Chapter 12

12

H er words sent a shiver skittering down my spine. “Persi, what do you…”

“Shh,” Persi said, for Bernadette was now rising from the bed and coming closer to the bars, head cocked to one side, as though curious about our whispered conversation.

“It’s not nice to keep secrets,” Bernadette sang from inside her cell.

“Do you hear it?” Persi asked, ignoring Bernadette’s words as she placed her backpack on the table, and started rifling through it. “When she speaks, do you hear it?”

“Hear what?” I asked, but Persi just shook her head and then cocked it toward Bernadette, who was now pouting and talking to herself on the other side of the bars. I paused for a moment, and listened hard.

Now that Persi had pointed it out, there was something very strange about her voice. I barely knew Bernadette—I think I had spoken to her a total of three times before she was arrested, and even then, I was hardly making a study of her voice—but even I could hear it, now that Persi had drawn my attention to it. There was something in the cadence, something… antiquated. The only way I could explain it was the difference between listening to an actor in a contemporary movie, and then listening to that same actor perform in a period drama. There was a different style, a different lilt and rhythm to the words that sounded, to my ear, to belong to another time. And I was quite sure it hadn’t been there when I’d spoken to Bernadette before.

I looked at Persi again, and she was watching me, watching that realization kindle in my eyes.

“Do you understand now?” Persi asked.

I nodded, because the pieces had fallen into place. Ostara’s fear was true, and Nova had been right. Sarah Claire was somehow attached to Bernadette.

“We will never understand how culpable Bernadette is until we untangle this mess of spiritual coercion, and that means we have to sever the ties between them,” Persi said.

“Persi.” I waited until she was looking directly at me before I continued. “Even if this Cleansing works, even if we’re able to completely separate the two, there is every chance that Bernadette was a willing participant in all of this. You may do all of this, and find out that that was the case all along. Are you okay with that?”

There was a muscle jumping in Persi’s jaw as she stared back at me. Then she let her eyelids flutter closed, and took a long slow breath in and out before opening them again.

“Yes,” Persi said, and I heard no defiance, no defensiveness—only acceptance. “I have had to make my peace with worse things. Not many, but still. I will be fine. I still want to know. I need to know. I can’t move forward unless I do, and I will move forward regardless of the answer.”

She may have been looking at me, but the promise she was making was to herself, and we both knew it. I also knew—and I wasn’t sure how I knew—that she would keep it.

“Okay,” I said. “Then let’s do this.”

Persi smiled at me—it was quick and small, but sincere. Then her face dropped back into a furrowed expression of concentration as she emptied the contents of her backpack onto the table. There would be no more bonding tonight. We had work to do.

Persi handed me a fragrant bundle tightly wound in string, along with her lipstick lighter. “Light this, then count to ten and blow it out, so that it smokes, but you can no longer see any flame.”

“What is it?” I asked, fumbling with the lighter.

“Lavender, rosemary, and cedar,” Persi replied.

Behind the bars, Bernadette had gone very still. She was no longer talking and singing to herself, and she had lost the almost playful attitude she had been exuding from the moment Persi had entered. It was as though Bernadette had been playing a game, in charge of the rules, and suddenly Persi had pulled the rug out from under her. The game had changed, and Persi was now making the rules. Bernadette watched unblinkingly as I lit the bundle and counted.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Walk in an unbroken pattern around the four corners of the room, waving the bundle up and down. Start here, in the north corner. The idea is to touch as much of the room as possible with the smoke.”

I did as she instructed, taking slow and careful steps, and watching the tendrils of smoke curl up into the shadowed recesses of the corners. A rich, heady fragrance began to fill the room, and my eyes began to water; but I continued doing as Persi had instructed me. As I walked past the cell where Bernadette was sitting against the bars, I felt her eyes on me.

Don’t look at her . Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact.

