The Book of Spells (25 page)

Eliza rolled her eyes and walked a few steps away from the main path, leading Theresa out of earshot of the other students and teachers.

“You just don’t like her because she’s a servant,” Eliza said through her teeth. “But she’s been doing this for a long time. She’s probably more powerful than any of us.”

“Probably,” Theresa said, pursing her lips. “And
that’s
what I don’t like about her.”

Eliza blinked. Was Theresa worried about having her own power usurped, or was she concerned that Helen might somehow turn her power against the coven?

“Ladies.”

Eliza jumped and whirled around. Miss Almay stood before her, a pinched, suspicious look on her face. Theresa grabbed Eliza’s hand in surprise as Eliza’s gaze darted around. Where on Earth had the headmistress come from?

“Might I ask why the two of you are dawdling here?” Miss Almay asked, looking down her nose at them. “I trust you’re not planning anything for which you might find yourselves in my office.”

“Of course not, Miss Almay,” Eliza stammered.

“We were just discussing our literature exam,” Theresa improvised.

“Very well, then. Get to class,” Miss Almay ordered, stepping back so that they could step onto the path in front of her. The two girls did so, still clutching each other. They hadn’t taken two steps when Miss Almay spoke again, her tone so low and ominous, it sent a quiver of fear down Eliza’s spine. “And remember, girls, I’ve got my eyes on you.”

Eliza was breathless but oddly calm as she and the other ten members of their coven approached the chapel that evening. Within the hour, the spell would be cast, and Catherine would be alive.

Provided all went according to plan.

“You remember your promise to me, don’t you, Eliza?” Helen asked. She had a dark hood pulled over her hair, and her candle’s flame was reflected in her eyes, making her blue irises glow red.

“I do,” Eliza whispered. “This will be our last spell. After tonight, we bury the books and move on with our lives.”

“With Catherine,” Theresa added firmly.

“With Catherine,” Eliza repeated.

Theresa paused and lifted the lantern. The imposing, white-walled façade of Billings Chapel rose out of the night before them. Behind the three leaders, all the other girls came to a halt.

“We’re here,” Theresa said.

“As are we.”

Eliza gasped and whirled around. Miss Almay and Mrs. Hodge rushed toward them. Miss Almay shoved through the crowd of stunned girls and came to a stop right in front of Theresa and Eliza. Her skin was ruddy with exertion, and her dark hair had come loose from its bun, but her expression was triumphant.

Eliza glanced anxiously over her shoulder at the chapel. Catherine lay right inside, her chances at survival dwindling with each passing moment. They were so close. So very close.

“Miss Almay,” Helen began. “Please, don’t—”

“I’ll deal with you later, Miss Jennings,” Miss Almay snapped, not bothering to cast a glance at her maid. Instead she glared down her long nose at Eliza and Theresa. Eliza’s pulse pounded in her ears. She could practically hear Catherine begging her to do something— begging her to save her life. “I don’t know how you managed to sneak out of the house so quietly, but Mrs. Hodge caught a glimpse of your candles out the window.”

Eliza looked at Theresa, desperate for some sort of a sign that she had a plan. Theresa, however, was looking right at Helen.

“Miss Almay, let me explain,” Theresa began. “Well, you know how devout Alice is. She simply must pray inside the chapel every single day. It makes her feel closer to God. Isn’t that right, Alice?” She didn’t wait for the girl’s answer. “But this morning, Alice
missed
morning services because of her, well, monthly . . . trouble.”

Helen took Eliza’s hand. “Concentrate on Miss Almay and chant
with me,” she said so quietly Eliza wasn’t even sure she’d spoken the words aloud.

“Befuddled, bewildered, be gone,” Helen whispered, staring straight at Mrs. Hodge. “Befuddled, bewildered, be gone. Befuddled, bewildered, be gone.”

Panicked and baffled, Eliza followed Helen’s lead. She stared at Miss Almay’s face as she repeated the chant.

“Befuddled, bewildered, be gone. Befuddled, bewildered, be gone.”

Eliza focused on the chant, on Miss Almay, on her strength, as hard as she possibly could, but nothing was happening. Her palm began to sweat inside Helen’s grip, and her breath grew shallow and still nothing. Theresa, meanwhile, was running out of fiction to tell.

“So we promised Alice that we would bring her up here tonight before midnight so she could pray . . .”

