by Kim Wilkins
“What is it?” she asked him.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“Um…yes. What time is it?”
“It’s not quite ten a.m.”
“A few too many late nights,” she said. Her back started to ache with the memory of last night’s digging. “Would you like to come in?”
He checked nervously over his shoulder. “Yes, yes, I would. But only briefly you understand.”
She showed him into the lounge room, closing the door to the bedroom on the way. For some reason, the idea of him knowing she was sleeping with Sacha made her embarrassed. Even if Solgreve church was full of fundalmentalists or cultists, she couldn’t forget her manners around a priest.
“I won’t sit down,” he said.
“Okay,” she replied and remained standing too, arms folded in front of her.
“You should leave.”
His frankness surprised her. For a few moments she couldn’t find her voice. “Why?”
“You must be gone by tonight.”
“Why?” she asked again. But the fear had already started to swirl in her stomach. Did they know? Had Flood found out what she was up to?
“I can’t tell you. I shouldn’t even be here.”
“Did you send me that letter?”
He put his hands up as if to say, stop. “I really have to go,” he said. “I shouldn’t even be here.”
“Reverend –”
“After dark, don’t open the door to anyone, not even me. Don’t leave the house. They will be waiting for you. They will be watching the house and waiting for you.” He was already nearly at the door.
“Reverend, wait. Stay. Talk to me about this. Perhaps I can help you, too.” Despite the fact that he was so implicated in Sybill’s murder, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He was so old and feeble and pathetic.
“No. I never came here. If you say I did I will deny it.”
At that moment the bedroom door opened, and Sacha stepped out, dressed only in jeans. “Maisie? What’s up?”
The Reverend saw him and nearly shrieked. Clearly he had expected her to be alone. He pulled open the door and disappeared into the white morning. Sacha went to the door and watched him go.
“What did he want?”
“Close the door, it’s freezing.”
Sacha closed the door and turned back to her. “Well?”
“He came to warn us. The Wraiths are coming for us. Tonight.”
“They can’t get in, right?”
“And we can’t get out.”
“They only come at night.”
“Because the soul magic only works in darkness. So if we want to do what we have to do to Flood…”
“We have to go out at night.”
“Exactly.”
Sacha ran his hand through his hair. Maisie sagged against the door. “This is too much. It’s too hard,” she said.
“It’s not too hard. The Reverend was jumpy, nervous.”
“Yes. He kept saying he shouldn’t be here.”
“So nobody knows he’s warned us. Flood doesn’t know, the Wraiths don’t know.”
“That’s right.”
“What else did he say?”
Maisie wrinkled her brow, trying to remember the exact wording. “Something like, after dark don’t leave the house or answer the door. ‘They’ll be watching the house and waiting for you.’”
Sacha bit his lip, thinking. “So, if we’re not in the house at night…”
“Meaning?”
“They’ll come after dark to watch the house. But if we’ve already left the house, they’ll be stuck here watching for us and we can be off breaking into Flood’s chamber.”
Maisie placed a hand over her heart. She was swimming in a warm bath of fear. “God, I’m so scared.”
“Don’t be scared.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Pack a cut lunch,” Sacha said with a smile. “This afternoon we’re going for a picnic.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The beach was dirty with sludgy, washed-out snow. The tide had come up and taken most of it out to sea, but some of it had banked up near the bottom of the cliff and was melting into the grey sand. Sacha and Maisie, swaddled in layers of clothes, picked their way over rock pools and up the sloping path to Sacha’s cave. He took her hand the last few metres and she remembered the first time they had come here together, when she was still consumed with longing for him. This time it was terror that was making her nauseous.
“Are you okay?” he asked as they clambered into the corner of the cave and sat down.
“I think so. Under the circumstances.” He put an arm around her and she leaned her head on his shoulder. “You have to trust what Ma said – if this is your path, if this is the reason you have your power, the reason you’re here on this planet, then you have nothing to worry about.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not worried.”
He didn’t answer. She pulled away and looked at him. “Well?”
“Yes, I’m a little worried,” he said, opening his backpack and pulling out the lantern, a couple of blankets, a thermos and a bag of sandwiches. “Of course I am. My plans on a Saturday night don’t usually involve killing a five hundred-year-old magician.”
“Are we going to kill him?”
“We’re going to do what we have to do. And, yes, when we set the souls in his room free, I think he’ll die. I mean, that’s where he’s drawing his power from.”
Maisie shook her head, felt helpless tears coming to her eyes. “Sacha, I just want to go home.”
“Home? To the cottage, or to Adrian?”
Maisie dropped her head and didn’t answer. Home to Adrian was starting to look really good. Comfortable. Warm. Predictable. Before they left the cottage, she had written Adrian a brief note: If I die, remember that I love you always.
“If you died, like, right now, would you be happy?” she asked.
“Nobody’s going to die, Maisie.”
“Just…hypothetically.”
