Jilo (14 page)

She wanted to be brave, but in truth, she’d never asked for any of this magic. She was frightened, and not only of what she was about to face. Deep down, she knew that she was still scared to death of the magic. Every time she felt it pulsing through her, she wondered if she were drawing herself closer to damnation. The good book said, “Suffer not a witch to live.” Was that what she was? Something dark and evil? Something the good Lord Himself would turn away from?

Yes, she was frightened and, more than that, she was tired. She would have liked nothing better than to walk away from it all. Leave this here earth to those who were fixing to fight over it. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if it all did end for her here. Though it shamed her to even think it, Poppy could help raise her sisters.

Of course, this night could come to a peaceful conclusion. Maybe in an hour or so, she’d be back home with her babies. But was that really what she wanted? Didn’t a part of her hope things would go awry tonight? Wasn’t that what had truly pulled her from her home on Christmas night? Certainly she must have considered this confrontation might bring her to her own deliverance.

Even if she survived whatever evil was destroying the church, she could end it herself. Not rely on these fools. Reuben’s old razor. It was still packed away at the house. She could turn around. Go home right now and unpack it. One quick slice across her throat was all it would take.

May stopped dead in her tracks. These were not her thoughts. These thoughts were coming from outside of her, playing on her weaknesses. The voice of the White King. Seducing her with the promise of an easy rest. No, she was not going to let his malfeasance take root in her soul. She shook her head. “Not me, you old devil. Your brother might get me. Hell, he’s waiting for me just around the corner, but you ain’t ever gonna get May.”

She crept out of the graveyard to where she could witness the fire’s devastation. A group of men milled around in the hellish glow of the flames. She could hear them talking, but their voices were muted by the roar of the fire that was destroying the wood-frame church. Then the steeple tilted and fell, eliciting a powerful roar from those who had set the building alight. She approached them, unnoticed, from behind. Their attention was fixed on their handiwork. They stood there, not wearing the white robes she had expected to see, their faces not hidden by the pointed hoods. No. They stood out there in the open for all the world to see. Proud of themselves. Proud to be performing their civic duty. Jones was on his knees, one hand pressed against a wound on his head, staring up at the destruction with horror in his eyes.

The heat of the blaze beat back the cold of the black night. It would’ve felt pleasant had the fire not been the flames of hell.

One of the men looked back and noticed her arrival. “Well, who do we have here?” he called out, causing his fellows to turn.

She stretched herself to her full height and swallowed before speaking, praying her voice would not crack. “I’ve come for the preacher.” She strode up to them, trying to look confident, trying to act like she was in charge of the situation. She held out her hand to Jones.

He looked up at her through his one good eye, the other having swollen shut from the abuse these monsters had dealt to him. He waved her back with a bloodied hand. “Go. Go on. Get out of here.”

“No, sir,” May responded, walking up to him, taking his sticky hand in hers. “I ain’t leaving here without you.”

The reverberation of a gunshot caused May to jump, despite her determination to appear calm. A fat man with a rifle ambled up toward them, the other men parting to let him through. “Just who the hell do you think you are sticking your black nose in where it don’t belong?”

May released the pastor’s hand. She would try to solve this peaceably. Find a way to reason with these people. Yes, the church was lost, but it could be rebuilt. They’d hurt Jones, but he would heal. She would heal him. If she could get these men to let them go willingly, she could prevent any more bloodshed. But before she could respond, another spoke for her.

“Good heavens, Bobby. You mean to tell me you don’t recognize the great Mother Wills?” Sterling Maguire walked around the fat man and pulled the rifle from his grasp, breaking open the barrel and removing the remaining shell. May gaped in amazement. Sterling pushed the shell into this Bobby’s shirt pocket and handed the rifle back to him. “Y’all are done here now. You can go.”

Another man stepped forward and pointed down at Jones. “Come on, Mr. Maguire. You promised us a little fun with that one.” He pushed past Maguire and grabbed the pastor by the collar.

Maguire turned on this one, and the flames of the disintegrating church could not begin to match the fire in his eyes. “I said y’all are done here. Now go.” The man holding Jones seemed to know he’d overstepped. He released Jones without another word of protest.

The other men milled around, grumbling, but they left as they’d been ordered.

