Legacy (28 page)

Peter shouted, running to the window. I saw him lifting it open as he screamed into the night, saw his wild eyes watching me fall.

And behind him was Eric smiling sweetly.

Just before I struck the ground and lost consciousness, I heard him calling.

“Kaaay! Kaaay!”

I came to twelve hours later in the neuro-intensive care unit of the hospital. The first thing I saw was my great-grandmother’s face smiling at me. For a second—or maybe longer, I was pretty groggy—I thought she was an angel. Even now, I think that if I were to die, Gram’s face would be the first one I’d want to see on the other side.

“Gram,” I croaked.

“Gracious sakes alive!” she exclaimed, reaching for the call button. “My dear, dear Katy.” She clasped my hand with both of hers.

The essence that emanated from her was like a drug. Instantly I was bathed in warmth and comfort. My body, which was very sore, even in those first moments of consciousness, seemed to tighten and click into place, as if it were a mechanism that she’d turned on. As she bent toward me I caught the faint scent of lavender in the cotton-candy pouf of her white hair. Her lips touched my forehead, and I caught a second wave of
something that felt like cool water washing over me.

“You’re . . . you’re a healer,” I burbled drunkenly.

She kissed her finger and touched it to the end of my nose. “A garden variety talent, but it has its uses,” she said as a nurse rushed in.

“Oh. You’re awake,” the nurse said. “Welcome back!” She took a penlight out of her pocket and shone it into my eyes, then proceeded to do a lot of other annoying tests. I just wanted to bask in Gram’s vibes. “Looks good. I’ll get Doctor Baddely. She’ll want to take a look at you.”

Gram smiled reassuringly. “She’s one of us,” she whispered, glancing at the retreating figure of the nurse. “Your father wanted to have you flown into Boston, but Agnes and I persuaded him to keep you here, in Whitfield General. It’s a better place for our kind,” she added conspiratorially.

“Dad . . .”

“He’s in the waiting room. I’ll get him for you, dear. We’ve been taking turns—”

I grabbed her arm. “Don’t go,” I pleaded. “Not yet.”

She frowned, concerned, and patted my hand. “Certainly, dear,” she said. “Is there something wrong?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about what I’d seen behind Peter’s bedroom window. Gram might not be able to withstand the shock, and anyone else might not believe me. “Is Peter here?”

“He’s been waiting all night, even though he’s been told that he’s not allowed to see you. Only family members are allowed in intensive care, and then only one at a time, and only for fifteen minutes, but he won’t leave.” She shook her head. “He’s a fine boy, Katy. And he loves you so much.”

I smiled, although I felt tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes.

“There, dear,” Gram said, dabbing at my eyes with a tissue. “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal, poor thing . . .”

“I need to see Peter.”

“Oh, I’m afraid they’re very strict—”

“Who’s strict, Elizabeth?” The doctor lumbered in. She was a large woman with a loud, hearty voice. “You’re looking well, and so is your great-granddaughter.” She gave me a big smile as she took a penlight from her pocket. “I’m Doctor Baddely,” she said. “Mind if I take a look?”

She began the same procedure the nurse had gone though. “Pupils equal and reactive,” she mumbled as she peered into my eyes. “Good eye traction. Would you follow this please, with your eyes? With your head? Can you swallow?”

“I think I’m okay,” I said.

“Any headaches?”

I shook my head.

“Blurred vision? Dizziness?”

“No.”

She looked at the stitches on the back of my head. “These are coming along well too. Do you remember the accident at all?”

“Yes. I fell off a trellis.”

“What were you doing there?” She glanced at my chart. “Serenity?”

“She likes to be called Katy,” Gram said.

“Easily corrected.” She wrote down my name. “So. What do you remember, Katy?”

“I . . . I was looking through the window,” I waffled.

“Hmm. Do you do that sort of thing often?” She was jiggling up and down, trying to suppress a laugh.

“Goodness, no,” Gram answered for me.

“I . . . I need to see Peter Shaw,” I said. “He’s in the waiting room.”

“Katy!” Gram admonished, but Dr. Baddely held up a hand for silence.

“Is that your boyfriend?”

“No. I mean, yes, but that’s not why I need to see him. That is, it’s more important than that.”

“Is he the person whose window you were looking through?”

