Four and Twenty Blackbirds (24 page)

"This church is four hundred years old?" I asked, disliking the quiet clip of our feet down the empty corridor. At least I prayed it was empty. Merely knowing its age made me want to close my eyes and be led through it. I'd seen enough ghosts for one evening.

"What? Oh, well, not really. Well, part of it is. The original structure was built not long after the Castillo, but it burned a time or two and was put together again. But back here, where the housing is—most of it is original. This was a mission, you see."

"It's bigger than it looks outside."

"Oh yes, yes it is. Quite large. We're backed up against the sea wall, sort of. You only see the very front from the street. Come this way—the kitchen is over here."

The kitchen was enormous. Its ceiling must have cleared twelve feet, and the interior appeared to have been cut from one single block of rough, light stone. A large, half-oval niche in the wall staked out a fireplace so expansive that it could have cooked my car, and the floors were flat stones held together with a brownish grout. Elderly appliances, not one of which could have digitally displayed the time, sat against the walls and on the counters. The most advanced piece of equipment I saw was an avocado green coffeemaker next to a chipped porcelain sink filled with empty white mugs.

In short, it looked
exactly
like it had been built four hundred years ago and was remodeled in the 1930s.

Marcus lit a burner on the gas stove and filled a teapot, setting it atop the flame. "Hold on a moment," he said, setting two mugs down before us on the table beside the old fireplace. "Let me go get the papers. It's very exciting. I think we might have a lead!"

With that, he skipped from the room, returning just in time to pull the kettle. While we waited for our tea to steep and fiddled with the sugar, Marcus removed the contents of a manila envelope and carefully laid them out before us.

"Here we are," he squeaked. "You're not going to believe this. We wouldn't have found it at all, except for the courthouse in Sebring has put all its records into a computer. We sent out feelers as far south as the Everglades, and a lucky thing we did. Look here." He withdrew a black-and-white photocopy and set it between me and Harry. "I think we found them, I really think we did."

The copy was not a very good or clear one, but it was sufficient. What we saw before us was a deed made out to Avery Dufresne. The exact location of the property was listed as a set of numbers I didn't understand.

Marcus was more than happy to clarify. "It's out there near Sebring, in the middle of the swamp where they've put the state park. Whoever is trying to raise John Gray may be there yet. This is just one acre in the middle of nowhere, on what's technically government land. But it's mostly dense cypress swamp that's virtually unnavigable. I'll bet they could safely hide several people there—maybe even a small coven."

I fiddled with the photocopy, staring down at the formal scrawl of Avery's name which had surely been put there by a bored public official. No, it was not Avery's hand. Down below, on the line marked for a signature, there was a large solid
X
.

"He couldn't read or write," I said, though to hear it aloud was strange.

Marcus shook his head. "He could read some, at least. And there's some evidence he may have learned to write later on. It's hard to do research on much of anything if you're illiterate, and from what we can tell, this man did
loads
of research."

"Research?" I pulled the second sheet of paper out from underneath the first. My hands were shaking and it was almost hard to read but I forced my fingers still and stared at the page. "What was he trying to research?"

"Eternal life," Marcus breathed. "Some seek it through God, others take a less reputable path. Avery was trying to re-create a potion that John Gray had told him about, but some of the ingredients he needed are hard to get your hands on this far from the Congo."

"The Congo?"

"Well, I don't know if it was the Congo, exactly, but you understand what I mean. To work the magic, he needed a wide assortment of plants and animal viscera. Since it was an African recipe, some of the ingredients were tough to come by, and Avery had to resort to some substitutions. I think he headed south seeking a comparable climate in hopes that the flora and fauna might be similar to what he required. If it weren't for the fact that Mae wouldn't go, I've often thought Avery might have found his way back to the Dark Continent."

"Not a bad theory," I admitted, scanning the second document. "But I can imagine that the recipe would have to be quite specific. What's this one? Is it the birth certificate you mentioned?"

Marcus hesitated. "Yes. I mean no. Something like that. That record is mostly interesting because it tells us that he still had at least his wife with him for a while after he came here. She was pregnant, and she had a difficult labor. Avery took her out of the swamp and to the nearest church a few miles away. The nuns cared for her, and this is a record of their visit. They paid for her medical care with three white chickens. This is the receipt, with a note of explanation."

"There was a child?" Harry took the paper from me and read it for himself. "I didn't know there was a child. Was it a boy or a girl?"

"It doesn't say." Marcus shrugged. "What does it matter?"

"What if that child was the beginning of the coven that's at work now? Hey, what if . . . well, what year was this—here it is. 1898. This child would be about Eliza's age, were he still alive. Do you think this guy might be Eliza's contact down here? It would certainly make sense, they would be what—cousins? Something like that."

"That's a reasonable thought," Marcus agreed.

I'd only barely heard them talking, and I didn't realize that Harry was asking the question of me. He repeated it, and I still didn't answer. "Eden, do you think this child might be Eliza's pen pal?"

I said, mostly to myself, "It was a girl."

Both men offered me blank, perplexed stares. "How on earth do you know that?" Harry asked, his eyes scanning the paper again. "It doesn't say that on here. It only says that the woman gave birth."

"It was a girl," I insisted quietly. "And they named her Miabella."

They went quiet. "How do you know?"

"She was his pretty one. That's Italian, though, isn't it? I wonder where he heard it."

I stood and went to the teapot Marcus had set back on the cool burner, looking more to avoid them than to pour another cup. They let me stand without protest, but talked behind me in lower tones as if I'd left the room or I couldn't hear them.

"Harry, is she—I mean, is Eden—is she like the rest of them?"

