Chapter 39
The front door hit the wall with a bang that echoed through the house’s deep silence.
Abby and I watched each other in the darkness from either side of the parlor doorway.
Every wall, shelf, and window held its breath with us.
Abby clutched a heavy candlestick. I twisted the rope we’d hastily taken from the laundry line between my hands, my pulse frantic in my chest.
Prudence’s voice drifted in from the entry.
“She wishes to repent for her sins against you.” Her tone was stronger than I’d heard in months.
I pictured her face as I handed her the letters hidden in the drawer only half an hour ago.
The way she bit her finger to keep from screaming as she looked through the stack of letters from her family all the way back in England, never delivered or mentioned in four years of marriage.
That moment broke her, and it shattered me to witness.
But she arose from the ashes of it, faster than I’d imagined possible, with determination.
After sharing all we knew, Prudence volunteered to venture out to lure Jacob back to the house.
Jacob let out a loud exhale as his shoes clicked off the entry floors. The house amplified every step for us.
“Very well, my dear. Get back to bed and don’t come down, no matter what you hear. Do you understand me, Prudence?”
“Yes.” Her lie was breathless. Now she’d pack our things and ready the children for our flight, as we planned.
“Hazel,” Jacob called as he entered the hallway. “I hear you’re stricken with contrition already. You’ll be happy to know I didn’t find your lover. The slippery bastard must be halfway to the city by now. Though that doesn’t bode well for you, I suppose.” He chuckled as he neared.
Across the way, Abby nodded. Steeling myself, I watched her jump from her hiding place just as Jacob stepped through the doorway.
He only grunted in surprise as Abby swung the candlestick at his head, landing with a resounding crack.
As we hoped, he stumbled forward. I pounced next, throwing the rope around his chest and arms, twisting it as tight as possible.
His weight set me off balance, nearly toppling me as he crumbled to the floor, where he lay motionless.
A light flickered on near us, though neither of us lit it, revealing a gash of crimson across his temple. Blood dripped onto the floorboards. My stomach clenched.
“Do you think he’s … is he?”
Abby leaned in closer to his face. “He’s breathing.”
Guilt lessened its hold on me. “I’ll take his legs and you can take his arms.”
As she shifted him, a gleam of silver reflected in the lamplight near his waist. The knife he’d pocketed earlier to hunt Elijah. My grip on his ankles tightened. But Abby made no move to pick up his shoulders. She stared at the knife.
“Abby,” I hissed. “We have to hurry!”
Jacob groaned. I froze. Abby’s face calcified. The groan turned into a hacking laugh.
“You two. I should’ve known better.”
He heaved himself up to sitting. No, no, no … this wasn’t the plan. The tangy stench of blood hit my tongue as he attempted to wipe it off his temple. Glancing at the ropes now weakly hanging from his chest, he shoved them down to his elbows.
“I should’ve known Abby would only corrupt you, Hazel. Everything she touches turns bitter. Or dead,” he said, his gaze piercing through her.
But Abby didn’t cower. She stalked back across the room to circle her prey.
“I could say the same for you, husband.”
“Surely, you don’t trust this Jezebel,” Jacob said to me. “She killed her sister in jealousy and cursed this house in a profane act mocking God’s priesthood.”
“And your hands are just as filthy.” The words slipped from my tongue, but they fortified me. I unfroze, slowly stalking closer.
Blood from the gash on his forehead dripped into his eyes, turning his stare a sickening red. “What were you planning to do? Tie me up and run off with your lover? You know what God does to adulterous women—He destroys them.”
The windows rattled above us, sending a cascading wave through the walls.
A snake sprouted beneath the floorboards, slithering toward Jacob.
He cried out, attempting to escape it, but it coiled around his ankle, as if his foot had sunk into the floor.
He staggered, struggling to stay upright as the house sucked him in.
“I think my God is on my side,” I said.
All at once, Abby sprang forward, tackling Jacob back to the floor.
Even with Jacob’s height, she was quick and decisive.
Using her full weight and trusting Sariah’s tight grip on his foot, she thrust against him and he lost his position, striking his nose hard against the floor with another sickening crunch.
Jacob rasped. Abby pressed her knee between his shoulder blades, immobilizing him.
“Abby,” he pleaded, disoriented from the double blows.
“What do we do now?” I said.
I stepped toward them but stopped. Something more than the raging house and the taste of blood in the air was unexpected.
Shifting back, Abby revealed the sheen of a silver knifepoint. My heart clawed into my throat. She’d taken Jacob’s knife.
“Abby. …” I trailed off, uncertain what I was saying.
“I must do what my sister needs me to do,” she replied.
She fisted his hair and pulled his lolling head back.
“Ab-by,” he stuttered again, shaking his shoulders to get her off.
I sprang forward, throwing my weight with Abby’s to hold his trembling body down. There were no thoughts, only pulsing power in my arms that needed to hold Jacob in place. To help Abby with what had to be done to take back what was rightfully ours—our own souls.
The tip of the knife dug into his skin just below the left ear.
In one smooth, practiced motion, she slid the knife across his throat to the right ear.
A long slash dropped open. Hot crimson rushed out, spilling across the floorboards.
