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I brushed past the untruths I myself had made up about the island to arrive at the accepted canon of stories, factual or no, that make up Hutchinson’s official history. “It’s where Alice Riley killed William Wise.” This murder led to Alice being hanged. The first time in the history of Georgia that a woman died at the gallows. I shuddered as a connection formed in my mind. “Alice was accused of practicing witchcraft.”
Iris had spent years volunteering for the historical society. “In her day, any woman worth her salt was accused of it,” Iris said as she carried a tray with the teapot and three mugs to the table. Ellen slid the map over so Iris could find room for the tray. “Still, she was tried for murder not witchcraft. She was a killer, but by no means a witch.”
“Wasn’t Alice pregnant at the time of the trial?” Ellen asked. I didn’t like the next station where this train of thought was bound to stop.
“Yes, the court stayed her execution until she gave birth.” Iris turned to me. “Listen, we could easily jump to conclusions and draw connections between you, a pregnant witch, and the unfortunate Miss Riley. But let’s don’t for now.” She placed a cup of hot chamomile before me. “Drink that.”
A look passed between my aunts. “The other foot. They found it near Columbia Square,” Iris said as she handed Ellen a steaming mug. “In the middle of the street right in front of the Kehoe Mansion.”
“Kehoe.” Ellen took a sip of tea. “Savannah’s king of cast iron. What could that signify?”
I shrugged. Nothing jumped to mind.
Iris took the seat next to Ellen. “What was that horrible lie you used to tell about the Kehoe family?” She looked at me through narrowed eyes. “The one that almost got me kicked out of the historical society.”
“You mean the first time she almost got you kicked out.”
“Yes.” Iris snapped her fingers as my story came back to her. “You claimed Kehoe’s wife, Anne, had an affair with a worker from the foundry, and Kehoe killed him and burned him in the furnace.”
“Then added the ashes to the cast iron he used to build the Kehoe Mansion,” Ellen finished for her. They both stared at me. Ellen shook her head. “How did you come up with those horrid stories of yours?”
“It was just a fib.” I had actually forgotten the part about the ashes until Ellen reminded me.
“A fib?” Iris looked at Ellen then turned back to me. “More of a calumny.” I surmised she had forgiven me due to the smile on her lips. “I could never decide whether I should feel mortified by these fables you were spinning or proud of them. Every day I stood helplessly by, watching as you twisted the essence of your heritage to the benefit of your own unscrupulous purposes.” She laughed, but from the way she squinted at me, she had remembered another tale to take me to task over. In the next instant her laughter dried up, and her eyes fell to the map. “What if we are looking at this whole situation wrong?” Iris wrapped her arms around herself as if she were fighting off a sudden chill. “What if instead of viewing the killer’s actions as a message, we look on it as a spell?”
Ellen leaned in toward Iris. “You mean rather than looking for a logical connection between the places the killer has chosen, we try to uncover any magical correspondences?”
The use of magical correspondences helped to focus a spell by drawing like to like or substituting an item with similar attributes for another. In the most vulgar of its forms, the power of magical correspondences showed up as tourist shop Voodoo dolls. At its most refined it served as the basis of spiritual alchemy. Real witches rarely relied on it, using it only when the magic they were attempting fell outside their innate abilities or called for a higher level of precision than they could muster without habiliments.
“That makes it less likely we are looking for one of us then, right?” I asked. “A witch, I mean.”
Iris was about to answer when her cell rang. Her
hand pounced on it before it could ring a second time. The rise in color to her cheeks announced her caller was Sam. Her face glowed as a mischievous smile rose to her lips. She paused before answering, trying to come across a little less excited than she was. “Hello,” she nearly purred. Ellen leaned toward her, trying to eavesdrop, but Iris gave her a playful push back. “Oh,” she said, the shine leaving her eyes. “No, I understand, I do. Tomorrow—” she began, but her eyebrows fell. I knew that Sam had hung up.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
“Yes, of course.” Iris forced a new smile on her face. “Sam was supposed to swing by this evening, but he’s run into some difficulty with work. He’s under quite a bit of pressure right now,” she offered as apology for him when in truth none was owed. I knew she was merely repeating his own words. I had to wonder if things were cooling off, at least on his side.
Ellen flashed me a look that told me she was wondering the same thing. Iris caught on to our silent conversation. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, “he’s got a project to finish before the holiday. Don’t go reading anything into it.”
“Reading nothing into anything,” I said throwing up my hands. “Still, I will shrink his head to the size of a grape if he hurts you.”
“And I,” Ellen said, “will shrink the part he thinks with.”
Iris placed her hands on her hips. “No one is shrinking anything. Please remember, I am quite fond of his ‘thought’ process.” I was glad to see she had shaken off the gloom that had descended on her, her false smile making way for a true one. “Everything is wonderful. He’s a bit stressed out. That’s all.” The smile faded as she fixed us with a steely glare. “Now, put that map away, and prepare yourself to face a true horror. Grocery shopping two days before Thanksgiving.”
FOUR
Abigail pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. “Actually, if you can spare Mercy, I’d like to borrow her for a bit.” She focused on me. “We appear to be at the point of a breakthrough. I think Maisie is ready to discuss . . . that day.”
That day. There was no need for Abby to be more specific; she was speaking of the day of the investment, when Maisie was to be installed as an anchor of the line, but instead caused all hell to break loose. Rather than accepting the role everyone believed Maisie had been born to play, she rebelled against the united witch families and handed me over to Jackson to sacrifice. With my death, she had planned to wrest control of the line from the other anchors and secure its magic for herself. I cringed at the memory, doing my best to push it down, set it aside, not let the true weight of what Maisie had put me through touch my heart. In order to welcome Maisie back into my life, I’d been forced to suppress my pain over her grievous betrayals, but seeing it all spread back out before me reminded me I had a lot to forgive Maisie for.
Jackson had harbored his own ideas, intending to double-cross Maisie and steal the line’s magic for his own purposes. He planned to use it to free his boo hag buddies from the dimension where they had been trapped since the line’s creation. Things didn’t work out the way either of them had expected, though. For some reason, Maisie faltered at the last moment, and rather than harming her, the line had shown her clemency, moving her away from our reality to a place where she could work no harm.
Jilo had warned me against bringing the sister who had tried to kill me back into this world, and the other anchors had forbidden any attempt to locate Maisie, let alone rescue her. My family’s insistence on doing just that was now viewed as the opening volley in what many were calling the “Taylor Rebellion.” Still, the line had protected Maisie rather than punished her. And the line had helped me bring my sister home. I told myself that these points should stand as proof positive that in spite of everything, I was right to believe in her, right to try to find a way to move past the harm she’d caused that day.
That day seemed a million years ago, although in truth it had taken place in July, a mere four months ago. And a month before that, I had been an entirely different person. It seemed that an enormous gulf stood between the girl I’d been and the person I now knew myself to be. I felt proud of the woman I had become, or was at least in the process of becoming. Still, a part of me missed the girl I had been. Sure, I had led a privileged and sheltered life, and maybe I was a lot less mature than I ought to have been. But there had been something magical about that girl, her innocence and open heart, even if I had failed to see it at the time.
