"Later, Charls! See you around, Tori," Gabriel said over his shoulder. He ignored his sister, which Victoria thought was odd, but understandable given the dynamic she had just witnessed between them.
They headed out soon after and the drive back was even more magnificent. The sky was a riot of color—red, gold and orange streaking across a deepening blue canvas. Victoria couldn't get over the purity of the landscape. Its beauty was everywhere she looked, in the trees, in the sky, in the lake, in the air. Even the houses were perfectly picturesque in the scenic setting. Victoria sighed. This was what she loved best about Maine; it was as if she were living in a Monet landscape where everything was vibrantly alive. She drank it all in, and it wasn't long before they got back to the campus parking lot where she'd left her car.
"See you on Monday then, Tori, if you're not at Marlow's tomorrow," Charla said. "Have fun on your date."
"It's not a date," Victoria said, but they had already driven off.
Reluctantly, she headed back to her apartment. The minute she walked in, like a siren, the music box on her dresser drew her attention. She'd had some time to decompress on the drive home, and looking at it no longer made her feel like burying it at the bottom of the lake.
Though she'd pushed the journal from her mind, some part of her subconscious had still processed its essential meaning—one, the Duchess of Warrick was her great, great, great, great grandmother; two, Victoria had inherited her blood from a line that stretched back at least three hundred years; and three, she was a witch, a very powerful witch.
She was less edgy for some reason, probably because she was worn out after her swim. Maybe she should go for a run—it was still early enough. Or read the rest of the journal, her sneaky inner voice whispered. The sudden rush of blood in her ears made her hesitate.
"Oh, get over it," she told herself, and walked over to the box, opening it. Beethoven switched on as she turned to the last page that she had read.
The next entry was dated October 31, 1616, ten years after the last. The tone was dispassionate and cold just like its prior entries. The strokes of ink were hard and bitter.
London, England. My abilities are endless. As I learned with Elizabeth, when my Change happened during my seventeenth year, my new blood foreshadowed death. I did not write about it in my last message to you, but all the servants at her birth … and death, died from poisoning of the blood. Such poetic irony. Still, I have discovered something about myself. I can change it. I can control it. You would not believe the things I can do!
Victoria shuddered but forced herself to keep reading and finish the passage. Every fiber of her being wanted to toss the journal as far away from her as possible, away from the grotesquely cold sense of delight that emerged from its pages, but a quietly insistent part of her needed to know who she was. What she was. She continued to read.
Lancaster was the first. I tried to reach him when he took Marcus away. And I found him. My mind found his so easily, almost like he had called me to him. I could still feel his love for me as he pleaded for me to leave our son with him. “You are lost, Brigid,” he said, “do not lose us too.” My heart cleaved in two as I heard those words. But still I felt the war within myself, my heart and my blood dueling. Lancaster could feel our love losing. Blood always won. “Then you will need to take me,” he said, “for I will never let him go.” My eyes burned black as my blood boiled in fury, and in my anger, I crushed the life from his body with a single word! The blood’s cursed magic rejoiced and I felt the castle walls shudder as a part of me died with him. Lancaster was right. I am lost! I murdered him. But still, that was not the end of it, I could not help myself, I searched for Marcus too. And for my life, I could not, still cannot, see him. I am amazed he can block himself so easily from me. My son, after all.
Victoria continued to read, the next entry again a year later in 1617.
London, England. I have found Marcus. But perhaps as Lancaster intended, he is in the safest place he can be in King James’ court. I don’t believe Lancaster ever betrayed me to King James, but I can hear their frightened thoughts easily. My stillborn Elizabeth and now Lancaster’s death were pieces of a simple puzzle, and James is ruthless in his pursuit against witchcraft. Confessed or proven, the penalty under his rule is death. I can sense he knows the truth of what I am.
There were only a few entries left in the thin journal, the next written almost nine years later, in March of 1626. The script was hurried, obviously written in great haste. But as with all of Brigid's entries, Victoria knew she wrote only because it had meant something to her or had some significance in her life. Victoria quickly calculated her ancestor's age. Brigid would have been thirty-seven years old.