Strega (Strega Series) (16 page)

After Gram died, I stopped in to check on the house every week. It was still hers in my mind. I couldn't get used to the idea that it was mine. I'd get the mail, water the plants, and make sure everything was in order. I half expected to see her standing in the kitchen on the phone or sitting on the sofa drinking a cup of coffee. Without her, it was like walking into a tomb.

The house was all I had left of Gram, of my family. As time went on, tending to it became somewhat of a comfort. When I was there, it was like part of them was still with me. I knew I would never sell it, but I wondered if I'd ever be ready to move back in.

That night was the first time I'd gone to the house without Rena. It was dark and I was on my own. But I couldn't wait until morning. I had to find what I was looking for. I held my phone in my hand, ready to make an emergency call, and ran up the steps to the front door.

The hall light was on as expected. It was on a timer so the house didn't appear vacant. As soon as I stepped inside, I slammed the door behind me and locked it. I grabbed the poker from beside the fireplace, hoping that it would prove to be a formidable weapon if needed. As I made my way through the house, I flipped on every light.

Determinedly, I ran upstairs to Gram's bedroom and scanned her nightstand, bureaus, and finally her closet where she kept so many of Mom's things. I opened every box, every chest, and searched every pile, but I found nothing. I sat on the edge of her bed contemplating other places I could look. Then I thought of her craft room. Maybe it was in her desk, or in one of the many unpacked boxes that had come from my old house. Though I'd gone through those boxes years ago in search of this book, I hoped that maybe I'd overlooked it.

***

A couple weeks after Gram died, I started to go through her things, trying to figure out what to do with it all. I gathered some of her clothes to give to charity, but I couldn't bring myself to put the bags in the car and actually give them away. I was not ready to part with anything. I pulled out my favorites, like her wool cardigan sweater. She only wore it around the house on cold winter days. Sometimes I wrapped myself in it, feeling that a part of her was still in it. It still smelled like her.

Rena came with me and stayed downstairs, dusting, removing cobwebs from the ceiling, and watering the plants. I was upstairs trying to go through the endless mountains of stuff in the craft room. Unfinished projects, piles of clothes, holiday decorations, random boxes of odds and ends.

I used to love that room as a kid. I always found new things, like fabric and patterns for outfits she planned to make for my dolls. She collected skeins of yarn for various crocheting projects. I still wore the red scarf and hat she made for me when I was fourteen. Now, her sewing machine was surrounded by half-finished projects. Piles of photo albums and stacks of pictures she wanted to organize sat on her desk. All her plans had come to a halt when she died. And what remained were these heartbreaking reminders that she was really gone.

In that room, past a dark wooden threshold, there was a small recessed space. As I child, it was my favorite place in the house. A little round table sat in the middle of the room with a soft rug beneath it. I used to arrange my dolls on that table and give them school lessons while they sat listening to me attentively. In that space, there hung an old-fashioned cuckoo clock. As far back as I could remember, it never worked. When Gram wasn't looking, I would climb up on a chair and play with it. I'd open the cute little doors and pull out the tiny bird, pretending that he was flying free for a while before I stuffed him back inside and closed the doors.

I hadn't thought about that clock in years. But that day, so soon after I'd lost her, I noticed everything with renewed adoration. I remembered every childhood moment in that house. I began to wonder why that cuckoo clock didn't work, and why she never bothered to fix it. I wandered into that small recessed space and opened the little doors of the clock to see the cuckoo still perched on his little platform, waiting all those years to come out. I searched deep inside, hoping to find the guts of the clock where I could replace the batteries or otherwise find the problem and fix it. But before I made any progress, something inside caught my eye. Wedged inside, beside the little bird's platform, was a key.

I reached in and pulled it out. It was an old-fashioned key with a fancy scrolled handle and a long cylindrical body. My eyes swept the room as I wondered what this key was meant to open. The chest where she stored blankets, perhaps? Or maybe the top drawer of the old dresser in the corner. Neither was actually locked, but I tried the key anyway. It didn't fit either lock. Twisting the key between my fingers, I contemplated the other possibilities. But the enormous piles of Gram's things surrounding me in that room beckoned me, reminding me of the work that lay ahead. I didn't have time for a wild goose chase. I put the key back where I found it and put my curiosities on hold for a different day.

That day had finally come.

I made my way to the craft room. As my eyes rested on the dormant clock, I thought about the key again. Something that merely piqued my curiosity before suddenly seemed essential. What was this key meant to unlock? And why was it hidden in a broken clock?

I pulled out the key and searched every room in the house, hoping to find what it was meant to unlock. Armoires. Bureaus. Closet doors. But I found nothing.

I returned to the clock where I began, defeated and out of ideas. Then suddenly I heard Mom's voice whisper to me again like she was right beside me.

An evil as old as the universe haunts the world. Find the truth. Protect yourself.

For a second, I felt her presence. It was like a rush of light and love, and it passed right through me. It was incredible. And absolutely heartbreaking.

Before I could catch my breath, a light from a passing car flashed through the window and caught the edge of a metal faceplate on the far wall. At first I could barely see it behind the wispy bundles of straw and boxes of holiday decorations that concealed it. But as I stepped closer, I smiled in recognition at its old-fashioned lock.

This peculiar door was once the wellspring of all my curiosities. When I was a child, I desperately wanted to know what was behind it. An old closet, Gram told me. One that had always been sealed shut. I'd stare into the keyhole, into the darkness on the other side, pretending that the door was actually a secret passageway or a portal to another world. And there was only one thing that kept me from it. A key.

