Page 57 of The Witches of Cambridge

CHAPTER TWENTY

One early Sunday morning there was a rapping at Ava’s window, as if sparrows were doing their best to get into the house. It was so quiet that every sound echoed. Lilith House felt abandoned and dark, a place where anything might happen. Birds at the window, ashes in the chimney, water in the tap running black. Ava tossed off her blanket and got up from her bed. When she looked out, there was her grandmother in a dowdy coat standing on the other side of the fence, signaling to her. They hadn’t spoken since Ava discovered the truth about her father, and now she couldn’t quite imagine what could cause her grandmother to come all the way to Cambridge. If she hadn’t felt she had lost everyone dear to her, she might have pulled down the shade. Instead, she quickly slipped on jeans and a black sweater and went out, with Jack following. The dog was already growling, even before Ava and her grandmother stood face-to-face. “Why did you come here?” Ava asked.

“To talk to you,” her grandmother said.

“If you wanted to talk to me you should have done that while I was growing up,” Ava told her grandmother. “I’ve been looking for my father, and it seems you’ve done your best to keep me from ever finding out anything about him.”

“I know you’re angry that you didn’t know the truth about your father,” Jeanne Abbot said. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying.

“And what about my mother? Will you tell me who she was?”

“I was only protecting you,” Ava’s grandmother said.

“Well, stop it!”

“That’s why I’m here. I need you to come with me now,” Jeanne Abbot said. “It’s your father. He’s better.”

“My father?” Ava said, incredulous. “My father drowned in the Charles River.”

“No,” Jeanne Abbot told her. “We told you that to protect you. He’s been in the hospital all this time. He’s been in a deep coma, for it seemed unlikely that he’d ever be well, but now he’s back. We’ve had a miracle. We are walking through a world of miracles, Ava, and we don’t have time to waste.”

Mrs. Abbot linked her arm through Ava’s and brought her to a waiting taxi. Once they’d gotten in, Mrs. Abbot leaned forward to give the driver an address in Lexington. As soon as the taxi pulled away, Jack began chasing them, but the taxi didn’t stop. “Keep going,” Mrs. Abbot commanded. “Don’t slow down.”

Ava felt dizzy with confusion. “How can he be alive? I saw the obituary.”

“It’s what we told the newspaper so he could have peace. The same is true of his gravestone.”

“But he’s a ghost. His spirit sits on my bed when I’m sleeping.”

“Don’t say that!” Mrs. Abbot gripped Ava’s arm even more tightly and shook her. “You stupid girl. Are you trying to call up black magic? Do you think I don’t know the witchery you practice? That’s the reason. I have to do this. For your sake.”

“Do what?”

“Whatever I have to.” Jeanne Abbot’s voice was softer than usual.

Ava’s heart was pounding. Had this woman ever been anything but insincere? She looked out the back window; Jack was still chasing after them.

“You need to stop the taxi.” Ava felt pins and needles, the sort of fear that pinched.

“We have no time for that,” Jeanne Abbot informed her. “We’re on a schedule.”

Ava couldn’t see Jack anymore; the car was driving faster, and he hadn’t been able to keep up. Soon he’d be wandering the streets in the dark. “Why should I believe you?” Ava asked her grandmother, She felt as though she were still in a dream. “You lied to me before.”

“I’m your grandmother, and we are blood relations, whether you like it or not. I’ve always wanted the best for you, even though there is something amiss with you, just as there was with your mother. I curse the day my boy met her, and I always have.”

“What was so wrong with my mother?”

“It’s better not to know what you came from” was her grandmother’s guarded response.

Be prepared, don’t be swayed when the woman who had always lied to you begins to cry even if you’ve never seen her do such a thing in all your life. If you look closer you’ll see there are no tears. Crocodile tears. Crocodile mother. Put your finger on her cheek and feel how cold she is, then you’ll know a lie for what it is.

But Ava did not know. She might have questioned her grandmother further, but they had come to a wooded campus and were driving on a crooked road. The area looked bucolic, but people in the neighborhood knew it was a hospital, and not the sort they would ever wish to go to. As the taxi headed up the twisting drive, it was possible to spy a row of red-brick buildings on a hill. Here was a psychiatric hospital created with the belief that those who were ill in spirit and in mind would find solace in a restful country setting.

Ava followed her grandmother to a building, where they were buzzed inside. Once they were in the corridor, the door clicked shut and locked with an echo. Ava’s first thought was that she should not be barefoot. She had no idea that the hospital had begun as what was then called an insane asylum, for such terms weren’t used anymore. All the same, she could feel grief in the air, a spiderweb of sorrow.

“I don’t think I should be here,” she said.

Her grandmother continued to grasp her arm, saying, “We have to wait for the doctor. This is all for the best. I don’t want you to go down the wrong path.”