Conjure (16 page)

Chapter Twenty

I couldn’t tell him. At least not the truth. Instead I chickened out and fumbled a lame excuse about working on an antidote, then blamed my freak-out on how guilty I felt for taking so long to break the curse.

I bit my tongue when Jack agreed, saying I should feel even worse for not saving him by now, but Cooper’s reaction nearly killed me. He tucked me into his warm embrace, cradled my head against his broad chest, and whispered soothing, shushing noises into my ear. All I kept thinking as I inhaled his spicy freshness, was that I am the worst fraud in history. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. I mean, I’m not a murderer or an embezzler or anything like that. But there’s no debating I’m a horrible friend who’d keep a life-changing secret just to spare herself the hurt of telling the truth.

So as penance, and since I can’t stand to be near him without crumbling under the crushing weight of my epic guilt, I’ve exiled myself to the beach with my art supplies. If nothing else, the meditative waves of St. Helena Island Sound will give me a chance to figure out how to tell him the truth.

In the meantime, I’m having trouble with his face. I’ve worked this sketch three times already, ripping the thick drawing paper from the pad and tossing the crumpled ball into the fine white sand every time Cooper’s features turn heavy and dark. I don’t want to draw Dark Cooper, the soulless being I imagine he’ll become when Sabina’s curse takes hold. I want to capture the light in his eyes, his bright energy, and that loose, easy smile of his. But the charcoal pencil has a mind of its own, carving deep creases around his mouth and across his forehead, and pinching his lids in an angry glare. This is not my Cooper, and he can’t stay in my sketchpad. I grab the page to tear it from the spiral binding.

“Emma Guthrie.”

My heart skips, and I yelp in surprise, then twist around to see Maggie looming over me, her bright red skirt billowing in the balmy sea breeze. Her flowery scent dances around my head.

I exhale a gust of relief. “You scared the crap out of me. I didn’t hear you come up.” Dang, how long has she been there? Was she snooping? I flip the cover on my pad, hoping she hasn’t seen this frightening version of Cooper. Because if she did, she’s going to think I’m a pretty horrid artist. Which, humbly, I am not.

She laughs. “You did not hear me because I meant to surprise you.” She settles herself, uninvited, on the sand next to me and smooths her crisp cotton skirt over her lap. Then she slips her leather sandals off and wiggles her bare toes. Of course, her feet are beautiful. Just like the rest of her. Sickening.

My lip curls, and an involuntary grunt leaps from my mouth. Oops, that wasn’t supposed to be out loud. I scramble for the words to cover it. “It’s not nice to surprise people like that. You could give them a heart attack.”

“True, but it is entertaining nonetheless.” She chuckles. “Besides, you are still young and have no need to worry about your mortality. At least not yet.” Maybe it’s just her strange Jamaican-British accent, or the formal cadence of her words, but she really sounds weird. I still haven’t figured out why she always calls me by my full name. And so is everything else about her, including her bizarre attraction to my brother.

“If you’re looking for Jack, he’s not here. He’s somewhere with Cooper. You should check our house, but they could be up at the Big House, too.”

She nods. “Oh, I know where he is. I check on him regularly and have been watching your progress.”

“Uh-huh. Well, then you know we haven’t gotten very far.”

“Nonsense. You have accomplished much in a short time. You will achieve much success with the Grannie, I am sure of it.” Her smile is dazzling.

Sure, now that we’ve met Miss Delia and knocked off a museum, maybe we’ll break The Creep before Jack’s bones dry up or he loses so much flesh he collapses dead in the street. Maybe. But there’s a new wrinkle that only Miss Delia and I know about. One we’re not sure we can iron out in time.

My brain throbs, reasserting the headache I’ve had for the last two days, ever since I lied to Cooper, and we left Miss Delia’s to recuperate and let the knife and mortar rest. I rub my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, then squeeze the bridge of my nose to get some temporary relief.

“What is wrong, Emma Guthrie?” Maggie’s voice is soft and sympathetic.

I watch the red and yellow sparks zoom behind my closed lids. Everything is wrong. Devastatingly, earth-shatteringly, horrendously wrong. But I couldn’t even tell Jack and Cooper the truth, why should I confide in her? It’s none of her business.

