“No.” A wave of panic flew through Deirdre. To her great shame, she began to cry. “Please. Can’t you take them both? They’re good babies.”
The elderly sister sighed, her eyes softening “I cannot. I can sense your desperation, my child. But please know that the baby you choose to give up will be cared for and loved. Infants are easily placed in good homes.”
Deirdre looked down at the child of her own flesh and blood. In fifty years, Ambrose Gentry would return to collect on her foolish debt. To collect her only daughter and the promise she’d made out of desperation.
She only hoped the ritual from the grimoire had worked. Hoped it would hold. She supposed she would know in fifty years’ time.
Deirdre took one long last look at her daughter. She was sleeping, breathing calmly in and out. She’d never know the difference. She’d grow up far from Tin Mountain. Safe from curses and oaths and vengeful demonic preachers. She kissed the baby softly and handed her to the nun. “Please take care of her. Her name is Ophelia.”
THIRTY-THREE
DEIRDRE
1931
Deirdre woke, shrugging off the heavy mantle of time and the trance she’d fallen under. Old memories taunted her. A tear traced the line of her cheekbone and slipped into her ear. Esme. Mama. Ophelia.
She’d dreamt of her daughter most of all—willowy and tall, with fair hair and clever blue eyes. It had been foolish, giving up Ophelia. It hadn’t done a damn thing to undo the oath she’d made. Ebba had been right. Things hidden always had a way of turning up.
Deirdre had suspected Gracie might be her own from the moment she’d arrived on Tin Mountain, skinny and underfed, with that tangle of blonde hair and those blue eyes—the Werner eyes. And now she knew the full measure of the folly she had created. She’d protected Ophelia with her ritual and her words. But she hadn’t thought far enough ahead—that Ophelia might have a daughter of her own.
But he had, and he’d tricked her.
She had to protect Gracie.
“Deirdre, are you awake?”
Deirdre turned her head. Ebba floated into focus. Her oldest friend. Her truest friend. “I need water, Eb.”
Ebba brought a glass and Deirdre drank it down, chasing the dryness away. She sat up, her head swimming. “How long was I asleep?”
“Over a week. Where did you go, Deirdre?”
“The past, mostly. Spirit walking. Remembering what I’ve done. But it’s time now, Ebba. Time for me to set things right and give Anneliese her reckoning and cast that demon out for good.” Deirdre stood, steadying herself against the bed frame. “He said he’d come back to reap what he’d sown. And he has.” Deirdre shook her head. “I’ve been watching from the spirit realm. Tried to intervene, at the church. I bought Gracie some time, but we have to hurry.”
Ebba sprang up and rushed to her side. “You are too weak, Deirdre. You must rest first. Eat.”
“Dammit, I’m a mountain girl, Ebba. I’ve never been weak. Now get me my grimoire.”
Deirdre knelt on the ground, the heavy, wet wind lashing her hair. All her regrets crowded around her—her grief over giving up Ophelia, her selfishness, how easily she’d fallen into that demon’s cunning hands.
Even if it took every last breath, every last drop of her blood to make things right, she would.
For Gracie.
Deirdre opened the grimoire. The flaming tree stretched across its pages. She gently ran her hands over it. Heat bloomed beneath her fingertips.
“I’m sorry, Anneliese. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry I disappointed you. But I need you to help me now. I need you to show me what to do so that this spell won’t be in vain and I might undo the mistakes I’ve made, for once and for all.”
Anneliese’s voice rang out, bell-like and pure inside Deirdre’s head.
Willing blood, Deirdre. Willing blood. Be strong. Invite me in and I will do the rest.
Deirdre nodded. “I understand.” She prayed to the old gods and the new, and called upon her ancestors for strength, women whose names she knew only from the grimoire. Their voices became a chorus in her head, drawing power from the earth and the air. The clouds above churned and heaved, like a womb ready to give birth.
Deirdre kissed the knife’s blade and raised it high.
And then she bled.
THIRTY-FOUR
GRACELYNN
1931
It’s my twentieth birthday. I just now realized it. In my mind, I replay everything I might have done differently over the past twenty years, if I had the chance. I might have spoken up sooner, in that courtroom. Might have never come to Tin Mountain. Might have left on a train to San Francisco long before my daddy died. Might have never been born at all.
Surely that would be better than dying like this.
Al Northrup steers me to the scaffold. The townsfolk are gathered there, faces colored by the eerie, greenish light of the impending storm. Al grasps a handful of my hair and hauls me up the steps.
“I didn’t kill your son,” I say through clenched teeth. “Bellflower did.”
“Shut up,” he mutters. “You’d say anything to save your skin.”
Thunder crackles. Old Liberty stands in the distance, lit up by lightning. Its beam is dark for the first time in almost a hundred years. I glimpse Abby in the crowd, her face streaked with tears. She tries to fight her way to the scaffold, but the men hold her back, jeering.
I whisper I love you as my heart begins to skitter out of control.
I’m going to die and there’s so much I didn’t get to do. So much I never got to see and feel.
A cold, piercing rain starts up, stirring the dust and bringing a hot metallic smell like cordite. The townsfolk cheer and start to dance. The long drought is over. Praise the Lord.
On the other side of the square, I see Bellflower. The crowd parts for him, a look of reverent awe on their faces as he climbs the steps and comes close, his breath like sulfur. He ties my hands with a hank of rope. My broken wrist yelps in pain. “You foolish girl,” he rasps. “I tried to make things easy. I would have protected you from them. Taken you gently. Easily. Now the simpletons will have their show.”
He turns to the crowd. “Good people of Tin Mountain, see how the heavens open and smile upon you! And this is but the beginning. This act of justice will purge the evils of witchcraft from Tin Mountain forever and bring prosperity to the land once more.”
The crowd cheers. Then they start chanting. At first, I can’t make out the words. Then they get clearer, louder: “Hang the witch!” A rotten egg lands at my feet, foul and stinking. More sour food and offal hits me. The rain turns to hail, pelting my face with ice, and the sky roils above me. Al Northrup brings the noose down over my head and steps away.
It’s just me and Bellflower. He turns to me and smiles.
“Do you have any last words, Miss Doherty?” he intones. “A confession will bring rest to your soul. I can offer you forgiveness. Peace.”
“I don’t want your kind of peace.”
“Very well.” He tightens the noose under my chin. Panic claws up from my belly. I try to slow my breathing, try to concentrate and call up any power I might have left, but it’s like trying to scrape up hard dirt with my fingers. My palms are slick with sweat. A whimper escapes my lips.