Sacha was quiet for a few moments. Finally, he said, “Yes. Yes, I would. I’ve drunk lots of beers with friends, I’ve read some good books and seen some good films. I’ve had a good time with my mother and, thanks to you, I’ve even sort of reconciled with my father. Yeah, I’d be happy. How about you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve let people boss me around and whinged about it constantly, I’ve cheated on the man I love and I can’t stop biting my nails. It’s not much of a resumé.”
“Come on, you’re not that bad. I wouldn’t feel the way I feel about you if you were that bad.”
Her gaze went to the horizon. The sea was calm, but as the afternoon wore on the wind would pick up, and by the time they had to go to the abbey, the waves would be battering the rocks. Although they were sheltered from the worst of the biting cold, Maisie still longed for a warm fire, a warm bed, a hot cup of tea. She couldn’t stand that such an insurmountable task stood between her and comfort. She wanted to give up, but she wouldn’t. There was too much misery here, and she was the only person who could stop it. Perhaps facing death for a good cause like this could make her resumé more impressive.
“How do you feel about me?” she said.
He smiled at her. “You know.”
“Do I?”
“Let’s try this: how do you feel about me?”
She studied him. His cheeks were lightly flushed from the cold. She pulled the beanie off his head and fiddled with his hair. She remembered how she had seen him once: exotic, a romantic hero. No, he wasn’t any of those things, not really. Now, she saw a moderately handsome man who, bafflingly, thought he had done enough in his life to die satisfied. She felt mad, passionate, about him. Was it love? Or was it just that he represented something different and exciting, that he was inextricably bound up in her adventure, her yearning for mystery and magic?
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I don’t know either, how I feel about you.”
“But I’m going home. Soon. So we don’t have to work it out.”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re not going to ask me to stay are you?”
He shook his head. “You know I’m not.
“It wouldn’t be like it is in my imagination, would it? If we stayed together?”
“Let me ask you, did you once have the same kind of fantasies about Adrian?”
“Yes. Of course. We were going to be young and beautiful forever, we’d never argue, we’d never get tired of making love.” She nodded. “And the first eighteen months or so were like that. They really were.”
“And then you got a little bored, dissatisfied, started to look for something else?”
“Yeah. I guess that’s how it happened.”
“You know,” he said, “the best lover for you would be solitude.”
“I’d be lonely.”
“You’d never be disappointed.”
She handed him his beanie. “Enough. I’m bored of talking about me.”
They sat silent for a long time, gazing out to sea.
“You should be meditating,” he said at length.
“I know. Will you help?”
“Here, put your head in my lap.”
She lay down on the floor of the cave, her head in Sacha’s lap. She looked up at him and smiled. He spread a blanket over her.
“Maisie,” he said, “what were you writing before we left?”
“A letter to Adrian. Just in case, you know…”
“Did you tell him what we’re doing?”
“No. I can’t tell him any of that stuff. It makes me so sad.”
“Maybe you’ll tell him one day. I mean, if you’re going to be sharing your lives, he can’t help but see your powers growing, come to believe and understand it.”
This cheered Maisie a little. It was true. Once her Gift was evident in their daily lives, he couldn’t deny it. He would grow used to it, and one day perhaps she could tell him what had happened here on this wintry coastline. Perhaps the breach wasn’t so unbridgeable.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She let her eyelids drop. She felt him lean over, his breath tickled her cheek, his warm lips closed over hers. No pressure, no tongue, just as if he were breathing life into her. She longed for time to freeze and for that moment to be forever. But already her desperation to hold it and possess it was eroding the pleasure. Her right hand went to his neck, her fingers finding a warm square of flesh under his hair. But he broke the kiss and drew away, started talking her through her breathing and meditation exercises. Outside the cave, night fell, the sea rose and grew hungry. Inside, the cold climbed all the way into Maisie’s heart, and the lantern began to glow. She felt a heavy sense of approaching destiny, and it made her stomach churn with anxiety.
Sacha waited until it was fully dark, and then he waited some more. They barely spoke; to do so was to acknowledge the enormity of what was ahead of them. It was after eight o’clock when he finally turned to her and said, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“We go to the abbey, we use the lantern to get in. If he’s there, I’ll take care of him while you go to the wall, set them free.”
“Sounds simple,” she said with a dry laugh.
“It will happen, and it will be over,” he said.
“Stop trying to pretend we’re not risking our lives.”
He fell silent, pressed his lips together. Then, “Ma would come for us. She wouldn’t let them bury us here.”
Maisie nearly wept. “But what about the others?”
“It just means we can’t mess this up.” He took her hand and nodded towards the sea. “Come on. It’s time.”
They left everything behind – blankets, Sacha’s backpack – and took only the lantern. Somehow leaving the objects behind to be collected later made Maisie feel a little more comfortable, a little more confident that there would be a later. Down the cliff face and along the beach again – this time a narrow strip because the ravenous tide had risen. Foamy spray shot up from behind the rocks. The wind was gusting madly, mocking their layers of clothes. They took the path up to the cemetery, moving slowly and cautiously when they approached the top. The path branched off north towards the cottage, south towards the snowy graves and the abbey.
