Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
“ M arietta,” Stella said, grabbing the older witch’s wrist. “What do you mean, ‘stop my father’?”
“Why…” Marietta blinked twice. “The poppet , of course.”
“But…” Stella’s hand fell away, and she wondered if Marietta was starting to slip a little. “But I already made the poppet. Remember? You’ve seen it. Black holographic vinyl, silver hair, gray eyes. I sewed his initials on the chest, and I got one of his actual hairs sewn inside. The magic is complete.”
“Yes, yes,” Marietta said placatingly, “but, honey, you haven’t been willing to use it.”
Stella scoffed. “I’m not afraid to use it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Marietta’s smile turned empathetic, telling Stella that that was exactly what she was thinking.
“He’s too powerful,” Stella explained quickly. “When I use it—and I will—it will likely only wound. So, I’ll have to be really close to him when I do it so I can take advantage of any temporary vulnerability.”
There. That sounded rational. And she wasn’t blowing smoke or trying to cover for some weakness. She was the one who’d faced her father. She was the one who felt the cold power within him. If anyone knew the right way to go about this, it was her.
“Okay,” Marietta said calmly, as if she were gearing up for her big moment. “But what if the poppet could kill him?”
Stella stood stock still and stared. That was, of course, what they were talking about. Killing her father.
And she knew that’s what ultimately had to be done. Her father had shown no signs of remorse, no indication that he would ever stop plundering the world of its magic.
But it was one thing for her to think it. Quite another to hear Marietta say the word out loud. In fact, every time someone said it so plainly— that she would have to kill her father —Stella’s stomach lurched in a sickening sort of way.
Ethan slid in close beside her, creating as many points of physical contact as possible. “What are you saying, Marietta?”
Marietta’s earlier enthusiasm was back, and her smile grew impossibly wide. She reached into the big square pocket on the front of her tunic.
Stella scrunched her nose, expecting Marietta to pull out some noxious plant or maybe a vial of poison.
Instead, Marietta pulled out a ring.
“A ring?” Stella asked, leaning in. “Does it have magical properties?”
Marietta shook her head. “None of its own, but it belonged to your father. If you put it inside the poppet…”
Stella reached out and took the ring from Marietta’s palm. The gold was highly polished. The design was bulky, with a flat face monogrammed with the initials R.G.A .
Marietta was right. A personal belonging would definitely give the poppet a boost, but Stella doubted it would be enough to kill him when his magic was so close to being perfected.
“Why do you have his ring?” Ethan asked.
“Ah,” Marietta said. “Stella’s mother bought it for him as an anniversary gift, but it needed to be resized. She died two weeks after taking it to the jeweler, and R.G. must have forgotten all about it. About six months after the coven exiled him, I got a call, saying that the order had been done for a while and asking whether anyone was ever going to pick it up.”
“So, you went to get it,” Stella surmised.
“I had instructions from your mother to make sure things got passed down to you and Jade.”
Stella touched her wrist, just to make sure her mother’s bracelet was still there.
“That meant your father’s ring, too. I stuck it in my dresser drawer for safe keeping, until you were older. Over the years, it got shoved to the back. I was cleaning things out this morning and found it.”
Stella held the ring up at eye level. She couldn’t remember ever seeing it before.
She tried to picture it on her father’s finger, and while she could picture his hands over hers on the handlebars of her first two-wheel bike—pushing her along, telling her, “You got this! You can do it!”—she couldn’t see a ring.
The image popped like a soap bubble. Gone.
“I don’t want it,” Stella said, and she shoved it back into Marietta’s hand.
“But the poppet,” Marietta said, her eyebrows raised toward her silver-streaked hairline.
“It can’t hurt,” Ethan said encouragingly. “Worst case scenario, your poppet is no more powerful than it already is. But two personal objects, a hair and his ring… Stella, we can’t say no to any potential advantage that comes our way.”
Stella bit the corner of her lip. “I don’t think it?—”
She stopped when she caught the hurt look in Marietta’s eyes, and she realized something she hadn’t considered before. Marietta had spent the last two decades watching over her, caring for her, protecting her.
But ever since this whole thing started with her father—the Collector—Marietta had been mostly sidelined. Combat was no place for the subtleties of an herbalist, even a potentially lethal one.
And now Marietta was trying to help, still wanting to protect.
And she’d shut her down.
Maybe Marietta was even trying to make amends for how things had started with Ethan.
“Ethan,” Stella said, “would you mind if I had a word with Marietta in private?”
Ethan’s eyebrows rose, but for only a second before an expression of understanding washed over his face. “Of course. But why don’t you two go upstairs. I’ll tend the store.”
