The Adepti wrote that they’d held a séance one night below the Witching Elm. They heard from the spirits of the unjustly persecuted. The spirits told them a great adversary would arise, and there would be a way to stop him—it was a poem about King Philip. We believe it will tell us how to defeat Rawhed.
What’s more, the Mather Adepti hid the poem somewhere within the school. It’s been kept a secret from the very beginning—the founder of the Mather Adepti had gone mad, and later philosophers concealed things from him. We also believe they enchanted an item, but we do not know what it is. You must begin by searching the school.
—Corvin
Tobias stared up at his friends. “He was looking for the poem in the school before he died. We have to pick up where he left off.”
19
Tobias
Tobias finished a final bite of his sugary cereal. Last night, in the Adepti room, they’d tried to call Ann Hibbins’ spirit up from the grave again, hoping to hear the full poem, but not a single candle had flickered to suggest a ghostly presence.
He frowned, picking up his tray. With everyone going home on break, he’d be left on his own for a week. At least he could spend the time investigating every inch of the school for the poem. He placed his dishes on a cart and had just rounded the corner to the central hall when Alan jumped in front of him.
“There you are,” said Alan. “You really need a cell phone.”
“I thought you were going home.”
Alan checked his phone. “I’ve got an hour. Can we go back to the Adepti room? I have an idea.”
Tobias walked with him toward the stairwell. “What’s your idea?”
“Why don’t we ask the shew stone where the poem is?”
Tobias smiled. “Of course. We should’ve thought of that last night.”
They climbed the stairs into the library and snuck into the earthy stone stairwell. In the Adepti room, a frosty morning light glowed through the window.
Tobias picked up the smooth stone. As he intoned the Angelic spell, his eyelids fluttered and opened again. He felt the beginnings of the trance, a tingling sensation that formed in his fingers and toes, and then his consciousness drifted from his body.
He asked the stone to show him where the poem had been hidden all those years ago. As he looked into the smooth surface, it clouded over, and then a muddy swirl coalesced into a blocky shape. The image sharpened into the Mather Academy building.
It faded, and his eyes resumed their focus. “It’s in Mather Academy.”
Alan opened his hands to the ceiling. “Yeah, we already knew that. Can you ask for more specifics?”
Tobias repeated the spell, entering a trance, but it showed him the same image. “It’s not giving us any more specifics.” His eyes focused on Alan again.
Alan rested his hand on his chin, looking at the floor. “Maybe just ask about the Mather Adepti. Ask who they were.”
When the tingling formed in his body, he saw a group of boys in black clothes and large white collars. They gathered in the Adepti room, chanting together. Some had fair locks and faces pale as dough, while others had brown hair and darker skin—warm skin, like Tobias’s. The image faded.
His eyes focused again, and he looked up at Alan. “Their clothes looked like 17th century clothes. Some were English, and some were Algonquian.”
“Algonquian students? Here? I never heard that.” Alan furrowed his brow. “I bet they died from disease. The Native students at Harvard died from smallpox and the plague. Thank God we got rid of those.”
“They haven’t in Maremount. My mother and sister died of the plague.”
“There’s no cure?” He shook his head. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, it was a long time ago. I don’t remember them. Philosophers developed a spell to cure the plague in Strasbourg in the 1500s, but its use was so widespread that the aura attracted legions of fairies. They forced the entire city to dance to their deaths. It’s been restricted since then.” He glanced out the window and sighed. “Enough about diseases. Should we get back to the stone?”
Alan frowned. “Okay. Didn’t your dad’s letter say the founder of the Mather Adepti went mad, and they had to hide the poem from him?” He nodded toward the stone. “Can you ask who the founder was?”
Tobias returned to staring at the shew stone, and his wide eyes glazed as he swayed. The surface clouded over, and a line of black swirled around, sprouting roots and spikes. It formed into the image of a tree. Was it the Witching Elm? As the image crystallized, he could see it was bushier than an elm and had white flowers.
