Chapter 18 #2
“Well, as I said before, a Geatgrima marks the thinning of the veil between the world of the living and the spirit world. You could almost think of it as a tear in that veil. If your power comes from your ancestors, perhaps it is the proximity to those ancestors that amplifies your powers here. In other words, you are able to draw on your generational power because they are so close to you.”
“So, then… do you suppose it’s true of every Geatgrima? You said they’re all over the world. Does that mean that witches are drawn to Geatgrimas wherever they are?” I asked.
Jess gnawed thoughtfully at an already well-bitten fingernail.
“As to that, I can’t say for sure. I feel as though the Durupinen would have records of something like that, if it was a historical pattern, and I’ve never heard of it.
It’s definitely worth investigating. But I think it’s more likely that there is something unique about the Geatgrima here in Sedgwick Cove. ”
“Is that what you were talking about earlier?” I asked her. “When you said that there was something… something wrong with it?”
“Yes,” Jess said. “This Geatgrima is… corrupted somehow. Twisted. I can’t say for sure how or why it’s happened, but that Geatgrima is not functioning the way it’s supposed to.”
I thought about Asteria and her confusion.
I thought of Xiomara and Bea, and the fact that their connection to the spirit world seemed to be interrupted somehow.
Could this Geatgrima be the reason why? Had something happened to it that was blocking their abilities—and my ability—to communicate with the spirits to whom they were usually so connected?
“What I don’t understand,” said Persi, “is how you wound up with our grimoire in the first place.”
Jess shrugged. “As to that, I am as clueless as you are. I told Wren that I came by it in our library. That was only sort of a lie. It was found at Fairhaven, but a few rooms away from the library, in the bedroom of one of our apprentices. A small group of them were trying to use the spells in it for their own purposes. As you can imagine, that ended very badly for them, seeing as they were not witches and were meddling with power they didn’t understand. ”
“But how did those apprentices get it?” Persi snapped. “Surely you looked into how such a dangerous book got into the hands of a bunch of students?”
“Of course we did,” said Jess, in a slightly strained voice.
“All of the clans involved were questioned, and the book had been discovered in one of their private libraries. They swore they had no idea where it had come from, only that it had always been a part of their family’s collection, going back centuries. ”
“That still doesn’t explain how they got it in the first place.”
“You’re right,” Jess said. “It doesn’t. But no one seems to know the answer to that question.”
A silence stretched between us, Persi still reeling from the staggering revelations that had just been unloaded on her, and Jess and I waiting to see how she would respond to them.
It was a precarious situation we were in, and I think Jess could feel it, too.
Of all the adults in the house, Persi would have been my last choice for who caught me sneaking around with a formerly dead woman in the very place we were all forbidden to be.
Her tempestuous temper and general penchant for rash, emotional decisions meant that I could no better predict her response than Jess could, who had only known her for about twenty minutes.
I held my breath, waiting. And then I remembered something.
“Persi, what did you mean when you said, ‘it’s you?’” I asked suddenly into the quiet.
Persi stared blankly at me. “What?”
“When you found us in the cavern and spotted Jess for the first time, you said, ‘It’s you.’ How did you know who she was?”
Persi’s face went even whiter than it had been a moment before. “I didn’t know who she was,” she hedged.
“But you recognized her somehow,” I said stubbornly. “You said you were going to explain. Jess told you everything you wanted to know. It’s your turn.”
I could see her wheels turning behind the dark sparkle of her eyes. Finally, she sighed and stood up.
“I need to show you something,” she said.
Jess and I watched in silent curiosity as she crossed to the far side of the shed, and opened a tall standing wardrobe in the corner.
The top shelves inside were crammed with small bottles and jars and stubs of candles, but into the bottom were crammed several canvases, which she carefully extracted.
She came over and laid them out, one by one, across the work table.
Then she stepped back, her expression stricken, as Jess and I leaned forward to examine them.
I heard Jess gasp beside me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from what was in front of me.
