“But I never meant to hurt you,” Gabe cried. “That’s the part you’ve got to understand. I hired a really nice woman and then I made sure she was especially kind to Drew. I explicitly told her not to scare him, to be gentle, to rent him a bunch of videotapes, and to get him his favorite for dinner: Peking ravioli.” He looked beseechingly at Lauren. “You said that was his favorite. Didn’t he tell you that’s what he had to eat?”
Lauren nodded. This was unbelievable. Incomprehensible. Gabe Phipps—the powerful, the wealthy, the brilliant—was using Peking ravioli to justify the kidnapping of her son. He’d lost all sense of proportion, of right and wrong. At every fork, he had taken the road most easily traveled. And now, true to form, he was choosing the easy way out: denying what he had done, abdicating responsibility for his actions. He was hollow at the core. Again, just as Deborah had said.
“It had to be the curse that’s caused it all—that’s causing my downfall now. There’s just no other explanation.” Gabe’s eyes filled with tears and his voice began to shake. “I never wanted to hurt anyone. Never. That’s why I planned to release Drew, unharmed, the very day he ran away. The fact that he escaped doesn’t negate my good intentions.” He covered his face with trembling hands and began to sob. “It doesn’t negate my good intentions,” he repeated.
Lauren watched Gabe in silence, her anger suddenly replaced by overwhelming sorrow. So many losses, she thought. And for what? For what?
Lauren didn’t leave the police station until after ten o’clock. As she stepped into the cold December night, she looked up at the sky. It had cleared since morning, the snow that had been threatening blown far out to sea. Although most of the stars were hidden by the city lights, she could see the waxing crescent moon rising in the east. She thought how nice it would be to join Deborah and the coven for the Immortalis, but she knew she was far too exhausted and wrung out to make the trip.
Everything had taken so long. After talking with Gabe, she had been questioned over and over again by so many different people—Steve Conway, an FBI agent, The Boston Globe, The Cambridge Tab, Channel 7, even a student from the university daily—that by the end, she was sure her story was completely incomprehensible. No one seemed to mind; they all had been extremely kind. The dispatcher even ordered in Chinese food for dinner.
Lauren headed to the T station. The crowds had thinned by this hour, and she had the sidewalks almost to herself. It seemed incredible that this was still Tuesday, the same day she had walked Drew to school, dropped exams off at Paul Conklin’s office, and gone to the library to kill a few hours by researching Faith Osborne. As she turned the corner past a brightly lit but deserted laundromat, she pictured the comfort of her bed and the safety of her apartment. A safety that was now assured.
The train came as soon as Lauren reached the platform and she was home in no time. Despite her exhaustion, she prowled the apartment, unable to relax. She washed the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and put away the laundry that had been sitting in the basket for days. She circled the living room and wandered down the hallway to Drew’s bedroom. Then she walked the loop again. Finally, she forced herself to stretch out on the living room couch. But she couldn’t get comfortable. Her leg kept shaking and her mind kept whirling.
Her eyes darted to the Deodat Willard print leaning against the wall and, once again, she promised herself she would call Simon Pappas. Climbing slowly from the couch, she knelt before the strange little print. She didn’t want to give it back. It was a part of Jackie, and somehow it was also a part of herself.
The young girl in the picture was dressed as a prim matron. She wore a long skirt covered by an apron with a narrow binding of lace. On her head was a tightly fitted cap. But despite the unflattering hat and the restrictive clothes, the spirit of the child burst from the print. Lauren reached out and touched the girl’s cheek.
The child turned and looked straight into Lauren’s eyes. She released a high tinkling laugh. “Mama!” the girl cried, clasping her hands together. “I’ve been searching for you everywhere.”
Lauren was startled but strangely unafraid. “I would’ve thought you’d be angry with your mother,” she said.
“Why should I be angry when I know you thought me asleep on my pallet that night?” Dorcas asked. “’Tis clear you told your husband about Rebeka and the others to save me from the gallows.”