“Yes. I’m not a stalker, though, if that’s what you’re thinking. I really do need to speak to him. Right away.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible, but if you have a message—”

“No. It has to be face-to-face. And it has to be now.” Dr. Baddely looked bemused. Gram fanned herself in exasperation. “Please, Doctor. It’s urgent. It really is.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is this something the police should know about?” she asked bluntly.

“I’d only need ten minutes,” I answered, hoping she wouldn’t notice that I hadn’t answered at all.

“There are pretty strict rules about visitors on this floor,” she said.

“Then I’ll go to another floor.” I started to climb out of bed, but the doctor pushed me back. “Hold it, Katy.” She looked at me like a bull mastiff whose squeak toy I had just stolen. For a long moment we just stayed that way, Dr. Baddely staring at me as if she were preparing to growl; me, cowering and pleading; and my mortified great-grandmother, fanning herself.

“All right,” she said at last. “You can see him for five minutes if you have your family’s permission.” She swiveled toward Gram. “Is that all right with you, Elizabeth?”

My great-grandmother looked stricken. She knew my father would never permit me to see Peter, alone or otherwise.

“Well,
I
have no objection,” she waffled.

“And he isn’t to touch you, in case you’ve got some neurological damage,” the doctor said.

“Oh, certainly not,” Gram agreed.

“Okay. You’ve got it, then. Ten minutes.”

I felt as if I hadn’t breathed for the past hour. “Thank you,” I said.

“I’ll tell the nurse.” Dr. Baddely sailed out of the room like a great ship.

“I don’t think your father is going to like this,” Gram hissed as soon as the doctor was out of earshot. “You should have seen him first.”

“I know.”

Peter walked in tentatively, hesitantly. “Katy?” he whispered. He stopped short when he saw my great-grandmother. “Mrs. Ainsworth,” he said, nodding to her politely.

“I believe I need a drink of water,” she said, getting to her feet. “Please remember what the doctor said, Katy. Neurological damage.” She tapped her forehead.

“I understand. Thank you.”

“Neurological damage?” Peter asked.

“I’m fine. But you’re not allowed to touch me, or I might turn into a gibbering idiot.”

He stared at me, aghast.

“That was a joke,” I explained.

His eyes were anguished. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, rushing over to me. He held my face in his hands for a moment, then backed away. “I’m so sorry, Katy.”

“I told you, I’m fine.” I took his hand. He knelt beside me and kissed it, then let it go, his face a kaleidoscope of warring emotions. “Hey, you weren’t the Peeping Tom climbing up the rose trellis,” I said. “I did this myself.”

He closed his eyes.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” I whispered.

“It’s what I did to
you,
” he said. “That first night in the Meadow. I knew even then that it was wrong of me to be around you. To . . . expose you.”

“You knew about Eric then?”

“I thought . . . at the Halloween party . . . the fireball.”

“
He
sent that?”

“Not him, Katy. Eric couldn’t, you know that. He loves you. But I saw it shoot out of him. It was clumsy. The Darkness must not have been able to control Eric’s movements very well, since Eric couldn’t do it himself.”

“The fireball bounced off the pitcher I was carrying.”

He nodded. “I saw that. I don’t think he—it—was aiming for anything, though. Maybe it didn’t even intend for the fireball to manifest, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But it would have killed you if you hadn’t been holding that pitcher.”

“That’s how you knew I hadn’t sent the fireball,” I said, suddenly understanding. “Why you protected me from the kids at school who thought I had.”

“I should have left you alone.”

“So that I’d have the pleasure of evolving into a stain on the marble staircase? Thanks a lot, Peter.”

“So that you wouldn’t be in here now,” he said. “So that none of this would have touched you.”

“Peter, no . . .” I reached for him, but he pulled away from me. “All we can do is to go on from here.”

“But it shouldn’t be ‘we,’ don’t you see? And it’s not going to be. I’m only here to tell you—”

“How long has the Darkness been inside Eric?” I interrupted, exasperated.

“I know it was unforgivable, Katy—”

“
How long
?”

He exhaled. “Ten years.”

“
Ten years
?”

“I think it happened when my father died,” he said slowly. “He brought us to Hattie’s that night.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I knew before we even got there that something was going to happen. Dad made me promise to take care of my brother. He was just a baby then. Only a few months old. My mother had died the day before, and my dad had spent the whole night with her, the night and most of the next day . . . with her body.”

