I swear I can hear the pieces clicking together in my brain. “Your mother. She was Madame Josephine?”
Tommy nods and picks up the book, reverently turning the pages. His action dislodges two pieces of ancient black card that flutter gently to my feet. I bend my knees and feel for them on the ground, refusing to take my eyes off of him. I find them and pick up the missing cards from the Tarot deck in the museum. Two more faintly gilded skeletons, one holding a skull and scythe and the other resplendent in an elaborate crown, grin up at me before they are snatched from my grip.
“I need those.” Tommy places the open grimoire back on its stand and fusses with the placement of the cards. “The Empress,” he mumbles, “and Death. For love and new beginnings.”
“But it never worked, did it?”
“No.” He looks back up at me, something like pain in his gaze. “It didn’t. And my mother died – I couldn’t go back and undo it. I’m . . . stuck.”
“Stuck?”
“In this body. And I won’t be able to move on until I bring her back, don’t you see? I knew I could do it this time, I just needed certain . . . items.”
“Like what?” The words almost stick in my throat as images from the last few weeks parade in front of my eyes. I think I already know what he’s going to say.
“The Tarot cards. Hair, for remembrance and renewal.” Sara’s poor, broken body flashes through my mind, the bald patches on her beautiful head standing out in stark relief as Tommy traces his finger along the parchment. “Fingernails.” Tasha’s bare, bloody nailbeds follow in the morbid slideshow my memories are creating. “For strength and sharpness of wit.”
“Let me guess the next one . . . an eye?” I gulp. He nods, as I see the girl on the underground clutching her bloody face.
“So she could see the world again.” He’s reeling the list off as though it’s a recipe he’s more than familiar with, one he’s followed time and time again. He doesn’t need the book. I wonder how many lives he has ruined trying to fix his own.
“What else?” I ask, my own curiosity now taking over.
“A piece of jewellery that was special to its wearer, for sentiment and an open heart,” he drones, his words muffled in the lace of Jane’s rotting gown. He looks up at me with wide eyes. “I got that one before I met you. I think, maybe, if I’d have met you sooner. . .”
“What? You wouldn’t have done any of this?” He slumps back down to the floor and I see how pathetic and broken he really is. “So, where do I come into all this, then?”
“You were the final piece. But I . . . I couldn’t do it.” He slams a hand on the floor and I choke on the dust that rises up around us, trying not to think about what I might be breathing in. “I knew that, this time, if I did it, if I . . . used you, it would finally work. Because I cared about you.” Tommy tries to stretch a hand towards me and I flinch away without thinking. “I couldn’t hurt you, though. I couldn’t use you.”
“Use me?” Is that a siren in the distance? “What do you mean, use me? Is that why you took Meghan, to use her instead?” I press. “What’s the final thing you need, Tommy?”
He’s too fast on his feet and I realize, too late, that he’s been playing me. Before I can react, he drops Jane’s lifeless body to the floor and wraps his hand around my ponytail, dragging me up to standing by my hair. My vision starts to tunnel as pressure builds around the base of my neck, where he’s holding me with one strong hand.
“A heart, my beautiful Niamh. Your warm and beating heart.”
I come to, blinking slowly, my eyes and throat dry and dusty. I’m lying flat on my back, staring into the dark, domed roof of the mausoleum, its little rectangular indentations messing with my vision. I close my eyes again and try to push myself up, but my arms and legs are constricted. I am wrapped in something slippery and soft, covering me from neck to toes. I stretch and glance down as far as I can.
I’m in Jane’s funeral shroud.
And I’m not alone.
“Tommy?” I say. I try to force down the panic but Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, I’m in a coffin and there’s a dead girl crammed in here next to me.
“Shush, it’s fine.” A cool hand reaches out to stroke my brow and I flinch. “It’s nearly over, not long now.” I swivel my head around desperately, trying to shake the stinking shroud off of me. I can see that Tommy is re-erecting the main wreath again, piecing bits of hair back together, wrapping the tarot cards in it. Hard lumps press into the back of my head and my hands and I realize I’m lying on top of those little glass bottles. My stomach recoils as I realize what must be in them.
“Tommy.” My voice comes out pleading, broken. “Please. You don’t have to do this. We. . .”
“We?” He laughs harshly, grabbing the edge of the coffin and peering down at me. “There is no ‘we’, Niamh. Don’t you see? You’re here for a higher purpose, to sacrifice yourself, so she can finally come back!” I see tiny white flecks of foam start to gather at the corners of his mouth. “Now, shut up. I’m trying to concentrate.”
I shut my eyes and try to recall all of the stupid horror movies that Meghan has ever made me watch. Ironically, she’d probably be great in this situation, the one I’ve saved her from.
I start to spread my fingers out as Tommy mills around, setting up his horrific little altar. I hear a familiar clink of metal and a stream of sunlight flashes off the sharp set of curved, metal nails –claws– that Tommy is ceremoniously sliding on to his fingers. Tears roll down the side of my face.
“Why the nails?” I choke out.
Tommy turns to me and leans closer, tracing a finger down my face, only this time it’s hard, brutal and I feel the white-hot pain of the claw’s knife-sharp edge parting my flesh and the warm rush of blood down my cheek.
“These?” He asks innocently. “I suppose you could say they were part of the original costume.”