There were four paintings in all. One showed a woman standing on the cliffs with the Playhouse in the background. Another showed a woman’s face painted like a sketch inside a book. The next showed the same woman standing inside a stone archway, her arms raised.
All of these women were the same woman. They were all Jess.
The fourth and final painting was the one that felt like it sucked my breath from my lungs. It was a single set of shoulders and a single neck upon which three heads sprouted. The first head was clearly Jess’. The second was mine.
The third was Sarah Claire’s.
“What the actual fuck am I looking at right now?” Jess finally asked into the stunned silence. She looked sharply up at Persi. “Did you paint these?”
Persi shook her head, and so did I, because I already knew who had painted them. I recognized the style from the moment I laid eyes on them.
“It was Bernadette, wasn’t it?” I asked. “Bernadette drew these.”
Persi nodded. “Over the last couple of weeks. And these are just the ones she’s finished. Her room is full of half-finished sketches and abandoned partial paintings. Wren, you’re in a few. But Jess is in every single one of them.”
“Who is Bernadette?” Jess asked. She pointed to the third face on the last painting, Sarah’s face. “Is this her?”
I shot a look at Persi, but she gave no sign that she was going to answer.
I realized that we had reached an impasse.
To explain Bernadette and Sarah Claire, I would have to explain about the Darkness, something that I had successfully avoided up until this moment.
Just as Jess had been careful about what she had shared about the Durupinen, I had tried to keep as many Sedgwick Cove secrets as I could.
Talking about Sarah Claire would break open the entire history of our coven, but it seemed at this point that I had no choice.
Jess was no longer an outsider in this story.
She had been pulled right into the spotlight by Asteria, by me, and now, apparently, by Bernadette Claire.
Knowing now how deeply Jess was tied to the Source, I felt like I had all the justification I needed to tell her everything. This was her story now, too.
And so I did. Starting with the same Sedgwick Cove origin story that Zale had told to me when I first came back home, I then took Jess through the whole story of my own encounters with the Gray Man—how I had thwarted first Bernadette and Sarah’s attempts to help him access the Source, and then Veronica Meyer’s plot to do the same.
By the time I had finished, it was Jess’ turn to pick her jaw up off the floor.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m… gonna need a minute.”
“Take all the time you need,” I said, “although I should probably tell you that it’s my actual life, and I still don’t think I’ve fully processed it.”
Jess leaned forward in her chair, dropping her face into her hands, and taking several long, deep breaths. Then she sat up again, and said, “Okay. Sorry. I’m… I’m fine.” Then she looked at me, alarmed.
“How are you fine?” she demanded.
A laugh burst out of me that I had to quickly stifle before it turned into a sob. “I’m… not really sure if I am, honestly.”
“You poor kid,” Jess muttered, shaking her head. “Man, we should really trade teenage trauma stories some time.”
I smiled weakly, simultaneously wondering what Jess had been through as a Durupinen. I imagined there was probably a lot there to unpack.
“Okay,” Jess said, shaking her head as though to clear it.
“Okay, okay, okay. So we’re not just dealing with a dysfunctional Geatgrima here.
We’re dealing with a Geatgrima that’s been messed with by outside forces, some of them witches, and some of them…
sorry, what is the Darkness exactly? Like, do we know, or…
?” She was making a valiant attempt to keep her voice calm, but I could detect a faint tremor.
“We don’t know,” Persi admitted. “It certainly isn’t human, and we don’t think it ever has been.
It could be demonic, but the only witch who has ever gotten close enough to learn its true nature was Sarah Claire, and she died before anyone could find out what she knew.
What we do know is that it is powerful. Very, very powerful. ”
“Great. Cool. Fun times,” Jess said, nodding her head over and over again.
She took a moment to get herself under control again, and then said, “What about these paintings? This Bernadette, you say she was under Sarah’s control.
Possession like that can do real damage to the living host, trust me, I know. How is she now?”