He snapped out of his trance. “It’s a mayflower.”
“Mayflower? The ship?”
“The tree. It blooms with white flowers in May. Sometimes it’s called a fairy tree. There’s always a festival at the beginning of May in a grove of mayflower trees. There’s a queen who wears mayflowers in her hair. And once you’re fourteen, there’s a fertility ceremony.”
Alan lowered his chin, staring at Tobias. “You participated in a fertility ceremony?”
“Yes, but I’ll miss this year’s.” He frowned.
“So what does a mayflower mean for our question? The Pilgrims started the Adepti?”
Tobias rested against the wall to think, his hand on his chin. “They were in Plymouth, but maybe they moved here later.”
“Ask it again. Maybe it’ll give you a better answer.”
Tobias turned to the stone. As he chanted the Angelic words, he felt himself drift from his body. He asked the stone to show him a vision of the life of the Mather Adepti founder. Standing above the stone, hands resting on the table, he began to sway. This time the stone turned completely black, like polished obsidian, and gray swirls formed into an image of a shaking woman with a noose around her neck. She climbed a ladder that rested against a tree. Her haunted face looked familiar. Someone below her pulled the ladder away, and she swung beneath the branches, her body convulsing, feet twitching in the air. The swinging stilled; her face withered and rotted before his eyes.
“Tobias!” Alan pulled him out of his trance.
As he came back to the Adepti room, he could see that the shew stone emitted a dark smoke. The disc under it darkened and began to melt, and the room filled with a burning stench. The stone splintered with a loud crack. When Tobias tried to touch it, it burned his fingers.
“What happened?”
He took a deep breath. “It was Ann Hibbins. I recognized her from the séance. It was her execution. They left her hanging to rot after she died.”
“Was she the original sorcerer? That doesn’t make sense. I mean, I think it was the right time period.” Alan stared at the stone. “But since you broke the crystal ball, we’ll have to Google it.” He typed into his phone for a minute. “Okay, she was killed in 1656, so she would’ve been around in the early days of the school, but it doesn’t say anything about her having attended here. I mean, they didn’t let women into the school until the 1900s.” He looked up. “What exactly did you ask?”
“I asked to see a vision of the life of the Mather Adepti founder.”
“She was killed nearby. The original sorcerer would’ve seen her execution and rotting body.” After pocketing his phone, Alan stroked his stubble. “Maybe that’s what drove him mad.”
20
Tobias
In the Adepti room, Tobias sat cross-legged, staring into the tiny flames on the red candles across from him. The room smelled of the scorched shew stone. Beyond perusing the philosopher’s guide, he hadn’t found much to fill his time after Alan left. He’d spent the past week trapped in the old school building with no one but Mulligan for company.
Of course, he’d picked through the entire school for signs of the poem. He’d combed through the library—the books, the paintings of old war heroes, the frowning busts, the painted ceilings, and the display cases. He’d leafed through every codex in the poetry section on the off chance that it was hidden in an obv
ious place, and he’d read books about the Mayflower. He’d scoured the Round Chamber and the dining hall.
By Thursday, he’d returned to the Adepti room to see if he’d missed anything, poring through each page of the remaining books and trying to divine hidden meanings in the ornate tapestry. It would have been a considerably better week if Fiona had stayed with him.
As he stared at the melting candle wax, it occurred to him that they hadn’t yet gone down the stairwell. He jumped up, blew out the candles, and swung open the door. As he descended the stairs, he trailed his hands along the dewy walls. His footsteps echoed down the three flights of curving stairs, and the air became increasingly dank. A dark moss grew on the low ceiling, and an ever-thicker oozing substance made him jerk back his hand from the wall.
At the end of the stairs, he found a door made from rough planks of wood, inset with a small, grate-covered window. He peered through but could see nothing beyond the bars. He turned the iron doorknob, jiggling it from side to side. Locked. He gave it a kick, but it didn’t budge. Disappointed, he returned up the stairs toward the library.
