A Witch's Feast (18 page)

“You were close with your dad, and then when he was arrested—”

Fiona’s throat tightened. “This has nothing to do with that. And I told you I never wanted to talk about it.” It wasn’t his arrest that haunted her nightmares. It was what she’d seen before, when she walked home along the beach. She shut her eyes, trying to clear the memory. “Anyway, Alan is going to meet us in five minutes, so we’re committed now.”
 

Through the open window, a floral breeze filtered through the curtains. Fiona pulled a hairband off the dresser and yanked her frizzy hair into a ponytail. “And Tobias was being weird again. Skulking around by the river. He’s keeping secrets from us.”
 

Mariana crinkled her brow in disbelief. “You think that because he was hanging out by the river, it means he’s in a cult. Maybe he’s homesick.
I’m
homesick.”
 

“You miss your parents?”

Mariana pulled on her jeans. “I miss my brother. My parents are always busy with work anyway. I spoke to my mom yesterday. She’s psyched that I’m here, but she wasn’t listening to a word I said. She was in Chicago on a business trip, and she kept interrupting me to argue with a cab driver. And Mrs. Ranulf was staring at me through the whole conversation, like she was monitoring me.”

“See? She’s creepy.” She was starting to seem more like a jailer than host.

“What’s her deal with Mellior, anyway?” Mariana squinted her black-rimmed eyes. “Do you think they have a… morally dubious relationship?”

“Well, Mr. Ranulf is never here, and someone’s got to firehose the lady.”
 

“Now
that’s
an image to haunt my nightmares.” Mariana pulled up her hood. “I’m ready to go. Do you want to chant Lady Cleo’s Cloak?”

“Sure.” Fiona exhaled, rattling off the Angelic words. The aura rippled over her skin, giving her gooseflesh a moment before her flesh disappeared.
 

“Do you hear that?” Mariana brushed past Fiona toward the window. The wind carried with it a distant wailing sound, and a banging noise along with it.

“Is that the crypt-prisoner again?” Fiona whispered.

“Sounds like it. Do you think she’s some kind of demon?”

Fiona leaned over the windowsill, listening to the faint howl. The last time the monster had started screaming, Tobias had been conducting a spell by the river. And this time, they had just chanted Lady Cleo’s Cloak. The spells’ magical auras must be drawing her forth, riling her up into a frenzy. “If she’s a demon, that would explain why she started screaming after we used Angelic.”

“And it would explain why she tried to come for us in the cemetery.”

“Maybe that’s what’s tipping off Mrs. Ranulf. That thing in the crypt is like an alarm system for whenever we use magic.”

Mariana crossed her arms. “Do you still want to go up to the attic?”

Fiona frowned. “Since we’re already invisible, we might as well take advantage of it.”
 

 
Mariana tutted, “Okay, let’s go. But if we get caught and thrown in witch jail, I’m blaming everything on you.”
 

The old wooden floor groaned as they crossed the room, and Mariana’s invisible hand turned the knob. She pulled open the bedroom door and stepped into the dark hallway. They tiptoed along a worn rug past Mrs. Ranulf’s room. A floorboard made a loud squeak just outside her door, and Fiona froze, holding her breath. She waited until she was sure no one stirred, and Mariana’s light footsteps continued ahead of her.
 

The hallway opened up onto the swooping staircase. In the center of the second-floor landing, Mariana pulled open a white door into a narrow stairwell leading up to the attic. The walls seemed to be of unfinished wood, and it smelled of damp wool and mothballs. Mariana’s
 
nervous breathing filled the small the space as they climbed. At the top of the stairwell, a door blocked their path. Fiona bumped into Mariana’s back, nearly losing her balance and toppling back down.

“Careful. I’m right here,” Mariana whispered, turning the doorknob. It opened into darkness. “I can’t see anything.”

“Edge in a little bit.” She half expected to find Munroe and Tobias in the center of a candlelit circle, naked and drinking blood from chalices.