“Befuddled, bewildered, be gone. Befuddled, bewildered, be gone.”

Clarissa, who was standing behind Eliza and Helen, suddenly took Eliza’s other hand. She started to chant along with them, staring intently at Miss Almay.

“Befuddled, bewildered, be gone. Befuddled, bewildered, be gone.”

Soon Jane joined in with them. Then Lavender, Viola, and Bia. Finally Marilyn and Genevieve caught on, dragging Alice with them.

“Befuddled, bewildered, be gone,” they whispered together. “Befuddled, bewildered, be gone. Befuddled, bewildered, be gone.”

A cold wind kicked up around their feet, swirling up from the ground.

“What? What’s this?” Miss Almay demanded, shielding her eyes. “What are you girls doing?”

“It’s not working!” Eliza cried.

“Just keep going!” Helen ordered.

“Befuddled, bewildered, be gone. Befuddled, bewildered, be gone. Befuddled, bewildered, be gone.”

And just when Eliza was certain that whatever was supposed to happen would never happen without the power of the full coven, without Theresa reciting with them, the wind suddenly stopped. Eliza pushed her hair away from her eyes and blinked through the cloud of dusty dirt that billowed around them. When the haze cleared, she saw Theresa laughing.

“What can you possibly find amusing at this moment?” Eliza demanded.

“Look at them!” Theresa said, pointing to the lawn.

There, in the middle of the moonlit lawn, was a dazed-looking Miss Almay. She staggered from side to side with her arms splayed out in front of her, blinking rapidly and looking around overhead, her chin jerking this way and that as if she was following a rowdy flock of birds with her eyes. Mrs. Hodge was walking into a thick tree trunk over and over and over again.

“Poor Mrs. Hodge,” Theresa said. “She’ll have a bump the size of Plymouth Rock tomorrow.”

Eliza walked over to Mrs. Hodge and, taking her by the shoulders,
turned her toward the school. Mrs. Hodge instantly began walking straight ahead, her eyes glazed over like a dead animal’s. As Eliza watched her go, Theresa gave Miss Almay a slight shove, sending her after her maid. The headmistress spun in circles as she walked.

“Good work, Helen,” Theresa said, turning back toward the group.

“I have no wish for congratulations, Miss Billings,” Helen said quietly. “I’d just like to get this done.”

Theresa’s expression hardened. She picked up her lantern from the ground and strode toward the chapel.

“Your wish,
Miss Jennings
, is my command.”

Eliza stood in the chapel basement, her palms slick with perspiration, her arms crossed in front of her. One of her hands grasped Helen’s, the other Theresa’s, as all eleven girls stared down at the lifeless form of Catherine White. Catherine’s face had been covered by a swath of white gauze, her hands folded over her chest like a praying angel. As each girl slowly left the circle, one by one, to add her ingredient to the stone bowl at Catherine’s feet, Eliza’s knees quaked beneath her.

This had to work. It simply had to.

We need you to return to us, Catherine,
Eliza thought, closing her eyes as a wave of nerves crashed through her chest.
We need you here with us. I know you want to be here, too. Please, please, please come back to us.

All around the room the candles flickered and dimmed, then flickered again and glowed stronger. There was a hush among the coven, and the air was thick with desperation, hope, and fear. Jane’s
shoes scratched the silty floor as she shuffled forward and tipped her bottle of arrowroot toward the bowl. Then, head bowed, she returned to the circle and took Viola’s hand. Helen released Eliza, bent to pick up her vial of eye of newt, and slowly, methodically added it to the bowl. The ritual was like a rhythmic dance, each girl doing her part with grace and precision. And then it was Eliza’s turn.

As she rejoined the circle, Helen looked Eliza firmly in the eye. Eliza set her jaw, bent over, and lifted the bottle of jasmine from the floor at her feet. She carefully avoided the thick, white candles Lavender had placed all around the body, per the book’s instructions. When she arrived at the bowl, she looked up at Catherine’s face.

The corpse’s eyes were open and glaring at her angrily.

Eliza gasped and took a step back, her heel coming down right on Marilyn’s toe.

“Eliza, what is it?” Marilyn demanded.

“Shhh!” Clarissa admonished. “We’re supposed to stay perfectly quiet.”

