The Witches of Merribay (The Seaforth Chronicles) (15 page)

“Then we have the merpeople that live out on the bay
—”

“Merpeople?
” We traveled around a bend in the road, past a rather large pond.

Whether it be from stress or maybe I was actually having some sort of
mental breakdown, I began to giggle, which turned into a laugh that then turned into roaring laughter.

It was contagious, as Ian joined me
. After a few moments we both stopped, and he said, “What are we laughing at? It's not funny, really. The merpeople can be a sharp pain in the buttocks.”

“I don't know
. It's just merpeople. I mean, come on! Merpeople? They can't really be real?” I tee-heed once more and then stopped, accepting the fact of what I was dealing with. Ian wasn't lying. He wasn't lying about the Fae, he wasn't lying about the merpeople, and he was not lying about his sister.

I knew this to be true. Straight over across the pond, she danced under the green cascading branches of the willow tree, looking up to the sky
. He had brought me this way on purpose to show me the pond and the willow tree that his sister slept under.

She danced familiar steps, ones that I had seen recently, to a tune inside her own head.

“This garden is the closest she'll ever get to the paradise she experienced with them,” he said. “The willow is sacred. Like I told you once, it can bring one closer to the land of the Fae…if only in their dreams.” He looked thoughtful. “How old do you think she is?

“I don't know
. She looked maybe nineteen or twenty?”

“She is actually my older sister
. Having lived in fairyland for a time, she appears young.”

Chapter
Seventeen

I arrived home at precisely three o'clock. My aunts were present, jabbering about the problems of the café.

“We need to change up the recipes a bit
. I'll spend the week thinking of some new things,” said Aunt Cora.

“We can't change the whole men
u. People come to the café just for certain things,” said Aunt Clover.

“I'll just be changing a few things,” complained Aunt Cora.

When my aunts saw me, Aunt Cora said, “There you are. We still have time to make it to a book signing. My favorite author is in Bangor, so you must come with me.”

“I can't, I have to
—”

“I'm not going alone
. You have to come.”

I had to think of an excuse and fast.

“I have to work for Ian this evening. He, um, wants me to help him sort through some old…papers,” I lied. “Can't Aunt Clover go?” I didn't want word to get around that I'd be going by the graveyard. I feared that even though Gran knew the predicament I was in, she would draw the line at entering the premises of the graveyard—even if it was outside the graveyard itself.

“Oh no
. I have a date tonight. I've already canceled once, and I'm not going to do it again,” said Aunt Clover.

“Let me call Ian
,” said Aunt Cora.

She wandered out of the room with the phone
. I sat there contemplating what would happen if I didn't dig Izadora's mother's grave up tonight. I had a yellow ribbon to find. How could I explain this to my aunt?

She returned and hung up the phone
. “You're right, he does need you to help sort through things tonight. But that's not for another three hours. We have plenty of time to get in and back out. So come on, let's go. And get some shoes on. Look at your feet! They are terribly dirty!” Her hand went up to her chest, and her face grimaced. My other aunt just laughed. Oh, how different these two were.

I had forgotten about my shoes
. I had been running in the woods with no shoes. I quickly washed my feet and put on some flip-flops.

We arrived at the book signing
. The line was long, but we got the autograph and were back on the road in well enough time to get back home by 5:45. Unfortunately, Aunt Cora was fiddling with her recorder, trying to record a minor head pain, when she ran over a board in the road. The board had a nail in it, and the nail got stuck in the tire.

In my opinion,
it’s not just cell phones that should be banned from drivers; recording devices should be banned as well.

I sat there with my head in my hands, just hoping that someone would stop and help us.

Aunt Cora didn't have the first clue about how to change a tire, and, well, I didn't either. And even if I did, there was no spare tire in the back.

“Clover used it! She never replaced it!
” Aunt Cora griped.

Long story short, we waited for forty minutes to have a towing service bring us a tire and change it
. We were on the road by 6:10. I was late; Drumm would kill me. If he didn't, then Izadora would.

Finally we arrived back home at 6:45
, and I shot out of the vehicle. “Tell Gran I'll be back sometime tonight.”

“Will do
. Sorry about the flat tire!” my aunt said. “But wait, aren't you going to eat something? You might get sick if you don't eat.”

