Chapter 22
IT FEEDS AND IT FEEDS
Mistress Bramble lives outside of town south of the cemetery, deep in the forest. By now, I know the route by heart.
But this is Jude’s first time, so I act as navigator while he drives.
I considered bringing the plant. If Mistress Bramble can really see into the Overlay, it stands to reason she might recognize flora from the Overlay.
But I’m too distracted to bother.
Since seeing those marks on Jude’s chest, I’ve thought of little else. Even my recurring dream—of my mother chased, my mother imprisoned—has been overrun by nightmares of spidery tendrils wrapping around Jude’s neck and squeezing until he can’t breathe.
I’ve become fixated on the missing key and the stone slab at St. Fortuna’s. Someone moved it. Why would they bother, if not to get into the crypt? The question is, did they actually get in?
On top of it all, I’m mad.
No matter what Jude says—no matter how he spins it—he has spent the past two weeks lying to me.
“It’s right up here.” I nod at a patch of churned-up earth where a rutted dirt track continues into the woods.
It’s too rough to drive on.
So Jude parks and we walk the rest of the way, following the narrow footpath that weaves between the dirt road and Talenwah Run. A hawk screeches overhead in the bright blue sky. The smell of woodsmoke hangs in the air. The creek gurgles over rocks as we push past briars and step over fallen logs.
At the end of the dirt track, a rusted truck sits beneath a pine tree strung with blue bottles.
Beyond it, wooden stakes mark rows of a garden gone dormant.
A quiet beehive box squats next to a woodpile stacked with military precision.
And in front of a stump with a chopping ax sunk deep stands a fat black rooster I’ve named Zuul.
Jude eyes him warily.
The cabin has a chimney, and at the moment, it’s exhaling a plume of smoke. In all my visits, this is the first sign of life.
Other than Zuul, of course.
On the porch, a chair rocks eerily next to a wooden crate. A wind chime clacks in the cold and bundles of herbs dry under the eaves. A foraging basket sits next to the door, where an upside down horseshoe has been nailed.
Jude takes it all in as I lift my fist and knock.
According to my phone, it’s 12:05 on the dot. Even though she told us to come, I’m surprised when the latch lifts and the door opens.
Tall and broad-shouldered with hair as wild as ever, Mistress Bramble fills the doorway.
Several crows caw behind us.
She peers into the trees, counting them under her breath. When she hits seven, she clucks her tongue. “Ain’t good,” she mutters. Then her gaze drops to Jude’s chest, and without a word, she swings the door wide.
The cabin is warm. On one end, there’s a cast-iron stove, a rickety kitchen table, and a couple cabinets.
On the other, a bed and a nightstand. A glowing fireplace separates the two, along with a sagging couch and a rough-hewn coffee table.
The walls are by far the most interesting—a collage of reference guides and maps.
I find myself searching them for the plant in my bedroom as Mistress Bramble drags a kitchen chair nearer to the couch, its legs scraping the floor.
She clomps to her nightstand to pick up a pipe and a tin of tobacco. Then she turns to us with a scowl. “Well are ya gonna stand there lookin’ like fence posts or stay awhile?”
The words whistle slightly as they slip through the gaps of her missing teeth.
She motions to the couch.
Jude and I sit.
“I can tell you have questions,” she says, lowering herself onto the chair. “Might as well start askin’ ’em.”
I glance at Jude. His jaw is tight, his posture vigilant.
“The other day at the cemetery,” I say to Mistress Bramble. “You asked Jude what has its claws in him.”
With a grunt, she lights her pipe and takes a puff.
“What did you mean?”
“Somethin’ has a hold of his soul.”
Beside me, Jude stiffens.
Her answer annoys him.
It scares me. “Do you know what that something is?”
She studies me through the smoke drifting from her pipe. “I reckon you already suspect.”
My stomach twists.
Yes, in fact, I do.
I reach inside my pocket and pull out a photograph. It’s one Rafe took from us. One we took back. Jude found it in Rafe’s bedroom. A picture of Jude’s great grandmother, Rose Vandenberg, wearing the ruby amulet shortly before she died in the Blitz.
I hand it to Mistress Bramble, carefully watching for a reaction.
“The necklace she’s wearing,” I finally say. “Have you seen it before?”
She rubs the wart on her chin. “De Hartsteen.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“It’s Dutch,” Jude says.
“Means heart stone.” Mistress Bramble stands and retrieves something off a shelf in the corner of the room—a book that looks older than time. “My Granny Bramble told me ’bout it when I was no bigger’n a church mouse. Learned it from her own granny, written down on a page in this here codex.”
My heart leaps as she sets the codex on the coffee table. It’s bound in cracked leather. Mistress Bramble flips through a few pages, the writing distinct on each one, information recorded in different hands in a variety of ink.
I lean forward, eager to see what this codex might tell us.
But then she stops and thumbs an uneven, fibrous edge—a flap of parchment where a page used to be. “Stolen long ’fore I was born.”
My heart sinks.