“But I didn’t save you,” Lauren whispered, once again seeing the tiny, lifeless body hanging from the towering oak tree. She closed her eyes against the image. “You had run to Rebeka’s. You were in Glover barn.…”
Dorcas was silent. “Things do not always turn out as we plan,” she finally said. “A mother who puts her child before all others is not a person to be scorned. She is a woman to be admired.”
Lauren opened her eyes.
“You are far stronger than you think, Mama,” Dorcas said, her voice growing fainter. “And so much more is possible than you allow yourself to believe.”
“But—” Lauren began and then stopped. The small print was still and silent. Dorcas was turned away from her toward the corn, as she had always been.
Thirty
THIS TIME, LAUREN HAD NO TROUBLE FINDING HER WAY to White Horse Beach. When her headlights lit up the pair of gnarled birch trees standing sentinel on either side of the dirt road, she turned onto a lane that was as tight and rutted as she remembered. Naked tree branches scraped against the sides of her car. As she pulled into the parking lot, it was just before midnight. Turning off the motor, she stared into the shadowy silence for a long moment, then grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment and climbed from the car.
Zipping her jacket high against the night air, Lauren could hear the distant lapping of waves, but little else. She walked slowly toward the dense forest. But even with the flashlight, she had difficulty finding the break in the trees that led to the narrow beach path. She nosed her way into the woods a few times, thinking she had found the trail, only to become caught in a mass of impenetrable underbrush. Finally, she found it. As she stepped carefully around saplings and rocks, she could smell the salt and hear the surf. She felt the knot of dread the ocean always tied within her, but she kept walking. The path seemed much longer and more circuitous than she remembered. Finally, she pushed through the last of the trees and stepped onto the wide, open beach.
They were all there: Deborah, Cassandra, Bram, Tamar, Robin, and Alva, barefoot and apparently naked under their long white robes. They were gathered in a circle around a bonfire, with a brass pot hanging over it. A white bush with strange braided roots was at their feet. With a start, Lauren recalled Deborah had left a similar bush on Jackie’s casket.
“Lauren.” Deborah glided across the sand, her white cloak trailing behind her. Through the split in her robe, Deborah’s naked body glistened in the moonlight. She appeared unaffected by the cold. “I knew you’d come.”
The others followed more slowly, expressions of dazed amazement on their faces. Cassandra was the only one beside Deborah who actually’ approached, touching Lauren’s arm as if she couldn’t quite believe she was real. The rest kept their distance, forming a wide, ragged circle around her. They were subdued, almost as if they had been drugged, staring at her in bewilderment.
Lauren looked into Deborah’s pale eyes. “I’ve come to find out what is possible,” she said. “And to find out who I am.”
Deborah took Lauren’s arm. “I have your robe. It is time to begin.” Together the seven walked single file across the sand.
They approached the fire. Whipped by the wind, the flames shot wildly in every direction, eating at the bottom of the pot. A wooden dipper lay nearby in the sand. Lauren looked out at the ocean and a shiver of dread ran through her body. But when Deborah placed a white robe around her shoulders, Lauren’s apprehension slowly abated. Cassandra took one of her hands and Bram took her other.
They formed a circle around Deborah, who lowered the dipper into the pot, then lifted it before
her. “Heliotrope, sage, malaxis, christianwort, heart of lubin, aconite,” Deborah chanted, her voice vibrating with power. “To live, one must die.”
“To die for future life is the privilege of the few,” Cassandra answered.
As Deborah returned the dipper to the pot, Cassandra began the story of the Immortalis. “We come to this ocean that carves the edge of the earth to perform the great Immortalis,” she said. “It is a deep magic, crafted to insure our seven souls shall be reborn together again, and again, and again.”
“One plus zero plus one,” the coven chanted.
“One plus zero plus one,” Cassandra repeated. “And in each new incarnation our coven shall grow in knowledge and in power and in the magical crafts.”
When Cassandra finished speaking, Deborah tugged the ribbon that gathered the neck band of her cloak. As the white cloak fell open, she pulled Rebeka’s lancet from between her breasts. She opened the lancet, fanning the four blades above her head. “I wield the lancet of heaven. The touch of this divine blade shall ensure breath be with us for all eternity.” Deborah touched each of the four blades to her nose, to her lips, and to the soft spot at the base of her neck; then passed the lancet around the circle. Each member did as she had done. It came to Lauren last.
