The pounding continued against the door, over and over until it felt like Brighmor would break to pieces. In horror, I watched the flames race up the bed hangings to the canopy overhead, nearly enclosing me in a burning inferno. More flames crept over the footboard, inching closer to my feet. I screamed when the fire brushed the tips of my toes, scorching the flesh.
There was the loud splintering of wood, followed by a confusion of voices. Ben started beating my feet with his coat to put out the flames while Henry cut the bindings with his dagger. My limbs came free, and someone grabbed my arms, pulling me to safety.
“Let her die!” Edgar screamed. “The curse must be broken!”
“You’re the only one who’s going to die tonight,” Henry growled, still holding the dagger.
Seeing the blade, Edgar retreated down the far side of the bed where he inadvertently brushed against the burning shards of cloth hanging down from the canopy. The fire spread eagerly to the back of his coat and breeches, greedy for the dry woolen fibers.
Realizing what had happened, Edgar started frantically patting at his clothing, but the flames resisted his efforts, spreading around to the front of his coat and the spilled oil. In a whoosh, he went up like a human torch. He released an anguished scream and reached out blindly, searching for help. James took off his own coat, moving closer to smother the flames.
Fear and pain took over, and Edgar began to weave erratically. He crashed against the dressing table and then, like a crazed beast, charged straight for one of the windows. The glass shattered at impact, and he fell from the room, landing with a sickening thud on the stone walkway below.
Chapter Twenty
Full Circle
In the first days following Edgar’s death, I was overwrought by the shock of his betrayal. The pain emanating from my burned foot and torn wrists was nothing compared to the torment I felt at being so thoroughly deceived. For over forty years, Edgar had shown the greatest love and kindness toward my family. The benevolent man was now gone forever, replaced in my memory by a monster of the worst kind.
In the end, I wanted to believe that he had suffered from madness rather than an insatiable desire to avenge past tragedies. Whatever the state of his mind, his treachery had finally caught up to him, at the cost of his own life and final judgment. An eye for an eye offered some sense of justice, though it did nothing to bring back my mother and grandmother and very little to redeem the man I had once so dearly loved.
As for Mary, flogging seemed a well-earned reward for her duplicity, and most likely would have been her fate if not for George McKee’s intervention. Once he had spoken with the girl, extracting the story between fits of tears and sobs, he determined that she was a victim in her own right and suggested she not be prosecuted.
According to George, Mary deserved to be pitied. This was probably true, though my final decision not to name her came more by a sense of duty than mercy, since it was she who had ultimately saved my life. Convinced that Edgar had only meant to purge the evil from me, she had jumped into action once his real intentions became known. While Edgar and I were busy talking in my bedroom, