Witch & Curse (26 page)

She wished she could make sense of it.
Tonight
, she thought,
Amanda's friend's aunt will stick pins in something and alakazam! everything will be revealed. The pathetic thing is, I half-expect it will really be that way
.

Suddenly the gulls began to screech. Like a blanket lifted by invisible hands at four corners, they rose into the air, whirling in a spiral. Cawing, wings flapping, they flew to the open sea en masse, wheeling into the distance.

Wow
, Holly thought nervously. Though she studied the spot where they had been, she saw nothing. The gray waves of Elliott Bay still crashed against the
stones. The evergreens growing at the water's edge still whipped in the wind.

Abruptly the gulls screamed back toward the shore, some of them making a near-perfect 180. A flapping, cawing blanket of feathers and movement, they careened toward the water, swarming and jittering. Holly cried out, darting out of their way, stumbling and falling on her butt.

They hunkered into a clump, skittering and jostling, then took off again, as quickly as they had the first time.

Only this time, they left something behind:

Holly caught her breath, then pushed up from her stinging palms and stumbled toward the object. It was a book, or a fragment of one, the pages both scorched and sodden, the majority of them reduced to soaking-wet ash that clumped off and splashed into the breakers as she lifted it into her hand.

She was no scholar, but she knew Gothic script when she saw it.

And she also recognized the one word that jumped out at her:
ISABEAU
.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, but there was no warm heart in the Anderson mansion. Aunt Marie-Claire drank too much, and Uncle Richard was quiet.
Nicole was impatient to be finished so she could go visit “friends.” Amanda and Holly exchanged glances, still unsure what to do or say to her.

They bided their time and, finally, managed to snag use of Uncle Richard's Toyota before Nicole could ask for it. The Mercedes had been totaled in the fire, and the new “family car” was a Volvo station wagon. Problem was, the family never went anywhere together, and to Holly, the wagon's purchase represented some kind of dysfunctional fantasy that they did. Nicole was left to drive it, which was not as fun as the Toyota.

She and Amanda tore out of the house, wild to be gone, in a hurry to get some answers. Holly had shown Amanda the book, and Amanda had been just as freaked out by Holly's description of the seagulls as Holly had been during the experience.

They drove to the Capitol Hill section of Seattle and found the bed-and-breakfast, a charming little wooden inn with five bedrooms.

“Bonjour,”
Amanda sang out happily as she and Holly rapped on the door to the bedroom nearest the stairway, having been shown up by the proprietress of the inn. The lady had provided her guests with a picture-perfect Thanksgiving dinner, the evidence of which was still on the dining room table.

“Bonjour,”
replied a warm, honey voice as the door opened.

A smiling, dark-skinned woman stood on the other side. She was dressed in a dark gray dress and black leather clogs. Her black hair was smoothed back into a simple ponytail. She was carrying a pink box labeled
CAFÉ DU MONDE
.

“Amanda,” she greeted, holding open her arms. “Hello, sweetie.”

Amanda embraced her, then turned to Holly. “Tante Cecile, this is my cousin.”

The woman appraised Holly for a couple of seconds, then extended her hand. She kept her gaze fastened on Holly as Holly held out her hand in return.

Their palms touched. Holly felt something very warm, as if Silvana's aunt were holding a heated object that she was pressing against Holly.

“You brought me beignets, didn't you?” Amanda cried happily as she pointed at the box. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Then a young girl who was a younger version of Tante Cecile danced into the room, shutting a door behind her.

“Girl, you're so skinny!” she cried as she raced into Amanda's arms. “Haven't you been skipping P.E. like we used to?”

Amanda's face lost some of its mirth. She said, “Things have been awfully tense around here.” She gestured to Holly. “Show them the book.”

Holly took the soggy book out of the plastic bag she'd stored it in for the trip over. She explained how she had found it. Then she told Tante Cecile about the ward; when she pulled it from her pocket, the woman's brows rose.

“Someone who knows a lot about shamanism made that for you,” she observed. She looked at Silvana. “I think we ought to get to work right away, honey. We'll have to socialize later, all right?”

