Chapter 29

“Callie,” I hear Beatrix say. Her voice sounds like a warning, baleful and low.

I shift again and this time I hear a sharp intake of breath from my aunt.

I am Evangeline. I am my mother.

Beatrix again tries to warn me, “Stop, Callie. No more.”

But I can’t stop. I have to get out of here, I have to find the one person who can help me, who can tell Mrs. Gibson to let me and Bea go. There must be someone inside me…

I shift again. I am Abigail Sweet. I am Julia Poole. I am Beatrix. I am people I have never met before, never heard of before, never seen, never touched. And the more I shift, the more fearful Mrs. Gibson grows. She shrinks back against the bell, watching in fascinated horror.

'Kill her!' I hear a voice scream inside my head. 'Slit her fucking throat!'

And another: 'Send her to hell!'

“Stop, Callie, please!”

No more, no more, no more, end this, let her help you…

Who? Who…

My head whips around the bell tower, as if I could see these people whose voices are stuck inside my brain, as if I could confront each of them. But as I continue to slide in and out of bodies, the voices become louder and more insistent, drowning out my own conscience.

End the pain, let her help you end your pain…

I am Molly and Erin and Pamela and Daphne and Sister Catherine.

Beatrix and Mary Gibson are frozen, staring at me, afraid of me.

My mind is aswirl with emotion – everyone’s emotions, everyone’s fury and fear and lust and rage – and my body is the violent twister that threatens to suck up everything in its path. I feel like my skin is about to slide off my bones, like it’s becoming something apart from me, separate and distinct from the rest of my body.

But in the midst of all of this, there is Callie.

Find the one. Find the right one.

I can, I know I can. I grip my head in my hands: think, Callie, think! I feel like the whole inside of my brain is melting into a mushy puddle. What is holding me together? Is there anything left?

“Callie, stop!”

I glance over at Beatrix. Her eyes, red from crying, beg me to end this.

“Enough!” The librarian says. Her leg starts to kick Bea’s chair from under her and I shift one more time.

I am Mary Gibson.

“No!” Mrs. Gibson cries and seeing herself hanged, leaves Bea to charge at me with the knife. Just as she gets close enough to my chair, I reach out and grab the knife with both hands and my palm wraps around the blade. Almost instantaneously, blood begins to pour from the wound, trailing down my arm and under my blazer in long red rivulets.

I hold fast to the knife and kick at Mrs. Gibson viciously; her head slams against the bell and her body slumps to the floor in a graceless heap. I don’t wait to see if she will arise but slash at the rope above my neck as fast as possible. Once I have sliced through enough of the hemp, I tear at it with my fingers, leaving bloody handprints on the frayed edges.

I rush over to Bea and cut through her rope as well, first freeing her hands.

“Leave,” she whispers fiercely. “Run down the stairs as fast as you can and call someone, anyone.”

Trey! I think. Trey must live nearby. I nod. “Let me help you with that rope.”

“Don’t worry about me.” She takes the knife from me and saws at the rope above her head. “You just get yourself to a safe place.” Of course, Beatrix worries about me before herself. She always has. “And Callie? Shift back, please.”

I glance down at my hands and see Mary Gibson’s nearly-immortal skin instead of my own. “Oh yeah, sorry.”

But as before, the shift does not come as easily as I had hoped. The voices, stilled by my attack on Mrs. Gibson, return full-force.

Go now! Get out! Get out get out get out!

“Callie, are you okay?” I hear Bea’s voice cut through the tangle and I struggle to nod, to assure her that I’ll be fine. I just need to get things under control. I can do this. I can. And then, as if in a fog, I watch as Bea places the knife down on the chair and comes over to me.

Behind me, I feel Mrs. Gibson arise. I push Beatrix away from me just as Mrs. Gibson lurches toward the knife. Before I can stop her, she’s gotten it in her hand again and is coming for me. The fury in her eyes, the determination she has to finish the job, is seemingly unstoppable.

No wonder she’s lived for so long, I think. She’s relentless.

But I too can access my anger. I too can fuel my rage. As she drives me back with the knife, I reach behind me and grab my backpack. I use my entire body to swing around and directly at Mrs. Gibson, swatting her chest with the book inside and shoving her toward the top of the stairs.

Back, yes, but not far enough. I can feel the fury of every person who is a part of me rise to the surface of my skin, shooting off fireworks inside my brain: clusters of yellow and red and gold and blue, iridescent and sparkling, bursting behind my eyes, exploding and expanding into every part of my body. I slam both palms against Mrs. Gibson, forcing her down the narrow staircase of the bell tower.