As the last of the men made his way beyond the fire’s glow, Sterling drew near May. Her eyes forced her to think of this man as the younger Maguire, though she knew for a fact it was the father walking around in the son’s skin. Same old hate in a different package. “Long time no see, huh, May?” For reasons May could not begin to imagine, Sterling began to undo his tie. He undid the knot, then pulled it out from under his collar and flung it to the ground. Then his fingers went to his shirt and began unbuttoning.

“Whatever the hell you think you’re doin’, you better stop it right now,” May raised her hands, fingers pointed toward each other as a ball of blue lightning, the largest she’d ever mustered, formed there, ready and waiting to be launched. She guessed it’d burn a hole clean through a normal man, but this servant of the Red King, with his monstrous living tattoos, well, she hoped it would at least buy her enough time to get Jones to Henry’s truck and get back to her house.

“My, my, my, how you have grown, my girl,” Maguire said. “You’ve been practicing.” He stopped for a moment, but then resumed what he was doing. “I, too, have seen many changes since we last met.” He shrugged off his shirt, and May prepared herself for the demonical sight of his markings. But they were gone, and his pasty white skin was now a clear canvas. He drew closer, presenting himself for inspection.

“Who did you kill? What child did you offer to your demon for this?”

Maguire leaned back, clasping his hands before him. “Ah, May, can’t you tell the world is changing?” He paused. “No. Not changing. Returning to the normal, rightful order. Sanity is being restored.” He released his clasp and shook his head. “Not a single little one was harmed for this miracle, although I would’ve gladly commissioned a new slaughter of the innocents for it. No, I no longer have any need of the Red King’s crumbs. There is magic out there, the likes of which neither you nor I ever imagined. We, you and I, your mother and I.” His eyes widened. “Your grandmother and I. And hell, even her mother before that. Honestly, girl,” he said with a chuckle, “I’ve done lost track of how far back we go. Over the years, we have been slinging pebbles at each other with home-crafted slingshots. Our magic has been like the power of steam. But there are those out there with the power of lightning. The power of the very void from which existence sprang. The power . . .”

“The power of devils,” Pastor Jones surprised May by speaking.

Maguire stepped forward and used the sole of his foot to push the battered man from his knees, causing him to land on his side. “The power of
gods
,” he said, then spat on the minister. Maguire looked at the pastor as if he’d like nothing better than to gut him, but his expression smoothed over in the next instant.

“The old order is returning,” he said, turning toward May. “As soon as tomorrow. And when it does, there will be a need for men like me. There are those who recognize that need, and they’re the ones who did this for me.” He waved his hands before himself. “Old
lines
are being redrawn. Old ways renewed.” He took another step closer, and May prepared to aim her shot, but Maguire reached out and placed one hand above and the other below the ball of energy she’d been cradling. He brought his hands together, and though his face contorted in pain, he squeezed the ball tighter and tighter until it collapsed and went dark. May stumbled back, feeling all her energy fail her. When she raised her arms, it was not in attack, but in surrender.

Pastor Jones pushed himself back up to his knees and made a failed attempt to rise to his feet. “Do what you need to do with me, but this woman is innocent. Just let her go.”

Sterling went to the preacher’s side and squatted down beside him. “Oh, Pastor. Don’t fool yourself. No one who knows that kind of power is innocent. And”—he held a hand out to Jones—“don’t be so quick to assume this is about you.” The pastor slapped away the white man’s hand.

“Fine,” Sterling said, rising, “have it your way.”

A movement some yards away caught May’s eye, and her heart fell at the sight of Henry stepping out of the shadows. The last thing she needed was for him to get mixed up in her struggles with Maguire.

“I told you to stay put,” she said, anger punctuating each word. Henry came forward and helped the pastor up.

“And I told him to come along,” Maguire said. The dance of the wicked flames turned Sterling’s lopsided sneer into a demon’s mask. “You can get on home now, boy,” he said, giving Henry a rough shove. “Your work here’s done.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wills,” Henry called out. “I’m sorry,” he said again, even though he was already leading the pastor away from them. “I didn’t want to do it, but he said he’d kill my little sister if I didn’t get you out here. He said he’d feed her to the devil. He promised he wouldn’t hurt you if I did bring you.”

“Go on, boy.” Sterling said, miming a pistol with his hand and aiming it between Henry’s eyes. “I ain’t gonna tell you again to move.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry dared again before turning. May watched the boy and the pastor disappear into the darkened cemetery.

