Legacy (36 page)

Becca ran to spread the word that a witch was about to be burned. There were enough telepaths in Whitfield that it wouldn’t take long for them to show up, I knew. People were always ready to watch someone getting punished.

“Stop!” I said to Becca as I took the rowan wand from my sleeve and pointed it at her retreating figure. “Right now!”

She fell in a heap.

“Oh, no,” I heard my great-grandmother groan.

“I’m sorry, Gram,” I said, backing out of the circle. Peter moved with me, step for step. He knew we had to get Eric out of there.

“You’re going to be a lot sorrier, missy,” Mrs. Fowler said, pulling her own wand out of her sleeve. The few people
assembled broke ranks and skittered away in panic. One woman began to sob hysterically. Dingo growled.

“The girl,” was all Mrs. Fowler said, smiling maliciously at me. I saw a long blue thread like a visible electric current speeding toward me. The hair on my arms stood on end. I heard Peter shouting my name, slowly—very slowly—but I knew it was too late. Nothing could stop that laser beam of black magic headed for me.

And nothing did. It kept coming until it was an inch away from me, and then, inexplicably, it veered upward and around until it was shooting back the way it had come. It struck Mrs. Fowler in her eyes. She screamed, her hands flying to her face. I saw Agnes turn to look at me incredulously. Of course, it appeared as if I’d deliberately blinded Mrs. Fowler, but I really hadn’t done anything. I wouldn’t even have known how to do such a reversal.

But who
had
done it? Who had had enough power to turn that beam away? Who would possess enough malice to have it strike Livia’s
eyes
?

There were several new voices shouting as a dozen people bounded through the fog into what had been the circle, stopping near the burning oak. Even though she was caught in my binding spell, Becca must have been able to summon her mother’s supporters. Two of them were releasing her already, while others tended to Mrs. Fowler, who was still shrieking piteously and in obvious pain.

Aunt Agnes turned to face me, her expression one of utter horror. “Katy!” she shouted.

“I swear, I didn’t—”

I turned to look behind me. And I knew who had sent that ray of hatred back toward Livia Fowler to blind her.

“Oh, shit,” Peter whispered.

Eric was awake.

A seagull plummeted out of the sky and fell dead directly in front of the botte. Dingo yelped and flew upside down, feet sticking up in the air, and smacked into one of the big trees. He whimpered as he limped into the arms of Mr. Haversall, who looked around in confusion.

“Who’s doing this?” he asked.

Mrs. Fowler pointed at Hattie. “She’s responsible,” she said. “And those two.” She meant Peter and me.

“No, it’s the little boy,” someone whispered in amazement.

Then everyone turned to look at Eric, who was sitting up on the rock like a little prince. His hands were folded in his lap, and a small smile played on his lips. But his eyes. They were like black pools, amused, indifferent, inhumanly intelligent. They never blinked.

“I don’t think I like you, Livia,” the Darkness said in its clear, emotionless voice.

Mrs. Fowler squealed with fear. We were all afraid by then.

In another moment there was a whooshing sound cutting through the silence. Something had entered the Meadow from the town, something traveling at a tremendous speed.

“Oh, my God,” someone said.

It was hard to see what it was at first, but then I noticed the wooden handle and, attached to it, a shiny blade slicing through the air inches over our heads, heading directly toward Livia Fowler.

A dozen people scrambled for their wands, but the thing was moving too fast. Mrs. Fowler’s face was frozen in terror as the knife streaked inexorably in her direction. But just before it reached her, one hand in the crowd shot up. With a movement too fast to see, it grabbed the knife by its handle, stopping it in midair.

It was Hattie, the muscles in her forearm straining with tension.

There was a collective sigh as everyone suddenly remembered to breathe. Hattie’s eyes were wide with residual fear. “Go,” she mouthed.

Peter moved toward Eric, fumbling for the sedative in his pocket.

“Hattie,” Eric crooned. “Such an accomplished witch.”

“Did you hear that?” Mrs. Fowler shrieked. “That’s the Darkness, that boy! And Hattie Scott is his servant!”

Then three things happened:

Mrs. Fowler spewed out a twenty-foot stream of projectile vomit that landed right on top of the
Great Book of Secrets
.

