Turning back to Ben, I recited a better than one hundred-fifty year old notice from the New Orleans Bee that had become etched in my memory over the last two weeks. “Found Drowned. The coroner held an inquest yesterday on the body of a woman named, Miranda Blanque, sister of Delphine Lalaurie, aged forty-three years, who was found floating in the Mississippi opposite the third municipality. It appears that on Sunday night last, she was seen to have jumped into the river. Verdict accordingly.”
“Yeah,” my friend replied, although I hadn’t really answered his question, and his tone more than betrayed that fact.
I wandered closer to the rail and pointed at the shore on the opposite side of the river, which was slowly receding behind us. “Over there is Algiers,” I said. “In eighteen fifty-one, that was pretty much directly across from the third municipality, so she likely went into the water somewhere upstream, and her body eventually surfaced around that area.”
“But ya’ don’t know where she went in,” Ben replied.
“It doesn’t really matter,” I said. “This is where she died. This is where she has to die again if Felicity is ever going to be free of her.”
I reached into my pocket and withdrew two small glass bottles. Inside each rested one half of the cursed jewelry that had sent us down this path. Each was swimming in salt and could only be seen whenever I slowly twisted the containers and watched for the glint of light from metal.
“How’s your arm?” I asked my friend.
“I got ya’ covered,” he said with a nod.
I carefully uncapped the first vial and poured the necklace and salt into my palm. A tingle began rolling through my body as the metal came into contact with the still healing burn that scarred my flesh. I handed Ben the other vial then nodded toward my outstretched hand. He twisted the cap from the glass container and then hesitantly began to pour it into my palm.
“Go ahead,” I urged.
He turned it up, and the second necklace fell on top of the first, riding in a cascade of white crystals.
Now my hand began to prickle as if it had been asleep. The hair on the back of my neck danced, and an explosion of pain arced through my skull.
“NO!” I hear a woman scream.
“Row?” Ben asked. “You goin’ Twilight Zone?”
“Just a little,” I breathed. “But I’m okay… Let’s do this.”
My friend held out his hand. “This gonna burn me like it did you?”
“It shouldn’t,” I told him.
“Doesn’t matter if it does,” he replied. “I just wanna know what ta’ expect, so I don’t drop ‘em and all.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
“No prob, white man.”
I dumped the contents of my own hand into his large palm. He stepped to the railing and then glanced at me. “Just anywhere?”
I nodded. “Yeah, just anywhere.”
He drew his arm back and with a heavy grunt he launched the necklaces into the thick air.
I see the roiling waters as they rush toward her.
She’s screaming…
A shower of salt sprinkled across us as it was caught by the wind. The necklaces, however, sailed true along their shallow arc before seeming to hover for a brief moment then plummet downward. A good twenty feet out from the stern, a pair of tiny splashes dotted the surface of the foamy wake.
I feel pain as she strikes the hard surface of the water…
I feel panic as the swift current pulls her under…
I feel death as the silty river flows into her lungs…
We stood there in silence, watching the waters continuing to churn. After a languid pause, Ben cleared his throat.
“That it?” he asked
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“So what now?”
“We wait,” I said.
I slowly turned from the rail and stepped over to where Helen was waiting with Felicity. I looked at my wife’s still vacant eyes and then knelt in front of her.
Magick wasn’t always instantaneous. It could happen right away, or it could take an entire cycle of the moon. Either way, I would wait for her, and if I was wrong and it didn’t work at all, I would find another way to bring her home, even if I had to die to do it.
I watched her face as she blinked and continued to stare into nothingness. With a sigh, I carefully slipped my arms in around her waist and laid my head in her lap.
Tears were beginning to burn my eyes when I felt a hand softly brush against my hair.
Behind me, Ben muttered an exclamation, disbelief rampant in his voice, “Jeezus H. Christ…”
Then a soft, weak, Celtic lilt drifted into my ears. “ Caorthann… I knew you would come for me… I knew you would…”
Sunday, December 24
4:58 P.M.
Saint Louis, Missouri
CHAPTER 38
“Aye, do we really have to talk about this right now?” my wife asked.
I shrugged. “I know, I know… But it’s only two weeks away, Felicity.”
“So I’ll worry about it then,” she replied and then thrust a card and ink pen at me. “Here, sign this.”
I took the proffered items but simply held them in my hand and gave her a quick nod. “Look, I’m no more excited about it than you are, but you’ve been subpoenaed to testify at the trial. So have I.”
“It doesn’t matter, then,” she replied. “Annalise isn’t Miranda anymore. Miranda is gone. She can’t hurt me.”
“That’s true,” I told her. “But Annalise tried to kill you too, so you really need to be prepared for this when you walk into that courtroom.”
“I will be.”
I sighed. “She’s already in Saint Louis, you know. Constance told me that they moved her here the middle of last week.”
“Aye, I know, but it’s Christmas Eve and I don’t want to think about it. We can talk it over this next week,” she replied. “Now, sign that card please.”
I let out a heavy sigh and then shook my head. “Okay, but next week for sure. So who is this one for?”
“Constance,” she replied. “You already signed Ben’s.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” I said with a nod then laid the card on her desk and scrawled my name beneath hers.
“Just remember,” she instructed. “Constance is getting the Irish wool scarf, and Ben the bottle of Black Bush.”
“Okay…so, I remember buying the scarf for Constance when we were in Ireland, but didn’t we get Ben a piece of dirt?” I replied.
“Not dirt,” she told me. “A bit of the auld sod.”
“Okay, sod…dirt…whatever.”
“I’ll forgive you for that since I love you,” she gibed. “Anyway, that’s in there too. But he needs to learn about good whisky, so I picked up a bottle of Black Bush.”
“He already knows about good whisky,” I told her. “He drinks Scotch.”
“Scotch is okay, but Irish whisky is better,” she replied.
I tossed the pen on the desk then handed her the card.
She opened it and gave my signature a quick glance. “Your handwriting is as bad as a doctor’s,” she admonished.
“Yeah, you’ve told me. So I take it you already wrapped their gifts?”
“Of course. You didn’t think I would let you do it, did you?”
“I’m not that bad at wrapping stuff.”
My wife cocked one of her patented incredulous stares in my direction and muttered, “ Cac capaill.”
“Okay, so they aren’t as perfect as you make them,” I replied, waving my index finger in the air. “With all the creases, and symmetrical lines, and ribbons and bows and… Well, you know…”
“Aye,” she nodded. “The way they’re supposed to look then.”
“Okay, okay,” I laughed, holding up my hands. “I surrender.”
“You will as soon as I change into what I’m wearing this evening,” she quipped.
“Really?”
“Aye. Actually, it’s more a matter of what I’ll be wearing under what I’m wearing this evening.”
“So I sense an unwrapping theme here,” I replied.
“Exactly.”