“I wonder if they’re there yet,” Maisie said, indicating the cottage.
“Of course. They would have been there since dark.”
“I hope Tabby’s all right.”
“Don’t worry about the cat. She doesn’t even like you.”
“But still…”
“Come on, we’ll cut straight across the cemetery behind those trees.” They had reached the top of the path. Before her, spread out into the distance, were shadowy gravestones leaning this way and that in the dark, the clumps of snow which clung to them glistening dimly. Clusters of trees here and there were ghostly silhouettes with pockets of blackness huddling behind them, the bare branches casting veiny shadows which pulsed eerily with the wind. Maisie lifted the lantern to look at it glowing faintly blue in the dark.
“It’s like a magic lantern, isn’t it?” Sacha said. “Rub it and the genie appears.”
“We hope the genie will appear. We haven’t even tried it.”
“We couldn’t have. It’s for soul magic only.”
Maisie sighed, gazed at the abbey, a ruined black shadow in the distance. “Let’s get this over with.”
He squeezed her hand and they advanced into the cemetery.
They kept close to trees and shadows, picking their way over graves and between the headstones. Behind them, the sea pounded mournfully. Maisie could hear her heartbeat hammering past her ears. Try not to think about it. She clutched Sacha’s hand in her own, in the other hand held the lantern by her side. Dread weighed heavily upon her heart. Her breath was a cloud in front of her.
“What was that?” Sacha suddenly stopped, cocked his head to listen.
“I can’t hear anything over the waves,” Maisie replied.
“I thought I heard…” He turned and looked in the direction of the cottage. “Oh, Jesus.”
Maisie spun round. Advancing in the distance were two gaunt, cloaked figures.
“Run,” Sacha said. And when she didn’t move, when she found herself frozen to the spot, he prodded her roughly in the back and yelled, “Run!”
They took off across the cemetery, over rough ground, between headstones and trees. When Maisie dared to look back, the Wraiths were closer, now only a hundred metres away. They moved with horrifying speed, gliding over shadows. Sacha was a little ahead of her. She kept her eyes forward. The skin on her back seemed to be prickling. She felt so vulnerable, so horribly exposed. She judged the distance ahead of them, then quickly checked the position of the Wraiths again. She was no mathematician, but she knew there was no way they were going to make it out of the cemetery before the Wraiths caught up. And even if they did make it to the street, which villager would let them in? Which villager would shelter them? She felt a scream trapped deep inside her, kept her head down and kept running. This can’t be happening. As though in a nightmare, she kept running, knowing it was useless.
Suddenly, Sacha fell down in front of her. He cried out in pain.
“Sacha!” she stopped and crouched next to him, trying to help him up.
“I tripped. I’ve hurt something.”
She got him to his feet, but he could barely stand let alone run. “Go, get away,” he said.
“Sacha, I can’t leave you here.” She looked up, watching helplessly as the Wraiths advanced on them. “How did they find us?”
“Who cares how they found us? Maybe they can smell souls. Just run. I’ll be all right.”
Souls. Virgil’s letter said that the Wraiths were controlled by Flood’s magic, and the way to fight magic was with like
magic. She straightened up, held the lantern out in front of her. Her arm was trembling so much that the lantern bobbed about in the dark. The Wraiths continued their relentless forward movement, almost casually. By now, she could hear that wet, rhythmic sound which might have been their breathing.
“Stay back!” she cried, holding the lantern high. “Stay back or I’ll…” Ridiculous. She had no idea how to finish the sentence. Her knees had turned to water, her stomach was a hollow pit.
But, bafflingly, the Wraiths had paused about ten metres away.
“Maisie?” Sacha whispered.
“Soul magic,” she replied, feeling bolder. “It’s how Flood keeps them alive.”
“What are we going to do? We can’t just stand here looking at each other.”
“Start moving, slowly.”
They took two steps backwards. The moment they moved the Wraiths resumed their glide forward. Maisie screamed and backed into Sacha, who fell over again. She held the lantern forward once more.
“Stop!” she said. “I command you to stop.”
They didn’t stop. They moved slowly towards her. Her body seemed to be falling apart with fear. She couldn’t leave Sacha as their prey – she had seen what they had done to Sybill. What do I do?
The first time she held up the lantern, the Wraiths had stopped. It had unsettled them. Perhaps she needed to trust that it would work. She stood tall, forcing her body to stop trembling. She pulled her right glove off with her teeth and spat it out onto the ground. Closer still, they came. A faint smell of decay circled about them, and now she had a horrible idea that she could see under their hoods where their faces should have been. Some sick, gloomy light moved like liquid among a ragged jumble of bone fragments. Maisie realised with horror that the sound she had taken for breathing was actually the pulse of that unnatural light around the bones. The realisation almost undid her resolve. She took a huge breath, forced air into her lungs. With her right hand she touched the lantern.
At this movement, the Wraiths stopped. She barely knew what she was doing, but they had stopped, so she must be doing it right.
“Stay back,” she said, trying to sound menacing.