Another bird, bloody and wingless, fell on top of Becca, who screamed.

From the edges of the forest, deer and rabbits emerged,
baring their teeth and growling like predators.

Eric laughed so hard that he had to hold on to the rock he was sitting on to keep his fragile body from falling off.

I shoved Peter toward his brother, and Peter fell on him, sticking the needle into Eric’s hip. As the boy lost consciousness, the conjured woodland animals retreated, fading into the fog like creatures of mist.

“It’s okay,” Peter announced to the crowd. “Everything’s fine now.”

Mrs. Fowler stood up, her ample torso quivering. “Everything is
not
fine,” she rumbled with malefic intensity. “Bring him to me.”

Hattie walked up to her. “Please let me take him home,” she pleaded. “I will take care of . . . what has to be done.”

“Liar! You’ll do his bidding!”

“Please,” Hattie repeated, broken. “Spare him the fire. I’ll take his life.”

“No, you won’t.” Peter said from the rear.

Hattie pushed her way through the people. “Peter, give Eric to me.”

“I said no!” He threw out five fingers in an attempt at a binding spell.

Hattie tripped. “Peter . . .”

I took a deep breath. “Get him away from here,” I said, moving between Peter and the rest of the witches. “I’ll cover you.”

“Stop him!” Livia Fowler commanded. A dozen wands snapped into position.

Before I could even think, I flicked my wrist and knocked the wands out of their hands one by one—a temporary solution,
but at least enough of one to give Peter a chance to escape with Eric in his arms.

“Katy, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Hattie shouted, lurching out of Peter’s weak binding.

“You’re right,” I admitted, throwing another binding spell on her that sent her crashing to the ground. “I’m sorry, Hattie.”

Mrs. Fowler screamed, the cry of a Valkyrie on the rampage, and produced a wall of flame so close to me that I could smell my hair singeing. “She brought the Darkness into the Meadow!” she accused. “And now she’s let it escape!”

I felt the crowd move in one body toward me.

“Put the wand away,” Aunt Agnes said to me.

As I backed away, another wall of fire burst behind me. “Okay,” I said, putting the wand back into my sleeve. “Okay, okay.”

“
Bring her to me
,” Mrs. Fowler commanded.

“Burn her!” someone suggested. It sounded like Becca’s voice.

Someone pushed me. I fell, feeling my cheek explode against the rocky ground. Dingo whimpered.

“Burn her!” a young man screamed.

“Yes, burn her!”

“Wait,”
came a voice that sounded as if it was inside my own head. “
We’ve made a mistake.”

“Oh,” someone said. I felt the grip on my clothes loosen. I could stand up. “Yes, a mistake.”

“We’ll wait until we’re certain.”

“We
are
certain!” Livia Fowler’s voice broke through that other, strangely compelling one, like a chainsaw through butter. “The rules say—”

“We’ll WAIT.”

The fire crackled. All else was silent.

“All right,” Livia said, oddly calm. “We’ll wait.”

I stood up, looking around, bewildered. Everyone seemed to be sitting and staring quietly ahead as I staggered away from the circle. Everyone except for Miss P, who stood still as a statue, surrounded by an unearthly light. Her eyes, deep as the heart of night itself, glowed an iridescent blue like windows offering a glimpse of a creature of awesome power.

“Thank you, djinn,” I whispered, managing a small bow.

She inclined her head slightly, without ever meeting my eyes.

As I backed away into the fog, I saw Mr. Haversall raise one hand, shooting its fingers upward. A bolt of lightning flashed across the night sky, followed by the crash of thunder and a sudden shower of hard rain.

All the fires were extinguished. The big oak smoldered and hissed in the downpour. I nodded to the old man.
A rainmaker,
I thought.
Bringing water, the third harbinger.

With two fingers he touched the edge of his cap in response. Dingo lay down at his feet. They were all going to wait for an answer.

All Peter and I had to do was to come up with it.

As I bolted out of the Meadow, I felt sick with the realization of how hard that was going to be, especially after I saw that Peter’s truck was gone. Where had he taken Eric? I tried to think clearly. Not back to Hattie’s, surely. Not after what had just happened. The school, then? Or my great-grandmother’s house?