Maguire let loose a deep laugh. “How the boy exaggerates. Not
the
devil. Just
a
devil. My old friend Barron. You remember him, don’t you?” He reached for her, moving too quickly for her to avoid his touch. He caught her arm in his grasp, tightening, tightening, until the pain drove May to her knees. “You know, May, it’s funny how the world can change in an instant. Not so long ago that demon, that old genie in a bottle of mine, was my most prized possession on this earth. Now, he’s completely superfluous to my existence. Just like you and your seed.” He knelt before her without ever relinquishing his grip. “So today is his Emancipation Day.” He nodded, his eyes opening wide in parody of her own horror. “That’s right, May. I just let him go. I let him go right outside your sweet little quarters.”

He released her and stood. “Tell me. Just how fast can you run?”

May forced her way to her feet and began struggling across the gravel drive that separated the glowing remains of the church from its cemetery.

“Call to your Beekeeper, woman,” Maguire shouted after her. With each step May was doing just that. But she felt nothing. No response. “Call to her.” His mania overtook him, and his voice rose in pitch, following her as if he were shouting directly into her ear.

In the dark, in her panic, she tripped over a low stone and landed on the ground, scraping her hands and knees.

Maybe
, she wondered for the first time ever,
the White King could be right
.

SEVENTEEN

None of this made any sense at all to Poppy. She and Henry had been writing each other since the day she got to Charlotte, and with each letter he seemed to grow more and more determined to have her hand in marriage. She’d always been in love with him, she figured, only it had taken leaving Savannah for her to realize it. Every time a boy came calling for her in Charlotte, she would find herself thinking “Henry’s taller,” or “Henry’s smarter,” or “Henry’s more handsome.” Maybe “Henry always makes me laugh” was what had finally tilted the scale of her heart, convincing her that she belonged with Henry. That her heart belonged to Henry.

So when she heard his voice by the front door, Poppy had felt sure he’d come to ask Nana for her hand. The last thing she’d expected was for Nana to go off with him. Hug him, maybe. Scream at him, more likely. But instead the two had flown the coop, heading out to who knows where.

It was growing colder. Much colder. After buttoning up her cardigan, she turned her focus to the woodstove. Nana kept a mitt hanging from a hook on the wall, so she slipped the enormous padded glove over her right hand and grabbed the fire poker with her left.

She knelt beside the stove and turned the handle on its side door. The wood beneath had burned to nothing but glowing red coals. She pierced them with the poker, giving everything a good shake until the logs on the top of the pyre fell to the bottom, popping and shooting sparks. Something about the sparks fascinated her. They felt like little eyes peering out from the smoke. She shuddered, then laughed at her own silliness. Working quickly, she leaned the poker against the wall, pushed another split log into the stove, and closed the door before any more smoke could spill out into the room. Coughing, she waved her gloved hand before her face to dissipate the smoke. She stood and returned the mitt to its holder. And then she froze.

Poppy knew she was just letting her nerves run away from her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching. She looked over her shoulder and then turned all the way around. She could see she was alone in the room. Her eyes fell on the windows. The curtains had been pulled tight. Certainly no one could be peeping. She made her way to the house’s front window and pulled the drape aside, looking in the direction the truck had gone, hoping to see its cockeyed headlights pointing her way, but the overhead light was still on. In the glare, her own reflection and the image of the room behind her was all that she could see. She leaned in, nearly pressing her face to the glass, but the world outside was still hidden by her own features.

Though Poppy had promised her nana she wouldn’t worry, she couldn’t help it. She recognized this feeling for what it was. There was magic in the air, and it made her queasy. She loved her nana, but she couldn’t wait to escape back to Charlotte, where she could just be a simple working girl, a seamstress, not Mother Wills’s granddaughter.

She and Henry had made a plan. They were going to marry, and he was going to join her in Charlotte. They’d leave Savannah and its ghosts and magic behind. Lead a normal life. She felt a smile come to her lips. Soon she wasn’t going to be a Wills girl at all. She was gonna be Poppy Cook. Mrs. Henry Cook.

She would miss her nana. She would always love her, but a part of her could never forgive her for getting messed up in such dark forces. Poppy worried about her younger sisters. She felt guilty about leaving them trapped in Nana’s odd world. Maybe after she and Henry got settled, they could send for Jilo and Binah. But what if she and Henry started having their own children right from the get-go? Would Henry want to take responsibility for a brood?

