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Elijah unhinged his jaw and screamed with demonic force. Miss Addie cried out in terror—No, please, no! Fear returned to Theta, dousing her fire. Her hands were small and cold. And she had only one thought left: Run.
She grabbed Miss Addie’s arm and hurried up the stairs with her until they’d reached the safety of the lobby, where the night doorman and the elevator operator stared at the two panting, terrified women as if they had emerged from hell itself.
Upstairs in the Proctor sisters’ living room with its many charms of protection, Theta wrapped Miss Addie in an afghan. Miss Addie sat in her chair staring out the window at the park as Theta told Miss Lillian about everything that had happened in the basement with Elijah.
Miss Lillian poured out three cups of strong, woodsy-smelling tea. Confetti-like leaves floated up to the top of the cup. “Drink your tea, dear.”
“I want to know about Elijah.”
“When Elijah was killed during the War Between the States, my dear sister was lost to her grief,” Miss Lillian said. “She studied every enchantment and spell until she found what she needed: a working to return the dead to life.”
“If you don’t mind my saying, that sounds like a bad spell.”
“She was sixteen,” Miss Lillian said gently. “What did she know? Only that she would do anything to have her Elijah back again. That night, for the first time, she met the King of Crows.”
Theta sat straight up. “Miss Addie’s talked to the King of Crows?”
“Oh, indeed, she has. It’s where her troubles started. She bargained with him for Elijah’s life. But the King of Crows tricked her, you see. Elijah returned to her, as promised, but not as he had been.”
Theta shuddered thinking about the thing she’d seen in the basement coming after Miss Addie.
“What can you tell me about this King of Crows?” Theta pressed. Maybe she could find out something that would help them find Conor or the Eye. “Where does he live?”
Miss Lillian frowned. “Live? No. He must steal from others to live. He’s a trickster and seducer. He preys upon your worst instincts, upon your greatest fears and deepest wounds. His treaties are bad promises that feed on the dark of our souls.”
Miss Lillian shook her head and tucked the afghan up around her sister’s neck. “Once, his influence was limited. Something has loosed the restraints on the energy of the dead and allowed him greater power in this world.”
“But why? What does he want here?”
“Oh, my dear.” She closed her eyes and exhaled, weary. “He wants everything. Greed is in his very bones. His soul is a great emptiness that can never be filled. Nothing will ever be enough for him. You’ve seen his monsters, like Elijah—they take from the living, but most of it goes to him. He takes. That is what he does. It is his only reason to be, his sole enjoyment. He feeds on pain and chaos and trickery. Power is his true aim. He would do anything to hold it, anything to stay and corrupt.”
“You’re in great danger, I fear. All of you,” Miss Addie said quietly, still looking out at the budding branches of Central Park, pale in the rising light. “You and all of your friends. The dead are everywhere. He will keep corrupting them. He will try to corrupt the good spirits to his will.” Miss Addie turned to Theta. “But you can help to stop him.”
“How?”
“How. How! Your fire!”
Theta was taken aback by Miss Addie’s sudden burst of anger. “I nearly burned down the psychiatric hospital! People could’ve died! I don’t understand this thing that lives inside me.”
“You saved Adelaide tonight with that thing that lives inside you. You mustn’t let it best you. You’re in charge of it. Not the other way around,” Miss Lillian said with a hint of scolding.
“I can’t help it. It just… comes on me whenever I’m angry or upset or…” Theta thought of kissing Memphis. Or full of desire. “I can’t stop it.”
Miss Lillian scoffed. “Stop it? Why, that’s a fool’s errand. Shape it, yes. Stop it? You can’t. You mustn’t.”
“The gift is yours. It has chosen you,” Miss Addie insisted.
“What if I hurt somebody with it?”
“Haven’t you been hurt?” Miss Lillian asked.
Theta thought of Roy’s fists. Mrs. Bowers’s cold cruelty. Even the first wound of abandonment. “Yes.”
“And here you still are. No. The question is this: Haven’t you been hurt enough?”
Miss Addie suddenly sat forward and picked up Theta’s teacup, examining the leaves. “You’re brokenhearted. I can feel it. No wonder it hurts so. For this is true love,” she said sadly.
“The world has always feared what we can do,” Miss Lillian said to Theta at the door. “Why do you think they’ve tried to hang and stone and burn us? You can claim your power or let them take it from you.”
