Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“S hh, shh,” I murmured, rocking him in my arms. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

“But it isn’t!” Pip screamed through his tears. “You were yelling at each other. You’re not supposed to yell in the house!”

“That was wrong of us, Philip,” Matthew said, crouching before him. “Where have you been?”

“Becca said we should run away.” Pip hiccupped. “But I couldn’t go in there with her. It made my tummy hurt, and I was scared of the dark.”

“Go in where?” I said, my panic rising. “The attic? The barn?” The twins had been told both areas were strictly off-limits unless they were with Gwyneth.

“The trees by Aunt Gwyneth’s house,” Pip said, sniffling. “Apollo didn’t like them, either.”

“She’s in the Ravens’ Wood.” I let go of my son and jammed my feet into one of the many pairs of Wellington boots that were stored here, pulling on a bright yellow slicker at the same time. I grabbed a flashlight. It sent out a weak glow, but it was better than nothing. “I have to find her. Ardwinna!”

A crack of thunder and a flash of lightning emphasized Becca’s peril. The rain, which had been falling steadily, now came down in watery pellets that made a sharp sound when they hit the ground.

“Can I stay here?” Pip’s face was white at the prospect of going back out into the stormy darkness.

“You can stay with Aunt Gwyneth.” I’d already lost track of one child. I wasn’t going to leave the other home alone.

I raced across the garden, trampling Gwyneth’s prized flowers in my haste. Matthew picked up Pip and was already knocking on the door of the Old Place when I arrived on its stolid, granite step.

“Just go in!” I shouted over the rain. “She’s probably asleep.”

But my aunt was not asleep. Gwyneth was still fully clothed, though her startled expression suggested we’d woken her from a nap.

“Is everything all right?” Gwyneth asked, opening the door wide to let usin.

“Becca is gone.” I stood in the pouring rain and swallowed down the lump of dread that was lodged in my throat. “We need to find her, before the storm gets any worse.”

“Gone where?” Gwyneth frowned.

“She’s in the Ravens’ Wood,” I replied.

Gwyneth’s faced turned milky with shock. “Alone? Under a full moon?”

Another rumble of thunder and flash of lightning lent urgency to my words.

“Can Philip and Apollo stay with you?” Matthew asked, depositing Pip in the Old Place’s narrow entrance.

“I didn’t like the woods, Aunt Gwyneth.” Heavy tears fell from Pip’s eyes. “Now Becca’s alone in the rain and it’s all my fault.”

“You were right not to go into the Ravens’ Wood.” Gwyneth reached for the mackintosh hanging from a peg by the door. “There’s no telling what the storm and the moon have awakened.”

“I don’t want to go,” Pip protested.

“We’re both going—me because I know the wood, and you because Becca is your twin sister.” My aunt took Pip’s hand and turned to his griffin familiar. “It’s your responsibility to watch after Pip. Understood?”

Apollo thumped his tail, eagle-eyed and serious. There was no idle chatter now.

Gwyneth grabbed her wand and sharp-bladed athame from a basket by the door. She picked up an ancient lantern and murmured a spell to conjure everlasting witchfire. The lantern filled with a glow that was far brighter than what was produced by my flashlight.

Together, we set out toward the dark grove of trees at the end of the meadow to look for our missing daughter.

Lantern and flashlight bobbing, we followed the narrow trail that led from the Old Place into the trees. An eerie green-gray glow surrounded us, and ether-trails of mist crept through the thickets of black huckleberry and wild blueberry, sending fingers of fog deeper into the wood.

“Becca!” I cried out, hoping that my voice would carry through the stout trunks of the hemlock, oak, and pine.

Pip added his voice to mine, while Gwyneth swung her lantern in shallow arcs, using it as a divining rod that might indicate Becca’s location. The trees closed around us as we trampled ferns and pushed aside the toothed-leaved branches of summer sweet. Matthew attempted to track Becca’s scent, keeping a sharp eye out for freshly broken branches or footprints in the wet earth that might indicate our daughter had passed this way.

“Find Becca,” I told Ardwinna. She was familiar with this command and scampered into the darkness.