“Just put it in the recorder
,” I said under my breath. I pictured her whipping out the recorder, documenting my misfortune of missing dinner: “Ivy missed supper at 6:47. If she gets sickly, that will be the reason.”

I ran up the hill to
the McCallister house.

“You are late
. You better get to Izadora's before sundown,” he said.

Sundown
. A part of me wished I knew what happened at sundown, and a good part of me said that I should avoid knowing at all costs.

I met Drumm at the gate
. He was pacing back and forth. He didn't look mad, but he was frustrated. His hair was a mess where he'd been running his hands through it. A tree had recently carved markings in it; he must have been bored. The dogs which lay on the path jumped up when they saw me arrive.

“Come
. We have little time,” he said.

The sun was still up
, but it wouldn't be for long. Birds still chirped; that was a good sign. I tossed my flip-flops aside, and we ran all the way to Izadora's.

Izadora stood on the balcony
. When she saw us, she went inside. Patting the dogs on the head, I followed Drumm up the stairs and over the many planks to Izadora's tree house.

She waited for us with the door open
. “Come in.” She was a little old woman, with no teeth. Apparently she lost them all as she aged throughout the day. Her eyes had sunken into her wrinkled face, her hands were wrinkled, and the veins popped out as she closed the squeaking door behind us.

The shovel was a broad steel blade fixed to a piece of medium
-length wood. It appeared to be more of a hand shovel, something made in the 1800s.

“Take this shovel
. You can use your hands too, but it's not advised. The shovel will do.” She said as she leaned upon her cane, “When you find Mother and you find the yellow ribbon, you must say these words: 'Izadora sends me, a spell she must reverse. A yellow ribbon is needed, to avoid this blasted curse.' And you must say it exactly so.”

“Okay
, maybe I should write it down. I might fumble the words.”

She pursed her old lips together and retrieved a pen and paper, mumbling something about me being a poor apprentice under her breath.

I had never thought of myself as her apprentice; certainly after this was over and I had Father back, I would never see her again. But even as I thought it, I knew it wasn't true. I had a feeling our paths had crossed for a reason.

“I can't write with these old hands
. My fingers are too big.” She handed me the paper, said the short verse again, and I copied it down word for word.

She walked to a cupboard, took out the charm she'd made me
, and handed it to me. It smelled of mint and earth.

“After you take the ribbon, put this charm in her hands.”

So, the charm wasn't for me; it was for her mother, Aggie. Instead of bringing flowers to a grave, she wanted me to bring herbs.

“See you when I see you
,” she said. “Now you must go.” She started shepherding us out the door. The sun had fallen way low, and if you asked me, it was officially sundown.

Before we got to the door, she stopped, stood upright
, and said, “Oh no. It's happening. You don't want to see this. Get out, get out!
Go!
” she yelled. Drumm was out the door, but all I could do was stare. She moved like a puppet, fighting something all the while. She tried to stop from walking, but her foot would be moved against her will. She was headed for the balcony.

“Get out!
” she yelled one more time, piercing my eardrums.

Drumm grabbed me by the arm and hauled me out through the bridges and down the stairs
. There the dogs sat, sentinels, ready to pounce on anything that came close to their dominion.

“We never should have come here this late
. We must go,” Drumm said.

“But she looked as though she was headed to the balcony
. What is she doing?”

As we ran past the balcony, I heard the floorboards squeak and
, turning back, I saw Izadora doing something unspeakable. She was climbing up onto the railing, preparing to stand on the edge.

“Is she going to jump off
? I thought if she landed on the ground, she would turn to dust?” My voice was shaky and panicked.

“She will jump, but she won't be hitting the ground.
” Drumm grabbed my arm and pulled. “Don't look.” He said it with such authority that I almost listened to him.

But I couldn't stop staring
. Izadora had put something around her neck, and stood upon the railing. “Damn you, Izaill!” she yelled, and as she jumped, Drumm covered my eyes. After a quick whooshing sound, I could hear the shifting and squeaking of the rope against the railing.

I kept my eyes closed under his hand, held his hand to my face, and turned
. As I stood breathing heavily, he said, “It's okay. She'll be fine. And the dogs will guard the house. We must go.”

