Suffer a Witch (29 page)

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay,” Bernard Flett said. “It took me almost a decade to get used to living in the silence of Rousay. Now, I can’t live anywhere else.”

“Of course,” Em said.

“Good girl,” Bernard Flett said. “Hang on.”

Bernard Flett left her standing in the cold. Em looked out onto the open field. Until just a few months ago, Em had been sure her father was dead. She’d just adjusted to the idea that he was alive when he was now gone. She felt the cold fog of the morning invade her very soul. She shivered and instinctively hugged herself.

“Here we are,” Bernard Flett’s voice came from inside the door. He appeared in the partially open door. “You’re shivering.”

“I. . .” Em nodded. “It’s the shock.”

Bernard Flett’s eyes seemed to take in her face. She nodded again, and he gave a partial shrug. He stepped back into the house.

“Would you like to come in?” Bernard Flett asked. “I have a fire going, and. . .”

“No,” Em said. “Thank you, though. I have my friend. . .”

Em gestured to the car. Bernard Flett gave her a curt nod and stepped into the doorway. He held out a manila envelope thick with paper. Em gave him a questioning look.

“That’s it,” Bernard Flett said.

“That’s what?” Em asked.

“It’s your father’s last wishes,” Bernard Flett said. “There is also a private letter to you and a few personal items. I put them all in that envelope so I wouldn’t lose them.”

“Thank you,” Em said.

He gave her the manila envelope. She looked at the seal and back to him. He shrugged.

“I’d like to stay here until I die,” Bernard Flett said. “It won’t be too long now.”

His grin showed his stained and broken teeth. Em gave him a curt nod.

“You are welcome here,” Em said. “How will I know when. . .”

“I’ll make arrangements,” Bernard Flett said. “Your father set up a fund to take care of the property.”

“Do you need more?” Em asked.

Bernard Flett chuckled.

“Sir?” Em asked.

“You are your father’s daughter,” Bernard Flett said. “These days, everyone pinches every penny. Not William. He was always, ‘What do you need, Bernard?’ He was special that way.”

Em gave Bernard a sad smile.

“So, no, I have plenty of money,” Bernard Flett said. “I’ll return what’s left when I’m gone.”

“Fair enough,” Em said. “Is there anything else you need?”

“You’ve made an old man very happy, Martha,” Bernard Flett said. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Em said. “I’m going to have my lawyer go over everything. Don’t be alarmed if you hear from her.”

“Fair enough,” Bernard Flett said. “You’ll find your father’s lawyer’s card in the envelope.”

Em nodded. She took a breath and turned to leave. She’d taken two steps when she turned back to Bernard Flett.

“I am grateful for the friendship you showed my father,” Em said.

“He was my great-great-grandfather’s shooting buddy,” Bernard Flett said. “Passed down through the generations.”

Em grinned. She raised a hand to wave “good-bye.” He gave her a nod and turned into the house.

“Nice to meet you, Martha.”

Bernard’s words were immediately followed by the squeak of the closing door. The lock clicked, and Em walked to the car. She got into the driver’s seat. She set the manila envelope on the seat behind her.

“What was that?” Mary Ayer asked.

“My father was murdered,” Em said.

“Oh, Em, I’m so sorry,” Mary Ayer said. “I can’t imagine how you feel. You just got him back.”

“It’s weird,” Em said. “I never gave him a thought. He had been a part of my life, my father, some three hundred years ago. Then,
wham!
He’s in my life in such a wonderful and miraculous way. And now. . .”

Em lifted a shoulder in a shrug. Mary Ayer rubbed Em’s arm in sympathy. Em looked out across the house and its lands. Glancing at Mary Ayer, she moved to start the car.

“Can we do what we’d intended?” Mary Ayer asked.

“Good question,” Em said. “At this moment, I don’t think so. I mean, we can try it, but he got in with this key. We don’t have the key.”

Em made the shape of a small square.

“Brass,” Em said.

“Maybe it’s in there,” Mary Ayer said.

“Maybe,” Em said. She grabbed the manila envelope and put it on her lap. “I was going to wait until we were back in our room to open this.”

Mary Ayer raised her eyebrows in encouragement. Em nodded. The manila envelope had her name scrawled across the front. She turned it over to see that the flap was taped down. Using the car key, she loosened the tape.

