Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
A s much as Luke wanted to protect Esme, she was still the only person he wanted to talk to. That was another problem, but he shoved it to the side.
He called Esme. ‘Can you pop round?’
‘Are you okay?’
The concern in her voice was both gratifying and alarming. He didn’t want to be something she had to worry about. ‘I’m completely fine. Feel great.’ Ignoring the lingering sensation of burning tissue, a numbness in his extremities and the kind of exhaustion that made his worst hangover seem like nothing, he was telling the truth.
Esme declined tea. She was carrying a cloth bag and seemed agitated. ‘I borrowed a book,’ she said. ‘While you were asleep. I’ve brought it back, though.’ She hoisted the tote.
‘That’s fine,’ Luke said. ‘You can have anything you want.’ The lights flickered. ‘You can borrow any books,’ he amended.
‘I’ll keep it for a bit longer, then. If that’s okay?’
He nodded absently. ‘Can we go upstairs?’ The sign for the door was already flipped to ‘closed’ and he locked it for good measure.
Esme raised an eyebrow.
‘I don’t want to be disturbed.’ What he didn’t say was that the thought of having to jog downstairs to serve a customer was more than he could face. He was struggling to move his limbs as it was and wanted to be sat down. Ideally, for about a week.
In the bedroom, he opened the skylight to let in a stream of fresh air. Partly to cover any lingering fug from his illness and partly so that the cold draft would help him to stay awake. He sat in the upright chair closest to the window. ‘I looked up the place that sent the box of books.’
He unlocked his phone and passed it to Esme. She read quickly and then looked at him with wide eyes. ‘That’s disturbing. The poor man.’
He nodded. There was a moment of silence as they both contemplated the ramifications. Luke had already done so, of course, but he watched the thoughts flit across Esme’s face and felt as if he could read them there. The dead man could have been Luke. The island bookshop could have burned to the ground. The building they were sitting in was essentially a wooden box filled with tinder.
‘I found something, too.’
He looked at the book she dug from her bag. She flipped it to a particular page and waited for him to read.
The words were archaic but easy enough to understand. He read as quickly as his pounding headache and the tiny typeface allowed. When he had finished, he didn’t have to work to make his tone even. Another shift in his understanding of the world and his role in it had taken place. ‘You think the book was hexed?’
‘It makes sense.’ Esme was looking at him beseechingly, as if willing him to listen to reason.
‘Sort of,’ he said. He felt the rocks of exhaustion pressing down on his head and shoulders. He was sitting, but he wanted to lie down. His brain felt sluggish, but he forced himself to keep focusing. ‘I think a physical poison seems more likely. Although likely doesn’t seem the right word. Why would someone be sprinkling poison onto random books? And what sort of poison makes a person feel like they are about to burst into flames?’
Esme was quiet. He had the impression she was waiting for him to work through the basic insanity of the premise until he was ready to accept reality. Fine. He could do that. He would accept the possibility that someone had placed a hex, or a hitherto-undiscovered poison, onto a book and sent it to his shop.
‘Is that how you felt? I know your temperature was really high…’
‘I was feverish, I know,’ Luke said. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling suddenly self-conscious. ‘It really felt like I was burning. I’ve never experienced anything like it.’ He swallowed, not wanting to recall the feeling that his flesh was melting, but unable to forget it.
‘And there was a fire at the shop that sent the book?’ Esme confirmed. ‘You think that’s linked?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s a weird coincidence if not.’
In her own kitchen, a cup of calming tea cooling next to her, Esme went back to the book she had got from the bookshop. She finished the section on ‘dehexing’ and was now close to the end.
A word on the naturally unnatural. While many trinkets and baubles may be enchanted, naturally occurring items such as stones or plants may not. These have a form of their own and a will to remain as such.
Esme had never really thought of stone as having a will, but then, why not?
This being so, a cursed or enchanted item of this category is powerfully rare. You would be very lucky – or unlucky - indeed to happen across such a jewel and would do well to leave it where it lies. Remember that temptation is the urge that wants beyond reason. Every practitioner must cultivate their reason to guard against base urges.
The book was veering toward a preachy tone that Esme associated with organised religion. Although, she supposed that witchery was a religion of a kind and it made her smile to realise that meant she was religious. The devout foster family that had forced three-hour prayer sessions onto her when she had been a child would be proud.
Esme closed the book and stood up to stretch. Her mug of gunpowder tea had gone cold, and she took it with her to the kitchen, emptying it down the sink and filling the kettle for a fresh cup.
