Chapter 22
Iwas flying through the air as I entered my own thoughts again, just in time to land on my back with a merciless thump. I lay gasping, all the air gone from my lungs, head spinning, teeth chattering with cold.
“Wren! Talk to me, kid, are you okay?”
It was Jess’ voice. I felt her hands pressed to my forehead, slapping gently at my cheek, shaking my shoulder. I wrenched my eyes open, and saw her terrified face swim into focus, only to be shoved roughly aside as my mother and Persi took her place.
“I’m… I’m okay…” I managed to force out. “I… she showed me… I understand.”
“I know,” Jess said. “I saw it, too. I was in the circle.” She sounded as badly shaken as I felt.
The three of us: Jess, Sarah, and me, all joined together through the same memories. Bernadette’s painting made sense at last; she’d foreseen that journey, and now I had lived it.
I felt three pairs of hands help me up into a sitting position, but all I wanted to do was bat them away. I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t want to be coddled. I finally understood. My blurry vision began to resolve, and I focused it right back onto Sarah Claire.
She still hovered within the boundaries of the circle. Our strange connection through her memories had not managed to free her from the trap Jess had laid.
“What happened, Wren?” my mother asked. “Are you all right? What did she show you?”
“Everything,” I said, and I could hear the wonder in my own voice. “I know how she first encountered the Darkness. He saved her life—the whole village—and then she saved his. And then he promised her power… so much power…”
I met Sarah’s gaze. She looked triumphant, like she had just proved an unprovable point beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“And so now you see,” she said in a voice vibrating with emotion, “why I cannot simply let go. I have seen it, what will be mine.”
“Oh, Sarah,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, but that’s just not true.”
Her mouth twitched like she was swallowing a curse she longed to hurl at me. “Of course, it’s true.”
“He showed you your desire. He showed you what he wanted you to see, because he needed you. He tried to steal the power of the Gateway, and he nearly died. He knew that whoever tried next would likely be a sacrifice. He used you.”
Sarah was shaking her head violently. “You know nothing, child. Nothing of which you speak.”
“You think he didn’t try to show me those very same things?” I asked. “That night at the lighthouse, do you really believe he didn’t try to convince me the way he convinced you?”
She wanted to shout, I knew, but the words wouldn’t come. Her body convulsed with the words she wasn’t speaking.
“When I walked into the ocean, I saw it—the same vision he showed to you, or a version of it, anyway. The Darkness and a witch, as one, a new and terrifying being with dizzying power. He showed me what he thought I would want—what he thought every witch must want, because it is the only thing a monster like him thinks about. But he was wrong. I didn’t want it, and it’s the only reason I was able to break his grip on me. ”
“All your words have proven,” Sarah hissed, “is that you are weak. That is why I am still here.”
“No, Sarah,” I said, and there was sadness in my voice. “The weakness is your own.”
Sarah lunged at the barrier of the circle again, making all of us jump.
“You’re still here because you let someone else manipulate you,” I said.
“Someone else? Who?” Persi asked.
“Veronica Meyers,” I said. “She found Sarah after the Litha Pageant. She bargained with her. If Sarah could unlock the mystery of the Source, they would sacrifice a member of their coven to restore her to a body. She could live again, and fulfill what she calls her destiny—to be the pentamaleficus joined to the Darkness in unbridled power.”
Sarah raised her chin defiantly. “As I shall be.”
“No, you won’t. Veronica exploited you the same way the Darkness did.
She understood you, because she is just like you—she wants what you want.
Do you really believe she would share that power with you if you laid it at her feet?
She counted on you to be too desperate to pass up her offer, and so you were.
And so you’ve been here ever since, toiling away for another master who will cast you off at the first opportunity. ”
“The Kildare witch is not my master! She is a means to an end!” Sarah shrieked.
“No, you are the means, Sarah. You’ve been here ever since, making desperate attempts to strip power from this place. And now you’ve all but destroyed it.”
For the first time, I saw real fear cross Sarah’s face. “It is not destroyed,” she said.
“Not yet, but it is damn close,” Jess chimed in. “Because of this.” And she held up the Vesper grimoire. She must have grabbed it when we were released from Sarah’s memories. It now lay in her hands, its pages open. “Seeing your memories has filled in the gaps. I understand now what’s happened.”
Sarah hardly seemed to hear her. She was staring with ravenous greed at the grimoire, like a predator tracking prey.
“The spell you used that night all those centuries ago was a risk. You did not understand the nature of the Source any better than the Darkness did; and despite all your years of experience as a witch, you made the same mistake that a group of foolish young Durupinen would make centuries later, when they tried to strip the power of a Gateway for their own. They survived because I intervened before it was too late. But you were not so lucky, Sarah. No one arrived in time to save you, only to clean up your mess as best they could. But damage was done that night that couldn’t be undone.
The Source itself was weakened—not irreparably, but enough that, years later, when another misguided witch of your bloodline tried to call you back, it began to crumble. ”
Everyone in the room was listening to Jess now, mesmerized at these revelations.
“I suspected it was your return that destabilized the Gateway further, and now it’s clear that I was right,” Jess went on.
“No spirit should be able to return to the world of the living once she has Crossed. It should be impossible, but here you are. It was a destructive act, your return. It goes against the natural order of things. You took a small hole and forced it wider. You were unknowingly destroying the very thing you claim to revere.”
Sarah’s expression was shifting now from anger to disbelief. Fear was skittering across her features, as each word Jess spoke fell terribly into place. I picked up the thread.
“And then, when all your efforts had failed, and your last desperate attempt to hijack Bernadette’s body had been thwarted, Veronica convinced you to help her.
But in your determination to deliver on your promise to her, you’ve done more damage still.
