Chapter 28

“Callie…start the ignition…slower…good girl…”

I hear the voice. Is it inside my head? Is it beside me? Where am I?

Time passes.

Time.

What is time.

“Callie.”

The voice again.

“The steps. Up the steps, Callie.”

Behind me. The voice is behind me. I’m cold. Freezing. My joints ache. My knees knock. Each step I take is a mile. My lips feel like slivers of ice on my face, sharp, razor-like.

“Good girl, Callie.”

Yes, I am a good girl. I have done good things. I have helped people. My mother would be proud of me. I feel the slivers melt as I try to smile.

Time.

Goes.

On.

“What is time?” I hear my voice ask.

“Time means nothing to me.”

“What?”

“Put this on, Callie…both hands now…”

I feel something coarse and sharp against my palms. As I grip my fingers tighter, I can make out the braided coil within my grasp. It slides over my head, grazing the spikes of my hair, catching on my nose and shirt collar.

“And stand, Callie…careful.”

My feet are unsteady beneath me; the soles of my duck shoes are slippery against the uneven surface.

Where.

Am.

I.

“Time,” I say again. “What time is it.”

My eyelashes stick together like they’re glued shut. I try hard to blink against the darkness, to open my eyes wide, but is that night I see or is it sleep?

“Time,” I hear the voice say again. “Means nothing to me.”

A moan. Me? From my head?

Have I finally gone crazy? Is this how I follow in my mother’s footsteps? Am I really Callie or am I someone else now?

“Callie,” the voice says. “Can you hear me?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Speak up.”

“Yes.”

There is a shuffle of sorts and then the coil around my neck is pulled tighter; I can feel the edges of the rope close in on the base of my neck, right where my swallow reflex sits.

And then all is still. It’s as if the world has simply stopped turning.

A bell is rung behind me, its single note crystal clear, deadened instantly by the absence of movement in the air.

A cover of a book is slammed shut with a solid thump.

The scent of a snuffed-out candle whisks across my nose.

“So be it!” I hear.

I know this. I’ve been here. I’ve…

“Where am I?” Finally I’m able to peel my eyes open. It’s still dark and silent but I am not alone. I blink several times, widening my eyes in their sockets as far as they will go to let in as much light as possible Where the hell am I?

Another moan. I know that’s not me. It’s…

“Beatrix!”

As my eyes adjust to the dribble of light coming through a single window, I see my aunt above me and to my right. She is standing on a chair and her arms are behind her back. Her head dangles to her chest.

“Beatrix! Bea!” I call but she only moans in response. I start to move toward her but the rope – the rope! – around my neck tightens, suffocating me.

“Callie, I told you to be careful.”

Mrs. Gibson.

“Mary,” I say. “Will you help me? I can’t get to Bea.” My fingers struggle with the rope but I can’t seem to loosen it.

But the librarian simply stands there staring at me and a thin smile appears on her face. Our eyes meet and she gazes up above my head; my eyes follow and I gasp: the rope has been flung over the top of a beam and its end secured to a metal post. Pulling on it is futile.

And then Mary nudges my gaze over to Bea. A rope is around her neck as well and tied to a similar post; as her body sways on the chair, I notice that her hands are tied behind her back too.

“Very nice work,” Mrs. Gibson tells me. “You did an excellent job.”

“Me? I did that?”

She nods. “Oh yes. You take direction exceptionally well.”

My mouth drops open. “I…I couldn’t have! I would never do that to Beatrix!”

The librarian winks at me. “You’d be surprised at what your fondest desires are.”

“My…what?”

“Your fondest desires. My tea encourages you to act on what you harbor deep inside you, things you would never imagine in a fully conscious state, but when given the opportunity…” She grins. “Like your friend Fiona. She’s basically a self-centered girl who doesn’t want anyone to upstage her. She just needed a little encouragement to do the things she did.”

“Self-centered? She’s sad. She’s…damaged. You used her.”

Mrs. Gibson shrugs. “She loved my tea.”

This is insane! A tea that can cause people to destroy property? To commit murder?

“I would never in a million years harm Bea!”

No, but I am not just me, am I? I am whoever I have touched in all of my life, in all of their lives. I am someone who is angry, someone who is fearful, someone who is dangerous, and yes, someone who is murderous.

And I am the monster who attacked Julia Poole – after sipping Mrs. Gibson’s fine tea. What desires was I acting on then? And whose?

“Wouldn’t you?”

“No, never ever. You’re wrong.” I point to the noose around my own neck. “And what about this? I have no desire to kill myself.”

Mrs. Gibson shakes her head. “Of course you don’t.” She slips her hand into the pocket of her coat and pulls out a wide-bladed butcher knife and points it at me. “That’s what this is for. Get up on the chair, Callie.”