Chills danced up Holly's spine as Tante Cecile gestured to a small table opposite the king-sized bed, where five candles formed a pentagram and in the center of the circle sat a Ouija board.

Holly blinked. She had seen a Ouija board once at a slumber party when she was ten. One of the girls had brought it and in the middle of the night they had all gathered around it, giggling nervously, laughing to cover their fear. Nothing had happened, not really. One girl had claimed the pointer had moved, but everyone thought she was faking it, maybe to get attention, maybe to scare them all more.
Maybe she hadn't been faking
, the thought rose unbidden, tickling her mind with memories of fears past.

Swallowing the lump in her throat while trying to push aside her skepticism, Holly slid into her chair. It was silly—after all, she couldn't be both cynical and frightened, could she? But yet she was.

Slowly she lifted her eyes to meet those of the lady who had flown all the way from New Orleans to help her and Amanda. Tante Cecile sat, grim, staring at her in a way that creeped Holly out.

Tante Cecile released her gaze, and Holly sagged slightly in relief as the other woman gazed first at Silvana and then at Amanda. The silence stretched taut between them as the candles flickered. Finally she nodded and the four clasped hands, Holly very carefully because of her arm. Amanda raised her own up to connect with Holly's; Holly's palms tingled slightly where they touched Silvana's and Amanda's palms.

Then in a low, commanding voice, the older woman began. “We are gathered here to seek knowledge. We call upon the spirits of the past to clarify the present, to show us what has gone before that we might understand what is to come.”

There was silence for a moment and Holly could feel her imagination beginning to run wild. Were the candle flames higher than they had been a moment before? When had the shadow appeared across the Ouija board?

“All place hands on the guide.”

Holly allowed her cousin to pull her fingers forward until all of their hands rested on the Ouija's marker, the thing that could move from letter to letter.

“Show us that we might see, show us that we might know, show us things of the past and what is yet to be,” Silvana and Tante Cecile chanted together.

“Show me,” Holly whispered.

Suddenly the marker shot out from beneath their hands and flew across the room, crashing into a mirror and shattering it. Holly didn't see it happen, though. Holly couldn't see anything, and all she could feel was the blinding pain. She struggled to breathe, but her lungs felt as if they had been flattened. She couldn't move, and then as suddenly as it had come, the pain was gone. Everything was gone. No sight, no sound, no feeling, nothing and, finally, not even her thoughts.

Silvana and Amanda stared at the broken mirror until a strangled gasp from Tante Cecile pulled their attention back to the table. Something wasn't right, they could both feel it, and as one they turned toward Holly.

Only Holly wasn't there.

A pale, shimmering woman sat in her place. Her clothes were centuries old and her hair fell in waves all
the way to her waist. Her cheekbones were high and hollow and her eyes shone an unearthly blue. She looked at each of them slowly, as though moving her head was a great effort. She began to move her lips, but no sound came out.

“Wh-where is Holly?” Amanda demanded, unable to keep the panic out of her voice.

Tante Cecile quickly put her hand over Amanda's. “Don't be scared, Mandy. She and this woman are sharing the same space and time.”

“She's . . . possessed Holly?” Amanda asked. She glanced at Silvana, who looked as scared as she felt.

“Yes, and at the same time, no. This is something far greater than that. She's almost a part of Holly.”

Tante Cecile turned to the woman and spoke to her in French. Then, as if the woman were speaking underwater, a strange, disembodied voice answered in English.

“I . . . my name . . . Isabeau.” The pale woman's whisper was low and her words vibrated in the air in a way no human's could have. “I am one who has gone before.”

“Who are you?”

“I was born a Cahors, one of you, and I married a Deveraux, one of them.”

“When?” Tante Cecile asked.

“Six hundred years past. At Beltane, it will be exactly six hundred years ago.”

“May Day,” Silvana whispered to Amanda. “May first.”

“Why have you come?” Tante Cecile asked.

“Have you read the book? The one from the beach?”