Then it came to me. There was only one place where they could have gone. I finally understood what Peter’s “plan” was. It was the same as Hattie’s. The same as Henry Shaw’s.

I ran back to Gram’s and took my bicycle from the garage. With a longing look at the Cadillac, the keys to which were in Agnes’ pocketbook, I pedaled out into the pouring rain and didn’t stop until I reached the shore of Whitfield Bay, with Shaw Island barely visible in the distance.

One of the rowboats was missing. I tried to remember what condition they’d been in when I first saw them on the last day of school. I looked across the roiling water to Shaw Island. It had seemed so close before, as if you really could walk over to it under the right conditions. Now it was almost invisible in the downpour.

The abandoned boat, so far from shore the last time I’d been here, was practically at the water’s edge. Peter must have taken the other. I hoped it had been in better shape than the leaky tub that remained.

Tipping it on its side, I could see through its entire length. I pulled out rocks and pieces of broken glass and several crabs that had nested there. On the sand nearby were a few half-buried strands of rope and some rotted planks.

I looked helplessly at the island. Peter had to have taken Eric there. But how could I follow?

You can only do what you would normally do,
Gram had said.
Only more so.

That was it! Experimentally I concentrated on the broken pieces of wood lying at my feet until they stirred.

“Into the boat,” I ordered, and the planks flew into the bottom of the rowboat, arranging themselves into neat rows over the hole.

I took out my wand. “Nails!” Hundreds of rusted nails of every description emerged from the wet sand like midges. I directed them into a formation and sent them hammering into the wood, expelling a few gigantic hand-forged iron monsters from long-sunken ships as I went.

“Rope!” Broken strands from all over the beach, plus an enormous coil buried a hundred feet from where I stood wound around the interior of the rowboat.

Inwardly, I thanked my dad for forcing me to stay holed up in my room without any distractions. The time I’d spent practicing my teleporting skills was paying off.

Within minutes I had what looked like a relatively serviceable vessel. I even managed to scrounge up a couple of oars, but I had no idea whether the boat was seaworthy.

“Well, I don’t have to go far,” I told myself encouragingly as I slipped the patched rowboat into the water. Instantly the high winds yanked its bow practically out of my hands.

“Okay, Mr. Haversall, that’s enough,” I said, rowing like crazy just to steer in a straight line in four feet of water. I didn’t know how rainmaking worked, but I guessed that, like all magic, once you started something in the natural world, you had to see it through to its natural conclusion. The storm would have to run its course.

But at least now the Meadow wasn’t going to burn down. The big oak that Livia Fowler had set on fire might even have survived.

“Power-hungry cow,” I said uncharitably. “I wish the djinn had . . . Whoa.” A swell lifted me ten feet into the air. My stomach felt as if it had just dropped to my knees. And then it happened again. Lightning spidered across the sky, sending shivers through me. A defunct rowboat was definitely not the place I most wanted to be during an electrical storm, but I was too far from shore to go back now. In fact, to my dismay, it occurred to me that I could no longer even
see
the shore. Or Shaw Island, for that matter. I couldn’t see anything at all except for the choppy, swooping waves that threatened to capsize my boat.

I pushed back my sopping hair and tried to wipe the rain out of my eyes. I’d been in worse storms in Florida, even a couple of hurricanes. Although, admittedly, I hadn’t been out on the ocean at the time.

Then it came. Lightning, filling the sky with blue light, and revealing Shaw Island off to the left. And one more thing, at my feet:

Water. Quite a bit of it, reaching to the top of my shoes.

Don’t panic, don’t panic . . .

I hadn’t thought to bring a bucket. Bringing in the oars so that they wouldn’t drift away, I got on my knees and started bailing water with my cupped hands until my arms felt as if they were falling off. In time, I saw that the bilge level was under control. I was reaching for the oars when I felt my wand slipping out of my sleeve. It fell somewhere on the rope-lined bottom. In the dark I felt around for it, but I couldn’t locate it.

Then, during the next illuminating lightning bolt, I saw that it had lodged in the space between two lengths of rope. As I stood up to retrieve it, the boat listed precariously on another
swell, but I couldn’t risk losing my wand. So I lumbered forward and snatched it up while I was still certain where it was.