“Is she
…is she…”

“Dead?
Yes. The sooner we get the ribbon, the better for her.”

“What kind of barbaric beast is Izaill?
”

“Shhh
, do not say his name. And this is a game to him. It's also a game to Izadora. They see things differently than you and me. To her, he has beat her—outsmarted her—by putting this curse upon her. She doesn't look at this death every night as final. She looks at it as an inconvenience. What I'm worried about is what she will do to him in return.”

We ran back through the woods
and past Ian's gate about a half a mile to the east woods, where the McCallister graveyard stood. Because it was cloudy tonight, the moon couldn't be seen often enough. The darkness encompassed us like a foot in a shoe. The air was dank and chilly. We came upon a small church amongst old trees and a gate with thick ivy swallowing it up.

“We'll walk through the graveyard and out the back gate
,” Drumm said, reaching in his bag for a flashlight. “You can use this.”

The gate creaked as we opened it
. A bat flew overhead, darting and rising, eating bugs. It let out a high-pitched squeal, making my skin crawl.

Turning on the flashlight, I pointed it at the old graves stones which jutted out of the earth
. “I'm not supposed to be in here. My grandmother told me to never come here,” I stated with a touch of sarcasm.

“Just like you were never supposed to walk into the forest.”

I snorted. “True, but here I am.”

The air seemed cooler in here, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end
. I rubbed my arms through my sweatshirt.

Darkness engulfed us when my flashlight went out
. I shook it a few times, and it came on. The frogs were out tonight, crooning. There must have been hundreds of them. I shone the flashlight at the source of water. Water cascaded down a monument and into a small pond.

“That can't be che
ap, running the water like that through the monument 24/7.”

He snickered
. “It's a natural spring. It doesn't cost anything.”

I felt stupid for not knowing that
, and we continued walking.

The graveyard was nothing short of gloomy and murky; not even the fireflies were out
. The fog that was rolling in didn't help with its appearance. The grass hadn't been mowed in at least a month.

Walking over the sharp gravel hurt my feet
. “I should have brought my flip-flops.”

“We're almost to the back.”

A stick broke. Immediately I pointed the flashlight in the direction to see a small fox running off under the back gate.

Drumm adjusted the arrows on his back and then opened the gate
, causing it to squeal as though it had never been oiled. It probably hadn't ever been oiled. The place was old and decrepit.

We walked through the gate, shutting it behind us with another loud squeal
. It grated my nerves to hear that sound. It was almost like chewing a cotton ball with my teeth.

We walked up a little hill, farther back away from the loud frog concert
. Drumm saw it first, and for all I knew, he'd been here before. Underneath a midsized hawthorn tree, a small white stone jutted up from the ground. It was slightly tipped, as though someone had been sitting on it. White flowers bloomed everywhere on the hawthorn. There was no inscription on the stone that I could see. It was just a plain white stone.

He handed me the shovel
. “I'm sorry that I cannot help. I would, gladly, if I could.”

“I'll do it
, but out of curiosity, why can't you help?” I asked.

“It's against the rules of my family to dig up someone in unconsecrated ground.”

“Well, I'm betting it's against the rules in my family too, but here goes.” First I pulled clumps of grass out of the way. I dug the shovel deep into the ground, hauling out chunks of cool earth. Over and over I did this.

“How deep do you think it is
? The regular six feet?”

“Hard telling
,” was his only answer. He sat atop a large rock to the side of the tree, watching the dark woods, alert.

I continued digging for quite some time
. My arms, shoulders, and back ached. I stood in the grave about three feet deep. If I had another three feet to go, we would be here all night.

I silently hoped that I'd hit a coffin or wooden box soon
. I had no idea what she'd be buried in. What I was doing was horrid and despicable, not to mention frightening and downright scary. Standing in someone else’s grave was enough to put someone in shock. I would rather be struck down by lightning. If I survived this, it would be nothing short of a miracle. I tried to think of other things, like sun tanning on the beach with Zinnia, cooking blueberry tarts with Aunt Clover, and long bike rides with my father, but my thoughts all came back to the present. Thoughts of death – what if I died here while digging this woman up? Would I haunt the place? What if I fell down and hit my head on a rock?