The Burning (11 page)

H
annah gasped for breath, thrashing her arms frantically, trying to grab Julia, to push her away.

But Julia was too strong, too determined.

Hannah felt herself weaken, felt her muscles go slack, felt her body surrender.

Everything went bright red. Blood red. Then bright white. Hannah felt herself sinking, sinking into the white nothingness.

And then—miraculously—Julia's hands slipped away from Hannah's throat.

Hannah stared up at the white, white sky. Color returned slowly.

She took a short breath. Then another. The air made a whistling sound as it entered her lungs.

Julia thinks I am dead, Hannah realized. She believes she has murdered me. That is why she has released my throat.

Hannah sucked in another breath of air.

A sound in the woods behind them caused Julia to turn her back. Was there someone there? Had someone seen them?

No, it was only a deer scurrying in the underbrush. Julia bent over, hands on her knees, panting loudly.

She thinks she has murdered me.

The words repeated in Hannah's mind, turning her fear to anger. With a burst of strength she rolled off the coffin and landed on her feet.

Hannah stood unsteadily, the ground swaying beneath her.

“You—you're alive?” Julia cried breathlessly, spinning around, her eyes wide. She recovered quickly and lunged at Hannah.

Hannah grabbed the first thing she saw—the heavy iron shovel that had been used to dig Jenkins's grave.

As Julia leapt at her, Hannah cried out and swung the shovel.

It made a metallic
clang
as it slammed against Julia's head.

Julia's eyes bulged wide. Then they rolled up in her head as she dropped to her knees. Blood spurted from her nose, flowed down her chin. Finally she dropped facedown into the grass.

Hannah stared in horror, shaking all over, the
heavy shovel still gripped tightly in both her hands. She watched the bright blood, Julia's blood, puddle on the grass.

I have killed her,
she realized.
I have killed Julia
.

The shovel fell at Hannah's feet. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop her body from trembling.

Now what?

She couldn't think clearly. Everything kept turning red, then white. Flashing crazily in front of her. The clouds overhead appeared to race. The sun dipped, then rose again.

Crazy. All too crazy.

Julia is dead.

Now what?

Before Hannah even realized what she was doing, she had pulled open the pine lid of the gardener's coffin. The stale aroma of his corpse floated up to greet her.

The old man's purple face stared blankly up at her. The eyes had sunk deep into Jenkins's skull. The lips were pulled tight in a hideous death grin.

Sobbing loudly, struggling to hold back her disgust, Hannah frantically grabbed her sister's body under the arms and pulled it to the coffin. Lifted. Lifted Julia's body, so heavy in death.

Shoved it into the coffin. On top of the rotting gardener.

Shoved it. Sobbing. Trembling. Shoved it. Shoved it in.

One arm draped itself over the side of the coffin. Hannah grabbed the arm with both hands and bent it into the coffin.

And slammed the lid shut. And clasped it.

And ran blindly to the woods to vomit. To spew up the horror. The horror of having killed her only sister.

Her only sister, who had hated Hannah enough to try to murder
her
.

Choking and sobbing, Hannah clung to the cool trunk of a tree. And waited for her mind to clear, for the ground to stop swaying, for the lights to stop flashing in her head.

Hannah was still at the edge of the woods, still clinging to the solid tree trunk, when the small party of mourners gathered around the freshly dug grave to bury Jenkins.

Her cheek pressed against the smooth bark, Hannah watched the dark-coated minister, Bible in hand, say a few words over the coffin. The mourners, servants from the house and a few people from the village, bowed their heads as the minister spoke.

Then Hannah saw the strongest of the men step forward to lift the coffin into the grave. They struggled for a moment, surprised by the weight of it. Then, working silently together, they lowered the box into the ground and covered it with dirt, using the same shovel Hannah had used to kill Julia.

Julia is in the ground now, Hannah thought,
watching the members of the small funeral party walking slowly toward the house. Julia is in the ground with Jenkins.

Hannah stayed in the woods a long while. When the sun began to lower itself behind the trees and the air grew evening cool, she wiped the tearstains from her cheeks. Then she straightened her dress and slowly walked back to the house.

“Where is Julia?” Simon asked.

Hannah pretended not to hear the question. She was slumped in a chair in a corner of the sitting room, watching Brandon and Joseph toss a small ball back and forth in front of the fire.

“Has anyone seen Julia?” Simon repeated impatiently from the doorway, his eyes on Hannah.

“I have not seen her, Father. Not since our picnic in the woods behind the house,” Brandon replied, bouncing the ball gently to his little brother.

“Maybe she is still outside,” Joseph said, missing the ball and scrambling after it.

“Can you two not find a better indoor activity?” Simon scolded sharply. He disappeared before the boys could reply.

Hannah shivered in spite of the heat that filled the room from the glowing fireplace. She stared at the boys but didn't really see them. Instead she saw the pine box. She saw Julia's arm hanging over the side of it. Then she saw the heavy pine box being lowered into the ground.

“Julia? Julia, are you upstairs?” Hannah heard her father shout up the stairs.

No. Julia is not upstairs, Hannah thought dully. Julia is not in the house, Father. Julia is in the ground.