The gray mist we had encountered in delicate tendrils at the edges of the Ravens’ Wood grew thicker, clinging to the hemlocks and swirling around the ancient oak trees.

“I’m still scared,” Pip confided in Apollo, who promptly extended a golden wing to shelter him from the gloom.

“Any trace of her?” I asked Matthew, desperate for some indication that we were on the right path.

“I picked up a bit of her scent when we entered the forest, but it faded away.” Matthew crouched to be closer to the woodland’s floor. He pressed his hands against the mat of fallen leaves and needles that were soaking up the storm’s moisture like a sponge. “The ground is so thickly covered with debris that someone as slight as Rebecca isn’t likely to leave footprints.”

Matthew stood, his mouth arranged in a grim line. The sharp set of his shoulders and the tense muscles in his thighs indicated he was ready to race to his daughter’s aid.

Gwyneth pulled her crooked wand from the front pocket of her pants. She held it aloft and murmured a few words. The end of the wand sent out firecracker sparks of gold and green.

“May I borrow your familiar, Philip?” Gwyneth asked. “I’ll give you my magic lantern in exchange. It will serve as a lighthouse like the one in the bay, so that Apollo will be sure to find his way back to you.”

Pip nodded, his eyes as wide as an owl’s.

Apollo spread his wings and cocked his head, awaiting further instruction.

“You know what to do,” Gwyneth murmured to the griffin. “Fly, and find your charge’s sister spirit.”

Apollo’s answering shriek cleaved the air as he soared upward, his golden plumage on full display and the lethal claws of his lion’s paws extended. The griffin climbed to a height that allowed his eagle eyes to see farther even than Matthew.

Emboldened by the steady light from Gwyneth’s lantern, Pip renewed his calls to his sister. Gwyneth, eyes closed, let her wand lead the way. Matthew continued to scan the ground, making methodical sweeps of the area.

“Too slow,” I murmured, feeling the urgency rise as we traveled deeper into the Ravens’ Wood. I felt useless, unable to do anything more than follow Gwyneth and Matthew in their pursuit.

I realized there was something more I could do—something that wouldn’t get tangled up with Gwyneth’s magic, or disturb the powers of the wood. I had been so caught up in fear for Becca’s safety that I had forgotten Apollo was not the only member of the family who could fly.

“Magic is faster,” I reminded Matthew, handing him the flashlight. Matthew gave me a small smile that collapsed into a worried frown as he realized that I, too, would soon be out of his sight.

There was no time to reassure him. Becca was out in the storm, angry with her parents and separated from her brother. Determined to find her and put things to rights, I called on the air to lift me into the sky. Apollo saw me flying in his wake and widened his search area in response.

I flew through the tree houses, some recent and others long abandoned by the Proctor children. I passed by a tall sassafras tree, my hands brushing the leaves and releasing their sweet scent. I spied dark patches in a clearing where a fire had been lit, and wondered what higher magic had been worked there.

A flash of phosphorescence slipped between the trunks of two oak trees, about the height of a six-year-old.

“Becca!” I cried, following the faint trail.

I overtook the figure and swept down, hoping to see my daughter’s face. But the figure, though familiar, was not Becca.

“Mary Beth?” It was my imaginary childhood friend who I’d played with in the woods near our house in Cambridge. I had forgotten that she wore the long, full skirts and ruffled cap of another era. The girl resembled Tamsy, with her tight bodice, an apron tied around her waist, and a linen kerchief tucked around her neck for warmth and modesty.

Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care’ll kill a cat, Mary Beth whispered. Up-tails all, and a Louse for the Hangman.

I blinked, surprised at this outburst of Ben Jonson from a girl not yet ten.

Mary Elizabeth Proctor! Granny Dorcas had joined our search, though she was less grandmotherly at present and more an avenging angel. Her elf lock whipped this way and that, crawling with fairies. Fire shone from her eyes in an ominous display of power. If you vex your niece in her need, I will hex you in return.

Two more ghosts apparated from a low pepperbush. One was identical to Mary Beth—a twin. The other was older and bore enough resemblance to the pair to suggest all three were sisters.