Mistress Bramble leaves the codex open with the photograph of Rose Vandenberg beside it and returns to her chair.
“Who stole it?” I ask, staring at the crude edge, feeling violated on the book’s behalf.
“Granny Bramble called him a rotten apple. Shiny red on the outside, worm-bit clear through. Soul too old for his face.”
I look at Jude.
He looks at me.
“Rafe,” I whisper.
If Grandmother Bramble had information about this heart stone—Seraphina’s ruby amulet—of course he’d want it. Of course he’d take it.
“Do you remember anything else?” I ask. “About the ruby?”
She lifts the pipe to her lips. “De Vraat.”
My brow furrows. “Wasn’t that the Hollow Walker’s name before he became Vorat?”
A hint of approval turns up one corner of her mouth, like she’s pleased I remember the detail. “Means ‘the devouring.’ Plenty in this world’ll take a bite outta your soul if you let it.” She takes a puff from her pipe. “Plenty, indeed. De Hartsteen just happens to be one of ’em.”
The knots in my stomach twist tighter. “How do you stop it?”
“Answer to that is lost with the page.”
Outside, the wind chime clacks.
A draft curls through the cabin.
My heart pounds—a dull, dreadful beat. The ruby I used to bring Jude back to life has turned against him. It’s devouring his soul and the way to stop it has been stolen by Rafe.
Jude shifts beside me. “What did you mean at Night of the Howl, when you said we woke a great hunger?”
Mistress Bramble lowers her pipe. “Evil’s come to this town. I can smell it clear as rain comin’ over the ridge.” Her jaw works as she sucks on her empty gum line. “Terrible thing, what happened to them girls.”
A shiver crawls up my spine.
Them girls.
Plural.
“That scream still rakes across my sleep,” she mutters. “Cut my story clean in half.”
I stare at her—this woman born en caul. “I came across something while doing some research. It was an old interview with your grandmother.”
She smiles, only somehow, she doesn’t look better for it.
I can picture Harper cowering at the sight.
A witch, she would say.
“She talked about children born en caul,” I continue, “which supposedly gives them second sight. With the ability to see into a place called de Overlaag.”
Mistress Bramble looks at me without blinking.
“You were born en caul.”
She nods once.
“So you can see into it—de Overlaag.”
She doesn’t object.
I exhale a bit disbelievingly. “What is it?”
She doesn’t answer at first. She just stares past us, through us, like we’re not there, the smoke from her pipe drifting around her like a spirt.
I start to think she won’t answer at all, when finally, she speaks.
“This valley has always been thin. A wrinkle between worlds, thanks to them angels inside that tomb you opened Halloween Night.”
My mouth falls open.
“How do you know this?” Jude asks.
“Those who came before me stretch back as far as that there codex. When my ancestors settled here, in the new world, they made it their business to know, and to pass that knowin’ along.
” She comes forward in her seat and flips several pages.
This time, to a series of drawings. A tomb.
A comet. An angel with wings. A young man resurrected.
It’s the story of Seraphina, of Ezra and Raphael Vandenberg, of the curse.
There’s a date, too.
A very familiar date.
One featured in my last podcast episode with Twig, the finale of season two on Accounts of the Uncanny.
The topic was Dante’s Comet, which blazed across the night sky on Halloween.
The last time it came was 268 years ago, and it was accompanied by a flash of blinding light.
Multiple people in Foggy Hollow—and only Foggy Hollow—witnessed it.
I run my thumb across the date. “The Flash of 1757.”
“You know what caused it?” Mistress Bramble asks.
Suddenly, I do.
It’s so obvious, I’m not sure why I haven’t connected the dots until now.
“A massive supernatural event,” I say.
When a mortal moved against an angel and his brother died in the crossfire. He begged that angel to bring his brother back to life. She did, but then he trapped her in a tomb and she cast a curse.
“It blew that wrinkle wide. And for 268 years, it’s been feedin’. It feeds and it feeds, and everything inside does the same.”
“What does it feed on?”
“Sorrow. Pain.”
The curse would have given it plenty of sustenance.
But that curse no longer exists. Jude and I destroyed it.
Is this what she meant, then, by us waking a great hunger?
We took away the Overlay’s food source. But then I think of Ivy’s mother, wailing over her daughter’s coffin, offering up an entire feast. Something tells me it doesn’t need the curse to feed.
“Do you know how to get in?” I ask.
Mistress Bramble pulls the pipe from her mouth. “Why would you wanna go meddlin’ with a place like that?”
“Because someone is trapped in there. Two someones, actually.” My mother and Simon. “Possibly three, if our classmate is still alive.”
A log pops in the grate.
The fire crackles.
I shift forward. “Can you see them?”
Mistress Bramble taps her pipe while shadows flicker across her face.
I grip the tops of my knees, waiting for her to answer. Desperate for her to speak. To tell me the truth. Can she see my mother? But she doesn’t say a word.
I stare into her steely gray eyes. “Do you know how to get in?”
Her chair creaks as she leans away from me. “Even if I did, I’d take that knowin’ to my grave.”