“What? No. No fucking way.”

Mrs. Gibson tut-tuts away the profanity and waves her knife off-handedly. “Fine,” she sighs. She steps closer to Beatrix and places a hand on the back of the chair.

“No! Stop!”

Her hand starts to push the chair, rocking it back toward what I thought was a wall but is actually a bell in the center of this small room. It’s then that I realize where I am: in Darby Cove. We are up in the bell tower of the church, a sight I only noticed in passing when I was visiting Trey. If I looked through the small window, I would be looking down on the caretaker’s building and the small graveyard where Abigail Sweet rests.

“Stop! Please!”

But Mrs. Gibson keeps pushing and pushing and my mind’s eye shows me a picture of Bea’s feet sliding out from under her as the chair flips over and then she—

“No!” I jump up onto the chair beside her; my heart pounds from the brief exertion and the adrenaline that fuels my veins. “I’m here, I’m here, please don’t hurt Beatrix!”

Satisfied, the librarian relents, allowing the feet of Bea’s chair to settle back down onto the floor.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s my job,” she says simply. “I’m a librarian.”

I’m not insane – she is! Clearly she has no concept of what a librarian does.

“Mrs. Gibson—”

“Quiet!”

Well, now that sounds like a librarian.

“I’ve protected the books of Bell Book & Candle from the very beginning.”

From the very beginning? What does that mean?

“But the beginning was—”

“I said be quiet!”

The beginning was in 1693, right after the Salem Witch Trials. My brain is foggy but I do remember that from Grandpa Danny’s journals. The group was formed to continue hunting witches long after the practice had been demonized.

Demonized. Interesting choice of words, Callie.

But that was over 300 years ago. She couldn’t be inferring…no, no, that’s impossible. And then I remember the photos from one of the Bell Book and Candle books: Maud Godwin = Marlene Gower = Mary Gibson.

Beside me, Beatrix moans again and her face, slightly smiling, lolls to one side to face me, as if she were in the throes of a particularly pleasant dream.

Keep sleeping, Beatrix. Don’t wake up now, not until I can figure out how the hell we’re getting out of this.

But why is she still unconscious, I wonder. I’m still awake. Is it the shift? Is there something about my ability that prevented me from crashing as hard as Bea?

“No one will believe I killed my aunt,” I say. “No one will believe I killed myself.”

“The letter in Bea’s room will say otherwise,” Mrs. Gibson says. “You were despondent over the hazing and your roommate and you hate your aunt for bringing you here.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask again.

“I told you—”

“But if you know how to mix poisons—”

“Those are herbs,” Mrs. Gibson says proudly.

That’s something to be proud of? Whatever.

“Isn’t hanging incredibly messy when you can serve us death more neatly?”

Mrs. Gibson crosses her arms over her chest, a seemingly casual move made far more menacing – and disturbing – by the butcher knife that remains in her hand. “Very true. Tea is a far more efficient means of elimination. But we don’t poison witches, we hang them.”

“Witches…? What? Is that what you’re doing?” I force a laugh. This is absurd! This is the 21st Century! “We aren’t witches. You’ve made a mistake.”

The librarian nods at my backpack where I still have the Bell Book and Candle book. “Did you read what you stole from me?”

“You gave it to me.”

“I gave it to Fiona. Did you read it?” she asks again.

“Yes, I read it.”

“And there was something missing? A page or two?”

Constance’s family tree. I eye her warily. “Maybe.”

“Did you think I didn’t know who you were? I’ve known from the beginning. The Bellflower name isn’t exactly” —she smiles primly— “unfamiliar to me. But I’ve never found proof. I needed you to provide me with that.”

My brain begins to spin wildly. The hazing? The assault? Were there other times I’ve felt pushed into the shift? Did I choose to make out with Mackenzie? Did I choose to go to Fiona’s house?

Where did my personal choice end and Mrs. Gibson’s begin?

“You are Constance Meriwether’s granddaughter. You are a witch.”

“No, I’m—”

“Just as you cannot change who you are and what you do, I cannot change my nature either. It’s my duty to carry out the business of Bell Book and Candle.”

Okay, where the hell am I? In some fantasy movie? I must be asleep and dreaming this because it’s absolutely insane. This woman has lost her mind and she’s taking me with her.

“How…how do you know about Bell Book and Candle?” I think I don’t want to know Mary Gibson’s answer to this question.

“I am one of its founding members.”

A snort of nervous laughter escapes me. “Really? So you’re what, 400 years old?”

She says nothing but simply holds my gaze for a very long, very painful moment.

“Mrs. Gibson, that’s just…that’s like you’re immortal or something.”