I couldn’t explain to myself why this directive was so strong in my head, but it was as though I was screaming at myself. What was this feeling? I didn’t remember feeling this way when I’d seen Bernadette in the lighthouse that night. I was much more frightened of the poisoned knife she had clutched in her hand than I was of her personally. Had I been too distracted, or was something different about her now? I certainly wouldn’t have blamed myself—or anyone else there that night—for being too caught up in the chaos to notice something subtle, but strange, lurking in the back of Bernadette’s eyes. Had it even been there yet? Had Sarah already curled up inside Bernadette like a hibernating creature, or had that come later, after the Darkness had been defeated? I finished my walk of the room’s perimeter, and arrived back beside Persi.

“Lay it here,” she said, pointing to a small bowl, like a mortar. “And let it burn out on its own.” I did as she instructed, laying the bundle carefully in the bowl, where it continued to release curling smoke like spectral threads up toward the ceiling.

I watched as Persi reached into a leather pouch, and extracted a handful of coarse sea salt. She tossed the salt into the four corners of the room, her lips moving in a constant but silent incantation. For the first time, as the salt hit the floor with a soft shushing sound, Bernadette reacted. An undulation rolled through her body, like a wave toward the shore, and a strange hissing sound escaped her lips. The sound seemed to startle her, and for the first time, her expression shifted. Initially, she had seemed only curious about what we were doing. Now, there was a tentative wariness to the cock of her head, and the lines around her mouth.

“There she is,” Persi whispered.

“There who is?” I asked.

“Sarah Claire. We’ve lured her out,” Persi said. There was a deep, ringing satisfaction in her voice, the kind of satisfaction that can only come from being proven right in a crucial moment.

The name, meanwhile, acted like a trigger for Bernadette. She slammed her hand down against the bars, and the sound echoed brightly through the room.

“This isn’t about Sarah Claire. This is about me!” she said.

“You’re right, Bernadette, if that’s even who I’m talking to,” Persi said, not bothering to look up from her preparations. “It is about you. It’s about finding you in all of this.”

“You can’t do this,” Bernadette hissed through clenched teeth.

“I am already doing it,” Persi replied.

“There’s nothing to find. I’ve done what I’ve done, and I’m proud of it. Why does everyone feel they must take away my agency, simply because they don’t approve of what I’ve done? Are my own actions no longer mine? Am I not allowed to own my mistakes?” Bernadette asked.

“If I’m wrong, which I’m not, then this Cleansing will do absolutely nothing. You will still be yourself, in full control of your words and actions, and you will have all the agency you could ever desire,” Persi said. “You’ll be able to confess and take responsibility, if that’s what you want to do, and I will personally lock the door and throw away the key.”

“You won’t,” Bernadette cooed. “You won’t do that. You love me. I can see it in your eyes.”

Persi looked up and met Bernadette’s eye then, her expression calm and steady and edged just a little by grief. “I do love you. But I will no longer allow myself to be exploited because of it. And yes, I do promise you, I will do it. I will not do it happily, but I will do it, and you would be smart not to test my resolve on that point.”

Bernadette’s top lip curled into a snarl, and she beat her hand against the bars again.

“Be careful,” I whispered to Persi. “You’re pissing her off.”

“No, I’m pissing Sarah off. There’s a difference,” Persi said, still with an admirable facade of calm, even as the tiniest of tremors crept into her voice.

“Aren’t you worried that she’s going to… I don’t know, fight back?” I asked.

“She can’t. The spells on this place have utterly decimated her powers, and Sarah is powerless without a living witch to carry out her bidding. Her connection to Bernadette is the only thing keeping her here. It’s time to sever the connection between the two, and send Sarah back beyond the veil where she belongs.”

“But once Sarah is disconnected from Bernadette, what will stop her from just… I don’t know, hopping straight into you or me, like an empty Uber?” I asked.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Persi said. “Once she exits Bernadette, we will trap her in an object. Then we destroy that object. That should send her back beyond the veil.”

“What’s the veil? What does that even mean?” I asked.

“It’s the only thing that stands between us and the beyond, and Sarah Claire is on the wrong side of it. But after this Cleansing, we will have cut her ties here. The beyond will claim her again.”

I felt like my head was spinning. I had to push a swirling mass of questions about the afterlife away for the time being, because Persi was now rolling up her sleeves to perform the next part of the Cleansing spell; and I suddenly found I wanted to have all my wits about me for whatever the hell was about to happen.

