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“That was an accident. She’s quite heavy, you know.” She said this so matter-of-factly that I wanted to reach out and strangle her. Instead, I watched as she walked the perimeter of the room to a small mirror that had been affixed to the wall, with a blue ribbon tied around a rusty old hook. It was terribly old, with a tarnished silver frame and its reflective surface mottled with the black spots and cloudy complexion of desilvering. Bernadette stared into it as though entranced, even as she continued to answer my question. “She is only sleeping… sleeping in the arms of a simple charm. She will have only pleasant dreams until she wakes. Only… only pleasant dreams…” Her voice trailed away, and her eyebrows furrowed as she looked more closely at her own reflection. Then, as if answering herself, she said, “What does it matter how I’ve done it? It’s done, isn’t it? I’m sorry if you’d prefer crueler methods.”
Eva, Zale, and I traded looks, each of us equally baffled, but Nova was staring at the mirror with realization dawning in her eyes. “Bernadette, where did you get that mirror?”
Bernadette started and jumped back from it, suddenly looking like a child who had been caught in wrongdoing. “I found it,” she said evasively.
“But where did you find it?” Nova pressed.
A pause. “At the Historical Society.” She drew herself up and glared at Nova defensively. “It belongs to our family. It was only on loan. I took it back.”
But Nova’s face was contorting with panic now. “But it was hers, Bernadette. You must know it was hers. It was kept under lock and key, under protective spells.”
“None of that matters,” Bernadette said, almost helplessly. “I had to take it. It called to me. There could be no protection from that call.”
“Please, Bernadette, you have to explain,” Nova said. “Start at the beginning. Wren has a right to understand.”
“But this is the beginning,” Bernadette said, eyes widening. “This was always the beginning.”
She looked at each of us imploringly, as though one of us must surely understand what she was saying. When we all just stared—or glared—blankly back at her, she sighed and said, “Very well. I will tell you what I can, but there is not much time. When the candle burns out, his will shall be done.” She pointed to the melted stub of a candle that flickered feebly mere inches from my mother’s feet. It was already nearly a puddle of wax. But I could think of nothing to do but keep her talking, anything to give us more time to think, to examine the room, to figure out how the hell we would get out of this.
Bernadette sighed. “It’s all jumbled. You’ll understand best if I start with Sarah.” She whispered the name, her voice thick with fear, and yet her eyes alight with reverence. “You all know of Sarah.”
And just like that she had all of my attention. “Sarah Claire? The Second Daughter who was lost?”
“That’s right,” Bernadette said. “You have heard her story already, I see, though you have been here only a few days. But I heard her story many times, over and over, from my childhood.”
“So did all the Claires,” Nova said. “A cautionary tale, meant to scare us into obedience. It worked pretty damn well, for the most part.”
“Yes, everyone was scared,” Bernadette agreed. “But I was also curious. You see, I knew what it was like, to glimpse the future, just like Sarah had been able to do. I may be the first in our family since her to do it. It is a gift we share. I felt… tied to her. You see, people do not understand me—the gift, it frightens and confuses them. I thought… I thought perhaps people had misunderstood Sarah as well.”
“She gave herself over to the Darkness, Bernadette. Freely gave herself. What the hell can there be to misunderstand about that?” Nova snapped.
Thunder rumbled so loudly, that it seemed to come from beneath our feet. Bernadette’s eyes widened and flickered to the mirror. “You mustn’t upset her, Nova.”
“What are you—?” Nova began, and then her eyes widened as she followed Bernadette’s glance to the mirror. “What have you done?” she whispered.
“I only wanted to speak with her,” Bernadette cried, one hand reached out in supplication, as though one of us might drop the understanding she craved right into her palm, like a stone. “She has been reduced to a villain in our stories, you see. A featureless thing, tossed by the sea for too long, and washed up upon the sand, unrecognizable. I knew there must be more to her than that. I wanted her story. I decided to ask her for it. And so one night, I came alone to the clifftop where she died, and cast a circle.”
Nova groaned. Eva and Zale stood motionless, spellbound by Bernadette’s story. I could hear them on either side of me, breathing evenly, like sleepwalkers.
“I reached out to the spirits of our mothers and grandmothers in search of her. I urged them to bring her to me, so that I could speak with her. They… did not relinquish her easily. I suppose I ought to have known then. But I was too curious, too sure that we were connected, that I was the only one who would understand.”
“You should have left her to rot in the spirit realm,” Nova growled. “If it weren’t for her… if she hadn’t…” she glanced uncomfortably at me, but I understood. The Claires had always been in the shadow of the Vespers, a shadow made larger by the glaring betrayal of Sarah Claire. It was the reason Nova had let Bernadette carry on, the reason Bernadette began all of this in the first place: Claire witches had always been made to feel inferior because of Sarah’s actions. They carried her shame.
“I thought I could learn the truth! To free her—and us—from the burden of that night so many years ago,” Bernadette said tearfully.
“Yeah, and how’s that going for you, huh, Bernadette?” Nova sneered.
Bernadette flinched, as though she’d been slapped. Eva reached out and placed a hand on Nova’s forearm. They caught each other’s eye, and Nova took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.
“I’m sorry, Bernadette,” she said. “I shouldn’t… what happened, when you spoke to her?”
Bernadette’s eyes took on a faraway look. “She whispered to me. At first, she thought I had come to scold her, but I was able to convince her I had not. I told her I knew what it was to be misunderstood, that she could tell me the truth, and I could clear her name. But she… she did not want to talk of herself. She wanted to know about me.” She smiled wistfully. “She wanted to hear about my visions, what I had seen. I told her about my paintings, and the visions I’d had that inspired them. She didn’t scoff or demean them. And she understood that I couldn’t explain them.” Bernadette shook her head a little, and looked at Nova again, locking eyes in an accusatory way. “No one ever treated me that way—like they understood.”
Nova bit at her lip but stayed silent. Even in the short time I’d been in Sedgwick Cove, I’d witnessed the way Bernadette had been treated, especially by her own family. It was clear no one took her very seriously, and that they all thought she was too fragile and too confused to be much of a threat—or an asset—to anyone.
An oracle, the poor soul. What mind could withstand such a burden,Phoebe had lamented aloud, that day in the gallery. The day I’d first seen Bernadette. And the day I’d first seen one of her paintings.
And one of her prophecies.
