Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Grimoire

“I can’t believe I had it this entire time,” I say aloud, holding the vial up to the lamp near my desk. Flecks of waterlogged soil float around in the murky mixture. The vial Margaret left me in the mangrove box with her unused tins of Hawthorne balm. Water of the River Styx.

“Amazing,” Matthew says beside me, also inspecting the vial in my hands.

After waiting out the rest of our half hour in the library, and receiving a very curt goodbye from Laurie, Matthew and I had made our way back to my cottage through the pouring rain.

“Margaret used her final moments on this plane of existence to tell me to find my mother’s book, all the while knowing she was leaving me the very key to unlock it.” I look at him in amazement. “But how could she have known I would find the book?”

He looks at me with a soft smile. “Things that need to be found tend to show up. Especially when witches are around.”

I smile back at him, but my stomach feels frozen.

“Are you ready?” Matthew asks. I nod and walk toward my fireplace, clutching the River Styx water against my chest like a talisman. I sit by the hearth, fanning out my long skirt around me. Merlin curls up into the folds of the fabric. Matthew sits by my side. I pull out the cursed book from the knitted bag.

The heat of the flames does little to warm me. The cold I feel is internal. Dread.

I uncork the vial and look at Matthew expectantly.

“What?” he asks, concerned.

“Hold out your hand. It’s time to make good on your promise,” I say. He looks at me for a moment, searching my eyes for meaning before understanding dawns on him.

“Must I? It’s proven itself quite useful.”

“Hand,” I insist.

His hand automatically lifts up toward me and that inky black shadow begins to pour out of his skin, wrapping around his wrist. Up close I can see the curse for the true horror that it is, blood and necrotic magic wrapped up into one. Slivers of it thrash against his skin and small tendrils try to reach out for me before being subdued by the shadow magic.

I take his hand in mine. Matthew clenches his mouth tightly shut, concentrating on keeping the curse under control, subduing any wayward tendril that reaches out for me. With my thumb, I unstopper the vial. It uncorks with a gasping pop as the seal breaks. Oxygen rushes in, and the water inside the vial begins to bubble. I hold it over his wrist, where the majority of the writhing curse sits.

“Careful,” Matthew warns.

“Water of the River Styx can’t dissipate magic inside a witch or hexan. This won’t hurt you,” I say impatiently.

“I know that,” he insists. “I’m warning you not to spill. Otherwise, you might not have enough for your mother’s book.”

I bite my cheek to keep myself from rolling my eyes. I focus on the task at hand. I tilt my wrist at the most discreet and perfect angle so that one single drop of the murky brown water separates from the vial and falls onto the black coil. I half expect some piercing shriek or wail, but the magic simply dissolves away into a faint mist. We both stare at his now empty wrist for a few moments before I release his hand.

“Well,” I say, “at least we know this stuff actually works.” I close the stopper on the vial with a satisfying snap.

I set the cursed book on the ground. The light from the fire casts dancing shadows across its cover. Merlin gets up from his spot on my skirt, climbs slowly into my lap, and curls into a tight ball of fluff. Matthew waits patiently, but I can’t bring myself to unstopper the vial again.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

I nod. “Winifred said when she last saw this, it was full of darkness. That my mother was using forbidden magic.” I look up at him with wide eyes. “How can I face that, if it’s true? How can I face you? Especially considering everything I’ve said to you since you’ve arrived.”

“Would you prefer to be alone?” Matthew asks hesitantly.

I shake my head.

“Good,” he breathes. “I don’t know that I’d be capable of leaving you right now.”

I smile.

“Alone would be much worse.” I say. “Besides, if the book retaliates, I’ll need you close, to bind the blood magic again.”

Matthew nods and settles in, waiting.

I open the book. The shimmering red ink, the blood, sits on the first page.

The King Below shall never again know my secrets.

Sybil Goodwin

I yearn to trace her handwriting again, but instead I uncork the vial, and the water begins to bubble. Before I have time to talk myself into another paralysis, I let my wrist twist, and the vial tip. The murky water splashes down onto the pages of the book. The paper darkens as the blood ink smears, swirling with the water and then disappearing entirely.