“What object are you using to trap her? Can you just use… anything?”

“No,” Persi said. “You have to use something that has a blood or life connection.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning either something the spirit handled while alive, or something handled by a member of their bloodline,” Persi said, and she tapped her finger on a book she’d pulled from her bag.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A book from the Manor. I took it from the library when we were summoned there. Unexpectedly helpful, that summoning. Instead of inventing some kind of pretext for entering the Manor, I was invited.”

“You mean you stole it?” I asked.

Persi gave me a withering look. “You mean did I take one of Ostara’s own items to solve a problem that she created? Yes, I did.”

But I was hardly listening. I’d just remembered what I had sitting in the bottom of my backpack. Something else stolen.

“Persi, would something that Sarah Claire actually owned work better?” I asked.

Persi rolled her eyes. “Almost certainly, but we don’t have anything that she?—”

“I do,” I replied, as I reached into my bag. I pulled out the mirror and laid it on the table.

For a moment, Persi could only stare at the mirror in undisguised shock. Then she looked at me with something akin to wonder. “Should I even ask how you came to have this sitting in your backpack?”

“Probably not. It was Nova. I told you she was determined to see this through.”

Persi smirked. “I knew I liked that girl. Okay, well, we’d better get started. Dawn isn’t far off.”

“Is this safe?” I asked her.

“Should be,” she replied.

“ Should be?”

“Well, I’ve never actually performed one before—not like this,” Persi said. She caught my eye and then added, “I’ve performed many Cleansings. I’ve just never specifically Cleansed an angry centuries-old spirit from the body of an ex-girlfriend, and frankly, neither has anyone else I know.”

“So, you’re saying this isn’t typical Sedgwick Cove relationship drama? I’m so glad to hear that,” I laughed, my voice rising a full octave.

“Wren. Get a hold of yourself.”

“Sorry,” I said, and took a steadying breath. “Seriously, though, what happens when the—bond or connection or whatever it is between them—is broken? Will Sarah just be hanging around, ready to attach to someone else like a parasite?”

“No, she’ll be drawn out of Bernadette and into this mirror,” Persi said. “And then we’ll destroy the mirror. Once that’s done, she’ll be sent back to the other side of the veil, where she belongs. And she knows it. That’s why she’s trying to hide.”

Persi then reached into her bag and pulled out a long, thin braid of white, blonde hair. At the sight of it, Bernadette let out an angry hiss, like a cat. Persi looked over at her, her expression almost amused.

“Oh, do you recognize this? I would hope you do. You gave it to me when you swore we would be bound together in love for all of this earthly life. I was besotted enough with you at the time that I tucked it away, like a treasured possession. I nearly burned it when you betrayed me, but I thought better of it. I knew there had to be a better use for it. At the time, I was seeing red and thinking only of revenge; but then I realized I could put it to much better use in another way.”

Persi then took a bundle of ribbons from her bag. She began to wind them, one by one, around the braid of hair. “These ribbons represent the dark manipulations of Sarah Claire. They are the hold she has upon you, Bernadette Claire, the source of her power over you. They are the choking weeds that throttle you, the puppet strings that control you. They are the manifestation of her influence, her energy, and her power.”

Persi held out the hair, now tightly bound in different color ribbons, and dangled it in slow, deliberate circles —first clockwise, then counterclockwise, over the still smoking herbs in the bowl. I watched, entranced as the smoke curled and danced around the hair, how it seemed to circle and snake itself around each knot, each twist. Behind the bars Bernadette—or perhaps Sarah—was actually snarling with anger. She beat her hands against the bars again, her palms red with the fruitless effort.

Next, Persi pulled a tiny dagger from her bag. She pulled it from its leather sheath to reveal a slightly curved, wickedly sharp blade. Then she held up the bound braid of hair, and slipped the point of the dagger beneath the first ribbon.

“I release you from this dark energy,” she murmured, and sliced neatly through the first ribbon, which fluttered away to the floor. My eyes darted toward Bernadette, who was now howling with anger, and throwing herself against the bars.

“Persi, she’s going to hurt herself,” I muttered.