“I don’t know what will happen when I lift this,” Em said. She glanced at Mary Ayer and back at the envelope. “The last time I spun in a circle for what seemed like forever and went back to 1978.”

“I can handle it,” Mary Ayer said.

Em flipped up the envelope. Nothing happened. She looked inside the manila envelope. She pulled out a stack of papers.

“His will,” Em said. “Wow, you know what that means?”

“Not sure,” Mary Ayer said. “What does it mean?”

“He’s really dead,” Em said.

She passed the pack of papers to Mary Ayer and looked inside the manila envelope. In the dim light of the car, she saw set of keys, a pocket watch, a ring, and a black rawhide necklace. Em made a wish and tugged on the necklace. The square brass medallion popped out of the items below. Em sighed her relief.

“Is that it?” Mary Ayer asked. “The key?”

“This is it,” Em said. She peered into the envelope. “The rest of this is going to have to wait.”

“We’re going tonight?” Mary Ayer asked.

“Gets dark around 3:30 p.m. this time of year,” Em said with a smile. “We’re in Scotland.”

“Lucky we brought our warm clothing,” Mary Ayer said with a smile. She clapped her hands together. “I’m excited.”

“Me, too,” Em said. She backed out from her father’s driveway. “Next stop?”

“A nice cup of tea,” Mary Ayer said. “Have you noticed how much better tea is here than in the US? I’d completely forgotten.”

“I have noticed,” Em said. “We have time for a cup of tea before heading back to the hotel. We’ll change and be back here at dusk.”

“Our adventure begins with a cup of tea.” Mary Ayer grinned at Em.

Em glanced at her and smiled before driving to the locals tea shop.

“What did the statue say to you?” Mary Ayer asked Em.

They were walking along a ledge on the cliffs above the elders’ cave. Em took a few steps and turned into a shallow alcove in the rock wall. She set down the heavy duffle bag she’d been carrying.

“The statue?” Em asked to stall for time.

She unzipped the duffle bag, and Mary Ayer bent over to start putting on her gear.

“In Laos,” Mary Ayer said.

“Well. . .” Em said. Mary Ayer looked up at her. “It was weird.”

“’Weird’ is a word for it,” Mary Ayer said with a grin.

“What did he tell you?” Em asked and dropped to a crouch.

She grabbed a thick sweater and handed it to Mary Ayer.

“You think we’ll need this?” Mary Ayer asked.

“It’s a cave,” Em said. “Cold and wet. I was freezing the entire time I was there last time.”

Mary Ayer nodded and began dressing. Her head had just popped through the hole of the pullover sweater when she grunted.

“You’re always like this,” Mary Ayer said as she threaded her arms through the sleeves of the sweater. “Why can’t you tell me first?”

“If I’m always like this, then you should be used to me,” Em said.

Mary Ayer laughed.

“I’ve always been this way, Mary,” Em said. “I hold my cards very close to my chest. It used to drive my mother crazy. She could never find the meaning for it.”

“Just the way you are,” Mary Ayer said with a nod. “Let’s see. . .”

Mary Ayer looked off at the sea.

“First he said — I mean I heard it in my head, of course — that I serve the world best when I am helping other people,” Mary Ayer said. “I made the decision right there to make certain you took me with you to Orkney. I thanked him for his wisdom; then, just as I was leaving, he said. . .”

Mary Ayer turned to look at Em.

“What did he say?” Em asked. She held out a headlamp to Mary Ayer, who scowled at the light. “It’s better to be able to see than to have perfect hair. After all, who is going to look at us? Certainly not anyone living.”

Nodding, Mary Ayer took the headlamp.

“The statue then said that I must be willing to give up my life for yours,” Mary Ayer said. “He said my life was against the order of nature. I said something like, ‘You’re one to talk.’ I heard him chuckle. When I was outside, he said in my head, ‘Willingness to let go will be the only thing that will save you in the end.’”

“He said something like that to George and to Alice,” Em said as she pulled a balaclava over her head. “Definitely weird.”

“Yes, it was, but he said something like it to most of us,” Mary Ayer said. She grabbed a thick, handknit hat from the duffle bag and then asked, “Do I need anything else?”

“Knife,” Em said. “They’re in the side pocket. You sure you don’t mind carrying the backpack?”

“Not at all,” Mary Ayer said.

“We leave our phones here,” Em said. “All electronic gear.”