So this was Rebeka’s lancet, Lauren thought as she held it in her hand. The mysterious and powerful lancet of which Deborah had spoken on the day she had first given them the chronicle. Lauren turned the lancet so she could view it from all sides. It was a truly beautiful object, the carvings—the serpents, pine-cones, frogs, and a winged caduceus—forming a remarkably pleasing although decidedly odd design. She looked up at the circle and saw everyone’s eyes upon her.
Slowly, she raised the lancet, pressing the first blade to her nose. But as soon as the knife touched her skin, Lauren caught her breath. The heavens had shifted and she knew she was in a different place in time. The stars were much brighter, and in a slightly different formation. The near stars stood out in front of the Milky Way, which lay against a sky that was the deepest velvet black she had ever seen.
Lauren gazed around the circle in amazement. The bonfire was much smaller and the brass caldron much larger than they had been a moment before. Tamar and Robin were gone. Instead, Abigail Cullender, her eye swollen shut, and Bridgit Corey, her arm hanging uselessly by her side, stood across from her. As did Mercy Broadstreet, Foster Lacy, and Millicent Glover. Rebeka was standing next to the bonfire, shriveled and old in her muddy red cloak.
Rebeka’s voice echoed down the long corridor of time: “The sages have rendered judgment upon you, Faith Osborne. You must sacrifice your life.”
She felt the unyielding grip of Rebeka’s hand over her own and saw the lancet rise in front of her throat. The surf pounded in her ears and the salty taste of fear filled her mouth. Horror flashed through her body and she was back in the present, her every nerve ablaze with fiery terror. With the clarity and certainty of yesterday’s memory, she knew exactly what had happened to her in 1692.
As the circle of familiar faces rose before her once again, Lauren felt the heft of the lancet in her hand and Gabe’s words filled her ears. “There were descriptions of weird rituals involving suicide and murder.… There was going to be another mass suicide like the one at Jonestown—with Deborah as the next Jim Jones.” These people had killed her once before, and they were going to kill her again. Her eyes skidded from the dark woods to the restless sea. There was nowhere to run.
Lauren closed her eyes to hide the terror she knew they contained. She forced her trembling fingers to be still and touched the blade to her lips. Slowly, as they all had done before her, she touched each of the four blades to her nose, to her lips, and to the soft spot at the base of her neck. Then she jerked the lancet from her face and sprinted toward the break in the trees, her robe falling from her shoulders as she ran.
“She knows!”
“Get the lancet!”
Clutching the lancet, Lauren moved as fast as she could across the beach. But the sand sucked at her sneakers, slowing her down. She tripped on an exposed rock and fell. Scrambling on all fours, she gathered the coordination necessary to stand and ran.
“Wait! Lauren!” Deborah called. “This isn’t like the first Immortalis. It’s as I told you—this ritual’s symbolic. A reenactment. No one will be hurt.”
Lauren kept running. She could hear them behind her. But when she turned and looked over her shoulder, she saw that, although their bare feet were helping them cross the sand, they were bogged down by their long robes. Cassandra tripped and Alva stopped to help her up, but Bram and Deborah and Tamar and Robin kept coming. Still, Lauren ran. The woods, she thought. In the woods her sneakers would give her the advantage she needed. She could get to her car. Get away.
She heard labored breathing behind her, and a painful stitch twisted in her side. Her wind was almost gone. She wasn’t going to make it. They were going to kill her. Lauren looked behind her. Bram had thrown off his robe. His naked body shone white between the dark trees and his eyes gleamed with madness. He was gaining on her. Deborah was right behind him.
Then she heard a cry and a thump and knew someone was down. Adrenaline pumped through her and she crashed through the underbrush, sliding on rocks, grabbing onto saplings to stay upright. A break in the trees opened before her; it led back to the beach instead of to her car, but it was the only way she could go and still maintain her lead. Lauren raced ahead.
But as she stepped onto the sand, a hand grabbed her from behind, yanking her backward and halting her momentum.