I beg your pardon. Mary dropped into a curtsy. Her sisters joined her, then linked their arms in the same show of solidarity I’d seen from later generations of Proctors at the ceremony in Salem.

Matthew, Gwyneth, and Pip arrived, the magic lantern glowing.

Matthew drew up short at the sight of the ghosts gathered aroundme.

“Ghosts.” He had long wanted to spot one. In the Ravens’ Wood, where Proctor power was at its height, the dead were visible even to him.

Thrice-faced imps! Granny Dorcas thundered. What mischief is this?

Mary’s ghost traced the tip of her stout shoe in a circle, gathering her courage to respond to Granny Dorcas. I only wanted to watch over little Rebecca, like I once watched over Diana. But Tamsin said I wasn’t enough. She said it was her task.

“Tamsin.” I faced the eldest sister. “Tamsy?”

If the ghost of Dorcas’s granddaughter had been inhabiting the body of Becca’s treasured doll like a homunculus, there was no telling what confidences she’d shared—nor what my child could be doing in this enchanted place.

You told me to watch out for such a one, Granny. Tamsin’s chin rose and she met her grandmother’s sparking eyes and dark countenance without flinching. When I learned my spells at your knee, and you taught me the wisdom of the birds and how to read their signs.

The fire in Granny Dorcas’s eyes dimmed, but not enough to spare her grandchild a tongue-lashing.

Tell me where she is, Tamsin, or the fairies will take you away to Elfame to repent your misdeeds.

Rebecca’s not gone far, Granny. The other twin, Margaret, spoke up for the first time. She pointed at a dark clutch of trees. She is Elsewhere.

Matthew was a blur as he went in the direction that Margaret had indicated.

I’m not done with you three, Granny Dorcas warned.

I followed Matthew, making no effort to muffle the sound as I trampled down ferns and crushed sarsaparilla underfoot, stepping directly on branches to snap them when I could or clambering over them when they were large and covered in lichen. Aunt Gwyneth and Pip followed along the path I was forging, making slower progress and watched over by Apollo, who flew low above them.

As I approached Margaret’s trees, the trunks seemed stouter and the canopy of leaves denser than they had appeared at a distance. I sniffed. An unmistakable scent of unfamiliar magic hung in the air: blackberry, honeysuckle, hyacinth, and lily of the valley. Exotic and sweet, there were darker notes of pine, sage, musk, and clove drifting through the mix. I peered into the darkness ahead.

We sometimes who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth. The three Proctor sisters skipped into view, unrepentant despite Granny Dorcas’s warning. To town or village nigh, curious to hear, what happens new finds us out.

It was mangled, but it was recognizably John Milton.

“They were singing that song when Becca decided to go into the woods,” Pip said, chin quavering. “I don’t like those girls.”

Mary stuck her tongue out and Margaret forked her fingers at Pip. Tamsin separated from the group, floating through the mist.

See this trophy of a man, Tamsin said, drawing her hands through the murk as though opening a window, rais’d by that curious engine, your white hand.

Though delivered quietly, Tamsin’s words had the ring of a spell. The dense mist parted, revealing a large clearing ringed by oaks—trees sacred to the goddess and revered by witches. Becca stood at the center.

“Becca!” I cried, running toward her.

“She can’t hear you, Diana,” Gwyneth said.

She is Elsewhere, like I told you. Margaret heaved a sigh. I’m not an oracle, like Mary. No one pays much attention tome.

The cold finger of premonition tickled along the length of my spine. Elsewhere was not an evasive answer to a question, as I’d thought. It was a real place between the worlds. And Becca was trapped init.

Shadows rose like licks of flame at Becca’s feet, and an unkindness of ravens swept over her in waves. A single raven broke from the group, its knobbed black feet and lethal talons reaching for her. Becca shrieked and fell to the ground in a tight somersault before rising, arms held out for balance. Another raven fell, its beak open, and pecked at her hand.

Matthew reached the clearing before me. His hands pressed against some invisible barrier and he swore.

“I can’t go any farther,” Matthew said, his eyes wild with the need to free his daughter from her tormentors.