“A few bruises are a small price to pay to get her soul back, wouldn’t you say?” Persi replied. Still, the next time the bars rattled, she flinched; and I knew she didn’t like the idea of Bernadette injuring herself.

“I release you from this dark energy,” she whispered again, and cut through a second ribbon.

Bernadette had now jumped to her feet, and was making furious swipes toward us with her thin but powerful arms. The sounds escaping her sounded like an incantation of her own, something lilting but dark, in a language I didn’t recognize.

“I release you from this dark energy,” Persi repeated once, twice, three times more. At last, she sliced through the last of the ribbons.

Bernadette let loose a screech of rage, and then fell to the ground in a heap, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. As she hit the ground, a cloud of dust rose up around her, dark and almost sparkling, like soot. The cloud hovered, swirling like mist, and my breath caught in my throat.

“Is that… that’s not…”

“Sarah Claire,” Persi breathed. “Or what’s left of her. Quick, the mirror!”

I held up the mirror, and Persi began to tie the ribbons to it, her fingers sure. As I watched, I looked into the mirror and saw something in the reflection that caught my attention for just a moment. A word, carved into the stone of the wall behind where Bernadette now lay: Kildare. I’d barely had time to register it before my attention was drawn away again, this time to the strange sparkling, smoke-like cloud that was Sarah Claire. The cloud shifted, forming, for a brief moment, an almost human shape before shooting across the room, and directly into the mirror. Persi yelped and dropped the mirror, which landed with a clatter on the table, looking old and innocuous as ever.

Persi and I stood motionless, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for something else to happen. When nothing did, Persi sagged beside me with a sigh of relief.

“I think we did it,” she murmured. “I think she’s gone. Can you feel it?”

I thought I understood what she meant. The entire atmosphere of the room was lighter somehow. It was as though a gust of fresh air had swept through, and took the mustiness and the decay and the dark, heavy energy of the place with it. I turned to Persi and felt a smile spread slowly over my face. Persi, on the other hand, darted forward to where Bernadette still lay in a motionless heap against the bars of her cell. She reached through, snatched up Bernadette’s hand, and pressed her fingers to her wrist.

“Pulse is steady and strong. I imagine she’ll sleep for a long time now,” Persi said, slumping into a seated position with a sigh. “If she’s been fighting against Sarah at all, she will be exhausted, mentally and physically. We won’t know until she wakes how much she remembers.”

“What if she tells the Conclave about this?” I asked. “Won’t you get in trouble for coming here, and doing this without their permission?”

“I won’t give her the chance,” Persi said. “I’ll go to the Conclave tomorrow and demand an audience. I’ll tell them exactly what I did, and why.” She looked at me, almost as an afterthought. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave you out of it.”

“But won’t you be in huge trouble?” I asked. Surely what Persi and I had just done was the witchy equivalent of a felony? I didn’t yet know much about how the Conclave functioned in Sedgwick Cove, but I knew they were powerful enough to make life difficult for anyone who disobeyed them.

“Most of the Conclave were pushing for this to happen,” Persi said, rising to her feet now, and brushing the sand and dust from her leggings. “They’ll make a show of admonishing me, but I doubt I’ll get more than a caution, maybe an official writ of warning, if they’re feeling spicy. Either way, I don’t care. Whatever happens now, whatever she says, whatever she does, I know it’s her choice. Even if she breaks my heart again, I’ll know she meant to break it.”

She stroked Bernadette’s hair once more, tenderly, and then turned to me.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

I followed her out of the Keep, back down the improbable hallway, and out onto the rocky shoreline. We retraced our steps to the pier, but this time, Persi didn’t turn to ascend the steps back up to Harbor Street. Instead, she began climbing the stairs that led to the pier.

“Persi? What are we doing?”

“We’re sending Sarah Claire right back through the veil, where she belongs,” Persi huffed.

I followed breathlessly behind her as she charged down the pier and, when we had reached the very end, watched as she hurled the mirror with all her strength. We watched it shatter on the rocks before being swallowed up by an incoming wave. Only when it had disappeared did Persi let out an exhalation of relief, her shoulders sagging with exhaustion.

She turned to me. “We’ve done what we can do. It’s time to go home.”