gold embroidery on the cloth was remarkably preserved. 'So this is it? The famous cursed altar cloth?'
'That's what Dr. Avery says. What do you think?'
I examined the material, trying to remember everything I'd learned thus far in my European history classes. 'Mmm. It's old.'
She rolled her eyes as she dropped down next to me, watching as I pulled the cloth from the box. 'Duh! I meant, what do you think about the curse? Can you un-curse it?'
'No. I didn't understand anything that your aunt rattled off about curses, and how they were supposed to look like patterns or something. It just doesn't make sense! How can a curse look like a pat…' My voice came to a halt as I realized that my fingers, of their own accord, had been tracing an intricate, curved path along the altar cloth. I squinted at it, noticing for the first time the odd pattern of weft that had been woven into the rough cloth. It swooped and swirled, sometimes spiraling back on itself into tight coils, a detailed and beautiful maze of pattern. I'd always loved mazes, taking no little pride in my ability to solve even the most complex maze in a fraction of the time it took others. 'Wow. Someone really had some skill. Look what's woven into the material.'
'What?' Beth leaned her dark head close to mine to peer at the pattern my finger traced.
'That. See the red thread? It's very fine—probably silk or something—but it's woven into the cloth.'
'Maybe it's the curse,' she suggested, her voice strangely hushed. A joking response to such a silly suggestion died on my lips as a little shiver went down my back at the strained note in her voice. For a moment I was very aware that we were the only two people in the administration section of the museum, alone in the dense darkness. Just my best friend, a strange piece of cloth that reputedly witnessed some of the most horrific atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition, and me.
I tried to ignore the sense of foreboding that seemed to seep into my bones, shivering as I shook out the cloth to examine the pattern. 'If it is a curse, then it will be a piece of cake to uncurse. It's nothing more than a really complex maze.'
'That's what Aunt Li said about the wards she showed us earlier—that they were nothing more than intention and a pattern.'
'Mmm.' I spread the cloth out on the carpeted floor, crawling on my knees around it, directing Beth's flashlight as I tried to find the starting point of the strange pattern of red thread. 'I think this is it. What did your aunt say I had to do?'
'I don't know! You were the one who was supposed to be listening.'
'You're the Wiccan-in-training—you should have paid attention!'
'Wiccan, not Charmer.' Beth's face loomed pale in the darkness. 'I think she just said you had to unravel the curse to destroy it.'
'OK.' I took a deep breath, curving my lips into what I hoped was a confident smile. 'Here goes nothing!'
I put my finger on a tiny knot of the thin red silk, tracing the intricate design, following the complex trail as it worked from the left center of the cloth outward.
'It's glowing,' Beth said, her voice high and excited. 'Look, Nellie! Where you touch it, it glows bright red, like it's neon or something.'
A chill shivered down my spine. The thin red thread of the pattern I had already traced was indeed glowing softly in the darkness of the room, as if my touch gave it energy, the light from it growing brighter as my finger curved and swooped along the cloth.
The frigid foreboding that had been within me ever since we stepped into the room grew so great that it was almost a tangible thing weighing me down.
'Something's wrong,' I said, my teeth chattering, my heart pounding faster and faster as my finger followed the red thread unerringly along its labyrinthine weave. 'I think I should stop.'
'This is so cool!' Beth leaned over the cloth, her nose a few inches away as my finger swept past. 'My God, the glow really is coming from your touch. I've never seen anything so amazing.'
'No,' I said, trying to quell the dread that suddenly roiled in my stomach. 'This is wrong. Something is not right with this. I'm going to stop.'
Beth glanced up at me, her eyes bright with excitement. 'What's wrong, Nell? You look like you're going to be sick or something.'
'It's this cloth,' I said, horror crawling up my back as I struggled to pull my finger from the material. 'I can't… I can't… dammit, Beth, I can't stop following the thread!'
'What?' She looked down to where my finger was swirling through a series of complex loops. 'What you do you mean, you can't stop following it?'
'I mean I can't stop!' I gritted my teeth, grabbing my wrist with my left hand, trying to physically pull my arm back. I was so cold, my fingers had gone numb. 'It's like I'm locked to the horrible thing! Help me stop it!'
'Maybe you are supposed to destroy it,' she suggested, sitting back on her heels, seemingly oblivious to my distress. Despite the iciness that filled me, sweat beaded on my forehead, my skin all but twitching with growing fear. 'Maybe that's why you can't stop,' she said. 'Oh, wow! Look at that! It's sparking!'
My finger dragged over to trace out the pattern as it moved to the right corner. Behind me, the part of the material I had traced over was not just glowing red, now little flecks of yellow light were starting to drift upward from the cloth like a burst of embers spat out of a bonfire on a cold winter's night. 'Help… me… stop…' I ground out through my teeth, throwing my entire body behind the attempt to pull myself from the cloth.
'It's so beautiful,' Beth breathed, running her hand across the glitter of yellow floating upward. 'I've never seen anything so amazing in my life. It's like little fireflies! Don't stop, Nell, don't stop!'
'I have to,' I yelled, the blood pounding in my ears making her voice distant and thin. I swear my eyeballs started to frost up. 'This isn't right, Beth. Something's seriously wrong here. Please, help me stop it!'
'So beautiful,' she cooed, her face a mask of pleasure as she fluttered both hands through the yellow sparks.
I watched with horror as my finger approached the center of the cloth, knowing instinctively that the heart of the curse lay there, a heart that I was suddenly sure was just as alive as the organ pounding wildly in my chest. As if drawn inexorably on, my finger swirled tighter and tighter toward the center, my soul filling with a blackness I knew would consume me. A voice whimpered pathetically, 'Beth, please—'
As my finger touched the heart of the curse, Beth screamed, her voice cutting through my body as a blinding light burst inside my head. Before me rose the image of a creature so terrible, just to look on it tore bits from my soul. It held Beth in its arms, her body twisted and mutilated as she screamed and fought against it. The monster, the thing, the atrocity against nature, turned its attention to me, and for a moment I knew I could save my friend if I sacrificed myself.
The light and the monster—demon, devil, I had no idea what it was other than it was made up of the purest form of evil—slid into blissful nothingness as my mind made the decision I was too cowardly to consciously make, shutting itself off, leaving me floating senseless down into a bottomless abyss of sorrow.
Tears streaked my face as slow awareness brought me back to the present. I lay sobbing in Adrian's arms, comforted by his warmth and strength despite the guilt that wracked me, my body shaking with the remembered horror of my foolish arrogance in tampering with something I knew nothing about, torn with the knowledge that I had failed my friend when she needed me.
Adrian's embrace never lessened, his body cradling mine as I cried, clutching him, soundlessly begging for understanding, the gentle, warm touch of his mind more comforting even than the solid body that protected me.
Chapter Eight
'Nell. You must wake up now. It is time to leave.'
I burrowed deeper into the thin linens of the bed, burying my face in the pillow Adrian had used, breathing in the faint scent of him.
'Nell, you must come. We have little time.' I pulled the blankets over my head, the full memory of the time
