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As soon as I enter, an overwhelming sense of wrongness hits me like a wave. The air is too cold, too fraught with vibration. Despite the sun outside, the shutters are closed, the curtains drawn and the room is as dark as if it were midnight. The fire alone gives off any light.
And that’s when I see her. In the corner, beside Mother’s bed, Mary Preston hovers like some dark angel of death.
I catch my breath, my hand on the door behind me. I want to flee, but I can’t leave Mother alone with her. “What are you doing here?” My voice cracks. “What do you want from her?”
She turns her head slowly at my voice. The spirit is silent, but I can feel her hollow eyes trained on me. Mother is sleeping, vulnerable and small in her bed while Mary Preston’s dark veil swirls about her like a greedy fog. Then she turns back, her awful veiled face just inches from Mother’s prostrate head.
“Leave her alone!” Before I can think about what I’m doing, I charge at the dark lady, my hand outstretched just like with Cyrus.
But before I even get halfway across the room, I freeze in my tracks as if I’d hit a wall. Something cold grips me where I stand, preventing me from taking another step forward. My hand drops to my side.
Mary Preston rises to her full height, hovering above the floor. “Stand your ground, child,” she says in her everywhere-voice.
“Don’t touch her,” I growl, as if there is anything I can do to stop her.
“You still think me foe and not friend, I see. I am not here to harm your mother. As I already told you, I was not inclined to evil in life, and death is no different.”
Even for her horrid countenance, I reluctantly must believe her. After all, she did not harm me the last time she was here.
“So, she finally told you, did she? I wonder that she took so long.”
I don’t say anything. Mother twitches in her sleep and I struggle to release myself from my invisible bonds and go to her.
“I will release you when we have finished our talk. Do not be in such a hurry.”
It is easy for her to say, someone who has nothing but eternity ahead of them. If these are to be my Mother’s last moments, then I want to spend each one by her side.
My heart wrenches as Mother writhes and mutters something in her sleep. The fever is worse today. “Isn’t there anything I can do for her? Can’t I save her from this?” If I’m able to twist Tommy Bishop’s leg around, or repel Cyrus through the air, surely I can cure my mother? “I want to be a healer, to help her. I don’t want to only be someone who hurts people.”
Mary Preston’s shrug is in her voice. “There are always ways. But is that the kind of witch you would have yourself become? Are you willing to dabble in that dark end of the spectrum? It is one matter to be a healer, but another to pervert the laws of life and death. There are always consequences, as you have seen with Emeline. You brought her back, and you have witnessed for yourself the cost.”
I catch my breath. “But...but how? I didn’t mean to.”
“Didn’t you? You took something of hers with the intention of keeping her with you.”
“The hair?” I ask in a whisper. When I took a lock of hers, and put mine in the coffin, it was an impulse, something I couldn’t explain, but felt I must do to keep us connected. How was I to know that my actions would have such profound consequences?
“Yes, the hair is part of it. It is a volatile sort of magic, fraught with risk.” Her tone softens, so far as the hollow voice of a spirit is capable of softening. “Your mother is tired, child. She wants rest. Give her what succor you can with herbs, with the healing comfort of your hands, but understand that nothing is certain in this life, least of all dark magic. If she recovers, it will be because of nature’s course, or her own will. Not through spells and talismans.”
I think of Emeline, wandering that space between the living and the dead, herself and yet not herself. Would I condemn Mother to a similar fate?
“No,” I whisper. “I wouldn’t do that to her.”
Mary Preston gives a small inclination of her head.
“Why are you here? Why now?”
“As I said, it is a hard thing for a witch not to have someone to teach them. No longer do witches congregate in covens for fear of apprehension. We learned that lesson soon enough in my day. No, they might not string us up or drown us with rocks as they used to, but it is still a dark time for women of our ilk. It is a shame that your mother is not a witch herself and so could not teach you as you ought to have been. More of a shame still that she did not give you the book sooner.”
It takes me a moment to understand her meaning. “You...you’re here to teach me?”
“I am here, child,” she says, “to pay my respects to a Hale woman, though witch she is not. I am here, because it is where you are. Death, as you have seen, is not such a great divider, especially for our kind. You will not go through your journey alone. You will have generations of women behind you.”
A lump forms in my throat, and I nod my understanding. I will not be alone, and there is a chance, however small, that my mother may come back from this.
“Read the book, and add what you learn from your own trials. Never stop learning. A lifetime is not long enough to gather up all the knowledge of our kind. That is why we pass it down.”
It seems an impossible task, but I realize that I’m thirsty for it. I don’t want to waste my life hiding from myself. I want to heal, to love. I want to be close to Emeline, and I can do that by being true to what I am. But for right now, I just want to sit beside my mother.