“But I—she—”

Eliza gestured at Catherine with her bottle, but when she looked back again, Catherine’s eyes were closed. The gauze hadn’t been disturbed. The body hadn’t moved. It was just Eliza’s mind playing tricks on her. She cleared her throat nervously; her pulse was racing through her veins, making her feel lightheaded.

Trembling from head to toe, Eliza took a tentative step toward the body. She checked Catherine’s eyes once more. They were still closed. Shaking her head slightly, she opened the bottle and dumped the
contents into the bowl’s fragrant mixture. Then she slipped the empty bottle into the pocket of her blue dress and returned to the circle, taking Helen’s hand.

Theresa stepped forward. The final ingredient was the rosemary. She stepped forward with the sprig in her two hands and slowly, meticulously tore each needle from it, dropping them in one by one. Eliza felt as if she was falling into a trance as she watched Theresa. The room seemed to be growing warmer, and the heady scents of rosemary, lavender, lilac, and jasmine filled the room.

As the last rosemary needle fluttered into the bowl, a light, airy wind filled the room—a comforting springtime breeze. It tickled Eliza’s skin and filled her with hope. All around the circle, the girls began to smile.

This was going to work. Every last one of them could sense it.

Theresa returned to the circle and took Eliza’s hand. She nodded, and the girls began to recite the spell, which they had committed to memory.

“Powerful spirits, we implore thee, give us the power, hear our plea.”

The words had barely escaped Eliza’s lips, when every candle in the room suddenly went out. There was no wind this time, no movement— nothing natural that had extinguished the lights. The coven simply plunged into darkness. Eliza could make out nothing, save the white gauze over Catherine’s pale face. Fear radiated from Eliza’s heart and poured off the others in waves. For a long moment no one spoke. Then Theresa squeezed Eliza’s hand and started the next line.

“From the darkness into the light, help our sister travel this night.”

The other girls joined in. Instantly, a biting cold chased out the last remnants of warmth, permeating the room and biting at Eliza’s skin. Eliza heard Bia moan in fear on the other side of the circle but could feel nothing outside of her own terror and the frigid cold air.

“We witches here will be her guide, to wrest her from the other side.”

A crash of deafening thunder filled the room, coming not from outside the chapel, but from within. Bia screamed as the candles blazed to light around Catherine, their flames like a wall of fire between her body and the coven. They licked at the beams in the ceiling and spread menacingly wide, threatening the hems of the girls’ skirts. A few girls edged backward, but no one broke the circle. The sudden heat was excruciating, and Eliza turned her face as her eyes began to sting and tear. Together the coven managed to shout the last few words.

“Let her know no pain, let her fear no strife, give us the power to save her life!”

Another crack of thunder leveled Bia as she fainted dead away. Instantly, the flames completely died as if doused by a deluge of water. Someone—Eliza couldn’t tell who—shouted in surprise. A few of the candles flickered meekly around Catherine’s hands and feet. Smoke plumed from the stone bowl, and the stench of burned herbs filled the air. Jane covered her eyes and began to sob. Marilyn and Genevieve clung to each other. Looking stunned, Alice took a few steps back and fell into a chair.

Eliza, Theresa, and Helen stared at the body. Eliza’s chest heaved up and down with her ragged breath. Her locket was white hot against her skin, but she didn’t move to adjust it.

Catherine remained still.

“What’s going on?” Eliza asked, her voice a mere whisper. “What happened? Why didn’t it work?”

“I don’t know,” Helen said, her eyes wide. “We did everything by the book. You added all the rosemary?” she asked Theresa.

“Of course I added all the rosemary,” Theresa replied defensively. “Do you think I wanted it to fail, Helen? Do you think I wanted her dead? What do you expect me to—”

A sudden gasp cut her off, and Eliza hurtled backward, startled so thoroughly that she had to grasp the stone wall to keep herself from joining Bia on the floor. Every girl in the room held her breath.

Catherine White had just sat up.

“Eliza?” Catherine said.

Her voice was a croak, and she stared straight through Eliza as she said her name. Theresa dropped Eliza’s hand, and Eliza rushed forward.

“Catherine!”

She whipped away the gauze that clung to Catherine’s hair, and enveloped her in a hug. Catherine’s arms hung limply at her sides, but Eliza hardly noticed. Catherine was back. Catherine was alive!

“It’s a miracle!” Alice said from her chair near the door. “A miracle.”

“How do you feel?” Eliza asked. “Are you all right?” “Are you hungry?” Genevieve asked.