Pushing open the memorial plaque, he was startled to see someone scanning the bookshelves on the other side. Celia’s blond hair whirled as she started at the creaking of the plaque. Her jaw dropped.
Tobias hovered in the doorway, with only his head poking out. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking in the folklore section for witch books. What are you doing here?” She hurried toward him. “Is that a secret passage?” She pulled the plaque open further.
Studying? A secret library tryst? “Um…”
She pushed past him, looking up the stairwell. “Is it true what I heard about the Mather Adepti? There were, like, witches here?”
He sighed. There wasn’t much point denying it now, and he might need her help anyway. “Come on,” he said, turning back up the stairs.
And so Celia was introduced to the world of the Mather Adepti. She sat across from him on the rug, her blue eyes opened wide as he told her all about the Angelic language, Rawhed, and the bone wardens.
“So during the séance,” she said, “that was a bone warden? How did it get out of Maremount?”
He shook his head. “It was a vision of a bone warden. The vision must’ve been sent to stop us from hearing the full poem. I’ve been searching for it in the school all week.”
Celia’s cheeks flushed. “This means I called up a poem that could stop Rawhed. Maybe I’m good at magic.”
“Before break started, Alan, Fiona and I tried another séance, but nothing happened. Maybe we’d be more powerful as a larger group, like before. We might have to go back to the site of the elm itself.”
She shuffled closer to him on the rug. “Mulligan never discovered that the alarm was disabled. Why don’t we try it now? Maybe just the two of us can conduct it.”
He rubbed his chin. “I guess we could try it with just us.” He smiled. “You think you might be a powerful philosopher?”
She shrugged. “Could be.” She rose, holding out her hand. “Come on. Mulligan will be asleep by now.”
He grabbed it and followed her through the empty library and down the rickety stairwell.
In the vestibule, Celia opened the door to heavy rain, turning back to glance at Tobias. “You still want to go out?”
He nodded. Despite the rain, the air was unusually warm for March. His shirt was soaked through by the time they’d crossed the courtyard. “I thought I was the only one left at school,” he said as they walked toward Boylston Street. “Apart from Mulligan.”
She shrugged. “I was just hanging out in my room.”
“Why didn’t you go home?”
“I never go home for break.”
He glanced around at the park as they entered. The park lights illuminated very little, but it seemed the Common was empty in the rain. “Why don’t you ever go home?”
“Eh, it’s not interesting.” She waved her hand. “You’re the one with the interesting story. You said when you escaped Rawhed, your friends were left behind?”
He nodded. “Oswald and Eden.”
“Are they boyfriend and girlfriend?”
Tobias laughed as they walked along one of the Common paths, his clothes now sopping. “They’re siblings. Eden’s more like my girlfriend. She invited me to the Festival of the Bird King last year.”
She looked over at him, strands of drenched hair sticking to her face. “And what happens at the Festival of the Bird King?”
“Someone’s anointed King for the day and dosed with magical, intoxicating herbs. He wears a feathered costume. He gets to choose a woman to—well—he gets to choose a woman. After that day, he disappears. It’s actually horrible for the birds. They’re baked into pies. They tie live geese to the trees.” He pushed his wet hair out of his eyes. “Men rub themselves with a salve of wolfsbane and cinquefoil, and they fly on broken tree branches. They fly right into the geese until the birds’ necks break. People gamble on who will smash the goose first. Eden knows that I hate seeing it, and she always finds a way to get me away.”
Celia grimaced. “Ew. I’m sure they must have more sophisticated activities in Maremount.”
Tobias looked around as they reached an intersection of paths and gestured to a spot on the grass. “This is it—where the elm used to be.”
Celia stood across from him, rubbing her arms for warmth. “Well, I didn’t bring the candles this time. But I guess they wouldn’t work in the rain.”
“Do you remember what you said last time?”
