Witches of East End (18 page)

chapter thirty-five

The Covenant of the Dead

L
ionel Horning and Emily Foster lived in an old farmhouse on land that had once been part of his grandparents’ dairy farm, and the two artists had a small menagerie, with chickens, goats, and a milking cow. Lionel had converted the house to a loftlike space where they lived and worked. When the sisters arrived, Emily was waiting for them with tea and biscuits. “Thanks for coming so quickly—how did you get back here so fast? I thought Ingrid said you were in the city?” she asked as she poured them each a cup of tea.

“We were on our way back when you called,” Freya said smoothly. There was no need to explain how the closet in her room made traveling from North Hampton to New York as easy as walking down the hallway.

“When did you discover the animals?” Ingrid asked.

“This afternoon. When I went to refill the water for the chickens.” Emily’s hands shook so badly that her teacup rattled in its saucer. “I was going to call animal services but I thought you might want to take a look.”

“There’s no time like the present. Let’s go,” Freya said a tad impatiently, standing up. It was so North Hampton of Emily Foster to offer them tea and make polite chitchat when they were there to figure out if her husband had turned into a bloodthirsty zombie. Emily led them out through the back door toward the barn.

“Hold on. . . . What is that? Can you hear it?” Freya asked. “Like rushing water underground.” She knelt down to touch the ground; the earth felt damp and the rumble grew louder.

“It sounds like waves,” Ingrid agreed.

“It’s the underground river that runs directly underneath the barn,” Emily said. “In the 1850s a well was built on this site. I can’t believe you can hear the water. I’ve never heard it myself. Lionel claimed he could feel it surging when he painted, but then again Lionel said a lot of things,” she said, walking up to the barn door. She wrapped her fingers around a brightly galvanized handle and pulled. The big door heaved and began to move sideways on a metal track. It rolled for a moment and then stopped. Emily grimaced. “You might want to hold your breath. The smell is disgusting. Anyway, if you just slip in and move along the wall for a few paces there should be a light switch on your right-hand side. Just be prepared. I would come with you, but I just can’t go in there again.” She turned and quickly backed away from the door, wiping her hands on her jacket twice and then shaking them in the air as she walked away. Freya saw her heave a sigh of relief as she exited the barn.

Ingrid’s face puckered. A sickly sweet smell drifted out from inside the barn, acrid and rotten. “You first,” she told her sister.

Freya smirked as she slipped slowly through the opening. It was dark inside. In the dim light she could see there was some kind of mound on the floor, but it was too dark to make anything more out of it. She felt something brush her left shoulder and shivered, but it was just Ingrid inching into the room next to her.

“The switch,” Ingrid whispered. Freya was already reaching sideways with her right hand, feeling up and down the wall in broad arcs. Her fingers scraped the wall as she searched for the little toggle.

“What
is
that?” Ingrid asked. The mound at the far side of the room was clearly moving, its surface undulating, but maybe it was a trick of the light. “Can you just get the damn lights turned on!” Ingrid begged, wishing they had thought to bring their wands.

Freya’s finger finally hit the trim plate. The switch clicked, and there was a pause as the ballast in the old fluorescent light buzzed and cracked before kicking on. The light blinked and finally the room was awash in a pale bluish glow.

The mound at the far end of the room turned out to be a pile of torn and bloody animal carcasses, fur and feathers mixed with blood and entrails in a chunky soup of rotting flesh. Blood splattered the walls and floor and tiny maggots crawled over everything. Freya tried not to vomit and Ingrid blanched at the sight.

“That’s enough,” Ingrid said, looking sick. “Let’s get out of here.”

Emily was waiting for them outside and rolled the barn door closed. “Sorry you had to see that.”

“So what makes you think Lionel did that?” Ingrid asked, as Emily led them to a second, smaller barn that housed the artists’ studios.

“This morning I was by the window, washing dishes, when I thought I saw a man outside. It looked like Lionel from behind, so I called out to him. He didn’t turn around, but he’d been acting so strange since he got back from the hospital so I let him be.”