Her eyes were drawn to the windowsill where the lump of black sea glass sat. It was beautiful and she had placed it there as an object of art, really. With Alvis gone and unable to talk to her about it, she hadn’t really known what else to do. She had considered asking Bee, but something had stopped her. Alvis had spoken to her about the glass, which made it her responsibility. If she had wanted The Three Sisters’ opinion, Alvis would have gone directly to Bee herself.
The glass was sitting on the wooden sill, exactly where she had left it. Of course. It was an inanimate object. She had thought she had seen shifting colours, a swirling pattern, in its shiny surface just after she had retrieved it from Euan’s bedroom, but now it was just smooth sea glass.
The kettle was whistling and she lifted it off the heat. Then, turning back to the glass, she picked it up. The weight was pleasing in her hand and the surface pleasantly smooth. It was the smoothness of a sun-warmed pebble. A piece of tumbled crystal but with the knowledge that the tumbling mechanism had been the ocean herself. She wondered how far it had travelled over its long life.
She was worried about Luke obsessing over the fire in the York bookshop. She understood that he had had a close call, but he was safe now. The police would investigate the bookshop fire and Luke needed to focus on recuperating. She hadn’t liked the tiredness drawn in the lines of his face, or the pain she saw in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking. She also didn’t like the thought of his attention leading him away from the island. What if he went to the mainland and realised that he wanted to rejoin his old life?
Well, that wasn’t a comforting thought. She straightened her shoulders and gave herself a pep talk. The only thing she could do was put aside her personal feelings and do what needed to be done. First of which was to attempt to denature…dehex? The book that had hurt Luke.
Matteo was restocking the canned goods and trying not to think about anything else. The Book Keeper had come in earlier to buy milk, and the sight of him had served as an unwelcome reminder that Alvis was gone. And that led to memories of the man who had killed her. And been killed, in turn, by Matteo.
He knew it had been the right thing to do in the circumstances and it wasn’t guilt that was eating away at his insides. More the absence of guilt. His family, the Silvers, weren’t known for their morals and he was concerned that there was a cold emptiness where his conscience ought to be. Or perhaps he didn’t feel guilt because it had been righteous. He had prevented Fiona from having to deal with the man who had terrorised her son. That was good. But he had taken a man’s life. That was bad. And so it went, round and round, until he realised he had placed the cans of tomato soup in the place that the chickpeas lived, and that the labels didn’t line up.
The door jangled and a man who had even less use for a conscience than Matteo walked into the shop. Hammer pushed the door shut against the gale outside and brushed flakes of snow from his shoulders. ‘Bloody winter,’ he said by way of greeting.
Matteo nodded in return, retreating behind the counter. The central strip light was making a slight buzzing noise and he made a mental note to replace the tube soon.
‘I might have done something rash,’ Hammer said, when he placed a lighter and packet of instant noodles onto the counter.
Matteo raised an eyebrow.
‘You remember those charmers? The ones who were looking for Luke?’
The blood in Matteo’s veins seemed to drop several degrees. He nodded cautiously.
‘I might have followed their friends.’ Hammer’s hand was resting on the counter, next to the noodles. It was heavily scarred and looked like a spade next to the colourful foil packet. ‘I might have found their boss and made a deal to keep an eye on Luke Taylor.’
Matteo tilted his head to indicate interest. He was well versed in non-verbal communication, but the urge to speak hadn’t been this strong in years. He wanted to ask Hammer what the fuck he had been thinking.
Some of his feelings must have translated regardless as Hammer withdrew his hand, snatching up the packet and the lighter and stuffing them into his jacket pockets. ‘How was I to know he was going to be our new Book Keeper? I thought he would be moving on. And it was a way to make sure Dean Fisher didn’t send anyone else looking for him. If he thought I was keeping an eye, doing the job.’ Hammer stopped speaking to the floor, the wall, the shelves, and met Matteo’s eyes. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
Matteo reached for his pad and pen. He wrote the topmost of the questions that were piling up. You going to tell L?
‘You think I should?’
Matteo shook his head. Then changed his mind and nodded. He held out a hand and tilted it from side to side. Maybe.
‘Yeah,’ Hammer said. ‘That was my conclusion, too. Very fucking helpful.’
Matteo deployed the eyebrow again.
Esme and Luke looked at the slim volume. It lay on the opened bed of tissue paper. Innocent.
‘So. A cursed book. That’s a thing.’
‘Apparently,’ Esme said. She tried to smile reassuringly. ‘At least we know it’s not anthrax.’