This Gateway is crumbling. Any further attempt you make to access its power could be the attempt that destroys it forever.
And just imagine how much that would anger your master.
Cut off from the possibility of such limitless power… because of you.”
At last, it seemed, we had found the words that could pierce through Sarah’s delusion. It was like watching a house of cards collapse behind her eyes, to be replaced with a spark of utter terror.
“It’s not true,” she whispered. “It’s not true. I can still fix it. I can still—”
“Sarah. Enough.”
The voice was soft, and at first I did not recognize it. All I knew was that it hadn’t come from any of the women grouped around me. Only by following Sarah’s startled stare did we realize who spoke.
Bernadette stood in the entrance to the cavern, her form slightly shimmering, a dull glow lighting her up from within, so that she shone without casting any light around her.
She looked like a dream made real in her simple white nightgown, her hair billowing around her, caught in a breeze no living person could feel.
Her face, for the first time since I met her, looked serene and untroubled.
The visions and doubts that had tortured her in life had fallen away in death. She was free.
Free, but not free. She was still here. Trapped, as long as the Gateway was compromised.
I could hear a dry sobbing sound, and I knew it was Persi.
I tore my eyes from Bernadette long enough to see that my mother had moved in close to Persi, supporting her, yes, but also preventing her from running forward.
Bernadette was not here for Persi. She had eyes only for Sarah, and her gaze, as it locked on its target, was full of understanding and sorrow.
Sarah’s face spasmed with shock at the sight of Bernadette’s ghost, and she had to fight to get it under control. Even when she resumed her disdainful manner, though, her voice betrayed her, trembling with suppressed emotions.
“Bernadette. I wondered if you would survive our time together. I see you succumbed to weakness in the end.”
“Only a witch as power-hungry as you would consider death a weakness, Sarah. I suppose that’s why you’ve fought so hard against it since I brought you back.
That should have been my first warning when I made contact with you.
But I was too sure of my own motives to question yours, not when we connected so well.
I understand that connection is not what I thought it was. It was only your manipulation.”
“You are a fool, Bernadette Claire. We could have had power beyond comprehension—power beyond reckoning.”
“No. You knew from the moment you took over my body that I would only be a temporary vessel. Your promises to me were as empty as the Darkness’ promises to you.”
Sarah had gone so still that she seemed, for a moment, like one of Bernadette’s own renderings—a painting made manifest. She and Bernadette were locked into each other with such intensity that they felt like the only real things in the room, the rest of us faded to the insubstantial equivalent of ghosts.
Bernadette broke the silence. She took one deliberate step forward.
“I have seen into your heart, Sarah Claire, because you let me in. I know you better than you know yourself. I see into it now.” She held out a hand.
“Free yourself, my blood sister. Break his hold on you. Show the courage you could not show in life. Choose to begin healing the damage you’ve wrought. ”
Sarah wavered. “How?” she asked.
“Step through with me,” Bernadette said, gesturing to the remains of the Geatgrima. “You are the missing piece that is out of place. If you Cross back now, the Source can begin to heal itself. All of it lies with you.”
Sarah’s eyes began to gleam with the ghosts of tears. My goddess, was it working? I felt like I could see her resistance crumbling away in real time.
Bernadette was still speaking in the same, soothing tone. “Imagine that, Sarah: the chance to undo all the wrongs. No one gets such a chance. Do not squander it.”
“I… I can’t,” Sarah whispered, but it sounded like a plea rather than a declaration. Jess’ hand tightened on my arm. She sensed it too, the weakening.
Bernadette walked slowly forward until she reached the outer edge of the circle. She extended her hand. “Come with me. We will Cross together. All will be healed. Two Second Daughters, rewriting our legacy.”
Sarah drifted to the very edge of her magical cage.
She looked down at Bernadette’s hand, and then nodded.
Beside me, I heard Jess murmur under her breath, and felt the invisible barrier between the two spirits vanish.
When Sarah reached for Bernadette’s hand, she was free to take it, to step outside of the circle.
Bernadette smiled, and led Sarah toward the plinth upon which the remains of the Geatgrima stood.
We all held perfectly still. Any moment now…
It happened in the space of a breath. Sarah turned her head, and her eyes fell on me. Something twisted in her expression—a feral, animal something, and though she spoke no words, I could hear the thought echoing in my own head.
If the Darkness wants her, he will have to take us both.
She launched herself at me, face wild, hands outstretched, malice and covetousness burning in her eyes. There was no way to stop her. All I could do was close my eyes, and brace for her invasion.
A burst of cold air…
A blood-curdling scream…
My eyes flew open just in time to see Bernadette and Sarah collide in midair, to watch as Bernadette, expression grim with determination, her arms wrapped in an embrace around the very woman who had torn apart her life.
And in that embrace, Sarah Claire was carried straight through the Geatgrima.
Their entwined figures shivered in the air above the plinth for a fraction of a heartbeat, and then vanished.
No one moved. No one spoke. Everyone was afraid to trust what they had seen, to believe it could really, truly be over.
But the moments ticked by. Persi gave a dry sob, and the stillness shattered like spun glass.
My mother loosened her grip on my arm, and I felt the blood rush down to my numb fingertips.
On my other side, Jess scrambled to her feet and moved cautiously forward, until she stood with one foot upon the plinth, still and expectant.
At last she turned, and the hope in my chest bloomed in perfect synchronicity with the smile on her face.
“It worked,” she said, her face eloquent with relief. “The Geatgrima is restored. Can you feel it?”
And before I could even answer, a whisper brushed past me, gentle as a butterfly wing.
Well done, my little bird.
I laughed, even as the tears came into my eyes. “Thanks, Asteria.”