“How long has Lionel been missing now?”

Emily looked embarrassed. “A few weeks. Almost the entire month. Since right before the Fourth of July he said he hasn’t been feeling well. Then that Friday I came home from the market and found everything in disarray.” Pulling the door open, she led them inside the cozy farmhouse to the back where Lionel kept his studio. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything earlier but he does this once in a while.”

Tacked on the far wall were several large-scale canvases showing a silver gate, the mountain high above the hill, trails that led to unknown paths, eerily specific to the Kingdom of the Dead. One of the canvases was torn, and there was paint splattered over the canvas in a haphazard motion, in contrast to the almost photographic quality of the painting underneath.

“But you didn’t come see me until the next week,” Ingrid pointed out. “Why not?”

Emily shrugged and righted a chair. “He’s a bit absentminded and we give each other a lot of freedom. We don’t need to check in with each other. I thought maybe he’d gone to the city—he sometimes stays at the Chelsea Hotel—but I called over there and he wasn’t registered and no one at his gallery has seen him either. That’s when I started to worry. There’s been no activity in his accounts, and it’s not like him to be gone this long. I was sure he’d be home by now. Then this morning, I thought he was back and wanted to check on the animals. I sort of forgot about it. . . . I’ve been working, so I’m a bit distracted as well. . . . Then this afternoon when I saw what was back there. . . . I’m kind of freaked out.”

“Is there somewhere you can go? I think it’s best if you don’t stay here,” Ingrid said.

“I could go to my sister’s, I guess. Ann’s in Wainscott; it’s not too far. Why? You don’t think he would come after me, do you? I’m not even sure it was Lionel, it might have been someone else.” She shook her head. “You think this might have had something to do with what your mom did to Lionel?”

“Emily . . .”

Emily balled up her fists. “It’s all my fault. I asked for the help.” She seemed to have an internal struggle with herself. “I’ll go to Ann’s.” She looked at the sisters plaintively. “You’ll try to find him? Maybe help him? Don’t hurt him, okay?”

They tried to assure her that all would be well as they bade good-bye. When they were alone in the car, Ingrid exchanged a look with her sister. The heads of all the animals were torn off, their entrails severed. “If something went wrong with his resurrection, it’s possible that he’s now trapped between life and death,” she said. “He’s alive, but his body is decomposing and he’ll need to . . .”

“Feed, I know. Those animals looked half-eaten.” Freya was silent for a moment as she tried to think. “It’s been so long since Mother has done something like this, it’s possible something went wrong.”

Ingrid hit the gas and they peeled away down the farmhouse driveway. They could still see Emily in the living-room window, watching them. “Zombies,” Ingrid muttered. “What do we know about them?”

“Other than that they’re uncoordinated, they don’t know what they’re doing, and they’re basically walking corpses with a taste for brains?” Freya asked.

“So Lionel Horning went zombie, killed Molly Lancaster, hid her body, and then came back to the farmhouse and slaughtered his animals?” Ingrid suggested. “Seems like a lot for one zombie to do, if you ask me. They can’t even walk properly.”

“Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Remember the Fontanier case?” Freya asked. “When we were living in France in the twelfth century?”

“Remind me?” Ingrid asked.

“Jean Fontanier was a farmer; he got killed accidentally when his horse spooked and threw him. His widow came to Mother but she refused to bring him back as he’d been dead for more than twenty-four hours. So his widow went to Lambert de Fois.”

Ingrid nodded. It was starting to return to her. Lambert de Fois was the head of their coven then. “Right.”

“The stupid warlock raised him from the dead, but it didn’t take. We all thought Fontanier had gone zombie, but it turned out that wasn’t the problem.”

Ingrid sighed. She remembered all too well now. By resurrecting the farmer after his body had been cold for a day, Lambert de Fois had broken the Covenant of the Dead, and Helda had not been pleased. “No. That wasn’t the problem at all.”