Mary Ayer nodded. She dropped down to the duffle bag. Em gave Mary Ayer her phone. Mary Ayer put her phone in the bag next to Em’s.

“I think we’re ready,” Em said.

“Except you were going to tell me what the statue said,” Mary Ayer said.

Em sighed and looked up at the stars.

“What could be so bad?” Mary Ayer asked.

“I’m not sure what it means,” Em said.

“Tell me, and maybe I can research it when I’m down there,” Mary Ayer said with a nod.

“Fair enough,” Em said. “First, he greeted me as if we’d known each other a long time or possibly were the same kin. . .”

“You think he is?” Mary Ayer asked.

“Possibly,” Em said with a shrug. “Then, he said what Argos the Kind said when I was in the cave.”

“‘You were the destroyer and the savior, the future and the past’?” Mary Ayer asked.

“Great memory,” Em said with a smile. “Yes, that’s what he said. I don’t think I could have come up with the exact words.”

“I reviewed all of my notes this morning before we came,” Mary Ayer said. She leaned in. “I seem fierce, but really, I’m terrified.”

“I know,” Em said.

“I know you know,” Mary Ayer said with a smile. “Okay, what else did he say?”

“He said that the coming battle would require all of my resources,” Em said.

“He specifically said, ‘coming battle’?” Mary Ayer asked.

“Yes,” Em said.

“That’s not so strange,” Mary Ayer said.

“It’s what he said next,” Em said. Mary Ayer gestured for her to continue speaking. “He said to follow my heart and my intuition. Even if they seem to lead to the ruin of everyone, my heart was pure and my intuition true.”

“Wow,” Mary Ayer said.

“Then he said, and I quote, ‘Do not be swayed by the opinions and words of others.
You
are the only one who
can
see the truth.’”

“I see what you mean,” Mary Ayer said. “He said that only you are
capable
of seeing the truth.”

“Right,” Em said.

“Do you think he meant that you’re the only one who
will
see the truth?” Mary Ayer said.

“No,” Em said. “I think he meant that I have to see the truth first before anyone else can see it.”

“Sure,” Mary Ayer said with a nod. “Other people will see the truth after you’ve seen it.”

“I asked him how I could see the truth,” Em said. “And he repeated that I should follow my heart and intuition. So it’s kind of circular.”

Mary Ayer shook her head.

“I asked everyone what he’d said to them,” Em said.

“And?” Mary Ayer asked.

“They mostly make sense,” Em said.

“Oh, I see what you’re saying,” Mary Ayer said. “When you add what he said to you to what he said to everyone else, none of it makes sense.”

Em nodded.

“What’s your intuition say now?” Mary Ayer asked with a grin.

“That we’ve spent too much time up here,” Em said. “We need to get moving.”

Mary Ayer looked around to see if anyone was coming. Even in the dark, they could see miles in every direction.

“No one is coming,” Mary Ayer said.

“It’s not who’s coming that’s the problem,” Em said. “Ready?”

“I. . .” Mary Ayer said.

Em grabbed her friend and willed them into the community cave at the entrance of the interior elders’ cave. Like she had with her father, they landed on the thin shelf, covered by the cave roof and open to the sea on one side. Mary Ayer squelched a startled scream, and Em stepped back from her. She walked to the six-foot ocean channel that separated them from the entrance to the cave.

“I tried to use love to get into the community cave,” Em said. “This is clearly the entrance.”

“Aren’t you afraid to awaken the beast?” Mary Ayer asked.

“I have a feeling that I should see it again,” Em said.

“Great goodness, why?” Mary Ayer asked in horror.

“I looked up the serpent when I was in the library,” Em said. “My father and Weni told me they’d never seen it before.”

“What was it?” Mary Ayer asked.

“I’m not sure,” Em said. “There wasn’t anything in the library about this creature. Then I saw this old map — Olaus Magnus’s Carta Marina of 1572, to be exact. It had a drawing of this serpent off the coast of Norway.”

“Very near here,” Mary Ayer observed.

“Exactly, and the serpent looked exactly like the creature who attacked us here,” Em said. “Down to the very last detail.”

“What does that mean?” Mary Ayer asked.

“No idea,” Em said. “Since my father and Weni had never seen it, I wondered if I had called it.”

“You?” Mary Ayer asked.