“You shall do as we do,” Deborah said in her ear. With a powerful twist of her wrist, Deborah forced Lauren around. With her other hand, she wrenched the lancet from Lauren’s grasp.
“I-I won’t,” Lauren gasped, trying to jerk away from Deborah. But Deborah’s fingers were bands of iron on her arm, and Lauren was held fast.
The witch’s eyes were completely white in the moonlight. “You shall enter the water with us and then you shall do as we do.”
“No!” Lauren cried, struggling vainly to free herself. She was not going into the ocean. She was not going to kill herself.
One by one, the others gathered in a tight circle around her.
Deborah’s laughter rang out over the beach. “You shall do as we do or your precious Drew will be dead.”
With a painful tug, Deborah drew Lauren toward her. Their faces were inches apart and Lauren could smell the metallic odor of Deborah’s breath.
“If you impede this Immortalis,” Deborah said, her voice vibrating with rage, “if you stop me from reaching my destiny, I swear upon the sages I will kill your son.” She pulled Lauren even closer. “In a terrible and painful way.”
As Deborah’s hateful words filled Lauren’s ears, she thought of the phantoms that haunted Drew’s dreams, of how he had cried and clutched her in the night, of all the pain she had already brought him. His image rose up before her and her terror swelled, engorged by rage. Deborah would not hurt Drew. Lauren would not allow it. There had to be a way out. She scanned the beach and the sea and turned back toward the woods.
The coven drew closer. Lauren heard their labored breathing. Smelled the sweat of their excitement. Tasted her own panic.
“Look at me,” Deborah ordered.
Lauren turned and was caught within the eerie whiteness of Deborah’s unblinking stare. “I-I …” she stuttered.
“You shall do as we do,” Deborah ordered. “You shall say what we say: ‘To live, one must die.’” Her gaze burrowed deeper and deeper into Lauren’s eyes, deep into the core of Lauren’s being. “For if you don’t,” she whispered gently, “it will be Drew who will die.”
Lauren’s eyes were fixed on Deborah. It was clear the woman was mad, and it was also clear she would make good on her threat. And Lauren knew, just as Faith had known, that she had no choice but to do as Deborah asked. “To live, one must die,” she repeated in a stilted and disembodied voice. “To
live, one must die.”
Deborah nodded to the others and then turned to the dark water, its waves ripped wild by the force of the new moon. As five sets of hands grasped onto Lauren, Deborah let go. She walked across the sand and into the ocean, stopping when the water flowed just above her waist; her cloak swirled as it rode the restless waves. She turned and beckoned for the others to follow.
As if in a trance, Lauren approached the shoreline. A knot of fear twisted in her stomach and over-whelming sadness blurred her vision, yet she was strangely unaffected by her own emotions. She watched, as if she were seated in the clouds, as Cassandra and Bram drew her over the slippery rocks and into the sea. She was amazed to see herself enter the ocean as if she had never feared the water, as if the waves whipping about her were no more than ripples in a bathtub.
Slowly, the six figures made their way to where Deborah stood. They clung to one another, fighting the powerful waves at their waists and the pull of the undertow at their feet. As she held and was held by Cassandra and Bram, Lauren came back into herself. Suddenly aware of the flesh-numbing cold, she was suffused with a sense of inevitability. This was her destiny, just as it had been Faith’s. She was putting her child before all others. She was giving up her own life to save Drew’s. She submitted to her fate.
Deborah raised the lancet, and its many knives flashed in the moonlight. “To summerland!” she screamed above the roar of the pounding surf. Then she placed the lancet in Lauren’s hand, her fingers pressing it deep into Lauren’s palm.
Lauren felt the deep ridges of the lancet’s engravings. She imagined the serpents and the pinecones and the winged caduceus slicing their shapes into her skin. As she wrapped her fingers around the knife’s hilt, she could feel the lancet’s power pulsing outward from her hand until it permeated her entire body. Her entire being.
“Go to new life, Lauren Freeman,” Deborah said, her eyes searing into Lauren’s. But Lauren also heard Deborah’s voice from another time and place. “If the lancet is ever lost or destroyed, the coven will be too.”
See No Evil Page 33