Secret Worlds (57 page)

“I still need time to think.”

Paloma joined us in the living room, setting a book in my lap:
Ignisvisum.
The literal translation in Latin would have been ‘Fire Vision’, but the subtitle read
Scrying with Fire
. Paloma had already told me the details, but reading the pages solidified this living nightmare.

How was I supposed to concentrate long enough to write my own ritual? The ignisvisum itself wasn’t wrong, but using it as a method to steal memories was.

The text swam around the pages. I wrote things down, crossed them out, and started over. On my tenth or eleventh attempt, something clicked. The words flew to the page.

Paloma stared out the window, looking over her shoulder every few minutes. Charles stood and took a meaningless trip outside. He wanted to clear his head, too. I dropped my connection with his thoughts and tried to focus on my own.

The decision wasn’t impossible. What choice did I have? Performing black magic was our only hope. Even then, I wasn’t sure the technique would work.

Charles returned as I was finishing my notes. I closed my notebook and stood.

“I have to do this.” The steely edge of my voice felt strange on my tongue.

He sighed, shutting the front door quietly. “I didn’t want to pressure you.”

Paloma turned to me, took both my hands, and gave them a gentle squeeze. A sad smile crossed her face.

Night had fallen. Charles placed a call to Adrian, telling him everything and asking him to come over as soon as possible. We would need him to relocate Ivory after the ritual, back to where she lived before she came to Colorado. Maybe if she was back in Boston, without any memories of me, she would have no reason to return. But wouldn’t she be confused? Would she think she’d gone crazy? I pushed aside the creeping guilt and centered my attention on my only option.

Paloma set up a small altar in the basement while I stood staring at Ivory, my arms crossed. She sat on the floor, chained to the wall and leaning back. Her gaze never left the ground, never rose to mine, but blood streaked down her cheeks from her eyes.

“How could you?” I barely choked the words past the thickness in my throat.

“You don’t understand,” Ivory whispered.

“Then explain it to me.”

Ivory opened her mouth, but then it fell shut, and she shook her head. “I—I can’t.”

I shook my head and turned away. She tried to use her influence—the warm push she sent out was weak and frenzied—and I blocked her attempt.

“No one can protect you like I can,” she said.

“Don’t try that crap with me.”

“I’m sorry, Sophia. I never meant for—”

“Sorry? You’re fucking
sorry
?” I spun back, blinking away my tears, then stormed across the room, grabbed a roll of duct tape from the supply cabinet, and returned to bind her mouth shut.

Paloma rose and placed a hand on my arm. I was shaking.

“You need to stay calm,” she said.

I pressed my lips together and stared out the thin slit of a basement window, trying to find an inner calm. All I found was cobwebs hanging between the windowpane and crank and paint peeling away from rusted metal casing. Dead flies littered the sill. Outside was a wash of gray—the bark of cedars, the crumbling stone of the birdbath, the leaden sky.

Charles sat in one of the painted wooden chairs and held a closed fist against his lips.

Paloma nodded at him and then took my hand. “Come sit at the altar.”

Tears filmed my eyes, but I managed to detach. I hardened my heart and pushed back as Ivory continued her efforts to influence. None of her thoughts made sense now anyway; they were all panicked, muddled fragments.

I needed her asleep. Paloma handed over a stone mortar bowl filled with skullcap and henbane. My hands numb from adrenaline, I nearly dropped the dish. Shakily, I ground the herbs with the pestle. The mixture in tea could knock a person out, but no way would Ivory willingly drink anything we prepared.

“I’m sorry,” I said, before blowing the powder from my palm into her eyes. It would sting, then seep into her retinas and blood stream.

I leaned away as she fought against the chains. Fresh areas of her skin smoked as the chains shook on her wrists. The bloody flesh pussed, and Ivory’s fangs descended, tearing through the duct tape. Her cheeks puffed out and saliva escaped her mouth as she spat the tape to the floor.

Her movements became weaker, and before she could say anything, her eyelids drooped, then closed. Her body slumped listless in the chains.

I looked back to Charles. “She could have broken the chains?”

He shook his head. “They’re silver.”

