Jess gnawed thoughtfully at an already well-bitten fingernail. “As to that, I can’t say for sure. I feel as though the Durupinen would have records of something like that, if it was a historical pattern, and I’ve never heard of it. It’s definitely worth investigating. But I think it’s more likely that there is something unique about the Geatgrima here in Sedgwick Cove.”
“Is that what you were talking about earlier?” I asked her. “When you said that there was something… somethingwrongwith it?”
“Yes,” Jess said. “This Geatgrima is… corrupted somehow. Twisted. I can’t say for sure how or why it’s happened, but that Geatgrima is not functioning the way it’s supposed to.”
I thought about Asteria and her confusion. I thought of Xiomara and Bea, and the fact that their connection to the spirit world seemed to be interrupted somehow. Could this Geatgrima be the reason why? Had something happened to it that was blocking their abilities—and my ability—to communicate with the spirits to whom they were usually so connected?
“What I don’t understand,” said Persi, “is how you wound up with our grimoire in the first place.”
Jess shrugged. “As to that, I am as clueless as you are. I told Wren that I came by it in our library. That was only sort of a lie. It was found at Fairhaven, but a few rooms away from the library, in the bedroom of one of our apprentices. A small group of them were trying to use the spells in it for their own purposes. As you can imagine, that ended very badly for them, seeing as they were not witches and were meddling with power they didn’t understand.”
“But how did those apprentices get it?” Persi snapped. “Surely youlooked into how such a dangerous book got into the hands of a bunch of students?”
“Of course we did,” said Jess, in a slightly strained voice. “All of the clans involved were questioned, and the book had been discovered in one of their private libraries. They swore they had no idea where it had come from, only that it had always been a part of their family’s collection, going back centuries.”
“That still doesn’t explain how they got it in the first place.”
“You’re right,” Jess said. “It doesn’t. But no one seems to know the answer to that question.”
A silence stretched between us, Persi still reeling from the staggering revelations that had just been unloaded on her, and Jess and I waiting to see how she would respond to them.
It was a precarious situation we were in, and I think Jess could feel it, too. Of all the adults in the house, Persi would have been my last choice for who caught me sneaking around with a formerly dead woman in the very place we were all forbidden to be. Her tempestuous temper and general penchant for rash, emotional decisions meant that I could no better predict her response than Jess could, who had only known her for about twenty minutes. I held my breath, waiting. And then I remembered something.
“Persi, what did you mean when you said, ‘it’s you?’” I asked suddenly into the quiet.
Persi stared blankly at me. “What?”
“When you found us in the cavern and spotted Jess for the first time, you said, ‘It’s you.’ How did you know who she was?”
Persi’s face went even whiter than it had been a moment before. “I didn’t know who she was,” she hedged.
“But you recognized her somehow,” I said stubbornly. “You said you were going to explain. Jess told you everything you wanted to know. It’s your turn.”
I could see her wheels turning behind the dark sparkle of her eyes. Finally, she sighed and stood up.
“I need to show you something,” she said.
Jess and I watched in silent curiosity as she crossed to the far side of the shed, and opened a tall standing wardrobe in the corner. The top shelves inside were crammed with small bottles and jars and stubs of candles, but into the bottom were crammed several canvases, which she carefully extracted. She came over and laid them out, one by one, across the work table. Then she stepped back, her expression stricken, as Jess and I leaned forward to examine them. I heard Jess gasp beside me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from what was in front of me.
There were four paintings in all. One showed a woman standing on the cliffs with the Playhouse in the background. Another showed a woman’s face painted like a sketch inside a book. The next showed the same woman standing inside a stone archway, her arms raised.
All of these women were the same woman. They were all Jess.
The fourth and final painting was the one that felt like it sucked my breath from my lungs. It was a single set of shoulders and a single neck upon which three heads sprouted. The first head was clearly Jess’. The second was mine.
The third was Sarah Claire’s.
“What the actual fuck am I looking at right now?” Jess finally asked into the stunned silence. She looked sharply up at Persi. “Did you paint these?”
Persi shook her head, and so did I, because I already knew who had painted them. I recognized the style from the moment I laid eyes on them.
“It was Bernadette, wasn’t it?” I asked. “Bernadette drew these.”
Persi nodded. “Over the last couple of weeks. And these are just the ones she’s finished. Her room is full of half-finished sketches and abandoned partial paintings. Wren, you’re in a few. But Jess is in every single one of them.”
“Who is Bernadette?” Jess asked. She pointed to the third face on the last painting, Sarah’s face. “Is this her?”
I shot a look at Persi, but she gave no sign that she was going to answer. I realized that we had reached an impasse. To explain Bernadette and Sarah Claire, I would have to explain about the Darkness, something that I had successfully avoided up until this moment. Just as Jess had beencareful about what she had shared about the Durupinen, I had tried to keep as many Sedgwick Cove secrets as I could. Talking about Sarah Claire would break open the entire history of our coven, but it seemed at this point that I had no choice. Jess was no longer an outsider in this story. She had been pulled right into the spotlight by Asteria, by me, and now, apparently, by Bernadette Claire. Knowing now how deeply Jess was tied to the Source, I felt like I had all the justification I needed to tell her everything. This was her story now, too.
