Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
E sme watched in terror as the youngest of The Three Sisters leaned over Luke. Lucy had drifted into the room, bringing a strange atmosphere. The cold room felt suddenly charged with electricity and Esme had pressed herself instinctively against the wall to let her walk past. Now, Esme moved closer to Bee, who was watching her sibling with focused intensity. Lucy climbed onto the bed and sat astride Luke’s prone body, her knees on either side of his waist. The flowing fabric of her long white nightgown blended with the colour of her skin, in stark contrast with her long black hair and red lips. It took everything in Esme’s power not to throw herself between them, as if he were somehow in danger. Not that Esme would prove much of a barrier. If any of the Sisters wanted to harm Luke, he was as good as dead.
Still. Knowing wasn’t the same as feeling and her body wasn’t listening to reason. Her palms itched and her muscles twitched with the urge to move closer, to pull at Lucy until she was further from Luke’s still and vulnerable body. She knew Bee was trying to help, but it was much harder to believe that the unearthly-looking figure straddling Luke felt the same.
‘Diana couldn’t help,’ Bee said quietly. She was almost whispering, leaning in close to Esme as if she didn’t want to disturb her sibling. ‘I tried, too. I’m sorry. This is the only way.’
Lucy put a hand onto Luke’s bare chest, her fingers splayed and curving inward slightly, nails digging into his skin. Her lips were curved in a joyful smile as she gazed at his anguished face. She dug deeper. His expression twisted in agony, and he let out a low moan of pain.
Esme felt Bee’s hand on her arm, her grip tight, and realised that she had been moving toward the bed. ‘He’s in pain,’ she whispered urgently.
Lucy’s head whipped around and the full force of her gaze rocked Esme back on her heels. She stumbled and would have fallen if Bee hadn’t still been holding onto her arm.
After a long moment, Lucy turned her attention back to Luke. Esme felt the sweet relief of personal danger passing, but it was quickly swallowed by her fears for him.
The young woman, who was most definitely not a young woman, moved her hand away to tuck a strand of her long black hair away from her face. The movement revealed five small wounds on his chest. Blood was seeping from the deepest of these as she reached back down and calmly fitted her fingernails to the wounds, digging them back in. He moaned in pain and Esme bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from objecting.
Lucy’s nightgown was rucked up, revealing pale knees on either side of his waist. She leaned forward and bent her head to lick his neck. It was part sexual and part pure animal. Tasting food or marking a mate. Or playing. Lucy glanced across at Esme and smiled. Her teeth were very white and, suddenly, sharp. Her eyes sparkled with a hedonistic joy that Esme couldn’t imagine ever feeling.
For a long moment Lucy stared at Esme, her attention shifted from the body in the bed. Esme felt the danger of the moment. If Lucy decided she wanted to play with Esme instead, she would be distracted from Luke. And, strange as that felt, that would seal his fate rather than save him.
She felt Bee utterly still beside her, and the atmosphere in the room swell and thicken. She couldn’t look away from Lucy’s face and could feel a pull to move closer. Esme didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. She couldn’t trust herself to do anything in case she tipped the delicate moment into disaster.
After what seemed like an age, Lucy’s head turned back to Luke. Her tongue darted out as her head dipped and she licked his cheek.
Bee was tugging on her hand, trying to move Esme to the stairs. She planted her feet and continued to watch Lucy. She knew that Bee knew Lucy better than she did and that if she thought Esme ought to go downstairs, it was for the best, but she still couldn’t leave Luke. She wouldn’t.
After what could have been hours or just a few minutes, Lucy reared up from her crouched position and threw her head back in what could have been the throes of ecstasy. Esme’s skin was prickling with sudden heat. She was watching something intimate. Bee’s steady presence next to her was the only comfort. Bee wouldn’t let anything bad happen. Anything worse, at any rate.
Lucy squeezed Luke’s sides with her thighs, she gyrated a little and her spine curved. Her hands were splayed on his chest with her fingers curved into claws that fitted into the cuts she had already made. The blood was flowing freely across Luke’s skin, but he wasn’t moaning or shifting any longer. He was lying unnaturally still.