That would explain why they burned her flesh. Initially, I’d thought those wounds had been from something else, but now that I understood her true nature, the cause was clear.

My gaze panned the room, anxiety mounting. Bright, cheery decor, with chains attached to the wall. A dark-haired girl’s limp body sagging against restraints, silver eating away at flesh, searing third-degree burns into her wrists.

No, the room wasn’t living up to my intentions. Perhaps I’d put the negative energy here myself.

Paloma handed me a paste made from elderberries to smear over Ivory’s eyes, urging me to move forward with the ritual. This was new territory for me. What if the
ignisvisum
didn’t work? We had no backup plan.

My confidence ebbed. “Everyone will ask where she went.”

“I doubt anyone will be surprised,” Charles said, “considering the way she’s been acting.”

“Stay with me?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

He nodded.

Paloma joined me in the opening rites to cast the circle and assisted me with a protection spell. A globe of electricity surrounded us as we kneeled in front of the altar. Paloma filled the scrying bowl with chips of driftwood.

“Only you will see the images,” Paloma said, “and only you will be able hear her thoughts.”

I swallowed and nodded, then threw a lit match in my scrying bowl, the wood catching fire and heating my nose and cheeks. I added a cinnamon stick to aid in psychic vision and, using a small cloth, wiped acacia oil across my forehead to strengthen the effect.

Until that moment, reality could have been denied. Now I had to accept what I set out to accomplish.

“Blazing fire as you dance, give me now the secret glance. Call upon my second sight, make me psychic with your light.”

In a quiet murmur, I repeated the words like a mantra, my eyelids growing heavy as I gazed into the fire.

Images from Ivory’s mind displayed like a mirage on the rippling air above the embers, and my clairaudience soaked in all her thoughts and every memory and sense of emotion she’d once experienced.

My heart tightened as the air around our circle filled with black smog and the spirits of the deceased, alive during the imprinting of Ivory’s memories, struggled to break through our protective barrier. How many of them were we pulling from the afterlife? How many were Morts—spirits of elementals that had never passed on?

I focused on my chant, tuning out the crackle of fire and the moans of spirits, watching the flicker of images in the scrying bowl. A dull pain swelled in my chest as millions of words, stretched over hundreds of years, spilled from her thoughts.

There she was. Ivory—though she thought of herself as Sarah. This wasn’t Colorado. This wasn’t the world I’d grown up in. Ivory was searching for dry wood and kindling—anything that might catch fire and warm her small home.

A few feet into the woods, a woman sat leaning against a tree. Long, blonde tendrils of hair hid her face, her white bonnet crumpled and dirty.

This was Ivory’s life
before
she was turned,
not
just her memories of me. This wasn’t what I’d called for with my spell, but backing out might mean losing my only chance for answers.

I waited another moment, willing the memories to fast forward, willing the
ignisvisum
to skip past these moments and arrive at her memories of me—the memories I needed to see.

Despite my efforts, the images continued to scroll. The woman leaning against the tree turned, the moon shining off the tears that soaked her cheeks. She and I could have passed for sisters. I nearly pulled back, determined not to steal memories that had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from this woman. In my heart, I knew who she was before Ivory even spoke her name.

“Elizabeth?” Ivory asked.

I should have looked away, but this was possibly my only chance at discovering what happened to Elizabeth’s body…my only chance of gaining complete control over my clairaudience, of finding a way to protect myself and those I loved from the darkness in the elemental world.

It’s often said experiences make a person who they are. But as I stared into the
ignisvisum
bowl and sent my clairaudience out to Ivory, I soon realized it was the memories of another that would forever reshape who I was to become.

Salem, Massachusetts Colony, 1692

THE SKY DARKENED from indigo and ochre into a deep shade of amethyst. The remaining flecks of sun lent a golden warmth to the sepia-washed clearing. Ivory stumbled to a halt, then stepped closer, but Elizabeth remained seated in front of the tree.

She dropped her face into her hands. “Please go along.”

Ivory placed the maple wood she’d gathered on the forest floor and hurried to Elizabeth. “What troubles you?”

“Go.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Something evil has come.”

The sadness in Elizabeth’s eyes—a beautiful sadness that touched Ivory’s heart—created a flutter in her stomach. Ivory held the betraying emotion at bay.