“No,” Tante Cecile admitted.

“Ah.” The woman sighed. “I loved him so. He could have been a good man, had I time enough—”

“Isabeau,” Tante Cecile interrupted. “Stay focused.”

“You must stop it from happening again.” The ghostly figure sighed. “It happens every night, in my time. I am tortured by it. Again and again.” She began to weep.

“Stay with me, Isabeau,” Tante Cecile said firmly.

“It will happen at Beltane in your time. It is the six hundredth year, which is the same alignment of the stars as when it occurred. It will come into your world, and it will happen again. You must stop it.” Her sigh ricocheted around the room.

“Stop what?” Tante Cecile asked.

The woman sobbed. “Massacre. Oh, Jean,
mon amour, mon homme . .
.”

“Where is Holly?” Silvana asked. “May we speak to her?”

The figure sighed again, tears streaming down her
cheeks. “She is in me, her eyes will soon see what my eyes have seen, all these centuries, so much death. She will know, and she must stop it. Already she has seen my death and my betrayal of my husband, my love, Jean.”

“And what is she seeing now?” Tante Cecile asked.

“She is seeing the darkness, the intertwining of Deveraux and Cahors, a great secret and a terrible destiny. Through time, it has been a war and a vendetta. Destruction is the child of my womb, and all I wanted . . . it was not for me to want him, to want his love . . . but I did. . . .”

Paris, 1562

“Tell me about the Black Fire!” the Queen, Catherine de' Medici, demanded
.

“There is no Fire, there hasn't been for nearly two centuries,” Luc Deveraux spat, blood spraying from his lips. Coughs racked his body, and more blood bubbled up on his lips
.

The queen placed a finger under his chin and lifted his head so that his eyes met hers. Even on his knees he was nearly as tall as the petite Catherine. Her eyes bore into him with a cold hatred
.

“I think you're lying to me.”

“Why would I lie?”

“Why would you tell the truth? Your family is not known for it. After all, despite your pledges of loyalty, support, the kind sympathy your father showed me when all France hated me, ‘the Italian woman,' you and your family have always been plotting against me. For the first ten years of my marriage you were the ones who cursed my womb, made it impossible for me to bear a child. Well, I foiled you at last.”

The tortured man looked up at her. “Yes, and how many of your children will you live to see on that throne? The bearing of them does not signify that you can keep them alive long enough to produce heirs of their own.”

She looked as though she would strike him, but she was a queen and she had servants to do that. She nodded almost imperceptibly, and one of them began lashing his back with the whip again. Luc Deveraux bit his tongue, refusing to let her hear him scream. How many dozens of his kinsmen had already been under this lash in the last fortnight? How many had she tortured? How many had she broken? He did not know, but she would not break him. He could not tell her what he did not know, and he refused to tell her that which he did. He would die first
.

At last the man with the whip ceased his efforts and Luc drew a ragged breath. He stared in hatred at the woman pacing in front of him
.

“Tell me what I want and this will all stop. Tell me about the Black Fire. Tell me what your family is plotting with the
Huguenots. They will not tear France apart. There can only be one king, one people, one religion,” she stated
.

Weakly he whispered, “There is no plan.”

“I wish that I could believe you,” she said coldly. “I don't like torturing you, and I fear that you will never tell me what I need to know, that you will die first.”

He said nothing, wondering what she was thinking, what she intended to do. A flick of her wrist sent the man with the whip outside, closing the door behind him. For the thousandth time Luc tested the strength of the chains anchoring his wrists to the ceiling. Even if he could pull the restraints from the stone he doubted that he would have the strength to stand
.

The door opened and his torturer reappeared, pushing a woman with long, black hair before him. Her hands were bound behind her and he handled her roughly, finally bringing her to stand before Luc and the queen. Marie stared at him with her pale eyes out of a face streaked with dirt and tears. Catherine nodded and her man yanked back Marie's head and held a knife to her throat
.

“Luc, you know that I do not make idle threats. Either you tell me what I want to know, or he will slit your wife's throat.”