And Will’s right. She did kill Mike. She’s killed dozens. And she’ll do it again.
“You killed Mike,” Will hisses and starts to cry. “You killed my best friend.” And then he moves, stabbing downward. I react without thinking.
I lurch forward and catch him under the arm, stopping the blow from going straight through her back; instead it glances off of her ribs. Anna gives a small cry and tries to crawl away. Carmel’s and Thomas’s voices are in my ears, yelling at both of us to stop it, but we keep on struggling. With bared teeth, Will tries to stab her again, hacking through the air. I barely get an elbow up to knock his chin back. He stumbles away a few steps and when he charges I hit him in the face, not too hard but hard enough to make him think.
He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. He doesn’t try to come forward again. Looking from me to Anna, he knows I won’t let him past.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks. “This is supposed to be your job, right? And now we’ve got her and you’re not going to do anything?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I say honestly. “But I’m not going to let you hurt her. You couldn’t kill her, anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not just the knife. It’s me. It’s my blood tie.”
Will scoffs. “She’s bleeding well enough.”
“I didn’t say the knife wasn’t special. But the death blow is mine. Whatever it is that lets that happen, you don’t have it.”
“You’re lying,” he says, and maybe I am. I’ve never seen anyone else use my knife before. No one except my dad. Maybe all that stuff about being chosen and part of a sacred line of ghost hunters was all bullshit. But Will believes it. He starts backing away, out of the house.
“Give me my knife,” I say again, watching it as it’s leaving me, the metal glinting in the odd light.
“I’m going to kill her,” Will promises, then turns and runs, taking my athame with him. Something inside me whimpers, something childlike and basic. It’s like that scene in
“Are you sure he can’t kill her?” she asks.
I look back. She’s actually kneeling on the floor beside Anna; she’s actually had the balls to touch her, to hold her by the shoulders and look at the wound Will made. It’s seeping black blood to strange effect: the black liquid is mixing with the moving blood of her dress, swirling like ink dropped into red water.
“She’s so weak,” Carmel whispers. “I think she’s really hurt.”
“Shouldn’t she be?” Thomas asks. “I mean, I don’t want to side with Will I’m-Bucking-for-an-Emmy-Nod Rosenberg, but isn’t that why we’re here? Isn’t she still dangerous?”
The answers are yes, yes, and yes. I know that, but I can’t seem to think straight. The girl at my feet is defeated and my knife is gone and scenes from How to Murder Your Daughter are still playing in my head. This is where it happened — this is the place where her life ended, where she became a monster, where her mother dragged a knife across her throat and cursed her and her dress and—
I walk farther into the sitting room, staring at the floorboards. Then I start stomping. Slamming my foot against the boards and jumping up and down, looking for a loose spot. It’s not doing any good. I’m stupid. I’m not strong enough. And I don’t even know what I’m doing.
“It’s not that one,” Thomas says. He’s staring at the floor. He points at the board to my left.
“It’s that one,” he says. “And you’ll need something.” He gets up and runs out the door. I didn’t think he had any strength left at all. The kid is surprising. And damned useful, because about forty seconds later he’s back, holding a crowbar and a tire iron.
Together we hack at the floor, at first not making a dent and then slowly cracking the wood. I use the crowbar to pry up the loosest end and fall to my knees. The hole we’ve made is dark and deep. I don’t know how it’s there. I should be looking at rafters and basement, but there’s only blackness. Only a moment’s hesitation, and my hand is searching in the hole, feeling depths of cold. I think I was wrong, that I was stupid again, and then my fingers brush against it.
The fabric feels stiff and cool to the touch. Maybe a little damp. I pull it out of the floor where it was stuffed and sealed sixty years ago.
“The dress,” Carmel breathes. “What—?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. I walk toward Anna. I have no idea what effect the dress will have on her, if anything. Will it make her stronger? Will it heal her? If I burned it, would she evaporate into thin air? Thomas would probably have a better idea. Together he and Morfran could probably come up with the right answer, and if they didn’t, then Gideon could. But I don’t have that kind of time. I kneel and hold the stained fabric before her eyes.
For a second she doesn’t do anything. Then she struggles to her feet. I move the bloody dress up with her, keeping it at eye level. The black has receded: Anna’s clear, curious eyes are there inside of the monstrous face, and for some reason that’s more disconcerting than anything. My hand is shaking. She’s standing before me, not hovering, just looking at the dress, crumpled and red and dingy white in some places.
Still not sure what I’m doing, or what I’m trying to do, I gather it up by the hem and slide it over her dark and writhing head. Something happens immediately but I don’t know what. A tension enters the air, a cold. It’s hard to explain, like there’s a breeze but nothing is moving. I pull the old dress down over her bleeding one and step back. Anna closes her eyes and breathes deep. Streaks of black wax still cling to the fabric where the candles dripped during the curse.
“What’s happening?” Carmel whispers.
“I don’t know,” Thomas answers for me.
As we watch, the dresses begin to fight each other, dripping blood and black and trying to merge together. Anna’s eyes are closed. Her hands are in fists. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but whatever it is, it’s happening fast. Every time I blink I open my eyes to a new dress: now white, now red, now blackened and mixed with blood. It’s oil and paint and things sinking into sand. And then Anna throws her head back, and the cursed dress crumbles off, cracking into dust to tumble to her feet.
The dark goddess stands looking at me. Lengths of black tendrils die in the breeze. Veins recede back into her arms and neck. Her dress is white and unstained. The wound from my knife is gone.
She puts her hand to her cheek in disbelief and looks shyly from Carmel to me, and over at Thomas, who backs up a step. Then she slowly turns and walks toward her open door. Just before she walks through it, she looks over her shoulder at me and smiles.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Is this what I wanted? I set her free. I’ve just let the ghost I was sent to kill out of prison. She’s walking softly across her porch, touching her toes to the steps, staring out into the dark. She’s like any wild animal let out of a cage: cautious and hopeful. Her fingertips trace the wood of the crooked railing like it’s the most wonderful thing she’s ever felt. And part of me is glad. Part of me knows that she never deserved anything that happened, and I want to give her more than this broken porch. I want to give her an entire life — her whole life back, starting tonight.
The other part of me knows there are bodies in her basement, souls that she stole, and none of this was their fault either. I can’t give Anna her life back because her life is already gone. Maybe I’ve made a huge mistake.
“We should get out of here, I think,” Thomas says quietly.
I look at Carmel and she nods, so I walk toward the door, trying to keep myself between them and Anna, even though without my knife I don’t know how much use I’ll be. When she hears us come through the door, she turns and regards me with an arched eyebrow.
“It’s all right,” she says. “I won’t hurt them now.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