“Don’t let the town’s talk frighten you,” she said. “They’re just stories.”

Elizabeth rocked slightly. “I can hear things. They will see, and they will kill me.”

Ivory glanced back toward the village. “We won’t let that happen, now will we? Tell me—”

An energy coursed through her veins. She shot to her feet and looked in every direction for a source, the sky and forest whirring around her. A whispering voice echoed between the trees, as though spoken from many discordant voices: “The heart of the spirit.”

Ivory dropped to her knees in front of Elizabeth and placed a hand on either shoulder. “Did you—”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. “I heard.”

Ivory gripped Elizabeth’s shoulders until her short nails dug against the long sleeves of Elizabeth’s dress. “We’ll leave—travel somewhere safe and make sense of all this.”

“I can’t.” Elizabeth’s voice cracked. “My baby, I can’t leave him.”

“Nonsense. You must.”

Elizabeth stood, shaking dirt loose from her skirts. “I won’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Ivory said, gentling her voice. Unlike Elizabeth, she didn’t have a husband or child. She still lived with her mother, father, and sister. How easy it would be to forget the ties that bound most women to the village. “Then we shall carry on until he has grown.”

The pair soon learned the Universe had chosen them to restore balance to the earth, an idea their minds would have rejected if their hearts were not so touched by the purity of the Universe’s voice.

And so, on some evenings to follow, they stole away into the forest, performing rituals guided by the Universe to conjure peace. Their gifts strengthened over time, and the Universe promised their true purpose would soon be revealed. Elizabeth and Ivory had no common ground otherwise: Elizabeth was married to a tailor, and Ivory was unwed, nearly too old to attract a suitor.

One afternoon, however, Elizabeth told Ivory of a deeper confliction, of the curse of
many
unknown voices, and not only the voice of the Universe.

They were sitting side-by-side near a dried riverbed, and the fabric of Ivory’s dress rustled against the fabric of Elizabeth’s. Ivory swallowed to steady her own quick, shallow breathing.

“I’m sure sense will come of it in time,” Ivory offered.

Elizabeth turned to her. “Such are these times, Sarah, that I think you are the only soul in the world who understands.”

Ivory searched Elizabeth’s eyes. Her heart leapt forward, and, before she could control her impulse, she pressed her lips against Elizabeth’s. Ivory quickly sat back, heat burning her cheeks and ears, but when she dared steal a glance, she noticed a blush creeping from the neckline of Elizabeth’s dress and the small contented smile that touched Elizabeth’s lips.

In nearby settlements, women were burned alive for such things. But Ivory wasn’t willing to sacrifice the hope she found in Elizabeth’s company.

Early one evening, while most of the townsfolk were still at work, Ivory opened her window and helped Elizabeth climb into her room. They huddled close under blankets, dressed only in their undergarments, facing each other on a small cot.

Ivory tucked one of Elizabeth’s curls behind her ear. “We will leave this place,” she whispered, “I promise you. When your child is grown, the time will be kind for our departure.”

The floorboards creaked, and Elizabeth’s body went rigid in Ivory’s arms. Ivory clutched the blanket over their bodies. Her mother walked in and gasped, then spun away and shielded her eyes as Elizabeth quickly dressed and fled the house in tears.

“You are no child of mine!” Ivory’s mother said in a voice drenched with disgust. Her hooded grey eyes narrowed, her fists balled on her hips. “They will be talking your death to know what you’ve done. Wipe her from your mind. Hear me, child, for you will find the end of a noose if you continue this path. May God send his mercy upon you and cleanse the blackness in your soul.”

Ivory’s sister, Anne, appeared in the doorway, but just as quickly turned and darted from the house, her fiery hair trailing behind and bleeding against the red, setting sun. Ivory refastened the bodice of her dress and chased after. If Anne said anything about what she’d seen…

Ivory couldn’t let that happen. She rushed out to the courtyard and stood to block Elizabeth from Anne’s glare.

A woman across the court dropped her water pail, and a man pulled the reins of a horse to bring his cart to a halt. Even the hammering of a nearby blacksmith stopped, leaving only the scent of fire and hot metal in the sudden silence.