A Lesson in Vengeance(23)

I’d written the summoning spell in my moleskin notebook: an incantation copied from an ancient tome in the library’s occult section. The process had been painstaking; no one in the eighteenth century, it seemed, had been possessed of legible handwriting. Of course, they didn’t have Ouija boards in the eighteenth century either, and this Hasbro-branded contraption I had bought at the independent bookstore in town hardly qualified as an accoutrement of real witchcraft. But it was better than nothing. I propped the notebook on my knees, and me and Alex both placed our fingers on the Ouija planchette, barely touching it.

And even though I hadn’t spoken yet, all at once the room seemed darker—the corners deepening, the air heavy against my skin. I took in a shallow breath and read the spell aloud.

“Nothing happened,” Alex said after several seconds. “It’s not moving.”

“You have to wait for it.”

“You know that when the pointer moves, it’s because we’re moving it, right? Like, they’ve done studies on this.”

I ignored her and closed my eyes. I’d stolen the Margery Skull; it sat at the head of our altar, close enough that I could have touched it. A part of me wanted to. The urge was almost overpowering. Maybe if I did…Maybe that’s what this ritual needed.

I shifted forward, eyes still shut, fingers reaching. My touch grazed cold bone, and in the same moment, the planchette moved.

My eyes flew open. The pointer had darted across the board to cover the number 5.

“What does that mean?” Alex said, and I shook my head.

The Dalloway Five.

The candles guttered as if from an unseen wind. The room had gone chilly, and a strange sensation crept up my spine. My fingers quivered with the effort of keeping my touch on the planchette light; I refused to lend any credence to Alex’s theory. If the board spoke, it wouldn’t be because I forced matters into my own hands.

I’d never tried this kind of thing before. I didn’t know what to expect.

Be real. I need you to be real.

“Are you really here?” I whispered. “Is this…Margery Lemont? Or—”

I stopped myself midsentence and stared at the lettering on the board indicating the word yes. But the planchette had gone still, the numeral 5 still visible through its aperture.

This wasn’t enough. The incense, the candles—even Margery’s skull smooth against my palm. It wasn’t enough.

I’d read about this. I’d read dozens of books, hundreds, researching for my thesis. I knew how magic worked. I knew what these kinds of spirits required.

“We have to make a sacrifice,” I told Alex abruptly. “Like the original Dalloway Five did in their séance, with the frog. If the Dalloway Five really were witches, they were powerful. Why should they speak to us if we don’t give them something in return?”

Alex’s mouth twisted, skeptical. “Well, I forgot to bring along my handy-dandy sacrificial goat, so…”

But I already knew what Margery wanted.

I released the planchette and grabbed the letter opener—the one I’d used to open the Ouija board box.

“Felicity, don’t you dare—”

I sliced the blade into my palm. White fire cut along my veins, dark blood welling up in its wake. Alex lurched back as I held out my arm, but she didn’t leave the circle, didn’t retreat—just watched wide-eyed as my blood spattered the crown of Margery Lemont’s skull.

The candles blew out.

Even Alex yelped. My heart pounded in my chest—too fast, too wild. Was that a figure stepping out from the shadows, eyes gleaming in the darkness like polished coins?

Alex struck a match, and the specter vanished. The place where it had stood was pitch black, and yet I could still feel its presence. Maybe it hadn’t disappeared. Maybe instead it had expanded, consuming us.

Alex and I stared at each other across the board. Alex’s shoulders shifted in quick, shallow little movements, her tongue flicking out to wet her lower lip. It felt colder now than before, like the temperature had dropped several degrees when the candles went out.

It’s all right, I wanted to tell her, but my tongue was a dead thing in my mouth, heavy and ill tasting. As if I’d swallowed grave dirt.

Margery Lemont had been buried alive.

My blood was sticky against my palm, the scent of it high and coppery in the air, overwhelming the musk of incense. Alex lit the candles again—just the three nearest her. Their light cast unnatural shapes along the board, most of the letters fallen into darkness.

Neither of us were touching the planchette anymore, but its aperture was fixed over the word yes.

“Did you move the pointer?”

Alex shook her head.

My teeth dug into my lower lip. Together, we both tilted forward once more, our trembling fingers meeting atop the wooden planchette.

“Are the stories true?” I asked. “Were you really witches?”

If the ritual account of Flora’s death was true, it had been clearly Druidic in inspiration: some bastardization of Greco-Roman reports that the ancient Celts performed human sacrifice at the autumnal equinox—that the future could be read in the way the victim’s limbs convulsed as they died. Even the way in which the sacrifice bled had prognostic value.

The town midwife’s diary told a version of the story in which Flora Grayfriar’s body was found with her skin half-burned and her clothes in ashes atop a wicker altar. Silver mullein leaves were strewn about the ground, a wormwood crown laced through her hair, her throat wet with blood.