As if suddenly bored, Lucy stood up on the mattress, balancing on the narrow spaces left by Luke’s body. Then she jumped down lightly. Esme moved swiftly out of the way of the exit and averted her gaze as Lucy skipped past.
Bee followed her sister down the stairs and Esme ran to Luke’s side. His chest wasn’t bleeding as freely, but it still looked a mess. Esme begin cleaning the cuts. Tobias had brought Seren’s first aid kit from the pub and Esme used antiseptic cream before applying a loose dressing across the whole area. Her hands were steady as she worked. He was a patient in need, not a male body. If a tiny part of her mind noticed that he had a very pleasant chest, one that she could imagine running her hands over with enjoyment, she didn’t listen to it.
His eyes snapped open. The whites were shot with red, but he was really looking at her.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘You’re safe. You’ve been unwell, but you’re on the mend.’ The sentences were automatic, delivered with the professional nursing tone. Soothing. Positive. Every syllable conferring calm safety.
‘Don’t touch the book,’ Luke said, his voice quiet and cracking. His lips were so dry they had started to flake and bleed.
The words made little sense and Esme feared the fever had returned. She placed a hand onto his forehead.
‘It was the thin book. It arrived… Don’t know…’
‘It’s all right,’ Esme said. ‘You’re safe. Everything is all right.’
‘Don’t touch it.’ His hand shot out and gripped Esme’s wrist and his shoulders reared up from the pillow, neck muscles straining. ‘Please. I know it sounds…’
‘I won’t. I promise.’
‘Nobody.’
‘I won’t let anybody touch the book.’ Esme was trying to arrange a pillow behind his shoulders, trying to make him comfortable. ‘It’s downstairs, right? I’ll take care of it. You need to drink some water and…’
But he was already sinking back, as if exhausted by the speech. His eyes fluttered closed.
Esme looked at his pale face, flushes of red slashed across his cheekbones like fresh wounds. ‘Get some rest,’ she finished.
An hour later, Tobias arrived. ‘I’ll take a shift watching him. You get some rest.’
Esme stretched. She had been in the same hard chair for what felt like days, and her body was protesting. The adrenaline was fading, too, leaving a bone-deep weariness. ‘I think he’s out of the woods,’ she said. ‘He woke up for a minute, seemed lucid, but it seemed to exhaust him and he’s been asleep since.’
‘The body knows how to heal,’ Tobias said.
She nodded her agreement. ‘It seems like a more natural sleep.’ She had been going to add ‘since Lucy’ but she found she couldn’t form her mouth around the Sister’s name. Too scary. It felt like it might conjure her back into the room.
The fan was off now, and the window almost shut. Esme had left it open a crack for a trickle of fresh air. The room wasn’t warm and she was worried about Tobias. He always sat by his fire at home. Voicing her concerns, he waved her off. ‘I’ll manage.’ He indicated his suit. ‘Tweed is very good at retaining heat. Now, go and get some sleep. And some food. When did you last eat?’
Esme’s stomach growled in response. She tried to remember. Had it been yesterday lunchtime? She had sipped at water in the meantime and Bee had brought her a cup of tea.
‘I’ll be half an hour,’ Esme said.
‘You will not,’ Tobias replied. ‘Take more time.’
Rather than argue with the mayor, Esme expressed her thanks and took the stairs to the shop. Before heading to the pub to ask Seren for a takeaway meal, she went to the front room where the counter and cash register lived. Sure enough, there was a packing box open on the floor behind the counter. A pile of books sat on top of the counter and, lying in a nest of tissue paper on the top of the pile, was a slim leather journal. Esme felt an instant revulsion. She didn’t know if that was because of what Luke had whispered or because she was, finally, getting some witchy intuition, but either way she wasn’t going to touch the book.
She picked up the empty cardboard packing box from the floor and looked for a return address. She studied the delivery label, but it appeared standard. And then she upended the box onto the counter, covering the slim book completely so that nobody walking through would touch it by accident.
Esme didn’t think she would be able to sleep. She felt too keyed up from looking after Luke and angry that somebody had tried to hurt him. Someone had done this deliberately. She could feel malice in her bones and she didn’t care that she had no evidence for it.