‘That’s the thinnest of silver linings.’
Her reassuring smile was proving hard to maintain. Truth was, she felt pretty overwhelmed herself. ‘I don’t know what else to tell you.’
‘Right.’ Luke was visibly pulling himself together. ‘Hexed. It’s a hexed book. So, what do we do with it?’
‘Dehex it. I hope.’ Esme had been devouring everything in the reference book from the shop.
‘Is that okay?’
‘You want to keep it? It’s dangerous. Someone else could get hurt…’
‘No. No, I know that. I was thinking… Isn’t it evidence?’
‘You calling the police?’
‘No. You’re right. Okay, go ahead.’
‘Thank you,’ Esme said drily. She didn’t need his permission.
The wards required a stone, a shell, and a drop of blood. To dehex a cursed object, she needed more blood. Even if she was willing to donate it, it wouldn’t work. It had to be the blood of the innocent dead. She had spoken to Bee, who had nodded and disappeared upstairs for a few minutes. When she had come back, she had told Esme that her requirement would be delivered that evening.
True to her word, Esme had found a glass milk bottle half-filled with blood, sitting on her back step.
She sank into a cross-legged position on the floor and drew the gruesome bottle out of her tapestry backpack.
‘What the fuck is that?’
Esme didn’t look at him. ‘Take a wild guess.’
‘That’s not…’
‘It’s not human, no.’ Esme sincerely hoped that was correct. Bee had said that Diana could supply what was necessary and she had chosen not to ask any further questions.
She added a stumpy pillar candle and lit it with her lighter.
Then, on a whim, she fetched the black sea glass. Alvis had thought it had something to do with denaturing. At least, Oliver had thought it might ‘cure’ Euan of the abilities he had inherited from his mother, Fiona.
‘Don’t touch it,’ Luke warned again.
Esme smothered the urge to snap at him that she knew what she was doing. She was on edge. And she felt vaguely silly. She was playing at being a witch. She wasn’t born to it.
Her attention was taken by the slim book lying on the floor between them. She felt as if evil was emanating from it, but that had to be suggestion. Her imagination. She heard Bee’s exasperated voice in her head. Trust yourself.
Okay. So the book was evil. It was hexed. And she, the Ward Witch of Unholy Island, was going to remove the curse. She picked up the bottle of blood. The surface had congealed and the sides of the glass were gruesomely gloopy. She felt bile rise at the back of her throat and she swallowed.
With a twist of her wrist and trying not to think too much about what she was doing, Esme upended the bottle over the book. The blood flowed out, forming a stomach-churning viscous pool that immediately flooded the surface of the open book and dripped over the edges onto the plastic sheet. The smell of copper filled Esme’s nostrils until she could taste it.
Luke looked unnaturally pale in the candlelight. She wondered if he was going to throw up and she hoped he had a strong stomach. ‘Go if you need to,’ she said, and he shook his head.
I release this evil, she thought, recalling the language from the book. There had been a variety of incantations suggested for different objects. She had opened the book to a page on removing curses from ‘binding contracts, manuscripts and other written works of import’. It had a long and flowery incantation that she didn’t relish reading out loud in front of Luke. All of the incantations in the book appeared to boil down to the same essential message. Fuck off, hex.
No sooner as the thought had resounded in her mind, the blood began to move. It flowed toward the sea glass as if magnetically drawn. The glass turned cloudy as the blood reached it, flowing up its surface and disappearing. The lump of glass seemed to be absorbing the blood. Quickly and efficiently, so that within seconds it was all gone. Finally, the clouded surface of the glass cleared until it looked just as it had before.
‘What the hell?’ Luke said, eyes wide.
Esme started at him, knowing her expression was a mirror of his. ‘How can we check it worked?’ Even as she spoke, she felt that it had. The sensation of crawling had gone from the back of her neck and when she looked at the book, now completely clear of blood apart from a couple of smudges that were already turning brown, she could no longer sense a creeping evil. Her instinct told her it was just an ordinary book.
Still. It would be sensible to be cautious.
‘I think we should get rid of it,’ Luke said. ‘Bury it. Burn it. Throw it in the sea.’
‘The sea doesn’t deserve that,’ Esme said.
‘No. Right. I wasn’t thinking… I just don’t want it there.’
‘It is the bookshop,’ Esme said. ‘I think it is the only place it can be.’
In the end, they wrapped the book in a piece of cloth and put it into the fire-safe metal box. It felt like a burial. No, an entombment.