Chapter Six #2
The chemical compound lysergic acid had first been used in experiments in Switzerland on ergot, the fungus that grew on rye and other grains, a property said to have been the cause of the Salem witchcraft trials.
It was likely that ergot had caused hallucinations among those who testified in Salem, causing them to insist they had witnessed strange and evil practices—women visiting them in their beds, undocumented attacks, yellow birds speaking in human voices—claiming that a dark, invisible world existed side by side with our own.
When Lionel tested the chemical on himself, it was as if a door had been thrown open and he could grasp the heart of the universe.
There were times when he thought he might shatter and break, but on this night his mind and heart had both opened.
He stared at the dark, muddy water of the Charles River, and it was as though he’d been kissed again, a thousand times over, and then he understood what love was; it wasn’t a choice, it was like the air that you breathed.
As they walked along the cemetery path, Lionel and Lauren were both thinking of love, and each was stricken by loneliness.
Love was not just a human condition, witches felt it, too.
But what was the point of love, that’s what Lauren wanted to know.
Didn’t it just mean you had more to lose?
Ava was walking behind the Bells with Jack beside her when she suddenly stopped.
Jamie Mather was perched beside the statue of the steadfast dog who stood guard over his master’s grave.
Lauren looked to see what had captured Ava’s attention. “What the hell is he doing here?” she asked.
“Isn’t it evident?” Lionel had spied Jamie staring at Ava.
“I’ll catch up to you,” Ava told them as she set off toward Jamie. His being there wasn’t an accident. After reading about his family, Ava had felt at last she had reason to contact him. She’d had Maureen leave a note on his dinner tray asking him to meet her at the cemetery.
“You’ll regret it,” Maureen had told her, and now Lauren said the very same thing. Ava’s two friends were opposites, but when it came to Jamie, they agreed that she should stay away.
“A Mather should always be avoided,” Lauren called after Ava, who was already headed down the path, not listening to the words of warning. “Love will ruin her,” Lauren said sadly as she and Lionel watched Ava disappear into the dusk.
“You’re wrong, you know.” Lionel understood that his sister was still the girl she’d been, the one who had always feared the cruelty of the world, who was drawn to the Crooked Path to protect herself against attachments and grief.
All the same, he had promised himself he would always do his best to be honest with his sister.
“It’s people that ruin things, not love. ”
Each time Ava took a breath as she approached Jamie she felt her ribs would shatter.
“Here you are,” Jamie said when she sat beside him on the gravestone next to the faithful dog. As for Jack, he kept his distance.
“I didn’t know if you’d show up,” Ava said.
“I thought I’d better show. I had that dream again, only this time you were running away from me. Probably a good move.”
Ava had dreamed the exact same thing. “My feet were bleeding.”
Jamie gave her a soul-searching look, for that image had been in his dream as well.
He wanted to tell her she should run away now, that he was bad luck, and had been a failure all his life.
Instead, he ran a hand through his thick hair and said nothing.
For once in his life, he was flustered. He’d come here on impulse, because Ava was beautiful and because she caused him to feel like a fool.
When the crows had come in through the windows of the dining hall she hadn’t seemed the least bit surprised.
She was a mystery, and he was here to find out her secrets.
“This is quite a gathering,” he said of the stream of people headed past them.
“It’s Samhain,” Ava explained. “Halloween. You’ve never celebrated it?”
“My family?” He laughed. “If anyone came trick-or-treating my father would have the maid send them away.”
“The maid,” Ava said. “I’ll bet she didn’t even have a name.”
“They changed fairly often. I learned not to get too attached.”
“Is that your problem?” Ava teased.
“Who said I had a problem?”
They both laughed at that. It was obvious that Jamie wasn’t the type to let anyone get close, at least he hadn’t been before.
There were children who turned cartwheels on the grass, and older women who helped one another down the path, and a few men who wore black coats.
In the distance, the women from Lilith House were headed toward the pond, where they would write out their wishes on scraps of paper, then burn them and sprinkle the ashes onto leaves that were floated into the still green water, creating one ripple at a time.