“It was my foot that went into the canal,” Em said with a nod. “It was about to catch my foot when my father knocked me over.”

“But why would you. . . I mean, it. . .”

“I think it wants to talk to me,” Em said. She held her arm out.

“Talk to you?” Mary Ayer asked.

“If it doesn’t work, just send it on its way,” Em said. “My father did it with a ‘Be Gone’ spell.”

Em looked up at Mary Ayer. Her friend looked cold and terrified. Mary Ayer bit her lip and nodded.

“You are a brave woman,” Em said. “Now, stand back.”

Mary Ayer scooted away from Em.

“Farther,” Em said.

“I won’t be able to hear,” Mary Ayer said.

“Listening spell,” Em said with a touch of impatience.

“Oh, good idea,” Mary Ayer brightened. She scooted to the edge of the shelf.

“Here goes nothing,” Em said.

She stuck her hand into the ocean channel that separated the shelf from the community cave. She barely had time to take a breath before the creature with razor-sharp teeth, a long, serpent-like snout, and an enormous snake-like body flew out of the water. This time, the creature made no effort to take hold of her. He simply looked at her and then gestured to Mary Ayer.

“What is that?” the creature asked.

“She is my friend.” Em swallowed back her terror. “My family.”

The serpent stretched out over her head toward Mary Ayer. Em watched in horror as he stretched more than nine feet without his tail leaving the water.

“Don’t move!” Em yelled.

“I couldn’t if I wanted to!” Mary Ayer said.

Mary Ayer screwed closed her eyes and clutched her hands to her chest. Her body shook from head to toe. The serpent’s nostrils flared, and a great
“whoosh”
sound echoed off the cave roof. The ocean rose and fell seemingly under the control of the sea snake’s breath.

“You are a good person, Mary Ayer Parker,” the serpent said in a voice so deep that the very sound of it held the quality of an earthquake. “I will allow you to live.”

“What did it say?” Mary Ayer screamed.

The serpent’s head turned toward Em. She was standing at the ready.

“It said you were a good person and that it would allow you to live,” Em yelled over the ocean waves.

“Good to know,” Mary Ayer yelled back. “Thanks, scary monster!”

“Are they all like this one?” the serpent asked.

“They?” Em asked.

“Your abominations,” the serpent said with such a boom that the cave shook.

“Yes,” Em said. “Kind, loving, generous people who strive to be good.”

The serpent seemed to smile. His head seemed to nod in approval.

“Sir,” Em said. “Why are you here?”

“You
are
different,” the serpent said.

“The last person who said that was a. . .”

“Demon,” the serpent said. “Yes, he was.”

Em felt an overwhelming sense of futility. She was tired of being afraid, and she’d been terrified for months. While the other witches were enjoying a renewal of their lives, Em had been working to prepare for the coming demon war and all that it would entail.

“Agh!” Em yelled in frustration. “What do you want from me?”

The serpent seemed to laugh. Em snapped her fingers, and she was holding a sword known to have killed many serpents.

“I will chop your head off,” Em said with a growl.

“Be calm,” the serpent said, seeing the sword. It gave the sword a respectful look and moved back. “There’s no need for that.”

“I am not Eve,” Em said. “I am not a young, naïve girl to be trifled with.”

“No, you are a ‘gospel woman,’” the serpent said with a hiss. “‘Martha of Truth.’”

“I demand that you tell me the truth, serpent,” Em said.

The serpent stared at her for what felt like an eternity. The waves crashed against the small, rocky shelf. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a wave drench Mary Ayer with bone-chilling sea water.

“Do you know the truth, Martha?” the serpent asked.

“I know it when I hear it,” Em said.

“Yes, only you know what is true,” the serpent said.

The serpent began to slip back into the water.

“I demand that you tell me the truth!” Em yelled.

The serpent stopped moving. He was so still that Em thought he might have been turned into a statue.

“You cannot go inside,” the serpent said finally.

“Why?” Em asked.

“You are blocked from them,” the serpent said.

“Why?” Em asked. She brandished the sword, and the serpent moved back. “Tell me why!”

“It’s not for me to tell,” the serpent said. “You are allowed to speak with. . .”

“My father?” Em’s words echoed with more longing and sorrow than she would have liked to give away.

“Your father can be returned to you, Martha of Truth,” the serpent said. “But not today. You are allowed only what you can claim.”