In the distance she heard a rumble, a sound she recognized as Henry’s truck. Her shoulders relaxed, and she only then realized she’d been holding her breath. Poppy pulled open the front door, a lingering sense of disquiet prompting her to leave it gaping wide in spite of the night’s chill. She eased the screen door forward so its protest wouldn’t wake the little ones. She stepped out onto the porch, drawing her arms around herself to fend off the cold. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Here, without the glare of the electric light blinding her, she could make out the approaching truck pulling onto the tracks that ran up to the house. The one headlight seemed permanently aimed at heaven, but the other sputtered to life and lit the ground. Poppy was surprised to find the house surrounded by a dense, low-lying fog. Thick, dirty billows had turned it into a virtual island.

Henry pulled the truck up before her, stopping nearly on top of the bottom step, but he didn’t kill the engine. Poppy did not see her nana with him. He banged his shoulder into the driver’s door until it popped nearly halfway open.

“Where is Nana?” she asked, her stomach falling into her shoes as she ran down the steps to greet him.

“Don’t worry about that now,” Henry said, pressing her back with such force she nearly stumbled backward onto the stairs. “Get the girls. We gotta get out of here.”

Poppy dug in her heels. “What is wrong? You tell me where Nana is, or I ain’t taking another step,” she said, although her eyes remained fixed on the fog. It began to glow.

“What . . .” she said, pointing down, but a sound cut her off. A roar, filled with violence and hunger. She grasped Henry’s hand. Tried to step backward. To pull Henry and herself up the steps and into the shelter of the house. But by the time she’d begun to move, it was already too late.

Red eyes consumed her. Her mouth opened to scream, but something rushed inside it instead. The pain was so keen, she felt like she was being ripped apart. Skinned alive from the inside out. She was in a dark room. No, she was imprisoned in her own mind. And this thing inside her was suppressing her will, taking her over, striking out at her from within.

“Poppy,” Henry called. The familiar sound of his voice pulled her above the wave that had invaded her, and she saw his blood dripping from the points where her hand, transformed into a claw, had pierced his skin. She managed to release him, but in the next instant, like a man drowning, she was back under. Though she could watch what was happening and feel her body move, it was the intruder wearing her, rather than her own will, pulling her along.

“Run,” Poppy screamed from deep within to Henry, to her sisters, but the sound never reached her lips. Instead, she heard a gravelly laughter, much deeper than her own voice could ever muster. The invader raised her head and sniffed the wind.
Oh, God
, she thought.
Oh, God
, she prayed. The beast within her was searching for the children’s scent. She could smell the sweet scents of Jilo’s nighttime bath and Binah’s talcum. The saltiness of their flesh that lay underneath. Feel the heat of their pulsing blood. And it made her hungry. Her body mounted the first step, and although she struggled to pull back from the house, the second. She bounded over the last and onto the porch, and her hand reached out to grasp the handle of the screen door. It screamed in protest as she flung it open. Her body began to cross the threshold, but she stood frozen, pressed up against the open air as if it were a brick wall.

The thing inside pushed forward, straining so hard it felt like her skeleton would rip from her flesh. Something overhead caught the thing’s eye . . . caught
her
eye. The haint blue of the overhang was glowing, its enchantment preventing the beast from moving her forward. But its hunger drove it like a wild dog. It clawed at the opening, stretching, straining. Whining.

Henry, unknowing, unaware, thinking he was out to protect her, pushed her forward, his force enough to carry the beast inside her past the blue’s protection. Poppy screamed in anguish as the beast stumbled into the front room. Once inside, it pulled her body to its feet and turned to look at Henry. When his terrified eyes met with the thing looking out from her eyes, she could tell he realized his mistake. He stood there for another long moment, seemingly frozen. Uncertain of which way to turn. Then he made a dash around her toward the hall.

She realized he was trying to make it to the room the little ones shared so he could protect her little sisters from her. Poppy summoned all her will, tearing at the beast who shared her skin. But it felt so strong. So ancient. Poppy knew she could never defeat it on her own, but she didn’t have to beat it. She only had to slow it down.