The fire crackles as we stare at the pages, watching for several minutes as the water evaporates and leaves the page dry. Nothing appears on the parchment.

Perhaps I didn’t have enough water? Maybe Matthew had been right: I shouldn’t have wasted even a single drop on the fragment of the curse he bound to himself. I steal a glance toward him. His glacial eyes are on me. My stomach clenches as I touch a shaky hand to the book and slowly turn the first page.

My heart leaps. Where once there had been blank parchment, now there is an incantation in a language I don’t recognize, but I can tell what it is by its form and structure. An evocation. In my mother’s hand. Written in the same bloodred ink as the curse. I bite my lip and turn the page. This one is covered in a scratchy, chaotic handwriting quite distinct from my mother’s elegant scrawl. And it’s in English. I read the words aloud to Matthew, dumbfounded the longer I speak.

This tome is a sacrifice and offering to the witch Sybil Goodwin, who called upon this Crown for the gift of Gwaed. She has entered into sacred contract and will never utter words of what has transpired, lest she be reaped. She earned the right to this sacred and ancient magic by the seal of a bloody kiss and the solidified promise to name the next Goodwin daughter a hedge witch.

I pause at these words as blood drains from my face. I look up to Matthew, whose brow is furrowed and grim. I take a steadying breath, trying to slow my whirling mind down, and continue to read.

With Our blood and Hers, this tome is born and sanctified. The bond between us is made eternal in the honoring of the mother’s promise. Her blood is Our blood. Her life is Our life. Those who would seek to prevent Her from fulfilling Her duty will be met by Our eternal wrath.

Along the margins of the page are sketches of a cloaked figure with long silver hair draped in shadows, his face turned from the reader’s eye.

“The King Below,” I whisper, reaching to trace the edges of the figure’s cloak. Matthew’s hand shoots out and quickly yet gently stops me.

“Careful,” he warns. “Remember what happened the last time you touched the ink. There might be other curses on the rest of these pages.”

He’s right. The vial of Styx may have removed the initial curse, but it might not have been enough to remove any others hidden within the book. I turn the page again, careful not to touch the writing.

I find a list of ingredients. Castor beans, water hemlock, black onyx crystals, squirrel blood—every forbidden ingredient I know and several I’ve never heard of are written on this page. Even more horrifying are all the uses listed in the adjacent column next to each ingredient. For affectation, page twenty-eight. For accretion, page sixty-three. For compulsion, page one hundred and seven. Quickly, I turn to page one hundred and seven.

There are sketches on this page of twisted, drooping faces with a glaze about their eyes. Ingredients for spell work. Intention setting. Ritual casting instructions to curse someone’s blood and take control of their will. The instructions are in that same scratchy, untethered hand as the dedication at the beginning of the book. But all along are my mother’s notes in the margin, crossing out some words, adjusting ingredient amounts. My eyes finally see the sketches of the drooping faces clearly. They are faces I recognize. Roger Strode, the Ipswich town pastor. Grace Harper’s brother John, a local doctor. Worst of all, with burning betrayal, I recognize the eyes and smile of the final sketch: my father.

My throat begins to close up, my breath stutters, and my eyes begin to swim with tears that try to block out the awful reality. Winifred had been telling the truth. My mother didn’t just use blood magic to protect this book. The book itself is blood magic. An instruction manual. A Grimoire.

Everything my mother had ever railed against, everything she ever told me was evil and wrong in the world—it was all right here in this book. She was a liar. A hypocrite. She’d made a pact with the King Below. And she had sacrificed my chosen path so she could manipulate the town to her will. My whole life has been forfeit to her whims.

A soft whimpering sob escapes my lips. Suddenly, the book is gone from my view, and strong arms are wrapping around me.

“Matthew, I think my mother killed my dad,” I croak.

“No. No, she didn’t,” he insists.

I nod fervently. “The doctors said it was leukemia. But what if it was something else? She poisoned him with one of those awful curses in that book, didn’t she?”

“Enough. Enough for now,” he whispers into my ear, drawing me into him. I throw my arms around him, bury my face into his neck, and sob.