Stella led Marietta upstairs, then up the ladder to her apartment. Marietta hadn’t been up there since she’d brewed the potion that led to Stella and Ethan pairing their magic. It wasn’t an experience Stella remembered well, except for the times when she thought she was dying.
Marietta took one look at the apartment, clucked her tongue, and immediately began picking clothes up off the floor and hanging them in the small closet.
“Marietta,” Stella began while fighting the urge to protest. “I’m sorry for rejecting the ring. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
For a second, Marietta’s hand hesitated in the air, several inches from the closet rod. Then she made a hmph noise and hung the hanger. “You didn’t have to bring me up here to say that, honey. And I’m sorry too. It didn’t occur to me that the ring would cause you pain.”
Stella sighed and sat on the edge of her mattress. “It seems everything is painful these days.”
“Not Ethan,” Marietta said, snapping her attention away from the mess on the floor. “You don’t regret him, do you?”
“Of course not!” Stella couldn’t imagine how Marietta would even think that.
Marietta exhaled. “I didn’t think so.”
“What if I can’t kill him?”
Marietta bent to pick up two books from the floor. She set them on top of the boxy television set. “We’re talking about your father now?”
Stella tightened one corner of her mouth and narrowed her eyes.
Marietta merely chuckled at Stella’s attempt at derision. “I understand. He’s your father. But honey…he’s also not. The man he is now…he’s not the man you remember.”
“I know that. I’ve faced him. And when I did, he had no qualms about killing me .”
“Exactly,” Marietta said, though her rational tone did not completely cover the flicker of fear in her eyes. “Your father is a sick man, honey.”
“We found his hit list. I think he’s moving on from collecting magic from witches. He has plans to go back in time and kill every witch hunter whose name hasn’t been lost to history.”
“His mind has been warped by greed, anger, and vengeance. It’s a more lethal concoction than anything I could brew.”
“But how did he get that way?” Stella asked. Had there been hints of it in his youth? Had her mother married him, thinking she could change him?
“How does anyone get any particular way?” Marietta countered. “They read only one version of history. They listen to only one voice, or multiple voices that all say the same thing. They don’t seek the truth; they seek only validation for the ideas they have already decided are true.”
Stella folded her hands and picked at her thumbnail. “And Mom couldn’t turn his head to see things in a different light.”
“It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Marietta said, taking a seat on the mattress beside her. “As you know, she died trying.”
Stella couldn’t even look up when she asked, “Did he even mourn her?”
“Of course he did. Believe it or not, he loved her. Her death was incredibly painful for him. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, I think he even felt some guilt about it.”
“Good,” Stella said. “He should have.”
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough,” Marietta said. “By then, his mind had set its course, and no amount of talking could ever create enough wind to change those sails.”
Stella winced, remembering how her father had taken her to Pickering Wharf to watch the boats heading out. They’d imagine what cargo they were carrying and where they were going. On one of those days, he’d taught her all the words to Puff the Magic Dragon .
“So, he’s a coward,” she concluded.
“Yes,” Marietta said. “And not to defend him for what he’s done, but we can all be cowards. There’s a reason only a few people were brave enough to explore the edge of the earth.”
Stella considered that, and while it might have explained a few things, it excused nothing. “Can I see the ring again?”
Marietta pulled it out of her pocket, and Stella slipped it on her finger. It was too big and too top heavy, so it immediately spun upside down.
“You’re right,” Stella said. “The poppet needs every bit of help it can get. Thank you for bringing this to me.”
“You’ll see,” Marietta said. “It’ll make a difference. You, honey, will make a difference. Your mother had every confidence in you. And so do I. Ethan will have to as well.”
“What do you mean, ‘Ethan will have to’?”
Marietta drew her eyebrows together. “I assume Cotton Mather is on your father’s hit list.”
“Of course.”
“Did he indicate what year he was going to make his assassination attempt?”
Stella’s skin prickled, uncertain what Marietta was getting at. “I assumed the 1690s.”
Marietta tipped her head to the side.
“You think he’s going back to a different decade?” Stella asked, her voice rising.
“I think we don’t know what he’s planning, or when he plans to do it. However, I would think that the younger Cotton is, the easier it will be for your father to get to him.”
“But…if he’s really young…” Fear rippled down Stella’s spine. If her father were to kill Cotton Mather before Cotton was able to sire his illegitimate son, John Silence Mather, with the Scottish witch, Isobel Duncan…
“Stella!” Ethan yelled from two floors below.
Stella sucked in a breath, and her head twisted toward the open hatch in her attic floor.
“Jun’s here!” he cried. “You’re gonna want to see what he brought.”