“Jean Fontanier wasn’t a zombie. Helda made sure he returned to life as something else. A demon.”

chapter thirty-six

Family Secrets

O
ne of life’s greatest pleasures was returning home after a long trip, Joanna thought, as she put her carpetbag down in the hallway and hung her hat back on the hook. Gilly flew to her usual perch on the ceiling cove as Joanna turned on the lights. She was surprised to find the living room a mess, pillows on the floor, water bottles and wineglasses on the coffee table. The kitchen was worse, with its usual pile of dirty dishes and used pots on the stove. Joanna had gotten used to having the Alvarezes taking care of everything, and Gracella kept a very neat house. She rang the cottage but there was no answer. It was too late to say hello to Tyler anyway, she decided. She heard a car pull up and her daughters’ voices carry up from the driveway. Oh, good, they were home, she had quite a lot to tell them.

“Girls!” she said, throwing open the door.

“Mom!” Freya said, feeling guilty at the sight of her mother, even though nothing that had happened was technically her fault and at least one was certainly Joanna’s doing. Still, she did not relish telling her mother that in her absence, Ingrid had helped a vampire who had visited their town and that the nice guy Joanna had raised from the dead was now a zombie or, more likely, possessed by a demon.

“Where have you been?” Ingrid wanted to know.

Joanna ushered them inside and closed the door. “I’ve been looking for your father,” she said, wringing her hands. “I need his help. Listen, girls, there’s something you need to know about him—”

“I know where he is,” Ingrid interrupted.

“What do you mean, you know where Dad is?” Freya asked, staring at her sister. “And you didn’t say anything? How could you?”

“I’m sorry. He wrote me a few months ago. He wanted to get in touch with all of us, but he thought he’d try me first. He thought Mother would be too mad and that Freya would just burn his letters.”

Freya crossed her arms and flopped down on the nearest couch. “He was right about that. He left us, Ingrid. He abandoned our family! Don’t you get that?”

“I’m sorry, Mother. Freya. I didn’t want to tell you . . . I knew you would be angry, but I miss him so much. And he misses us, too. He just wants us to be a family again.”

“Yes, about your father,” Joanna said, her forehead creasing. “I need to tell you girls something. It’s very hard for me to say and I hope you will find it in your hearts to forgive me.”

“Why? What are you talking about?” Freya asked.

Joanna looked them both straight in the eye, with her head held high, as if steeling herself for the gallows. “Your father did not leave you. I tossed him out. I told him he had to leave us alone and that if he tried to get in touch with either of you I would make sure he regretted it forever.”

For a moment neither of the girls spoke and a heavy silence fell, fraught with centuries of loss and heartache and resentment. Ingrid thought about all they had missed: years of her father’s sage advice, his protection, his love. Freya could not even speak. The betrayal was so cruel she felt a compression in the pit of her stomach, as if she were going to vomit. “Why, Mother?” she finally whispered.

“I’m so very sorry, my darlings. I could not stop myself, I was so angry about what happened during the trials. I wanted him to do something about it—break you both out of jail, use his power to sway the judge—but he would not. Because of the laws of mid-world of course. But I wasn’t thinking rationally.”

Freya blinked back tears. “You lied to us. You told us he left us, that he was ashamed of us. That he didn’t want anything more to do with our family.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Ingrid said, sitting on the couch and putting her arms around her sister. “We can’t get those years back. But there’s something else you need to know. Dad was helping me with something important. And I think something might have happened to him. He hasn’t returned any of my messages for several days.”

“Something has happened to him,” Joanna said. She took another deep breath. Freya wondered if she could stand to hear another revelation.

“He’s gone to see the White Council,” their mother told them. “I went to his apartment and waited for him. A messenger from the Council came by, with a letter granting him permission to speak, but obviously he decided not to wait for it. He’s left to consult with the oracle. He’s probably there already.”