“I remember. Hold my hands.” She held them out, palms up.
He grabbed hold. “I’ll try the Angelic words again.”
“Ann Hibbins, speak to us and move among us.” She held her face upward into the rain. “Ann Hibbins, speak to us and move among us. Answer our questions and tell us our fates.”
As she repeated the phrases, Tobias chanted the words for appear and spirit. Rain dripped into his eyes, and he tried to blink it out. A streak of lightning lit up the sky, touching down on Beacon Hill.
Celia chanted, and thunder boomed, drowning out her voice as it rumbled over the city. What exactly were the chances of calling forth a demon? It had happened only a few times with the Ragmen, but the danger was different here. In Maremount, there’d been a whole coven to fight them off. And without a pike to conduct attack spells, he wouldn’t know where to begin.
“Ann Hibbins, speak to us and move among us.” Celia was nearly shouting now, her face upturned.
Lightning seared the sky above the State House, and a sharp crack of thunder roared through the air. Tobias’s hair stood on end.
“Speak to us and move among us!” Celia chanted.
The aura tingled on his skin. “It’s working!”
Celia shouted, “Ann Hibbins, speak to us and tell us our fates!”
Rain battered down as they chanted. Lightning flashed again—this time illuminating a craggy face in the gloom behind Celia. Tobias jumped, pulling Celia toward him, and she fell silent.
A sinewy old man hovered in the shadows for a moment before prowling into the dim yellow light. Apart from a loincloth, boots, and a hat, he wore no clothes. A gray beard curled down to his chest, and red eyes shone from his pale face. Iron boots echoed on the pavement as he walked toward them—clunk clunk clunk. Instead of fingers, four sharp talons gripped an iron pike. On his head, a pointed felt cap glistened with burgundy streaks of gore.
“Hello, my friends.” He spoke in a low voice with a Scottish accent. As he moved closer, he smiled, showing off a set of long, gray teeth as he approached. Clunk clunk clunk.
Celia shifted back toward Tobias, whispering, “What do we do?” She clung to his arm, her nails digging into his flesh.
“Don’t run,” whispered Tobias. “He’ll catch us.”
Flaring his large nostrils, the man planted his metal boots on the ground just inches from Tobias. Gray eyebrows swooped up his forehead in peaks and c
urls. “Don’t you know that you’re playing with things beyond your control?”
“Sorry,” Tobias stammered, as though he’d been caught pilfering an apple from someone’s orchard.
The man bent toward them, so close that Tobias could discern a bluish sheen to his skin and smell meat on his breath. He raised his eyebrows. “They’re coming, you know. The harvest is thin in Maremount now. They’ll want a fresh crop here in Boston. Their god is hungry.” He grinned. “You’re lucky I’m not.”
21
Fiona
Fiona took a bite of her mother’s homemade pasta al pomodoro. There wasn’t much excitement when she stayed at home for breaks, but the cooking nearly made it tolerable. She found an odd comfort in sitting under the kitchen’s glass ceiling lamp surrounded by the clutter of books and magazines. Though her mother often bustled around the kitchen, energetically tidying, the results of her efforts to organize rarely made sense. This morning, in the fruit bowl, Fiona had found two apples, a banana, three quarters, unpaid tuition bills, a cork, a broken cell phone, and a Sherlock Holmes novel.
Her mother’s cooking efforts always brought with them a certain amount of chaos. Josephine Forzese had learned from her parents to express her frustration in Italian, although neither she nor Fiona spoke the language very well. When she spilled sauce on the floor or burned her fingers, she shouted something that sounded like “va fa Napoli!” By the time she’d finished the sauce and served dinner, Josephine would refocus her attention on her daughter.
As a radio news show crackled in the background, Fiona swallowed a mouthful of garlicky spaghetti. “What’s with the tuition bills? Am I gonna get kicked out?”
The Witching Elm (A Memento Mori Witch Novel, Book 1) Page 10