“Did you ever memorize the light spell?”
 

“I think so.” Fiona chanted the spell, hovering close to her friend in the doorway. A glowing orb flickered into existence. Its pulsing light illuminated a dusty attic, nearly the length of a ballroom. The low ceiling sloped down at the edges, so that only a very small person could stand up straight near the walls. In the stale air, dust motes hung in the glow around the orb.

Footsteps creaked up the old stairs below. Her breath caught in her throat.
 

“Fiona?” whispered Alan’s voice.

She exhaled as he stepped into the room with them, shutting the door behind him. “Looks like an ordinary attic.”

Fiona surveyed the space. Yellowed muslin hung over the windows that faced out into the garden. Instead of a proper floor, long beams spanned the length of the room, intersected every few feet by joists. The spaces between revealed the plaster ceiling of the second-floor bedrooms. Laid across this framing were planks of varying sizes forming small paths around the attic.
 

Near where they stood, the boards joined together in a sort of pallet, and on top of these boards, dusty fabric-covered furniture and boxes were haphazardly arranged.
 

Fiona tiptoed forward, pausing to wipe away a cobweb caught in her eyelashes. “Well, Munroe wasn’t lying about the floor.”
 

A pathway of floorboards led to a white wall at the far end of the attic. Muslin-draped furniture surrounded an unpainted wooden door in its center.
 

She pointed, forgetting no one could see her hand. “I think we should look behind the door.”
 

“Could be an old maid’s quarters,” said Alan. “One of my ancestors died in a fire in 1899. She was a chambermaid and got trapped in her room on the top floor.”
 

Fiona stepped over the creaky boards to the right until she reached a whitewashed crib carved with images of animals. Peering over the crib’s edge, she grimaced at the sight of a black doll with bulging white eyes. It grinned up at her. She held it up. “What is this thing?”
 

A shock of gray wool stood out from its round head, and a red bowtie nestled under its chin.

“It’s a golliwog,” said Alan from her side. “Racist children’s toys from a hundred years ago.”

She frowned. “Charming.”
 

A board rattled as Alan shuffled away, and she peered into an open box of moldering teddy bears to the right of the crib. Next to the box, a miniature merry-go-round lay on its side along with a wheeled dog on a pull string. At the other end of the attic, someone jostled the doorknob to the maid’s quarters.

“It’s locked,” Mariana’s voice called out.
 

An invisible hand pulled a sheet from a six-foot-tall piece of furniture. “What the hell is that?” asked Alan.
 

Fiona moved along a plank toward the white wall to get a closer look. The sheet had concealed a glass case resting on a dark wood stand. Within the case, a blank-eyed sailor puppet sat on a small wooden stool, his pasty face bisected by a red-lipped grin. The plaque above it read
Jolly Jasper.
A candy-striped lever jutted from the side.
 

“This isn’t really the kind of sinister thing we’re looking for,” said Mariana. “I mean, it’s creepy, but…”

A plank clattered as Fiona moved closer to Jolly Jasper.
It’ll be a miracle if no one hears us, but at least no one can see us.
Where the path of planks ended, she had to step on the joists to get to the puppet.

“There’s a lever,” said Alan. “A lever got us into the secret room in Mather.”

“Try it,” whispered Fiona.
 

An unseen hand depressed it. As soon as it did, Jasper’s mechanical body emitted a loud, mirthless cackle, jerking forward and backward.
 

Crap.
 

Someone jumped back, bumping into Fiona, who lost her balance.
 

“Sorry!” blurted Mariana.

Fiona’s arms whirled. For a moment her body was suspended in air, until her feet plunged through the plaster ceiling. She was barely able to grab a nearby joist to prevent herself from falling completely through. Below her, a female voice shrieked as Fiona’s legs flailed in the air.

“You okay, Fiona?” Alan grabbled around for her shoulder.