Freya gasped. “But why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Unless word about our actions here have gotten back to him somehow; maybe he was reporting our violations of the restriction.” Joanna crossed her arms.

“Dad wouldn’t do that,” Ingrid said loyally. “If he went to the oracle there has to be a good reason for it.”

“What was he helping you with, anyway?” Freya asked.

“The Fair Haven blueprints. I found something—these odd little design keys. Dad was decoding it for me. He said he’d figured out what they were, but then he disappeared.”

“So maybe he wanted to talk to them about that?” Freya suggested.

Joanna whipped around to address Ingrid. “Fair Haven? You and Dad were doing something with Fair Haven?”

Ingrid described the key tags with the decorative scrolls. “I guess I should have asked you first, Mother, since you might know if there’s something unusual about Fair Haven that we should know about.”

Joanna shook her head. “Only that the Council told us when we settled here in North Hampton that the seam was there, the boundary where the living and the twilight worlds meet. But I think there might be something more to it. Before I left, I went out to Fair Haven, where the gray darkness in the water seems to have concentrated.”

“It’s not just here; it’s in the South Pacific, and near Alaska as well,” Ingrid said. “And I saw on TV the other day they think they might have found one near Reykjavík.”

Joanna inhaled sharply at the news. “Whatever is in the oceans is not of this earth, I’m quite sure of that. I went to look for your father because I was hoping he could help me figure out what it was and where it came from so we could stop it. That spell I put on it won’t last. I’m going to need both of you to help hold it up.”

“We’ll start immediately.” Freya nodded.

“Good. With the three of us I think we can hold it back a while longer until we figure out how to get rid of it entirely.” Joanna looked at her girls. “One more thing. What happened to the house? Has Gracella not been by to clean it? And how’s my Tyler doing?”

“Tyler’s in the hospital,” Freya said. “Don’t worry, I checked on him. He has a fever and an infection but the doctors say they have it under control.”

Joanna tried to keep calm. If Tyler was sick, the hospital was the safest place for him to be. “First things first: Gardiners Island and then the hospital.”

They were preparing to leave when there was a sharp knock on the door, and the three women jumped and looked at each other fearfully.

“The Council!” Ingrid yelped.

“The oracle doesn’t knock,” Freya scoffed. She peeked out the window and saw several police cars parked in the driveway, their lights flashing. “What on earth?”

“Open the door,” Joanna instructed.

Ingrid moved toward the front door and flung it wide. “Matt!” she cried, her hands flying to her glasses. In all the ways she had imagined Matthew Noble visiting her home, this certainly was not one of them. The detective looked apologetic as he stepped inside the doorway with two policemen behind him.

“Hey, Ingrid, I’m really sorry to bother you, but I’m hoping your family has some time this afternoon to come down to the station and answer a few questions,” he said, looking tired and anxious.

“Why?”

“Can we talk about it when we get there?”

“Do we have to?” Freya demanded. “Don’t you need a warrant—or something?”

“No, we just want to ask some questions,” he said sternly. “It’s standard procedure.”

“Matt—what’s going on?” Ingrid asked fearfully.

“Why do you need to talk to the girls?” Joanna asked, her manner and tone imperious, as if the police detective were an underling daring to address the queen.

Freya snorted. “We’re being arrested, aren’t we?”

“Not at all, not at all. Look, we just want to ask you a few questions,” Matt repeated for the third time, shaking his head slightly at Ingrid, as if to say he couldn’t speak freely at the moment.

“Fine,” Freya said. “Ingrid, let’s go. See what they want to talk about.” They motioned toward the door, but the detective stopped and looked apologetically back at their mother.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’d like to talk to you as well,” he said.

“Me? Why?” Joanna’s forehead crinkled in worry.

“We’ll get into it down at the station. Ladies?” Matt asked, leading them to the patrol cars parked in their driveway. One by one, the Beauchamp women were placed in the backseat, and the police car sped away, sirens on and lights flashing. They might not have been arrested, Freya thought, but it sure felt like they were in trouble.