The echo of my ancestor and her child walked into the house and outside, the fire died down to its embers. When the door opened again, the daughter walked out, older now and hand in hand with a kind-looking man. Emma Catherine waved them off, watching them go from the doorway before returning inside. As soon as she was alone, shadowy figures emerged from all corners of the memory, surrounding the house, each of them carrying a different weapon.
‘There are too many ways for a woman to make enemies,’ she said. ‘A fact that remains as true today as it was back then. They came in the night, not long after my daughter was wed, a dozen of them or more. I never saw another sunrise.’
‘But I thought Bell House was supposed to protect us,’ I said, my jaw clenched at the violence. I felt a sudden grief that cut so sharp I could hardly tolerate it. ‘Catherine said nothing could hurt a Bell in Savannah.’
‘You must remember, sometimes Catherine spoke with the tongue of a loving grandmother and not a witch,’ the ghost replied. ‘Bell House will protect you. My last gift to my line.’
The men entered the house and the scene faded away, returning Lafayette Square to all its present-day glory.
‘Tell me you killed them,’ I demanded, hot tears spilling fromthe corners of my eyes. ‘Tell me their names. Do their descendants still live in Savannah?’
A cool hand rested on my shoulder, tempering my rage but not subduing it entirely.
‘Revenge is never worth the price you pay for it. Today, those men are all dead, gone and forgotten, they took my life but not my story. And no, I didn’t fight. I knew it was my time; I knew my blood would run through the bones of Bell House. I live on in her, and in you.’
She touched a finger to the ground between us and drew a circle. Slowly at first then all at once, a flurry of tiny white flowers with golden hearts pushed their way up through the grass.
‘Daisies are my favourite flowers,’ she said contentedly. ‘Isn’t it wonderful that something so perfect can grow just about everywhere you look? Everything feels right with the world when I see their pretty faces.’
‘Everything?’ I replied, still reeling from the violence she’d endured.
The flowers shivered with delight as she stroked their petals and something sharp poked at the back of my neck, scratching at my skin. I pulled a white feather from my messy braid and laid it on the ground beside her flowers.
‘A feather from a dove,’ she said. ‘See? There is hope.’
Using the tree to pull myself up, every part of my body in pain, I struggled to my feet. Emma Catherine rose with graceful ease. We stood face to face, the same height, the same hair, the same eyes. My ancestor. My beginning.
She raised an opalescent hand and instinctively, I did the same, reaching towards her until we were touching, whatever she was made of cool against my warm flesh. An electric thrill ran through me and the door inside my mind cracked open, the good and the bad all fighting to escape at once. All our knowledge, there inside of me.
‘I want to get things right, make you proud,’ I said, still marvelling at her touch when she pulled her hand away and the door slammed shut. I staggered back into the tree, immediately grieving the loss. ‘But I’m afraid. All the things I saw, everything I knew when we were together in the chapel, it’s gone. Half of what I’ve experienced contradicts most of what I’ve been told. How am I supposed to make the right choices if I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t? If I can’t control the magic?’
‘The pursuit of control is a dangerous waste of time.’ She was calm again, as though my rising panic was all for nothing. ‘Your grandmother sought to control the blessing and look what happened.’
‘Which means?’
‘Our magic does not give us what we want but what we need,’ Emma Catherine said. ‘When your sisters come, the messages will be clearer.’
‘And when will that be?’ I asked, stepping towards her at the exact same moment she took a step back. ‘Why can’t you just tell me what’s going to happen,whenit’s going to happen?’
‘Because answers are easily obtained, the truth less so.’
An echo of her own words.
‘If nothing else, I have to protect my friends,’ I said, pleading with her though I knew there was no point. ‘At least tell me how to keep them all alive.’
‘I cannot.’
‘Because you don’t want to or because you don’t know how?’
‘Because I do not know if they are meant to live.’
It was a punch to the gut. In spite of everything, all the fear, the nightmares, the dark visions. I’d felt sure she would say something consoling, even something vague, what was meant to be would be, the blessing would take care of them, my sacrifice would be enough to save them. But no. There was avery real chance my friends would not survive whatever was to come.
Emma Catherine traced a finger around one of the late-blooming azaleas by the fountain, her expression indifferent. She didn’t look regretful or apologetic. She looked accepting.
‘The prophecy says you will make the choice, Emily, not me. How could I know the outcome?’
‘My dad taught me not to make any kind of decision until I had all the information possible,’ I said softly, trying to find the same kind of peace but acceptance without hope felt a lot like defeat. ‘If you don’t know, how will I know the right choice to make?’
