“We wanted two people. A man and a woman. The spell would work better that way. He also had the ability, though it was dimmer than in Ginny’s case. I flirted with him a few times, convinced him I was interested in him, and then arranged a rendezvous.”
“Then the woman they saw outside with Santiago was you. But no one knew, and when she went missing you must have fanned everyone’s suspicions, told them she’d run off with him.”
“Girls gossip in close quarters,” Carolyn said with ease. For a second, Minerva could picture her at twenty, blithely going from a debutante ball to the scene of a murder with a shrug. It disgusted her. Minerva was quiet. She didn’t want to ask any more. But she had to. She needed the answers. Besides, if she remained silent it would be worse. Fear would overwhelm her. Words kept terror at bay. This way she could pretend death didn’t await her once they reached the factory.
“What happened with Thomas Murphy? I don’t think you met him by chance.”
“I like to look at the new crop of students we support through the foundation each year. Sometimes by looking at their records, or casting a simple divination spell using their photos, I can sense if they have the ability. Of course, the best, most accurate method is to simply touch a person and feel them like that. We had a function, and I shook his hand.”
She remembered the first time she’d met Carolyn and how she’d helped her pour a cup of tea. Afterward, Carolyn had offered to show her Betty’s papers. No wonder.
“I arranged for Thomas to tutor my grandson to get a better sense of him. Sometimes that first impression is incorrect and the ability is stunted, dim. Useless.”
“But in Thomas’s case it wasn’t stunted. He had a Ouija board and read the tarot cards. He was the real deal.”
“An amateur, but yes. Good enough.”
“Did you tell him about Ginny and her artwork, or was he researching her by chance?”
“I made sure he learned about her. It fires the imagination, doesn’t it? Young girl, gone missing many years ago. Leaves behind those abstract images and nothing more. And he, of course, tries to find out more about her, and Ginny’s sad, poor ghost tells him half a story about witches and spells, and when something begins haunting poor Thomas, he is deathly afraid. The silly boy nearly wet his pants one night.”
“Weren’t you worried he’d find you out? That Ginny would tell him you were behind it all?”
“She couldn’t. Ghosts are coarse things; communicating with them is difficult, and Thomas was not an experienced medium. At best, he learned enough to become terrified and paranoid.”
“Which suited you.”
“His blood did have a lovely tinge of dread. I kept him alive for a whole week. I might keep you longer.”
That was why she was speaking to her, to induce a sense ofdread. Minerva wondered if she’d done the same with Ginny, explaining everything that would happen to her.
I’m going to die,she thought. She ought to have run off, although that’s what Ginny had done; it hadn’t helped her. She’d run through the snow, terrified, clutching the scissors, only to stumble directly into the arms of the Wingraves. Maybe they’d shoved her into a car much like the one Minerva was sitting in. Or else, through more esoteric means, they had transported their victim to a secure spot where they could devour her at their leisure.
“You have an exceptional spark, you know? You cut your hand a few weeks ago. My grandson must have lent you his handkerchief because it was in the laundry, smeared with blood. I sniffed it, tasted a drop of it.” Carolyn grinned. “It’s delicious.”
Minerva pictured the woman rifling through Noah’s clothes and pressing her tongue against the dirty square of fabric, licking the dried blood, and shuddered at the thought.
“Ah, here we are,” Carolyn said as they reached the gates of the factory and she parked the car.
They stepped out of the vehicle. Minerva looked at the building warily. Carolyn opened her purse and took out a set of keys and unlocked the gate. She turned to Minerva.
“Go ahead,” Carolyn said.
They walked into the workroom with the green walls and the pile of red fibers. The same room that had repulsed her when she had explored the factory with Noah. She had felt a foulness in the air. Now it hit her harder and almost made her gag. Minerva stood at the room’s threshold and pressed a hand against her mouth while Carolyn turned on the lights. The fluorescent bulbs glowed bright above them.
“Come on, sit,” Carolyn said. “If you don’t cooperate it’ll be very unpleasant for your friend, I can promise you that.”
Minerva took two tentative steps and looked carefully around the large space. Two metal chairs had been dragged to the center of the room, and a worktable, which had been empty the last time she was there, was covered with a thick red cloth.
“Someone died here,” Minerva said, recognizing what she had failed to see the first time around.
“Of course they did,” Carolyn replied pleasantly. “Sit, please.”
I’m going to die,she thought again, and almost had to bite her tongue not to laugh.
Minerva sat in one of the chairs. Carolyn tugged at the red cloth, tossing it aside. Upon the worktable there was a wide assortment of rusty old tools. A bucket full of nails. Wrenches. An axe. Carolyn opened a black box.
Minerva couldn’t see what was inside. She craned her neck while slowly tugging at the backpack’s zipper. Her fingers stilled as she felt more than saw a shadow hovering at the edge of her vision. She had the same sensation that she’d had at Joyce House, that something was there. Noah had said he’d seen a ghost at the factory, a man in overalls and a flat cap. Minerva had the same impression, lightning quick, of a man. Santiago, perhaps, tethered to this room decades after his death, like Ginny seemed tied to Joyce House.