I put my hands next to his, trying to understand the spell around my daughter. Every ward had a weakness. If I could find the vulnerable point, I could breach the magic and release her.

Gwyneth, sensing my intentions, held fast to my arm. “You don’t have the knowledge or the skill to break Becca’s circle. Tamsin taught it to her, and it’s strong and pure, as only a child’s magic can be.”

A quick glance at Matthew told me I was not the only creature in the wood who was battling their inner demons. Matthew’s eyes were glassy, a sign that his blood rage was bubbling to the surface as his control slowly unraveled.

“I’m here, moonbeam,” Matthew said, his voice cracking on his pet name for her. “ Maman and I will fix it, I promise.”

“It would be better for Becca if you let this play out,” Gwyneth advised. “The wood won’t let harm befall her, nor willI.”

“You already have.” Matthew’s expression was chilling. “The Proctors have laid claim to Rebecca, with your oracles and shadows and alluring magic. But she is a de Clermont, too, and we won’t give her up to your Darkness so easily.”

Becca ran in the circle, dodging two ravens who were clawing at her hair and pecking at her head.

“The ravens—they’re going to kill her!” I cried, my eyes stinging with tears as the ravens croaked with glee.

Matthew, who was not known for letting matters unfold in their own way, never mind taking advice from witches, decided on a different path. His muscles bunched as he dropped into a low crouch.

“Rebecca!”

The tone of Matthew’s voice, or her own awareness that her father was nearby, stopped Becca in her tracks. She spotted Matthew and smiled.

“You can come in, Daddy,” she said, waving her hand in invitation.

Matthew passed effortlessly through the once-impervious barrier. I tried to follow, but the circle snapped shut. Her father was welcome; I was not.

“I never foresaw that,” Gwyneth murmured.

“Will they be okay, Mommy?” Pip, too, had been excluded from his sister’s presence.

“Of course,” I said, falling back on Ysabeau’s vague words of assurance. In truth, I had no idea what was going to happen now that Matthew—and his Darkness—had entered Becca’s arena.

The ravens erupted into an ear-shattering chorus of clacks, chortles, and guttural cries as Matthew wrapped strong arms around his daughter. Bells chimed, filling the air with painful reverberations. Pip clapped his hands over his preternaturally sensitive ears.

Inside the circle, Becca spoke to Matthew with great animation, waving her arms and laughing.

Matthew straightened, an expression of cautious wonder on his face. The largest of the ravens swooped onto Matthew’s head, cackled, and lifted off again.

Becca returned to her whirling, the ravens following in her wake while a train of Shadow and starlight formed behind her. Matthew watched the birds sweep past, tumbling above Becca and pecking at her shoulders.

“Why isn’t he doing something?” I cried.

“It looks—” Gwyneth paused and reconsidered. “Can it be that the ravens are playing with her?”

Matthew turned, following Becca’s movements. Two ravens grabbed at the fabric of her raincoat. Becca screamed in delight as they lifted her into the air before releasing her. I stifled a cry as Becca tumbled back to earth.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Pip told me. “Becca jumps out the window at home all the time.”

I didn’t find this particularly comforting, given the lofty position of the second-floor bedrooms in New Haven. Pip was right, however. Becca somersaulted as she hit the ground and was back on her feet once more.

“Come on, Daddy!” she said, her voice barely audible over the cry of the birds.

Wary, Matthew performed a somersault of his own, springing into the air before tucking his head and rolling to his feet. He adopted a crouch—but this one was not a battle stance. He looked like a puppy ready for play.

A memory niggled of a different bird, a different wood. I’d given chase, but she flew before me, elusive and unreachable. I’d laughed, following her into the darker recesses of the woods at the Bishop House.

Canst thou remember a time before? My mother watched with fiery eyes from the other side of the clearing. A huge gray owl perched on her shoulders, a white crossroads marking the space between its brilliant yellow eyes.

Something—someone—else was watching me, too. Becca’s doll was propped up against the trunk of a nearby pine tree, forgotten in my daughter’s eagerness to be with the ravens. Tamsy’s unblinking eyes reflected the gray licks of Shadow that clung to Becca’s legs.

