“Happy birthday, Cooper.” I squeeze him tight, grasping the hard muscles in his back as my heart swells with happiness.
“Thank you, Emmaline. For saving my soul. For killing the boo hag and freeing my family. For everything,” he whispers, his breath warm against my neck.
“I couldn’t have done it without you guys. All I did was say a few words. You’re the one who fought off the boo hag and pushed it into the water. I couldn’t have done that.”
He pulls back just enough to lay his fingers beneath my chin and gently tilt my head to meet his gaze. “No. It was you. It’s always been you.”
Chapter Thirty-three
We load the last box of artifacts into the golf cart just as the sun rises over the salt marsh. The cemetery is so tranquil it’s hard to imagine all that happened here overnight. But it did, and we’ve got Cooper’s freedom to prove it.
The joy I should be feeling is overshadowed by the lingering dread from Sabina’s truly demented threat. Why would someone deliberately set out to destroy another person’s happiness? To crush not only the love in their heart, but also those responsible for putting it there? If Sabina makes good on her promise, everyone I care about is in danger. That means my father, Jack, Miss Delia, and especially Cooper, will be walking bull’s-eyes.
My only hope lies in the fact that Jack and I will be leaving St. Helena in ten days to return to Washington, DC, and Cooper will be back at boarding school, far from my danger zone. Maybe, after we get Miss Delia released from jail, if we lay low and I don’t mess with anymore hoodoo, Sabina will realize I’m not a threat and she’ll give up on her vendetta.
Ten minutes later, we pull up to the Big House. Dad is sitting on the wide front steps, his arms crossed. He doesn’t look happy.
Oops.
As we climb out of the cart, Dad races up to us. “Emmaline Claire, don’t take another step!” His face is creased with concern as he heads right for Cooper. I freeze, stunned by his ferocity.
Dad grasps Cooper’s arms and stares directly into Cooper’s eyes. “Who are you?”
Cooper’s eyes stretch wide. “Uh, what’s going on, Uncle Jed?”
Jack races up to Dad. “Everything’s fine, I promise.”
“Stay out of this, Jack. Go stand with your sister.” Dad grips Cooper harder. “Forget the Uncle Jed stuff. You’re not going to wiggle your way out of it this time by acting dumb. I know something’s changed. I can feel it. So tell me, who are you?”
“Cooper. I swear.”
My chest sinks. Did the boo hag suck my father and mess with his mind, too?
Dad searches Cooper’s eyes, then drops his hands in frustration. He darts toward Jack and snatches his shoulders. “Are you in here this time? Is that how this works? I don’t know how, but I’m going to stop you. You won’t steal my son.”
A chill races over my body. Dad’s memories haven’t been screwed up. He obviously knows more than we realized.
Cooper, Jack, and I exchange looks. It’s time to let him in on our secret.
“There’s something you need to see.” I take his rough, calloused hand.
A minute later we’re at the entrance to Beau’s study.
“What the—” Dad asks when I push on the busted mahogany door. Strange, that he doesn’t seem to care that it’s cracked or that we’re venturing into a forbidden room.
“It’s a long story. But I promise to tell you everything after you’ve seen what’s behind this door.”
I turn the lock and twist the knob. The room is exactly as we left it, except the note we left the boo hag is lying on the floor by the open window. It must have flown out of here in a rage.
The secret bookcase door is wide open.
Dad’s jaw drops.
Jack crosses the room. “Come on. It’s not half as impressive as what’s behind it.”
Jack leads the way to the secret stone room. Beau’s skin suit is lying in the middle of the floor, more shriveled and desiccated than just a few hours before.
Dad falls to his knees. His head drops into his hands and his shoulders shudder with what can only be silent tears.
Oh no. We didn’t prepare him for what he was about to see. He’s probably in shock, or maybe even thinks we’re murderers.
I stroke his shoulder. “I’m sorry. It isn’t what it looks like. We can explain.”
Dad lifts his gaze to meet mine, a wide smile across his face. The deep creases are gone and there’s a brightness to his eyes I’ve never seen before. “I don’t care how you did it, but I’m glad you did.”
That’s unexpected.
“Dang.” Jack laughs.
“For real?” I ask.
Dad nods. “Where’s the creature that was in Beau’s skin?”
“Gone. Burned up in the salt marsh forever,” Cooper answers.
Dad rises to his feet and squares his shoulders. He looks taller than usual, almost strapping. “From the moment your mother called this morning, waking me up, I knew something had changed. I felt…free. I could speak my mind and do as I chose. I haven’t felt this way since I was a teenager. It’s been more than a quarter of a century.” He glares at the carcass lying on the floor. “Somehow that…monster stole my friend when he was just sixteen. And that same day something happened to me that enslaved me to him, stole my free will, and forced me to do his bidding even though I didn’t want to. The only thing I could do on my own was keep things clean and orderly to somehow protect them from his filthy reach.”
My stomach sinks as his words set in. Somehow, the day the Beaumont Curse took hold of Beau, it also sunk its teeth into my dad. Now I get why he put up with Beau’s viciousness and why he’s such a huge neat freak. Judging from what I gleaned at the cemetery, Sabina helped the boo hag inhabit Beaumont bodies, so it’s reasonable to think she must have had a hand in my father’s servitude as well. But what exactly connects a soul-sucking hex like the Beaumont curse with becoming a modern indentured servant? A chill races up my spine as a terrifying thought comes to mind: if the boo hag had possessed Cooper, would Jack have been forced to serve Cooper, too? Is that why Beau kept insisting that despite all the Guthries’ attempts to the contrary, they always ended up working for Beaumonts?
Dad turns back to us, a look of utter astonishment on his face. “How did you all know? And how did it not take either of you?” He searches Cooper and Jack, then notices Jack’s severed middle finger for the first time. He gawks. “What happened to you?”
Jack runs his hand through his jet-black hair. “It’s been a weird summer.”
“Emma saved us,” Cooper says.
Dad spins toward me, his mouth agape. “Emma? My shy, flower-loving, artist girl? How?”
I sigh. “I haven’t had much time to paint lately. But I have gotten into hoodoo magic.” I pull my lips into a half grin, knowing that I’m probably shattering his image of me, but that’s okay. We’ll ease him into the truth slowly.
Jack beams. “She’s amazing. You should have seen her call up a bunch of dead Gullah ladies to help kill a pack of plateyes, then break a couple of flesh-eating, soul-sucking curses, and crash a tidal wave into the boo hag. She’s even got her own archnemesis now, another dead root worker who created the curses almost three hundred years ago. But I’m sure she can handle that psycho after a little more training from Miss D, the hoodoo ninja warrior lady. Of course, we’ll have to bust Miss D out of jail first.”
Thanks, Jack. Way not to ease him in.
The blood drains from Dad’s skin. “I think I need to sit down.” He stumbles to the small desk and chair on the side of the small stone room. As he goes to prop his elbow on the surface, he knocks over a stack of papers.