“Everything’s hunky-dory. Couldn’t be better, in fact.” I force a smile and hope it’s enough to shut her up so she’ll move on and leave me to get rid of Dark Cooper in peace.

“That is a lie.” She doesn’t even try to sound nice about it or turn it into a question. The ugly accusation hangs in the air, absolute and definitive. Her face is blank as she waits for me to fill the uncomfortable stillness. The only sound comes from the waves lapping at the shore and the osprey squawking overhead.

I feel like I’m locked in an interrogation room, under the relentless glare of a high-wattage spotlight. I set my jaw and stare, debating whether to tell her to go screw herself, or shove her down into the sand and run away. She hitches her brow and smiles, as if she’s daring me to do one or the other, or maybe both. My fingers clench, tightening into a fist around my charcoal pencil. I know which option would make me feel better.

She clears her throat. “Why don’t you try speaking the truth? Perhaps it will lead to the answers you seek.”

An exaggerated sigh escapes my throat. I glare out at the rolling waves. As if she knows anything about what I’m dealing with and can offer even the slightest bit of help. I don’t think so.

Her smile softens, and she nudges my arm with her elbow. “Please, Emma, I am just as interested in your success as you are. We both want the same result. Confide in me. Sometimes just talking about a problem helps reveal its solution.”

I don’t like being cajoled into doing anything, especially by her. I’m so angry, I’m ready to throw that punch, but something about her eyes catches me off guard. For the first time, there’s a depth and genuine sincerity to her gaze that makes me believe she might actually be worried about Jack. Maybe she really does care about him. He’s definitely gaga over her. Who am I to judge their relationship, as peculiar and unfounded as it may be? She’s probably just scared for him, and my lying has only increased her worry.

I swallow hard. “Listen, I’m sure Jack’s going to be fine.” I bolster my voice with more certainty than I actually have to reassure her. “Miss Delia and I are working on it, and based on some of the…complications we’ve encountered”—I figure it’s best not to try and explain the devil dogs—“we’re getting there. So don’t worry. I’m not concerned about him.” It’s not entirely the truth, but it’s close.

She leans in. “But you are anxious about someone else.” Once again, it’s a statement. Can’t she at least pretend this is a real conversation where we tell each other things we don’t already know? Her head tilts, begging me to continue.

I stare, my lips pursed, debating whether to spill the beans. She certainly seems to care. Maybe I can confide in her, just a little bit. I don’t have to go into all the gory details. Plus it’s probably the only way to get her to stop staring at me.

I nod. “Yeah, I’m worried about Cooper.”

She pulls back in surprise. Finally, something she didn’t expect. Ha, victory is mine! Her perfect brow crinkles. “What could possibly trouble you about Cooper Beaumont?”

This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I blow out my cheeks, wondering how far I want go with this. Normally I wouldn’t expect anyone to understand what hoodoo is or how curses work, much less to believe that all this stuff is real. But Maggie’s different. She was there at the beginning when we thought Jack only had a burn. Right away, she knew otherwise and sent us to Miss Delia. And she’s stuck with Jack even though he’s turning into a rotting, stinky pile of bones. But her believing me isn’t the problem. I’m just not sure I can trust her.

Her dark brown eyes bore into me, beckoning the words that are locked deep in my throat. She seems famished, desperate for any crumb of information I’m willing to toss her way. Which is weird, considering this has nothing to do with Jack, and until now, she’s barely seemed to notice Cooper exists. Her gaze deepens and grows so warm, so needy, it’s hard to remember why I didn’t want to tell her in the first place. Her eyes soften and turn down, overflowing with compassion and sympathy. My chest aches to see her so sad, especially since I’ve got the answer that will make her happy again. There’s no reason to keep it from her. I want to tell her.

“Cooper’s in trouble.” I stroke the cover of my closed sketchbook. “Like, really bad trouble.”

She scoffs. “I doubt that is the case.”

Jeez, what’s with her? She practically drags it out of me, and then doesn’t believe me? I set my jaw. “Trust me. He’s cursed. He’s going to lose his soul when he turns sixteen.”

The smirk slides off her face. “How did you learn that?” Finally I’ve gotten her attention.

“Miss Delia worked a
Psychic Vision
charm on this knife we, uh, found, and it showed us its last memory.” There’s no need to get into all our felonious details. The fewer people who know what we did, the better. “It was from a few hundred years ago when this African slave lady helped Lady Beaumont give birth, but then she turned around and cursed the baby and all the future Beaumonts for the rest of eternity.”