“Let’s find a place where we can talk,” Jamie said.
He stood and reached out his hand to Ava, and they walked along Bluebell Path, where red leaves covered the ground.
Ava didn’t want to feel as she did, but in spite of herself she was more and more drawn to Jamie.
She felt quite dizzy, as she had when she was a girl walking through the woods at night.
If she were free, she would have to make choices.
Be brave, the lessons on Sunday at Lilith House insisted.
Be willing to do what you most fear if you ever plan to be free.
They found themselves in a secluded glen that had once been an apple orchard tended by the first witch of Cambridge.
There were still apple seeds on the ground, always a sign of good fortune.
Jack’s eyes were trained on Jamie, and whenever Jamie came too close to Ava, the dog growled low in his throat.
“People in my family often elicit that response,” Jamie remarked, not in the least offended by the snarling dog.
“I’ve been reading about the Mathers’ history,” Ava said.
“Have you?” Jamie’s family was his curse and his destiny, and no one else’s business. Frankly, he was embarrassed to have anyone digging around to discover just how evil some of them were. “Will you start growling as well?”
“I thought you might be interested in knowing more about your past.”
Jamie gave Ava a look. He didn’t need her to know that he was the boy who had hid in the woods, who feared water, who never showed how easily hurt he was, whose ancestors were witch-hunters responsible for the ruination of so many. “I know more than enough.”
“I found a letter in the Divinity School library that mentioned how special Increase Mather’s wife was. I think you may take after her.”
“So I’m special? As in rich? Or do you mean cruel? Did she have slaves or servants that she mistreated?”
“She had talents,” Ava told him.
Jamie felt himself grow cold, something he often felt at home when he stood in front of the portraits in his family’s library. “Such as.”
“Magic,” Ava told him.
Jamie frowned, and his face looked drawn.
“That’s why you asked me to meet you? Because you think a Mather had magical abilities?
” He had hoped for something different. He’d hoped she had been dreaming about him.
He looked up into the yew trees, and there they were, twelve crows in all.
Yews were often planted in graveyards to protect the dead, because their leaves contained a poison that would drive animals and enemies away.
Here it was, the purpose of this night; the dead could visit the living in stories and songs, and perhaps in letters as well.
“You should just let it be,” Jamie told Ava. “My family is none of your business.”
“Maybe we have more in common than you think.” Ava held up her hand; there was the scar that had been left by the removal of her eleventh finger. “Do you have a scar like this?”
Not knowing who you were made a wedge of anger stick in your throat, as if a stone were caught there.
You couldn’t choke it up and you couldn’t say what was most important.
That was what connected Ava and Jamie, whether or not he liked it.
All the same, he was immediately defensive.
His brothers had always made fun of his scar and he’d been embarrassed and had thought of it as a deformity.
“It was from an accident. I fell between some rocks. I was too young to remember what happened.”
“Then why do I have the same scar you do? I think our parents didn’t want us to know the truth. We’re not like other people. I think you know that.”
Jamie didn’t like the direction their conversation had taken. “Prove it.”
Flustered by how angry he was, Ava reached for a stick and stabbed the sharp edge into the palm of her hand. If he wanted proof she would give it to him. Her dark blood fell onto the ground, burning through the grass.
“Do you believe me now?” she said.
Jamie rose to his feet, light-headed, with no clever words to fend her off. “That was a trick. Ava, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but this is crazy.”
Ava stood up to face him, hurt by his response. “If you think I’m crazy, maybe you should stay away from me.”
“I’m not a research project, Ava. Stop investigating my family.”
“I’ll do as I please,” she told him, stung by his response.
“Who am I to stop you?” Jamie flung back at her.
He was done with this, and he did what he always did when he was threatened.
He’d seen black blood before, and had never said a word about it.
Keep it to yourself, his mother had told him.
Some things are best kept secret. Now he turned his back, shoulders hunched, shut down.