Page 24 of The Vanishing Bookstore
She felt foolish speaking to a crow the way she would to a person, but Hades had been in her life since she could remember and been there for her through the best and the worst of times. She knew he would not let her down.
15
SALEM, PRESENT DAY
Sephy led Lenny to Lucine’s room. She knew her sister didn’t want to go in and face Lucine alone, she could deal with anything except their elder sister dying. It broke her every time and was the reason she’d run off to train to be a doctor, swearing to give up the old ways that couldn’t stop Lucine from dying and instead focusing on learning as much about modern medicine as she could to see if there was a cure there. How devastated Lenny had been to find out that there wasn’t, there was no way they could stop what happened to Lucine every lifetime, just as they couldn’t stop Dora from growing more distant in hers and dying before the age of thirty-five. Unlike with Lucine, they never knew when it was Dora’s time; the curse of the English sisters was not the dying, it was the living through it again and again, being helpless to put an end to it.
There were only two things that might make a difference: if Dora truly embraced her power and they had the book that had been lost to them since that fateful night they had been arrested and Dora had run away.
The book had incantations written inside it that made it possible to call upon the true goddesses of witchcraft. It had been given to Lucine by a man she once loved. She told Sephyhe was a circus performer, that he’d left her with child, stole her heart and never came back to return it.
They had never started out to be powerful witches, only healers, but things had taken a turn when Lucine had discovered her talent of talking to the animals and birds. Hades had been the one to bring the spells to Lucine, who had written them down, adding them to the book, all the time pining for the man who left her with child. In the beginning they had never understood why they might need it but she felt compelled to keep a record of them anyway. Hades, the wise and clever bird, had known that evil stalked the English sisters since the day they’d been born on this earth, and that was the reason he had been sent to watch over them. Sephy hadn’t yet figured out who had sent him, but was grateful that he had arrived in their lives to take care of them.
Their fate had a way of catching up with them over and over, no matter how far they ran. This time it had been Sephy’s decision to run no more, and she’d come back to Salem where it all began, where the High Sheriff George Corwin had ruled so cruelly. But if she wasn’t mistaken, he had found Dora, hunting her to her beautiful little flower shop in London, somewhere Lenny had never expected him to find. It didn’t seem to matter where in the world they hid, he would track them down eventually and, just like them, gravitate back to Salem to inflict as much misery on them as he could, just like he had back in 1692.
There had been some fierce battles over the years, but Sephy knew that if they could break the curse that wretched soul Giles Corey had inflicted upon Corwin and Salem town as he lay dying, his insides crushing slowly to death from the weight of the stones placed upon him, then just maybe they could put a stop to Corwin and his relentless chasing of their souls through all eternity. What Corey hadn’t realised was that by cursing Corwinhe’d given him the same immortality that had been bestowed upon them, and Corwin was able to live forever, hunting the hunted.
The English motto was ‘Do no harm.’ They never used their magic for anything other than love spells, beauty spells to a certain degree, healing minor ailments and generally making the world a better place. Although even harmless spells could have negative results: beauty spells could lead to the beholder becoming self-centred and focused on their looks and not their loved ones. For each spell the English sisters gave out, they always issued a little caveat about the possible consequences. Not that anyone cared about anything other than getting what they wanted; in a way they were all selfish.
The book had never been used. But every lifetime, Sephy, Lenny and Lucine had wondered: was it destined for Dora? Should they have given it to her all those years ago?
And Corwin’s own will to destroy Lenny had connected them to his own fate.
That terrible day when Lenny, Sephy and Lucine had been dragged from the gaol into the blinding light and manhandled into that rickety old cart by none other than George Corwin with a smirk on his face had never faded even the tiniest bit from Sephy’s memories. The indignity and fear they shared was horrific and, as bad as it was that they were to hang for no good reason at all, they had all been relieved that at least Dora had been saved. Until they’d reached the makeshift gallows up on the ledge and saw Dora already there, hands and feet bound, staring defiantly at her guards. Sephy’s heart had truly broken in two at the sight of her beautiful, strong niece positioned with a noose around her neck. She could still hear Lucine’s silent screams as they tore through her mind. Before being dragged out of the filth and blackness, all of them had agreed that they would not make a sound and give Corwin the slightest satisfaction, but myGod it had hurt their hearts so much to see Dora standing there defiantly.
‘Sephy, what’s the matter?’
She looked down to see that Lenny had hold of her arm and was gently shaking it.
‘Nothing dear, I was just thinking about the bad old days, all of this and how we could put a stop to it.’
‘Do you honestly, hand on your heart, think that we could? Our plan hasn’t worked – she’s more distant than ever.’
‘The more I think about it, the more I think it’s about that damn book. We need to find it.’
‘How do you suppose we could do that? We’ve tried, we’ve looked for it. Dora doesn’t remember where it is.’
Sephy shrugged. ‘Is this why you didn’t want to come back? Have you given up?’ Lenny was looking downcast. ‘A plan has been hanging around the edges of my mind, I need to draw the pieces in and slot them all together.’
‘She doesn’t even know a fraction of who she is. She’s come here and thinks she’s in some sugar-coated, candy-pink fairy tale, with talking flowers and animals. Just how much valerian root did you give her, Sephy?’
‘She’s brighter than you give her credit for. She knows that all fairy tales have a wicked witch in them, what she doesn’t know is that in ours we traded the wicked witch for a witch hunter. I only gave her enough to cure the sickness and let her sleep well while we discuss what needs to be done.’
Lenny let out a sigh, so long and deep it was tainted with centuries of pain-filled sadness.
‘How is she?’
‘I’ll let you judge for yourself, you’re the expert. Thank you for coming home, Lenny, I’ve missed you, we’ve all missed you terribly.’
Sephy opened her arms and Lenny fell into them, tears flowing freely down both their cheeks as they held each other close.
Lenny whispered, ‘Your plan, what does it entail so far?’
‘It has to do with him. With Ambrose. I can feel him. I think that maybe in keeping Dora away we’ve made a difference this time. Perhaps her reappearance will help jolt his memory of what they did with Lucine’s book too.’
‘God, I hope so.’
Sephy reached out, her slender fingers gripping the doorknob. She thought of the boy who had been so in love with Dora. He had been cursed too. Forced to relive his life and to lose Dora just before they fell in love. But maybe this time, when they finally met, he’d remember where the journal was.