“No!” Bea cries. “Don’t!”

Don’t what? Don’t hurt Mrs. Gibson? And just as I’m wondering this, I feel my arm being tugged and my chest fall forward. The librarian clutches onto me, dragging me with her as she falls backward down the stairs.

We grapple as we tumble, end over end, feet and knees and elbows scraping the sides of the walls and the stone steps as we fall and fall and fall, finally hitting bottom and collapsing sideways.

I push myself out of her arms but my feet get tangled up in her skirt and my duck shoes slip and slide when I try to kick her away from me. And god! Her hands - knuckles whitening, nails digging into my skin – refuse to release me, even as she lay there, unconscious.

“Get off me!”

I twist away from her and press hard against the concrete floor with my hands like I’m doing a push-up, and I manage to throw her off just enough to slide out from under her weight.

“Trey!” I call out. “Trey!” I know it’s a long shot. He’s probably home in bed, miles away, not here in the cemetery, but I feel like I have to call someone to help.

I scramble up from the floor and out of the stairwell, leaving Mary on the floor. I’ve never actually been inside so it’s kind of a surprise that it reminds me a lot of the Catholic Church Bea and I attended when we were at Sisters of Mercy. Two rows of wooden pews lead up to a small but ornate altar beneath a giant stained glass window which is bounded on either side by flags: an American stars-and-stripes and the Church of England’s red cross on white. The altar’s communion railing is decorated with a gilt-covered trailing ivy and there are a trio of jewel-coated crosses behind the lectern.

Why did I assume this would be a plain, unadorned house of worship?

I don’t have time to stop and think, though. I have to get out of here and find help – someone who will throw Mrs. Gibson behind bars for a very long time. Although what is a long time to someone who is over 300 years old?

I can’t believe I just said that. Crazy. I must be going crazy.

I hurry through the church, patting down the pockets of my jacket for my cell phone as I run. I come up empty. Damn! It must have fallen out during my tumble down the stairs. Or when Mary Gibson attacked me with a knife. Or when she pushed me from the chair with a noose around my neck.

Every one of those bizarre scenarios actually happened. They really did happen. Yes, I am as insane as the librarian who thinks she’s a witch hunter – and I’m the witch.

I am about five yards from the front door when I feel the collar of my neck yanked backward and I stumble back, the rubber-tipped toes of my shoes catching on the nap of the runner.

“What the--?”

Fuck! Mary Gibson slams me against a foot-wide wooden column. My forehead cracks it first, taking the brunt of the hit and I fall over onto my shoulder, facing the librarian. The left side of her face is bruised and scraped and a trickle of blood flows along her hairline, making it look like she’s wearing a red headband.

But it’s the expression in her eyes that chills me most: business-like, workman-like, relentless-like. She is a human Terminator, purpose-driven and single-minded. She never gives up, never lets go. If I were a bad guy, I’d definitely want her on my side.

But I’m not. And I don’t. I don’t want her anywhere near me or Bea.

Bea! Where is she? Is she still conscious? My mind races at the thought of Beatrix upstairs, still bound, unable to break free and my fury with Mary Gibson is renewed.

I launch myself at her, shoving her back into a bank of votive candles that are burning on a small iron table next to the wall. She jerks her head back and her bun tilts upward, dipping into the flames. She must have coated her hair in gel and spray –

Plus it’s over three hundred years old.

- because it ignites within seconds! In less than a minute it spreads to her blouse; the fire encircles her neck like flaming jewelry.

“Ahhh!” she screams and I pause for half a moment in panic.

What do I do? Can I really let this woman burn?

And in that moment that I hesitate, she wraps her hands around my neck and squeezes! It’s like being caught in a vise: my windpipe flattened by her thumbs, my chin slamming my jaw together.

Who knew books could make someone so strong?

She’s cutting off oxygen to my muscles and my brain. I can feel my legs weaken and my knees buckle. It’s too much. I can’t find the energy, the anger, the pain I need to shift, to somehow get out of here. My peripheral vision ebbs, black blobs crowd the edges and I blink, trying to stay alert, but I…I…

I feel the floor come up to meet my back with a thud, and then my head strikes the concrete.

That’s gonna be a bad bruise, I think.

And then, If I live.

I can feel myself start to black out and I struggle to stay awake. Above me, Mary Gibson burns and she doesn’t give a damn.

This is it. This is how it ends. God damn. I can’t believe it.

A flood of emotions flow through my veins, doing me no good at all. I can do nothing with them. I can produce no change within my body. Mary has me trapped and I can do nothing but die silently. I can’t even scream.