Maggie’s brows stretch upward. She looks like she’s been struck by lightning. “She was a root doctor?”

“Yeah, they called her Sabina. She said she was a queen in her country and was cursing the Beaumonts for spilling royal blood or something.”

She nods, her face vacant. “She avenged a despicable act.”

“Apparently. But come on, what could be so bad that a whole family should be cursed for centuries? It’s not fair.”

“That is precisely what it is. The Beaumonts have always been unscrupulous. They deserve what they’ve got.” Her mouth puckers as if she’s tasted something bitter.

My cheeks flush red, and it’s not because the midday sun is beating down from the sky. “How can you say that? Granted, Beau’s disgusting, and maybe his father was, too, but how do you know it wasn’t because of this curse? Sabina said she’d take their souls when they come of age so they’d do horrible things. So how can anyone know what they’d have been like if she’d just left them alone?”

She shrugs. “Their depravity goes back further than the recent occupants of High Point Bluff. It is legendary.”

“You know what?” My neck cranes to the side, and I jam the charcoal pencil in the sand. “The Gullah tell their stories and think they know everything, but they don’t. Things handed down over generations get mixed up and distorted. Maybe the stories about the Beaumonts are the same. Maybe they really weren’t that bad.”

Maggie glares. “You
buckrah
comeyah
think you know everything. You don’t know what the Beaumonts did to my people here on this island. What they did when they purchased human beings to grow rice and indigo. They sowed a dark legacy in this soil, on this very shore, for which they must pay.”

I mash my lips into a tight line. Okay, slavery was indisputably bad. Evil, even. But how can she be so callous about Cooper? He’s never done anything to anyone. “So Cooper should pay, too? Is it fair for him to lose his soul?”

Maggie swallows whatever words she seemed poised to utter. Her shoulders sag, and she stares at her feet for a long moment.

“Hello? Maggie? Are you going to answer me?”

Her long eyelashes flutter. Is it the wind blowing off the Sound, or is she batting back a tear? “No, it would not be fair. Cooper has a good heart.”

“Exactly. But we’re running out of time, and that’s precisely what’s going to happen if Miss Delia can’t work some miracle to stop it.”

“She is very capable. I am sure she will discover a cure.”

My throat constricts, and a familiar sob wells in my chest. But I swallow it because I’m tired of crying. I’ve moved on to anger. “It’s not that easy. The vision didn’t give us any clues about how she cast the spell. All we know is she threw some crushed-up powder on Lady Rose and the baby, then ran away. Miss Delia’s trying to figure out what was in it. But in the meantime, I can’t bear to tell him the truth.”

She leans close. “Surely you saw more than you think. Perhaps there were other details you didn’t recognize as important. Think, Emma, what did S-s-”—she trips on Sabina’s name then gives up, probably because she doesn’t remember it—“the root worker say to the mistress when she cursed her.”

I bite my lip and search my memory for something that might make sense. So much happened in the vision—a lot of it super scary—it’s hard to keep track of it all. “Um, well, besides the royal blood-spilling thing, Sabina said she created The Creep, but that wasn’t much of a surprise…” I scan the images stored in my brain. “Oh, yeah, she was really mad that Lady Rose was wearing a necklace. Which, I’ve got to agree, was kind of strange. I mean, seriously, who wears a fancy ruby like that when they’re giving birth?”

Maggie’s eyes flash with interest. “A ruby? What did it look like?”

“Oh, it’s giant. A big, round flaming ball set like a blooming camellia with gold leaves. Sabina called it a blood stone, but Beau says its ‘eighty carats of pure fire.’” I do my best Beau impression, mimicking his exaggerated good-old-boy accent. “Of course back then, the chain was really long and thick. Now it’s on a much shorter necklace.”

Her jaw drops. “Beau Beaumont still has the necklace?”

I snort. “Yeah. It’s like his most precious possession. He loves to flash that thing around and tell everyone how it’s been passed down to every mistress of High Point Bluff since Lady Rose. But none of them ever owns it for keeps. It always stays in the family. So far, four of his wives have worn it, but the latest, Missy, wears it every day. At least the others had some class and only took it out on special occasions.”