“Neither one of us was pure, Deirdre. You know that.” He smiles sadly. “You tried to trick me as well. Hid our child away with your powers. It would have been easy for me to destroy you if I’d wanted to. I didn’t want to. It was more fun to let you think you’d won.”
“Oh, Ambrose. We aren’t finished. Not yet. She isn’t finished.” Granny reaches out, cups his jaw. He closes his eyes, and turns into her hand, kissing her palm. She stands on her tiptoes, whispers into his ear, and then kisses him, full on the lips. The air crackles with witching. The years suddenly fall away, and a young woman stands in Granny’s place, voluptuous and auburn-haired, her fair skin as smooth as mine. Anneliese.
The sun blazes blood red along the horizon, coloring everything scarlet. “You’ve come back, Betsy,” Gentry says, opening his eyes. They’ve gone from a lurid green to a depthless black. His youthful glamour fades, until an ancient, decrepit man stands before us. “I suppose you want your vengeance.”
“It’s time to reap what you’ve sown. Just as you vowed. You’re not the only clever one, you know.”
Ebba and I come to Anneliese’s side. She reaches for my hand, and then Ebba’s. “Mezroth, I banish thee,” she says softly.
“Mezroth, I banish thee,” Ebba echoes.
I draw in a breath, his cursed name ready on my tongue.
Mezroth’s countenance flickers. He transforms once more and I’m almost undone. This time, it’s Abigail looking at me, beseeching and soft. “Gracie, I love you. Don’t do this.” She reaches out. “Don’t you want to be with me? If you let him in, we’ll always be together. Just let him in.”
“You’re not Abby,” I say through clenched teeth. “I’ll never let you in, you demon!”
He roars in anger. A rush of wind, like the beating of giant wings, nearly knocks me to the ground. I step back in horror, hiding my eyes. Mezroth laughs, shadows unfurling as he rises above me. “Afraid to look upon your maker, granddaughter?”
Panic ices my tongue. I’m frozen with fear. Helpless and small, like a rabbit caught in a hawk’s talons.
“Now, Gracie!” Ebba screeches. “Be strong!”
“Mezroth . . .” When I speak his name, the earth shakes, toppling me. I fall onto my bad wrist, screaming as pain lances through my arm like hot metal. I scramble backward, clumsy on the rocky ground. I shield my eyes as the demon’s wings unfurl once more. This is it. This is where it ends.
“You stupid girl,” he hisses, and hurtles toward me.
“Mezroth! I banish thee!” I scream, with all my might. He howls in agony and drops like a stone at my feet. Writhes in the dirt, clawing at the ground. His now-useless wings fall to tatters, his glamour desperately shifting from one incarnation to another. He tries to rise, then falls. Tries to rise again. He’s pitiful—a weakened shade of the arrogant, awesome creature he was just moments before.
Anneliese comes to my side. She takes my hand, helps me to my feet. My skin prickles with electricity. She smiles at me, her eyes filled with love. Gratitude. Peace. Then, she turns to Mezroth, regarding him quietly.
His eyes dim to a dusky blue. Their inhuman shine fades, replaced with something far more tender than I ever expected to see. He’s little more than a boy, a youth caught on the cusp of one and twenty. Nathaniel.
There’s a sudden heaviness to the air. A pall of sorrow I wasn’t expecting to feel.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps. “I loved you. I did. Please forgive me.”
“I can’t, Nathaniel,” Anneliese says. “But at least now . . . at least now you can rest. And so can I.”
He collapses with a mournful sigh, and begins to crumble like ash, until he’s nothing more than gray dust carried off by the wind.
Anneliese closes her eyes for a moment, then whispers beneath her breath. Suddenly, she’s Granny again, wearing all of her sixty-nine years once more. She’s never been more beautiful.
Sound crashes into my ears. The broken town slowly comes back to life. Doc Gallagher pulls up in his black Dodge and rushes out to see to the wounded. An ambulance whines in the distance. More help is on the way.
Granny takes my hand. I rest my head on her frail shoulder.
“Is it over?” I ask.
“It’s over, Gracie. Let’s go home.”
THIRTY-FIVE
GRACELYNN
1931
There ain’t much left of Tin Mountain. What the fire didn’t burn, the tornado plundered. Ten people died that night, including Al Northrup and Deputy Adams. Their bodies were found several miles away, in somebody’s cornfield.
Ain’t nobody seen Aunt Val, though somebody claimed a vaudeville dancer at a traveling show over in Carroll County looked an awful lot like her. That’d be fitting for Val. She was always a good actress.
The townspeople who are left are hollow. Haunted.
They come up the mountain and leave offerings at our door—tokens of apology as precious and rare as a roasted chicken, or a chocolate cake, with a hastily written note attached saying how sorry they are about all of that witch business with that preacher man, and they sure hope Granny gets better soon.
She’s still weak. But she’s strong. And I know she’s gonna pull through just fine.
She was near death when we got back up the mountain that night, but something told me to lay my hands on her, and the healing words came to my tongue. She’d spilled her own blood to unbind the promise she made and summon Anneliese’s spirit so that she might have the strength to face Mezroth. I gotta hope that, between the three of us, we drove that demon out for good and set Anneliese’s spirit to rest. I suppose we’ll see in fifty years’ time.
As for me, I’m bruised and broken, but alive, of course. I’m at the kitchen table, writing all this down with my good hand in the grimoire, because I’ve a mind to teach Caro the ways of witching, and I don’t want to forget anything that happened.
There’s a knock at the side door, and I figure it’s just another delivery of mournful mashed potatoes or contrite corn bread. Caro goes to answer it. She comes back to the kitchen, a look of confusion on her face. “It’s some old lady. Says she’s from Hannibal. Where’s that?”
“It’s up by St. Louis. Lots of fancy people live there.” I stand and stretch, smoothing out my apron. “Can you put the kettle on, Caro, just in case she wants tea?”
“Sure thing, Gracie.”
I go out to the porch. Granny’s sleeping on her daybed. I can see the lady pacing out back. She looks nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof, her fancy patent leather heels sinking into the wet ground. I ease the screen door open, so as not to startle her. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
She startles anyway, taking two steps backward and laying her hand across her chest like prissy ladies do in the movies when they’re about to faint. Then she starts crying. Hell.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m . . . I’m so sorry. Oh, my heavens.” She sinks down onto the steps, her handbag falling from her elbow to her wrist. She digs a lace-trimmed handkerchief out of it and presses it to her eyes. “It’s just that you look so much like her.”