Her chin pulls back sharply. “Only God and the Devil are immortal. I am a human here to serve the Lord. When He has no use for me anymore, He will let me go.”

Yep, that makes it official. She has completely gone off the deep end.

Ludicrous! Part of me wonders if this is another of Fiona’s funny games, another test before the girls will initiate me into the group but that knife and that rope around Bea’s neck are pretty hardcore.

Mrs. Gibson studies the blade in her hand. Her calm demeanor reminds me in some ways of my aunt. She appears so determined, so confident she’s doing the right thing.

She’s going to kill us both.

I realize then that my hands are still gripping the rope; I’ve been holding it so tightly that my palms have been rubbed nearly raw by the hemp. If only I were a few inches closer, I might be able to grab Mary or kick her but she keeps herself – and the knife – just out of my reach.

“Callie…” I hear softly.

“Beatrix!”

Bea starts to speak but then a cough overtakes her. “Rope…” she manages. Her eyes are wide and white as she struggles to understand what’s going on.

“Bea, don’t—”

“Mary.” Her face pales when she spots Mrs. Gibson holding the knife.

The librarian’s gaze softens. “Hello, Beatrix.”

“What…what is this?” Bea tries to twist her arms in front of her body but it’s no use: she’s tied tightly and the rope around her wrists is wound around and around expertly. “Why—”

“Just stay quiet, Beatrix.” As she steps closer to my aunt, Mary Gibson passes by me and I lunge for her but she anticipates my move and deftly steps out of the way, raising her knife to my face.

“Callie!” my aunt screams.

Mary Gibson smiles menacingly; she looks like a coiled snake, waiting for any excuse to spring up and slice my throat.

“Just like Constance,” she says and her lips twist into a sneer. “Fighting ‘til the end.”

“I am not a witch! Bea is not a witch!”

“Your ability,” she says. “It’s not natural. It’s the work of the Devil.”

“And what about you? Do you think it’s natural to live for centuries and still look thirty?”

“That’s the work of God!”

“How do you know my ability isn’t the same? Maybe God wants me to do good things too.”

Mrs. Gibson shakes her head back and forth. “No, no, no.”

“Yes! I’m a servant of the Lord too!”

“Stop it! Stop talking!” Her face flushes with anger and her grip on the knife tightens. “That’s enough! We’re finished here!”

She charges the back of my chair and her hand pushes it back toward the bell. My feet slip out from under me and my hands reach out to try to balance in the air.

I hear Bea scream. “No! Mary, no, please!”

I twist around to face Mrs. Gibson and the rope burns along my neck but I don’t care because all I can think about is kicking the living shit out of her. I rear back and place a hand against the bell and kick with all my might at her head but she ducks and her knife flies out of her hand - and I smack the iron bell with my foot. Far from being the mellifluous ring I would have expected, it simply thuds.

“Ow, fuck!”

But at least I startled Mrs. Gibson into letting go of the chair to retrieve her knife.

“Mary! Mary, please!” Beatrix is begging and tears are running down her cheeks. “It’s my fault, Mary, not hers. Please don’t do this! I swear I will take care of things. I will make sure she never shifts again. It’s awful, I know, just unholy.”

“Bea, what are you—”

“We’re so alike, you and I,” Bea goes on, ignoring me. “We both want to keep God happy.”

Ah, that’s it, Beatrix. Appeal to her on her level.

“If you must punish someone, punish me.”

“What? No! No, Beatrix.” I twist back around and find the librarian who is glancing from Bea to me and back, considering... what? Whom to let live? Who to kill first? “Mrs. Gibson, Bea can’t do anything. She has no powers. It’s only me, Mrs. Gibson, only me who can shift.”

While Mary Gibson watches me, I easily shift into Fiona.

“Mary,” I use Fiona’s haughty voice. “Please let me go now.”

The librarian laughs, satisfied. I have just proven myself to be a witch. She glances over at Beatrix, telling her, “They show their true colors eventually. When pushed to the edge, they all do it. They think they can save themselves,” she adds scornfully and looks at me. “You can’t save yourself from hell. Constance fooled them but you won’t fool me.”

Somehow this angers me more than anything else. More than the rope around my aunt’s neck. More than the knife held to my throat. More than the accusations of witchcraft. I feel the familiar fireball beneath my ribcage. I know I’m about to shift again, from Fiona to someone else but I don’t know whom.

My skin tingles all the way to my toes; every nerve ending crackles with energy, with life. That’s what I possess that Mary Gibson does not: life. For as long as she has been alive, she has not lived.

I watch her face as she watches me. She gasps when I shift. “Constance…”

I am Constance Meriwether.