She steadied herself, preparing to strike out against it. But it snapped her will like a twig and flung her body toward the wall. After grabbing ahold of the iron fire poker, it jumped clear across the room.

Henry turned, raising his arms above his head in an attempt to protect himself. She watched, helpless, as the creature brought the heavy iron down against her love’s arms. He shrieked, a piteous, weak sound, as his arms fell broken and bloody by his sides.

The thing inside her was enjoying the sight and smell of Henry’s blood. The breaking of his bones. Henry stumbled backward a foot or so down the hall. Pursuing him, the creature raised the rod again and brought it down with a heavy crack against Henry’s skull. Henry dropped to his knees.
No. No. No
, she pleaded even as her arm pulled back to deliver the fatal blow.

Poppy wanted to drop the iron, or at least close her eyes, but she was in control of nothing. Sensing her anguish, the beast hesitated so that it could savor it. Soon, though, it had consumed its fill of her pain. The poker began its descent, but it stopped in midair when the beast perceived the form of a small girl in the shadows of the hall, just outside her bedroom door. The poker slid to the floor. Poppy’s body crouched and prepared to pounce. Jilo’s eyes widened. The poor thing was horrified, but she still didn’t scream the way Poppy would have done at that age, at
any
age. Jilo dived back into her room and slammed the door behind her.

Poppy’s body tensed and leaped over Henry. She landed on all fours, like an animal, slipping a bit in Henry’s blood.

Somehow, Binah had slept up until then, but the noise must have finally roused her, for her powerful voice sang out in an angry wail. The sound excited the monster inside Poppy. It forced her to crouch by the girls’ bedroom door and scratch against the wood. Making giddy sounds with her vocal cords, it drew in more deep breaths, savoring the smell of one child’s confusion and the other’s fear. Saliva began falling from her mouth, and her stomach rumbled.

There had to be some way to stop this. Or at least a way to shut it out. Would she really have to witness this devil devouring her sisters? Dear God, would she have to taste them?

She saw her hand reach up to touch the doorknob. The door had no lock. It provided the girls with no protection.

Binah’s crying continued, but it sounded muffled. Then it came to a sudden stop.

Had Jilo stifled her sister’s cries in a misguided attempt to hide herself? Or had she realized what was happening, the hopelessness of the situation, and seen to it that Binah wouldn’t suffer? Poppy began to turn away in her own mind. Let herself drift. Though she could still feel the beast’s impressions, its sick desires, their impact was somewhat lessened if she didn’t try to interfere. She watched as the hands that had once been hers turned the doorknob and pushed the door wide open.

Jilo stood near the window, a sheet hanging over the ledge. The beast moved Poppy’s body forward, still crawling on hands and knees as it breached the threshold of the room. Her head reared back in a delighted howl as her body carried her nearer and nearer her sister.

The beast turned Poppy’s head to scan the room, but there was no sight of Binah. Hope rose up inside Poppy like a blooming vine, but then the curtains of the window behind Jilo billowed inward, causing the beast to raise her nose and sniff the wind that made them dance. It caught Binah’s scent. She loped to the window and looked out. The moonlight betrayed a wisp of auburn hair. Jilo had lowered the child out of the window and to the ground, swaddled in the hanging sheet.

Jilo stepped quickly away from the window, as if she were trying to draw its attention away from her baby sister. For the moment, it seemed to work. The beast circled Jilo, bumping into the little girl and pressing her nose right up against her flesh. Poppy wondered how her sister could stop herself from fleeing, as Jilo stood frozen in place. The creature and Poppy experienced the same thought at once. Something about the girl’s scent wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t quite human. Jilo had something more, something different about her. The creature was disgusted by what it smelled on her. So was Poppy. The two conjoined beings both willed a step backward, away from her.

Jilo cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, out the window, reminding the beast of the other morsel awaiting him. This odd one was not right, but the smaller one smelled delicious. The softest, sweetest flesh. The beast carried Poppy over to the open window and pressed her hands against the ledge, preparing to swoop out and carry the child off into the quiet of the pines before tasting her flesh. Down below, poking out through the tangled sheet, Poppy recognized Binah’s tiny head. The beast within her smiled, ready to leap through the opening. Ah, but then a sound, the tiniest of cries, came from inside the chifferobe, behind them. The beast stopped, and Poppy felt her head wrench to the side. The beast eyed the chifferobe, then began padding quickly toward it.