"I think so. If she says it was a girl, we may as well believe her."

"But a name? I don't see how she . . . unless she's considerably stronger than the rest of them, I don't see how she could possibly know that. Even the other one, the girl on the other side of the family—the poor little thing who died . . ."

"I don't think it's just that she's stronger. I think it's more than that. I think . . . no, I'm not sure enough to say it."

"Say it anyway."

"If this girl, Miabella, is still there and in contact with Eliza, then maybe—"

Without turning around, I cut him off. I rallied every ounce of energy I had remaining and shaped it into my next words, trying to sound ordinary. Trying to sound rational and confident. Not altogether failing, but not succeeding as well as I would have liked, either.

"It's not her. Whoever it is that's been sending mysterious potions to my batty old aunt, it's not that baby. She's dead. She's been dead for years." I reached for the teapot, but when I extended my hands they were badly quivering, so I pulled them back and crossed them against my chest. I stayed there, facing the stove, probably looking somewhat stupid to the two men behind me.

"Eden, are you all right?" Harry asked it, and I heard a chair scoot away from the table.

"Yes," I lied. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I'm just, I'm just not feeling well. Still. I mean, from sleeping . . . from sleeping in the car. And my stomach was upset anyway when we started."

"Would you like to go lie down?" Marcus's voice.

Behind him I heard Harry whisper a sentence or two that contained the word "poisoned." Oh yes, the draught of sickly drink. Now that they mentioned it, I
had
felt strange ever since first I sipped it. Somehow I managed to disagree, though I didn't care enough to argue. Eliza's brew was no poison. It was something more . . . helpful. I hoped.

"Would you like to lie down?" Marcus asked again.

This time I nodded. "I would, yes. I think that would be good."

Miabella.

"Yes?" It was my own voice. Who was calling? And who was I to answer?

Miabella.

"Yes."

Harry joined in. "Eden?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm all right." But I wasn't, not really. My hands, crossed against my chest. I held them out before me to watch them shake, and they were not my own. They wavered before me more distant and hazy than any oasis. And they were covered with blood.

"Harry?" I said in barely a whisper. "Harry?"

He was beside me then, an arm around my shoulders.

My hands were not my own.

They were covered in blood.

I swung around, pressing my crimson-smeared fingers against Harry's chest, but the gore wouldn't wipe away. "Do you see it?" I demanded, holding my palms out for them to inspect. "Do you see? It's his, it's Malachi's. I can tell. It's so close to mine. I can smell it. Tatie's right, there
is
a smell to us. . . . I must have done it—or maybe, maybe I haven't done it yet. Don't you see?"

"See what?" Marcus was baffled and frightened, but he wanted to help. "Is there something wrong with your hands? Give them here."

"Yes, they're—" I looked down at them again, just to make sure. "They're all . . . they're all . . ." The blood remained, and it might have spelled my cousin's name, with such certainty did I know its origin. But how? And why?

Then I saw, in a long, neat line, heads bowed and hands folded together, a string of brown-robed monks file solemnly past the door behind Harry and Marcus. Each man held a strand of red and black beads with which to pray, and every hooded face was pointed toward the stone floor. I counted five, ten, twelve. The thirteenth monk paused in the doorway, lifting his face to stare directly at me. The red and black beads hung limply from his hand, wrapped securely around his knuckles.

You will not make them see.
He said it in Spanish and I understood perfectly, though I could not have explained how.
They are not like us. They call you a witch, but we would have made you a saint for your gift. And it is a gift, though you don't think so now. Your hands are clean, child, for you died blameless in the eyes of God.
He turned away from me then, and rejoined his fellows in line.

When I looked at my hands once more, they
were
as clean as if I'd only just washed them, and even beneath my fingernails there was no trace of red. "I don't understand."

Harry and Marcus still hovered, Harry with his arm nearly supporting me and Marcus fluttering at my side, desperate to be assigned some useful action.

"I'm all right," I said, ducking woozily out of Harry's grasp and swatting at his arm. "Stop grabbing at me. I'm all right. But—but I need to go lie down, or just close my eyes for a while—there's too much, there's too many people here."

"Too many people?" Marcus stood astonished. "You haven't seen a soul except for—"

"Stop it. Don't say it like that." I put my hands over my face and then faced them both again. "You don't understand at all. You understand even less than I do, so I don't know what help you're going to be."

Harry summed it up with one word. "Ghosts?"

"Yes, ghosts. Ghosts, spirits,
souls
. . ." I emphasized the word for Marcus, who was very nearly cowering away from me. "What's the matter?" I asked him. "What is it? Surely you knew; you two seem to know just about everything. You knew that I see ghosts, didn't you?"

"Y-y-y-yes, but I didn't know you could see them . . . here. I mean, we have them here?"

"You're joking! In this city? Has no one ever lived here before, or died here either? You said it was centuries old, do you think there's no trace of that? Good Lord Almighty. They're everywhere."

Across the room a fire blared to life in the stove corner and a large pot appeared, tended by a man who held the iron lid with his hands wrapped in rags. He dropped a long wooden spoon down into the simmering brew and gave it a stir, eyeing me with a half smile. I smelled chicken stock, runny and pungent with curry. I wrinkled my nose.

Yes, it's very strong,
he said in that impossibly lucid Spanish,
but the curry will keep them from tasting that the meat is not so fresh. Will you be staying with us tonight?

"Yes, I'll stay the night. But only the night. In the morning we have to go."

Harry nodded. He and Marcus were both trying to see who I was talking to, but to no avail. "That was the plan all along. I promise, first thing we'll go and find this place, and these people. Then we'll head away in the morning."