When I looked back across the clearing, my mother was gone.

“She’s getting tired,” Gwyneth said.

But Becca had vampiric reserves of stamina that my aunt could not predict. Her play may have quieted, but magic was still afoot and my daughter wanted to be part ofit.

The largest raven whistled at Matthew and his head swung around at the sound. The vampire began a fast lope around the perimeter of the clearing, inviting the bird to follow him.

The raven took the bait. With a mighty flap of its wings, the bird hovered as though about to swoop. Matthew snapped at the air above him like a wolf, his strong jaws closing. The other ravens landed around Becca, rattling their beaks like sabers and watching the standoff between the bird and this strange wolf in man’s clothing.

Matthew laughed.

Somewhere in the wood, an owl hooted in joy.

The raven plunged to Matthew’s waist and pecked my husband’s backside with his powerful, ebony beak.

Matthew rubbed his rump and laughed again. Then he ran, his body a blur as he rocketed around the clearing.

Gwyneth was right. The ravens were playing with Becca—and with Matthew, too.

Matthew’s delight at their game was as great as his daughter’s, perhaps greater. As he ran and jumped, snapping at the raven without ever touching a feather, the raven parried with talons and beak.

The other birds remained with Becca, bobbing their heads up and down while she whirled to music only she could hear. She was mesmerizing, another wild creature of the forest. Our daughter’s laughter joined with her father’s, the higher note resembling the bell-like sounds of the ravens in flight.

Matthew tipped his head back and howled. He leaped into the air and tumbled. My breath caught at Matthew’s graceful movements.

For the first time since I’d known him, he was free.

I wondered what special magic my daughter had wrought.

Matthew bent over, panting with exertion. Becca’s feet stilled and she stood, straight as the meetinghouse spire, her arms outstretched. A raven perched on her slender arm. It rose, only to be replaced by another member of the unkindness, then another, in what looked like a blessing or a ritual of shared power.

Becca saw her brother waiting outside her magic circle and broke it.

“Pip!” Becca ran toward him, her arms wide like a raven’s wings.

Her brother and I met her halfway. I buried my nose in her hair and drank in the familiar scent, now sweetened with magic, cuddling her so close I thought my ribs would part so that I could hold her safe against my heart.

“You scared me,” I whispered between kisses.

Matthew drew near. His complexion was ruddy, and his breath followed a quicker, warm-blooded rhythm.

“What a night,” Aunt Gwyneth said, her face gaunt from the strain. She slipped her wand into the pocket of her mack with a trembling hand. It hadn’t left her grip since we entered the gloom of the wood. “Tomorrow, when we’ve recovered, we will see what we can do to extract the spirit of Tamsin Proctor from Becca’s doll and I will bring Becca and Pip back here and introduce them properly to the Ravens’ Wood. But first, we are all going back to bed.” My aunt drew a weary hand across her brow.

Pip and Becca scampered off, chattering with excitement, Apollo flew above the pair like a guardian angel, and Gwyneth followed with her witchlight, showing them the way home.

Darkness drew close, taunting me with images of Matthew as I’d never seen him before.

“How did it feel, playing with the ravens?” I asked Matthew softly, as our steps slowed and we fell behind the rest of the group.

He kissed me. After our earlier argument, I was reserved and chilly at first. But Matthew was persistent, his tongue teasing my lips until they parted with a soft sigh that he swallowed as though it were water or wine.

My arms locked around his neck, and he hitched my leg until my sex was pressed against the hard lines of his body. An energy that Matthew kept closely confined had been released, here in the Ravens’ Wood.

“It felt like that,” Matthew said when our lips parted. “Hungry and wild, tinged with sweetness and danger.”

I looked deep into his eyes, wordless with wonder at the passion that never failed to bridge the space betweenus.

“Let’s go home,” Matthew said, his thumb soft against my lower lip.

Matthew took my hand and we walked through the trees, the moon illuminating our steps and our bearing clear so long as we followed the gleam of Gwyneth’s lantern and the happy sound of our children’s voices.

No matter what the future held, for now I was exactly where I belonged: at Ravenswood, with Matthew and our children, moving forward on our shared path.