They lapped it up hungrily, the blood soaking into the floor at an impossible rate, almost as quickly as it poured out of Jacob’s neck.
Here were the true sinews and marrow of a man, bright red and slopping from the skin. No power or priesthood simmered over to save him. Jacob gasped in a way that made my stomach turn, but I didn’t relent my hold. His eyes bulged.
Abby lowered the knife to her side and released his head with a flick.
Jacob slumped forward. His body continued to twist and wheeze, struggling to keep its slipping hold on this life.
But neither of us made any move to save him.
The pool of his lifeblood grew faster than the floorboards could consume now, skirting out around him and licking at the furniture.
A final, long rattle told us it was finished.
I rose slowly, watching Abby instead of the gore. She stood, her legs on either side of his now-still body. Crimson soaked up the edge of her skirts. The knife dripped drop after agonizingly slow drop of blood into the waiting pool below.
“Perhaps his black soul is clean now,” she said, tossing the weapon into the mire. “I doubt it, though.”
“We killed him,” was all I could manage.
“Many wrongs needed to be corrected. Now the blood is spilt and Sariah will be avenged and free. We’ll all have peace at last.”
A white light broke through the floorboards, just as it had in my vision of Sariah’s death. They shook hard enough to send us both toppling down. All around us, books, shelves, objects, furniture rained down. Both of us lost our balance and fell to the floor.
Could this be it? Had we saved or condemned us?
A clap of thunder silenced the tumultuous room. And then a light, brighter than description, rested on us. I cracked my eyes open.
“Sariah,” Abby cried. “Are you free at last?”
Her sister’s expression was exuberant, but also menacing, her eyes dark and narrow.
Hair rose on my arms.
“Abby, wait.” I tried to call her back as she stumbled closer to Sariah’s burning visage.
“Please, tell me that worked and was what you needed.”
Sariah sent her a knowing look, one Abby seemed to understand. The tinderbox dropped from the mantel with a metallic clang.
“It’s time then,” Abby whispered.
I grabbed her arm, tugging her back from Sariah as the walls began to shake once more. Windows boomed strong enough to crack. Items toppled from everywhere, dropping to the floor around us. I crouched down, trying to drag Abby with me even as she twisted away.
“We need to leave. Now,” I shouted over the tumult of the house. “Someone will eventually come looking for Jacob. We could hang for this.”
“I’m not leaving my sister,” she replied, tugging her hand back and cradling it against her chest.
“Abby, please. You can’t stay here with your children alone!”
Sariah glowed brighter, hotter somehow. The edges of her white light singed yellow and orange. My head screamed at me to run.
“I know. Take my children, Hazel,” she pleaded, her voice cracking with fresh tears. “They deserve better.”
“Come with us.”
She collapsed into the checkered sofa and swung her legs over the arm, just as I’d seen her do months ago. The image burned into me.
“No, I’m not leaving. And I’m not implicating you all in this either! Just leave me here with my ghosts.”
The tinderbox shook and burst into flames. I screeched as the fire rose up, instantly covering the large hearth with a wall of flames. Sariah whipped her arms out to her sides. Fireballs gathered and jumped to the edges of the parlor.
“No, Sariah!” I reached out as if I could stop her. “What are you doing?”
A flame rose on the fraying old curtains. Then almost at once, the flame spread and licked up the window faster than anticipated.
Abby sat up, strangely calm for the fire rising around us.
“Isn’t it obvious? She’s helping us and saving herself. She’s burning the house down because it’s the last thing tying her to this earth. And it’ll hide all evidence.”
Another flame whooshed up from an armchair. The table linen beside it went up quickly along with it. The inferno grew. Heat like I’d never felt oppressed my skin. The entire parlor was ablaze in minutes.
Sariah moved almost too fast to track her, a blur of white and yellow light blending into the fire as she stoked it.
She truly controlled this house—its moans and magic, and now its death.
It dawned on me that she could’ve done this before and left the house as ash.
But she’d waited all these years, biding her time to extract herself from its ties until we finally did what needed to be done: destroyed the oppressor.
This was the true sacrifice and atonement.
While a part of me filled with righteous justice, I couldn’t remain calm, nor still.
A house this old, surrounded by mountain brush and deadened trees on a night of howling wind, would be eaten by fire in precious few minutes.
And even if Sariah needed to destroy her final household appendages to find rest, we needed to survive, especially the children upstairs preparing with Prudence.
“Abby, come!” I screeched once more. “We have to wake the children and get out!”
“I’m staying.” Her stare cut through the smoke and flames across the room.
“But—”
“If Sariah must burn the house to end it all, then I’ll make sure the work is finished. I want to be in this blaze.” She choked. “You must go quick, little Hazel, and get the children out.”
A coughing scream came from the entry.
“Hazel, Abby!” Prudence called into the fire.
Abby motioned me for me to run. “Now! You must go!”
I offered out my hand one last time across the flames.
She shook her head. “No, I’ll die in this place, just like my sister. You can blame me for everything. Now take care of my children.”
I hesitated another moment. I couldn’t let her do this. A flame shot up between us and I jumped back. Sweat trickled down my back now from the growing heat.
Abby’s eyes pleaded with me. “Please.”
At last, I nodded. “I will, I promise.” Then I turned on my heel and ran.