She groaned. “I’m fine. I guess this is why the attic’s off limits.” Jolly Jasper continued to roar with mechanical laughter. “Can you pull me up? We need to get out of here. Like, now.”
 

She heard a faint creaking noise through the puppet’s tinny, maniacal cackle. Her stomach turned.
Is someone opening the door?

Alan leaned down and gripped Fiona under the shoulders, hoisting her up onto a plank. The broken ceiling scratched her skin. She straightened, her legs trembling. On her feet again, she steadied herself. She stared in horror as someone pulled open the attic door—but there was no one there. Had an invisible Tobias come to spy on them?

“What’s happening?” Alan whispered almost inaudibly.
 

Footsteps pounded up the stairs, and Fiona’s muscles went rigid. As quietly as she could, she whispered a spell to snuff the light, plunging the room into darkness.
 

Two guards stepped into the attic, one holding a flashlight. It was the pale behemoth and a smaller man with blond hair. She might be invisible, but Fiona’s heart pounded so hard she was sure they could hear it. Behind the two guards, a feminine form lingered in the doorway
.
The flashlight’s glare lingered on the bellowing puppet, still twitching as he laughed.
 

“You think someone’s still in here?” Mrs. Ranulf pushed between the two men into the light. She wore a silky green bathrobe and combed her hair with her fingers, tidying it.
 

 
The blond’s flashlight darted around the room. “I saw the door open on its own. The witch must have hidden itself with magic.”

That meant Tobias must be in here, too. He
was
the one who’d opened the door.
 

Mrs. Ranulf prowled further into the room, and the guards shuffled behind her. Fiona shoved away her panic, trying to come up with a plan. They needed to sneak out past the guards, and through the open door.
But how are we going to get past them without rattling the floorboards?

Mrs. Ranulf pushed a curl out of her eyes. “I have the revealing dust.”
 

Fiona’s heart leapt into her throat.
What is revealing dust?
Before she had the chance to find out, she felt a strong pair of arms around her back and behind her knees. Someone lifted her up as if she were as light as a dandelion puff.
Is it Alan?
She wrapped her arms around his warm neck as he crept silently along the boards.
How is he doing this so quietly?
She inhaled and smelled a familiar vernal scent, mixed with burned oak.
Tobias.

So he wasn’t with the Purgators. It was all a mistake. This was just an attic; Tobias had nothing to do with the cult. Fiona had only poked the sleeping beast.
Mariana was right. And I’m an idiot for pushing us into this.
She dug her nails into her palms.
What’s wrong with me?

On the other side of the attic, a plank rattled, followed by a crashing noise. Fiona cringed, tightening her grip on Tobias’s neck.
Either Alan or Mariana just fell through the floor.
 

 
While Tobias silently slipped past the guards, Mrs. Ranulf pulled a small vial out of her bathrobe, stalking toward the sound of the splintering ceiling. She popped the cork and pointed. “There.”
 

Tobias gently put Fiona down just outside the attic door, standing by her side. She turned back to watch Mrs. Ranulf hold up a handful of the red powder. The witch-huntress blew into her hand, and a puff of sparkling red powder erupted into the air. It coated everything within a six-foot radius—including Mariana, her foot stuck through the ceiling. When the dust touched her skin, she unleashed an agonized shriek. The sound pierced Fiona’s heart. There was no way out of this, and it was all her fault.
 

 
Mariana continued to scream. Mrs. Ranulf shot a mournful glance to the behemoth, the face of a reluctant martyr. “Cleanse the rest of the attic. The witch must go to the holding cell.”
 

The blond guard grabbed Mariana by the arms, and Fiona felt Tobias brush her skin as he rushed back onto the planks. But his path was blocked. The behemoth held up a chalice, chanting in Latin.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immunde spiritus, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii.”
As quickly as Tobias had rushed out, he stumbled back into her, nearly knocking her down the stairs. His body was shaking, repelled by the spell. The guard continued,
“In nomini et virtute Domini nostri Blodrial.”