“Well, I reckon I’ve lost my spot as the black sheep of the family,” Oliver said into our stunned silence.
“Yes,” Iris agreed. “It looks like you have.”
THIRTY-TWO
“Get me away from here,” Ellen said, crossing her bloodied arms across her chest. “I want to go home and shower.”
“Of course,” Iris said. “We’ll get you home right now.” Oliver wrapped Ellen in his jacket, and Iris put her arms around her sister’s shoulders, leading her toward the gaping hole where the black-and-red door had stood.
“I will alert the families to Emily’s return,” Emmet said, “and see to it that she is found and taken someplace where the dark magic she has contracted can be controlled.” Strange, Emmet made it sound like Emily had a disease. Maybe that’s what this type of magic was—a malignancy that ate away at any decency.
“She tricked me into coming here tonight,” Ellen said. “She made me believe that Tucker was still alive. She made a copy of him.” Ellen stopped and looked at the door that was now laid on the floor. “Burn that damned thing.” She looked over at me, her lips twitching.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you. That they did this to you,” I said.
Ellen said nothing. She nodded her head and turned away, letting Iris lead her. Peter tried to stand but couldn’t make it up under his own steam. When I reached out, he wouldn’t take my hand. He wouldn’t meet my eyes either. Oliver came and helped him up. “Let’s get you to your parents’ place,” he said.
“No. No. Take me home to my house,” Peter said. I reached out again to take his hand, and he pulled it away. “Not now, Mercy. Leave me alone for now.”
“He’ll be okay,” Oliver said to me. “I’ll keep an eye on him.” Peter allowed himself to lean on my uncle’s arm. His eyes—emotionally bruised, hurting—grazed mine and then looked away. He hobbled out the doorway, relying on Oliver’s strength far more than I would have liked. He was still in pretty bad shape physically from the injury my mother had inflicted. I couldn’t even allow myself to consider the emotional damage I’d caused him. I knew there was only one way to truly set things right.
“Emmet, I want to thank you. I appreciate all you have done or at least tried to do for me. The ways you’ve tried to protect me and teach me how to use my magic . . .”
“Of course—”
“Wait, Emmet. I need you to hear me.” He fell instantly silent, hanging on my every word, ready for anything I might ask of him. Well, almost anything. “I need you to leave Savannah. I can’t have you near me any longer. You understand?”
“Perhaps better than you do yourself,” he said. His expression was more than stoic—it was emotionless, as if he could shut his feelings down as easily as a normal man takes a breath. He could burn with such passion that I had braced myself for anger, hurt, maybe even hate. I felt shaken by the utter indifference I registered there. He didn’t speak another word. The air just shimmered around him, and then he was gone.
“Look like it jus’ the two of us, then,” Jilo said, her cane thumping with each step she took toward me.
I broke. My legs buckled under me, and I fell to my hands and knees. My hair tumbled down around my face, hiding everything from my sight except the hot tears that dropped from my eyes onto the floor. In one night, I’d undone a lifetime’s worth of love. Even if Peter could forgive me, he would never forget the sight of Emmet and me together. I wasn’t sure Ellen would ever recover from this second horrible loss, and I feared that in her eyes, I would always be a reflection of my mother. No. That monster wasn’t my mother, even if she had given birth to me. “I’ve messed everything up.”
“You can’t take all the credit fo’ that. You had plenty of help. Here now. You come to Jilo.” The old woman of the crossroads used her stick to lower herself to my side, then drew me into her arms. “You go ahead. You cry it out now.” I held her tightly and buried my head in her shoulder. “Get it out, girl. You gonna need to pull it together right quick,” she said, “’cause something tell Jilo that bitch ain’t nowhere near done.”
THIRTY-THREE
Dawn broke over Savannah, scraping the night sky bloody before letting the sun rise over the horizon. I hadn’t slept at all; each time I tried to close my eyes, another horror was projected on my inner lids. I’d spent most of the night on the side porch, staring east and hoping that by the time morning arrived, I would know how to fix things. Daylight had come, but I had grown no wiser.
“Stand a little company?” Ellen’s voice reached out to me. I nodded, grateful to see her up, grateful that she still wanted to speak with me. She came out and joined me on the porch swing. Her face had been scrubbed clean of makeup, and her hair hung damp and unstyled. She wore one of Oliver’s terrycloth robes rather than one of her own silk wraps. We sat there for a few moments, the only sound that of the glider rocking easily beneath us. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“I am so sorry.”
“Me too.” She raised her face to meet the coming light, to drink it in. “Right here, right now, sitting here with you, I keep thinking it must have been a nightmare. It wasn’t though, was it?”
“No. It happened.” I leaned into her, and she placed her head on my shoulder.
“Was that really her? Was that really my mother?” I felt a sudden burst of hope that this Emily was only an imposter. My childhood dream turned on its head, and I found myself hoping, praying that my true mother had died at my birth. That she had been resting peacefully in Bonaventure for the last two decades.
“I’m afraid so,” Ellen said, and then examined her arms in the morning light. The needle tracks had disappeared, and the bruises had already begun to fade.
“I hate her,” I said.
“To tell you the truth, I really hate the bitch too. Sisters, huh?”
“Yeah, sisters.” I wrapped my arm around hers, careful not to aggravate the bruised tissue. We clasped hands.
“Iris and Oliver are inside. We need to talk before the families start their inquiry.”
“What? Get our stories straight before the long arm of the magical law gets to us?”
“Yes. Precisely that. They can bind us, you know. Iris, Oliver, and me, if they think we have done anything to put the line at risk. They can take away our magic.”
“And what about me? If anyone did anything to hurt the line, it was me.”
Ellen stood and took the quilt from me. She started to fold it. “You are an anchor. They can’t remove you from the line without the risk of bringing the line down, but they could erase your mind. Wipe you clean. Leave your body in place until you expire and the line chooses a new anchor.”
“They could try,” Iris’s voice answered, a cold determination behind her words, “but I will see every last one of them dead and burning in hell first.”
“I second that notion,” Oliver said. “Come on in. I’ve made coffee.”
We followed him into the kitchen. The largest of Ellen’s rose quartz crystals glowed at the center of the table. Next to it sat an old scrapbook or photo album. I suspected that Emily’s return had prompted a search through the old photos. Had Iris spent the night going through them, looking at the old snapshots trying to see if there was something about Emily they had missed? Or had Oliver been trying to figure out whether a different action on his part might have saved his big sister?