“I’m not afraid of you,” she said to any shade that might be nearby. She breathed deeply and evenly. “Maybe I can help you,” she offered. “Or,” more honestly now, “you can help me.”
She had lit a white candle she’d found in the desk drawer and it flickered, casting shadows on the wall. She thought perhaps there was a girl in the corner, made out of ash and dust. There was a knock at the door, which startled her. “Don’t go anywhere,” she told the shade. She went to the door and opened it a crack. Sally was in the hall.
“What are you doing here?” Gillian asked.
Sally had been down in the pub until closing, questioning people about Tom Lockland. “What do you want to talk about him for?” was the response she most often received. Jesse Wilkie overheard the conversations, and had approached to let Sally know she had seen him with Kylie. “She seemed under his spell,” Jesse had told her.
“What do you mean?” All Sally could think of was that horrible man her sister had been involved with years ago. Gillian had been possessed, until at last she understood she had to break free.
“He has that effect on some girls. Mostly ones who are lost. He has a way of drawing them in, convincing them they can trust him or that he can help them in some way.”
Sally’s heart was racing. The wicked enchantment that had befallen Gillian could not be happening again. She went into the restroom to throw cold water on her face and do her best to calm down, which frankly was impossible. It was then she saw something metal glinting on the floor, but before she could see what it was, a little shadow scooted out the door into the bar, the silvery bit in its grasp. She followed the shadow, a cat as it turned out, as it skittered upstairs, where it managed to slip under a door. Her sister’s room. “Gilly,” Sally had called. “Open up.”
Gillian had cracked the door. “I’m being haunted,” she announced. Gillian had been having unwanted memories of her old boyfriend Jimmy, the one who’d nearly ruined her life. She felt shivery and threatened, as if the darkness of that time might happen all over again, as if there were certain family legacies that repeated themselves despite how hard you tried to avoid them.
“Is there a cat in here?” Sally asked.
Gillian opened the door wider, allowing her sister inside, relieved to see her. “I think it’s Maria Owens. I saw her in the fens.” Without thinking, they had slipped into whispers. They sat on the bed together, knees touching.
“She’s been gone for over three hundred years,” Sally said.
Gillian shrugged. “In some ways. Things don’t necessary vanish completely.” There was the curse, after all. That had lasted.
“I should be out there looking for Kylie right now,” Sally said in a hushed voice. “Before anything happens. I shouldn’t have agreed to wait till morning.”
“Looking for her in the middle of the night makes no sense.” Gillian didn’t add what she was thinking. Something’s already happened. It’s happening still. She elbowed Sally and nodded toward a corner. There it was, a huge tabby cat, playing with a strand of silvery thread. “Come here, baby,” Gillian called.
The cat looked up, then disappeared through a crack in the wall.
Sally went to the corner where the cat had crouched. The air was especially cold. She knelt down, cold herself now, for she had discovered the necklace she’d given to Kylie on her birthday. She flicked open the locket and there was the photo of Jet. No matter what darkness awaited them, Jet was still with them, in loving spirit and in memory.
II.
Things that are begun in the dark are never meant to be, that is why they are so often initiated in places where no one can see the business at hand. Close your eyes and believe. Let desire take you, blood and bones, no matter who you might harm. The Crooked Path always begins in darkness; it always has and it always will. Do not reach to turn on the light, do not consider options, do not think twice. This is the left side, the zone not of the heart but of need and desire, what you must have, what you’re greedy for, what you will take no matter the cost.