“Oh, my God,” I said.

“It didn’t seem so bizarre at the time, I guess because I was so young myself. She’d been sick as long as I could remember, and she’d been confined to bed ever since Eric was born. I hate to say it, but I hardly knew her. It didn’t seem like she was ever well enough to see me.”

He shrugged. “But I remember my father acting strange that night. He was really agitated, scary. After being in Mother’s room all day, he came bursting into my bedroom and told me to get dressed, that we were leaving. Then he went into the nursery and took Eric from his crib.

“Then the whole way to Hattie’s my father kept repeating that I had to take care of Eric, no matter what happened, and that I had to be brave, because he might not be able to stay with me.”

“Where was he going?”

“He didn’t say, but looking back, I think he was going to kill himself. On the island, the way Henry Shaw did.”

“Henry Shaw, your ancestor? I thought you were kidding about that.”

Peter looked at me levelly. “He set himself on fire, Katy.”

My hand went to my lips. “Like a . . .”

“Magician, yes.” He took a small hand-bound volume from his jeans pocket and handed it to me. “He kept a book of secrets.”

“Henry Shaw,” I whispered, almost afraid to let the book’s vibrations come into me. “I thought he hated witches.”

“That’s what he said.”

“To save himself from the mob?”

Peter held out his hands. “It didn’t do him any good. The Darkness got him instead. Henry wrote his last entry after his wife escaped from him and the lynch mob that was chasing her. He left the book for Ola’ea to find. That’s how it came into Hattie’s possession.”

I looked at it. On the first page, in faded, antique-looking script, were the words, “Keep My Secret.”

“I hope he at least felt bad about leading the Puritans to his wife,” I said, leafing through the diary.

“Bad enough to kill himself,” Peter said. “He wasn’t really evil, you know. Not in himself. It was the Darkness. It wanted him because he was rich, and because he was magical, whether
he admitted to that or not, and because he was married to a powerful witch.”

“Do you think that was why he pretended to be cowen?”

Peter shrugged. “He didn’t say. He also didn’t say how he became infected. Maybe he didn’t even know. He might have just been around someone who died. It jumps onto the closest person.”

“Like fleas,” I said.

“What?”

“Fleas leave a host as soon as its body dies, and then jump onto the closest living thing.”

Peter bowed his head. “Except fleas don’t kill their host.”

“Does the Darkness?”

“In a way.” It was hard for Peter to talk, I knew. He licked his lips. His hands were shaking. “I think that my dad killed my mother,” he said.

I didn’t answer. I remembered what I had heard in the dream that had prompted me to go to Peter’s house.

“That’s what it—the Darkness—told me. Through Eric, on the night you came. I didn’t believe it at first, but I’ve been thinking about it since then, and it makes sense. She was infected, so the Darkness told him—probably through my mother’s own mouth—to kill her. And when he did, it passed into him.”

“Just like that,” I whispered.

“No,” he said somberly. “It wasn’t ‘just like that.’ The Darkness is . . . persuasive. It talks to you, and keeps talking, and won’t let you go, until you’re so tired and freaked out and beat up that you don’t know which way is up anymore . . .” Peter’s eyes welled with tears. “And the whole time it sounds
so sincere, so
reasonable
, that after a while you start to forget that what it’s asking you—telling you—to do is to murder someone you love, and you begin to think that maybe it’ll be the Darkness you’re killing, and not your wife . . . my mother . . . Eric . . .”

I threw my arms around him as he sobbed into my neck. “It can do anything, Katy. And I’ve brought it to you.”

“No, you haven’t. Yesterday was a . . . a fluke. I was at the window, and he—it—managed to push me off. It’s not like it could chase me across town. We’re safe.”

“Not for long, Katy. Every day it gets a stronger hold.”

“Does Hattie know?”

“I don’t know,” he said miserably. “I’ve tried to keep it from her—”

“For ten years?”

“No, no. The Darkness hasn’t manifested until recently. It took ten years for it to be able to use Eric’s body and brain. That’s probably the only reason nothing horrible has come to Whitfield yet. Eric’s too weak to be of much use to the Darkness. That’s why it’s looking for someone else.”