“Er . . . you don’t want to know.”
Gillian raised her brows and shifted her hold on the candle so that she gripped it gingerly with her fingertips.
Rose surveyed her thoughtfully. “Come stand over here.” Taking Gillian’s elbows, she steered her across the room, then took another minute to position her. She removed a piece of chalk from her wee pouch and drew a circle on the floor around Gillian, then she drew several odd signs around the inside edge of the circle.
She stood, dusting her hands off, and glanced around the room. Spotting the ewer and basin Gillian had brought to the room earlier that week, she poured water into the basin and carried it to where Gillian stood. She removed several small packets from her pouch and sprinkled the contents of one into the water.
“What’s that?” Gillian asked.
“Salt.”
Rose passed her hand over the water, eyes closed, and said something in a language Gillian did not understand. Gillian glanced nervously at Stephen. He leaned against the wall near the doorway, watching them. He smiled encouragingly.
Rose pushed the water into the circle and positioned it right below the candle Gillian held.
“I purified the water,” Rose explained. “Some burning sage would be useful but not necessary.”
Rose tossed her braid over her shoulder and scrutinized the scene. “The fire and water purify you and your space within the circle. Mother said curses put bad magic out into the world. So by breaking this curse we will be sending this bad magic back out into the world. We must give it direction.”
“I think whoever cursed me should get the curse back at them.”
Rose shook her head. “We can’t do that unless we know who cursed you, and as we don’t . . .” Rose shrugged. “Perhaps there is someone evil you’d like to curse?”
Gillian looked anxiously around the room, as if a candidate would appear. “There’s no one.”
Rose chewed her lip a moment, then her eyes lit up. “We’ll curse an object, then we can bury it.” Rose fished around in her pouch until she located a satiny black stone. “This will work.”
She set the stone on the floor just outside the circle and made Gillian repeat after her words in a languagethat resembled Gaelic but made no sense to Gillian.
“What does it mean?”
“I’m not exactly certain,” Rose said. “But the important thing is that you understand the intent and put your will behind it. We want to break the curse and send the bad magic to the stone. So long as you keep that to the fore of your mind and infuse your words with that intent, it doesn’t really matter, aye?”
Gillian did as her sister instructed. They chanted the words for what seemed a very long time, until the dripping candle wax burned Gillian’s fingers and her calves began to ache.
Finally Rose bade her to blow the candle out. She removed a shiny white oblong stone from her pouch. “Lick this in the sign of the cross.”
Gillian looked at the stone dubiously. “Why?”
“Just do it!”
Gillian licked the stone across and down, then offered it to her sister.
“Was it salty?” Rose asked hopefully, opening her pouch so Gillian could drop it in herself.
Gillian shrugged. “Aye, a bit.”
“Good.” Rose beamed. “The curse is broken.” She looked down her thin nose at the black stone on the floor. “We’ll bury it later.”
Stephen limped over to sit in front of the dollhouse again. “Did it work?”
“Rose says it did.” Gillian looked around the room but didn’t see or hear anything odd. No headaches, either.
“We need a test,” Rose said. “Any place that you know is haunted?”
“The cliff path,” Gillian said. “But not until midnight. And there has to be fog.”
“Look at this,” Stephen called from across the room.