Persi’s face twitched as she struggled to keep her emotions under control. In all my explanation, I had never once mentioned that Persi and Bernadette had once been in a relationship—that was one secret that wasn’t mine to tell.
“She is rarely lucid,” Persi admitted. “She has long periods of catatonia. She doesn’t speak or acknowledge anyone’s presence. But then she has these brief periods of… mania, I guess you’d call it. That’s when she produces these.”
“Has she always been a psychic artist?” Jess asked.
Persi looked surprised. “Yes. How did—”
“I’m one myself,” Jess explained. “We call them Muses in Durupinen culture. In fact, I drew your mother several times before she successfully managed to connect with me.”
Persi looked stricken, and didn’t seem able to reply. I, however, had more questions.
“You said she’s not speaking,” I said gently to Persi. “Does that mean that she hasn’t explained any of these paintings?”
Persi blinked like she was trying to focus on me. “No. She mutters under her breath, but it sounds like nonsense. And once she finishes a painting, she’s so exhausted that she sleeps for two days together.”
I looked at Persi closely. There were shadows hidden underneath her makeup.
She looked thinner, I realized, and fragile somehow, which was never a word I ever thought I would use to describe Persephone Vesper.
This had been taking a toll on her for weeks, maybe even months, and she had suffered in silence, hiding it from everyone.
I felt a pang of guilt—whether deserved or not—that I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to notice.
The conversation I’d overheard between her and Leila Nightjar suddenly made much more sense in the context of this realization.
Jess wasn’t looking at Persi, though. She was staring, thoughtfully, at the last painting—the one that portrayed her, me, and Sarah Claire like a many-headed Greek monster.
It made me almost queasy just looking at it, but Jess was deep in contemplation over it.
Finally, she said, “This Sarah Claire. You say you exorcised her from Bernadette?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Well, Persi did. I was just there to help.”
“And what happened to her afterward?” Jess asked. “Sarah, I mean.”
Persi looked confused. “She… she simply vanished. What could hold her here, if she had no host?”
Jess’ expression was grim. “Nothing you’ve told me about how Sarah Claire reappeared seems to follow the norms of how spirits are supposed to behave,” she said.
“If she had truly crossed over when she died, Bernadette shouldn’t have been able to bring her back.
That’s not how it works. Are you sure Sarah Claire had crossed over to begin with? ”
“Are you asking if she’s been haunting Sedgwick Cove for four hundred years?” Persi asked, sounding a little more like herself. “No, I don’t think that’s possible. Surely we would have seen a sign of her before now.”
“Yes, probably,” Jess said. “In that case, I think it might have to do with the state of that Geatgrima. As I said, it’s not functioning properly.
Once a spirit crosses through a functional Gateway, that’s it.
It’s not a revolving door. But if the Gateway is damaged, maybe by whatever Sarah herself attempted to do to it on the night of her death—”
“Then maybe that was what made it possible for her to cross back through when Bernadette tried to communicate with her?” I finished.
Jess nodded. “Yeah. That’s my working theory. And I’m guessing that unnatural crossing may have damaged it even further. Kind of like if you keep picking at a loose thread, and pretty soon you’ve unraveled half the garment.”
“So what do we do now?” I asked. “How do we fix it? Because spirit witches are no longer able to communicate with their spirit guides. They’ve gone silent.”
Persi sat up straighter at these words. “Xiomara?” was all she said, but I understood the question.
I shook my head. “Complete silence. And Bea, too. Xiomara told me it’s been the same for every spirit witch in the Cove for weeks now.”
“But why?” Persi asked, a note of desperation in her voice.
“I think Bernadette is telling us,” Jess said, tapping her finger on the last portrait. “This has something to do with Sarah Claire. She’s the key to this.”
“But she’s vanished,” Persi said. “How do we find her?”
Rather than reflecting Persi’s despairing expression back to her, Jess’ face actually broke into a slow smile.
“Tracking down a rogue spirit?” she said, and her hand dropped to her hip, where a velvet pouch dangled from her belt. “Oh, that won’t be a problem.”