A Lesson in Vengeance(41)

“You don’t get to play the game if you don’t follow our rules,” I say.

Beside me, Ellis smiles.



* * *



—

The next morning my memories of the initiation are blurry, oil paint bleeding into water. I remember the way the others looked on the forest floor, dead leaves and bracken scattered in their laps. I remember painting the blood on Ellis’s brow, Ellis gazing at me as if she could see through my mask and into the heart of me.

My fingers were still on her skin, wet and scarlet, as she murmured my name.

Whatever else the others felt, I knew what I saw in Ellis’s eyes last night.

Euphoria.





The most vital part of any occult ritual is the closing. Witches, Druids, and Auguries might interface with creatures of the Dead, but we are also obligated to protect the mortal world from arcane influences. When we open a door, we must also shut it, or risk inviting Evil in.

—Profane Magick


Alexandra Haywood, the elite mountaineer and the second-youngest girl to summit Denali, has disappeared while attending her boarding school. She is 17. Haywood was recently in the news for her involvement in a physical altercation with fellow climber Esme Delacroix. An anonymous detective speaking to the Associated Press said the police are considering multiple theories. Divers are scouring the campus lake in case of an accidental drowning, but detectives have not ruled out the possibility that Haywood ran away to avoid public scrutiny over the assault.

—Excerpt from an article by Mariely Reyes, journalist at Sport Climbing Quarterly





“I got something for you,” Ellis says.

She has appeared in my doorway without invitation, which is becoming something of a habit. She’s wearing a tweed waistcoat and a cravat, one hand tucked behind her back.

I look at her forehead for signs of the bloody sigil we painted there last night, but her skin is clear and clean.

I shut my laptop halfway, so that the technology doesn’t offend her vintage sensibilities. “Not more tea leaves.”

“Better,” she assures me, and comes into the room without being asked. “Put out your hand.”

I do. She places on my palm a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with a neat length of twine. I glance up and she nods, so I tug at one string, and the bow unravels, the paper falling away to reveal—

“Ellis.” My voice comes out half a gasp; I’d be humiliated by that gasp if I weren’t so busy staring at the tarot cards that fan out between my fingers. They’re matte black, lined only with the faintest threads of metallic gold tracing out the shapes of skeleton figures, a glossy jet finish poured into the cages of skulls and bones so they glint in the afternoon light. “These are…”

“I thought you’d like them,” she says.

I drag my gaze away from the cards and back to Ellis’s face. A small smile has caught about her lips, a smile that feels genuine not because it splits across her face or crinkles the corners of her eyes but because of the softness to it—and the way her gaze lingers on mine. I hold out the deck of cards, and she chooses one from the middle, then flips it over to show the Magician.

“Whatever it is you’re trying to do,” I interpret, “you will succeed. All the power you need is in your hands.”

“I certainly hope so,” she says.

I pack the cards away in a position of honor on my shelf, right next to the candles and my one photo of Alex and me, taken by the lake with evening sunlight blazing like fire in Alex’s hair. The photo used to live in the closet with all the other paraphernalia of my old life; I only managed to look at it again last night. And then, gazing at the pair of us and the smiles on our faces, I felt guilty shoving her back into the dark.

“Is this her?” Ellis asks, coming up to stand at my shoulder.

“That’s her.” I stare at Alex’s face: the soft uptilt of her nose, her cinnamon-dust freckles and red bow lips. The Alex in that photo had no idea she would be dead within the year.

“You look young,” Ellis says, and I suppose I do. I’m laughing, one arm slung over Alex’s broad shoulders, like I think I’ll get to keep her forever.

“It was two years ago. I was sixteen.”

We’d just moved into Godwin House. When this photo was taken, I still didn’t believe in ghosts.

Ellis looks for a second longer before finally turning away, taking claim to my desk chair, and leaving me to sit on the edge of my bed. “There’s something else,” she says. “I’d like to finish my book by the end of this year, which means we don’t have much time. I still need to figure out how the deaths happened.”

“All right.” I reach for my notebook, grabbing it off the desk where it sat by Ellis’s elbow. She hands me a pen.

I hold the pen for a moment, the weight of it like a bad omen. Maybe last night was a mistake. It’s not too late to take back my agreement and put an end to this.

But then Ellis starts talking, cutting the thread that twines through my doubts.

“First,” she says, “the hypothetical victims. Four deaths, one for each of the Dalloway witches—not counting Margery Lemont, of course, my narrator.”

“A bit morbid,” I say. “We aren’t going to be acting this out ourselves, are we?”