Like so many other things, that door had fallen into obscurity with the passage of time. As my fascinations matured, it grew benign. And for so long it was buried behind all of Gram's stuff. I'd forgotten about it completely.

I placed the old key into the keyhole and turned it. When I heard a click, the door beneath my hand moved for the first time, and all my curiosities surfaced with renewed enthusiasm. Like a child again, my eyes opened wide as I carefully pushed it open.

The space was dark and I couldn't find a light switch. I noticed a flashlight curiously placed just inside the door and I grabbed it. When I cast the light into the room, what I found was beyond anything I'd ever imagined.

The space was almost as big as my bedroom. Much larger than a closet. The deep purple walls were adorned with beautiful hand-woven tapestries. The wooden floorboards were the same dark, wide planks found throughout the house. A round glass table sat in the middle of the room with a vibrant orange carpet beneath it. Beside the table was a wicker basket filled with small, jewel-toned sitting pillows. Candles, small metal dishes filled with dried herbs, and several empty glass vials were spread across the table around a large copper pot.

A dark armoire stood tall against the far wall. I pulled the doors open to find a large mortar and pestle, and an elaborate collection of dried herbs and extracts organized by size and container. Some were in plastic bags with labels. Others were in glass vials. I picked up a stray bag at the front edge of the shelf with a small paper label.
Henbane
. Beneath the bag, there was a receipt dated the day before Gram died.

Bowls of crystals and stones of all different shapes and sizes filled the bottom shelf. I'd seen ones just like them around the house before, hidden on a windowsill behind the curtain, or behind the sofa in the living room. I'd also seen them at Celia's shop.

Stacks of old books filled the top shelf. I pulled them down one by one, examining their strange covers. Words like
Demons
,
Demonology
,
Witchcraft
, and
Wicca
jumped out and hit me. But one book stood out from the rest. Larger and thicker than the others, it sat by itself on the shelf. I recognized its olive brown color right away. It was Mom's book.

I ran my hand across the cover, removing a thin layer of dust and revealing a large triquetra. The cover of this thicker, heavier leather-bound book was almost identical to the cover of Mr. Whitmore's book.

I sat down and pulled the book open, aiming the flashlight at the old parchment pages. What I saw was mind-blowing. The book was filled with images of the most beautiful and also the most horrific creatures. Beside each image, a name was written along with a detailed description of whom or what the image depicted. As I flipped through each page, I was tempted to read every word, but I stayed focused and searched for the one image I was desperate to find. The one page I'd been waiting years to see again. The name Mr. Whitmore said aloud the night he died. When her face finally stared back at me again, I recognized her instantly.

TRIUNE

The fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. The chosen one among Strega, infused ages ago with the complete triad of Dianic powers—precognition, acceleration, and translucence—to defeat an unyielding evil that threatens all humankind, and that only she has the power to vanquish. Until her destiny is fulfilled, she will be reborn to earth as the great prophecy has foretold.

Her image was as beautiful as I remembered, but in her eyes I saw more than I once did. She was intimidating. Her icy eyes were intense, like a predator fixed on her prey. Flowing robes of deepest red wrapped around her ivory skin. Her long brown hair flowed in wisps behind her. At her waist, a blade was fastened. Though it was only a sketch on a page, she seemed so real to me, and so familiar.

I looked up and scanned the dark room, feeling suddenly as if I was not alone. Everywhere I looked, I saw more items that were familiar to me but so foreign in this mysterious space. Wooden bowls and spoons from Celia's shop, a small silver tray Gram bought at a yard sale years ago. Why did she hide this room from me?

A nagging feeling gripped me and I looked back down at the familiar face on the page. I realized then that I'd seen her face only recently. As my eyes locked with hers, she stared back at me as she had from the athame. Suddenly her body began to move as if she was about to jump off the page. She was real, alive, and she screamed two words that tore straight through me.

HELP ME

She reached for me and her fingertips grazed my face. I shrieked in terror and slammed the book shut. With all my strength, I threw it across the room and watched it slide across the floor.

I grabbed the flashlight and swept the strange room again, fearing what else might be hiding in the shadows. I noticed then that the bottom drawer of the armoire was partially open. It appeared empty, but when I pulled it out, I heard something shift. From deep inside, I withdrew a hand-carved wooden box. I unhooked the front clasp and slowly pushed the lid open. Inside, I found a collection of newspaper articles. Their headlines screamed to me as if they were written in blood.

Couple Found Dead in Their Home...Couple's Deaths Confirmed Double Murder... Double Murder Trail Cold...

The room began to spin. I sunk to the floor as I read each article. Seeing those words in print, learning for the first time that Mom and Dad were murdered, was devastating.

Gram and I talked about them all the time, and about how much we missed them. So many times, I found her sitting alone crying. I cried all the time. We consoled each other and shared our favorite memories, especially the things that made us laugh, to help ease the pain. But we never talked about the cause of their deaths. The accident in the house that I always believed killed them. Now I understood why.

Alanna and Dean worked together in the Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (AOPE) department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Alanna was a scientist, and Dean an engineer. They leave behind their seven-year-old daughter Alainn Jay Bonifacio.

They didn't leave me behind. They were torn away from me. Ripped out of my life. No warning. No explanation. Here with me one minute, laughing with me, holding me, loving me. Gone in the blink of an eye. That's what it should have said. My whole body trembled as I read on, and each horrifying fragment of information etched itself upon my brain for the first time.

The couple was found dead in their home on Saturday. Both were brutally attacked and suffered a fatal wound to the neck. The investigation continues as officials seek potential suspects and a possible motive.