The Witch of Tin Mountain(54)
Hope’s all I have to bank on right now.
I leave the food for Ebba to find when she wakes, then climb back up to Val’s loft. The grimoire’s still open on the mattress, beckoning me. After my encounters with Anneliese and Bellflower yesterday, the call to turn its pages and seek its knowledge is even stronger.
As I search the fragile pages, the scent of dandelions wafts out. A few pages on, I find an ancient drawing—more primitive than Anneliese’s finely drawn illustrations—that sends the all-overs through me. It looks like a human at first glance, but there’s something about it that’s wrong. Uncanny. The eyes are set too far apart, and the fingers end in daggerlike claws. The word incubus is scrawled above it, and a description:
An incubus is a demon in male form who seeks sexual congress with a woman. Incubi are inexorably drawn to witches, and the attraction a witch feels for an incubus is nearly irresistible. Each time she succumbs to the demon’s seductions, her gifts diminish, until she is left entirely weak and powerless. When the inevitable pregnancy occurs, the witch’s health will falter—and the birthing process will be arduous. The infernal offspring of this union is called a cambion. When a witch births a cambion, her descendants are forever tainted with demonic blood.
As if an unseen hand is guiding me, the crinkled and worn pages lead me onward, to passages about the gifts witches might possess. Divination. Healing. Clairvoyance. Even the ability to resurrect the dead. Only the most powerful witches were able to do so.
I remember Anneliese’s account of reviving her dead chicken. I wonder if she’d ever brought anything else back to life. If she’d been powerful enough to raise the dead, why hadn’t she been able to prevent her own death? If Nathaniel Walker was one of the incubi, in the guise of a man, he might have stolen her abilities.
I’ve been too intent on easy answers to pay Anneliese’s journal entries much mind. Now, I go back to them, because if I have to outsmart Bellflower, I need to learn about the past and why he keeps coming back to plague Tin Mountain and my family.
INTERLUDE
ANNELIESE’S GRIMOIRE
June 1, 1831
Morning. I have discovered what Nathaniel is—his true nature. The last time we lay together, the things he forced me to do . . . I cannot speak of them. I will not. And his eyes. The darkness behind them! How had I never noticed it before? I must have been under a glamour. A wicked spell. I must do what I can to protect myself and Jakob.
June 3, 1831
Eventide. Nathaniel tried to come to me once more, last night. Though my powers are diminished, I warded the cabin door and all the windows as best I could with blessed asafetida and oil of cloves. He paced about the porch and begged me to open to him. His footsteps were as loud as ten men. I held Jakob on my lap, shushing him until Nathaniel departed. I’ve no doubt he will be back. I am sore afraid.
June 9, 1831
Zenith of night. As I suspected, Nathaniel returned. I did not open to him. When I was sure he had departed, I found a parcel on the porch, wrapped in brown paper. I had a suspicion it might be charmed, so I doused my hands in oil and opened it out of doors. It was a length of fine white silk—enough to make a bridal gown, and a letter. A proposal of marriage. I stoked a fire in the yard and burned both.
June 13, 1831
Reddest dawn. Nathaniel returned for my answer last night, howling for me at some unholy hour—three or four in the morning, by my reckoning. Through the door, I shouted, “I will not marry you, Nathaniel Walker! Not in this life nor any other.” As soon as I spoke the words aloud, a ragged scrabbling began in the walls, as if a thousand rats had been let loose in the timbers. I clapped my hands over my ears to drown out the sound, to no avail. Nathaniel roared such foul, disgusting things I shudder to remember them. Jakob woke, and ran to me, terrified. I soothed him as best I could and prayed to any god who might hear for Nathaniel to depart and leave us be. I must try to reclaim my power, though I fear it may be too late. He has taken almost all of it.
June 23, 1831
Overnight. My worst suspicions were confirmed. I am with child. Nathaniel’s child. Already, I can feel what little power I had left draining from me. This fiendish creature, this cambion growing in my womb, will take all that I am for sustenance.
July 7, 1831
Today, I am rid of my pregnancy. My usual methods did not work, so I had to employ . . . other means. I am weak. Tired. Conflicted in feeling. There can be no doubt the child was wrong in a way that could not be overcome. Still yet . . . I grieve. If it were not for Jakob, I would not have had the courage to follow things through. I must protect him.
July 17, 1831
Half past midnight. He knows. Nathaniel knows.
August 2, 1831
Elizabeth came to me today, bringing milk and cheese. The mercantile will no longer sell to me. The women have stopped coming to my door. If it weren’t for dear Elizabeth’s true Christian charity and my little hens, we would feel the bitter bite of hunger once more.
Elizabeth told me the rumors have grown fierce. A wasting disease has claimed the lives of some of the village children. Nathaniel is blaming the plague on me from his pulpit.
“He’s saying Jakob is the child of the devil, Anna,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head. I laughed at this. If only I could tell her the truth!
“It is no laughing matter. I fear what he might do. You should take the boy and leave.”