Whoever had sent that book had intended to cause harm. Maybe not to Luke personally, but given they had hurt him, Esme didn’t much care whether they had meant it or not.
The previous Ward Witch, Madame Le Grys, hadn’t left much in the way of guidance at Strand House. There had been a ledger of past visitors to the bed-and-breakfast and neatly kept accounts, but not much information about the wards or the island or what being a Ward Witch actually entailed. Esme had figured that Bee would let her in on information over time, but now it was seven years of time and Luke was in a dangerously weakened state and Esme could feel rage overtaking her nerves.
Her painting studio was upstairs in the converted attic of the building. The light was good up there and it felt utterly private. Two things that mitigated the fact that it was chilly in the winter and roasting in the summer when the sun poured through the skylights.
She shifted some prepped canvases away from the wall to reveal the small door that led to the eaves storage. It wasn’t something she had investigated before, having arrived at the island with very little in the way of personal possessions. The items she had acquired since then had all had homes in the house proper and she hadn’t needed to think about extra storage space. She hadn’t, she realised now, expected to still be here after seven years. Hadn’t considered long-term storage in a house that she still couldn’t really believe was her home.
Holding her breath, she opened the small wooden door. The air smelled of wood and whatever was being used to insulate the roof. The small attic space was entirely empty.
Backing out and shutting the door, Esme bumped into something furry and annoyed. Jet made an outraged yelp. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I didn’t know you were up here.’
Jet eyed her with disdain which, honestly, wasn’t anything new.
‘Why didn’t Madame leave me useful books? Clues. Information.’
Jet stretched his front legs, his back curving impressively.
‘I know you’re better at yoga than me,’ Esme said, ‘there’s no need to show off.’
Jet stalked from the room, tail high.
If Madame Le Grys hadn’t written things down, what might she have done?
Esme opened the door to the bookshop. Tobias met her halfway on the stairs to Luke’s rooms. ‘He’s asleep,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re supposed to be resting.’
‘I can’t,’ Esme said. ‘You may as well get some sleep. I’ll watch him.’
Tobias hesitated as if planning to argue, but something in her expression must have changed his mind. ‘Right-oh,’ he said mildly. ‘Telephone me if you change your mind and I’ll come back. I’m a light-sleeper.’
Esme marvelled at how healthy he looked. She had expected a night of no sleep to weigh a little heavier on his appearance, given that Tobias was older. Perhaps it was that thing of the elderly needing less sleep.
Having checked on Luke, Esme crept back downstairs and began searching the shop.
In the back room, she checked the ‘esoteric’ section. It seemed lighter in the corner and she found herself drifting over to that section of shelving. At eye level an ultramarine book spine caught her eye, the text stamped on the side too faded to read. She pulled it out and found herself holding a book titled ‘Hexes, Curses, and All Manner of Malfeasance.’
Taking it with her upstairs, Esme settled herself in the chair Tobias had vacated. Luke’s breathing was steady and even, and she thought his colour was a little better than before. There was enough light coming from the window for Esme to read and she settled in to study the book.
An hour later, she stretched, hearing the bones in her neck and shoulders crack. She felt as if she had just had a crash course in the kinds of things that could, apparently, be done with objects. For example, with a moon-bathed crystal, a mouse bone and some poppy seeds, she could enchant a small piece of cloth to ‘induce bad luck of a sort most unusual for no more than one month’. The recipe ended with the suggestion of sewing the cloth scrap into your chosen enemy’s trousers while they were bathing in the river or sea.
Esme had been, briefly, a woman of science. She had poured over nursing textbooks of anatomy and chemical reactions and the physics of radiotherapy. Then she had shelved all thoughts of learning for a few years of survival. Now, she realised as she turned the pages of the book, she could feel that dormant part of her reawakening. She had been training with Bee, trying to open her mind and calm her swirling anxiety long enough to receive some kind of divine knowledge. Her intuition blossoming until she felt worthy of her title and role on the island. Now, with the information laid out in black and white (well, yellowish cream and dark grey), she saw another path open up. Study.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, addressing the bookshop.