“Julia? Where is Julia?” She heard her father calling. “Has anyone seen Julia?”

M
uttering to himself, Simon Fear pulled his cloak around himself as he stepped into the evening darkness. Having searched the entire house for his daughter, he decided to try the garden.

Sometimes Julia would completely lose track of the time, and Simon would find her on a bench in the garden, dreamily poring over a book of romantic poetry.

A pale crescent moon rose above the woods at the end of the back lawn. The sky was still a royal evening blue. A cool wind picked up and blew against Simon as he crossed the yard.

“Julia? Are you out here?” The wind threw his voice back to him. He pulled the cloak tighter.

The roses on the tall trellises bobbed in the gusting breeze. The wind howled through the trees.

Or
was
it the wind?

Simon stopped and stood perfectly still, holding his cloak in place, his head tilted as he listened intently.

What was that horrible howl? That pained cry?

Simon took a few steps toward the frightening sound. He stood near the family burial plot, his eyes narrowed, listening.

There it was again.

A frightening shriek. Like the cry of a trapped animal.

Another shriek, high-pitched. A moan.

Simon turned toward the gardening sheds at the fence. Has a wild animal gotten itself trapped in one of the sheds? he wondered.

Another mournful howl.

No. The sound was too close.

So nearby.

Simon grasped his cloak as another shrill cry rose on a gust of wind.

He stared down at the ground. It seemed as if the sound was at his feet.

“But that's impossible!” he cried.

And then he realized that he was standing beside a freshly dug grave, the dark earth still mounded loose over the coffin.

Mr. Jenkins's grave.

Another pitiful cry, a desperate animal shriek.

From the ground. From the grave.

Someone crying out from the new grave.

A girl.

Julia!

“No!” Simon uttered, terror choking him.

Before he realized what he was doing, he had picked up the shovel and begun digging into the earth.

His heart pounding, Simon frantically shoveled, the blade cutting easily into the soft dirt. Working feverishly, he tossed the dirt over his shoulder, digging down, down—until finally, when he felt his chest was about to burst, the shovel hit something solid. The lid of the coffin.

“Yes!” Simon cried and began digging wildly, scraping and shoving the dirt out of the hole.

So close! So close!

“I'm coming!” he screamed in a panic-filled voice he didn't recognize. “I'm coming! I'm coming!”

He didn't try to lift the coffin. Instead he tossed the shovel aside and leapt down into the hole.

With trembling hands he lifted the latch. Then, gasping loudly, his heart thudding against his chest, he pulled up the coffin lid.

“J
ulia!”

Simon cried out when he saw his daughter sprawled on top of the gardener's corpse.

Her black hair had fallen over her face. He brushed it back gently, his hand trembling, loud sobs escaping his throat.

Dead. She was dead.

So pale. Her face was locked in a grimace of terror, her lifeless eyes wide. Dried blood was caked over her nose and chin.

“Noooooooo!”
The howl erupted from Simon. It echoed against the dark walls of the grave he had opened.

He gaped in horror at his daughter. Her fingernails were torn and bloodied. Simon saw long scratch marks along the inside of the coffin lid.

Buried alive,
he realized.
Julia was buried alive
.

The wind howled above him. He gazed up at the sliver of pale moon. He couldn't bear to look at her any longer.

“Who?” he cried, scrambling out of the hole, scrabbling over the soft dirt, his arms thrashing wildly. “Who did this? Who?”

Back up on solid ground, he staggered toward the house. “Who did this? Who murdered my daughter?”

He tossed the cloak to the ground and began to run.

The house loomed ahead, a dark blur. The whole world had become a dark blur.

Moments later he stood in the kitchen, struggling to catch his breath, struggling to stop the painful pounding of his heart.

“Mrs. MacKenzie! Mrs. MacKenzie!” he screamed frantically. Where was she? Where was everyone?

He grabbed on to a sideboard to keep himself from collapsing.

Something near his hand caught his attention.

A long sheet of paper with scribbled words down one side. Scribbled names.

The servant's list.

The newly written name at the bottom of the list, the ink still dark and fresh.

LUCY GOODE
.

“Nooooooooooo!”
A wild animal howl erupted from deep inside him.

“Not a Goode! Not a Goode in my house!”

Simon truly believed the Goodes had vanished from the earth. He believed he had killed the last of them—Frank Goode—back in Wickham when he was still a boy.

He believed that the curse had ended that long-ago day. That no member of the Goode family could ever threaten the Fears again.

And now here was a Goode hiding in his own household, carrying on the evil of the Goodes against the Fears—
murdering his Julia!

“Nooooooo!”
Simon grasped the silver pendant tightly in one hand. He felt its warmth, felt its power.

His rage carried him into the front parlor.

He picked out a sword from the new collection of war relics. He waved it high. It gleamed in the light from the gas lamps.

He followed the sword's gleam.

Running frantically, bellowing his rage, Simon followed the glow of the sword through the house.

I will find her. I will find Lucy Goode!

I will put an end to the evil she has brought to my house, to my family!

“Simon! What are you
doing!
Simon!”

Was that Angelica calling to him from the stairway?