was high and childlike. Amy reached out but couldn't find her, hands closing on empty air. She tried to say something reassuring.
Another sound, like rain falling onto leaves. Pitter-patter. Amy's words got away from her.
The air moved once more, and this time there was a hoarseness to it, as if the entire room were drawing breath.
"Amy, what's–” Cordelia said, voice shrill.
Light flared. Amy's eyes stung, filling with purple shapes.
The small lamp was burning. A flame danced in the empty socket and made the room glow orange, the shadows shift –
– wait the lamp was broken how was it doing that –
– flames licked at the lampshade her favourite lampshade and the fabric didn't burn, the forests stood unscathed –
– the stink of burning hair was stronger than ever, making both of them cough –
– the corners were no longer empty. The room was smaller. The shadows deeper. Metal scraped from behind Amy where the door stood open –
– doorway blocked, hallway dark –
– as she tried to stand tried to turn there was something flapping high in the doorway. Cloth and straw. Rags and tatters.
Long pointed feet stepped across the threshold.
"Who are you that speaks my name?"
Syllables like broken glass. Words like wire hooks.
The eyes were hidden below the brim of that pointed hat but Amy could see the lower half of its face and it was stretched and distorted like a long shadow. The chin and nose were pointed, the mouth full of thin chisel-teeth.
Her throat had filled up and nothing was coming out. She could barely stand.
"Don't get up on my account," said the Lamplighter.
Amy glimpsed Cordelia trying to rise behind her and wanted to tell her no, stay down, stay safe. She couldn't say any of these things.
The Lamplighter took another step into the room, feet going pitter-patter on the carpet. It carried a metal pole over one shoulder, and from the tip a lantern swung and scraped.
Lamplight Page 20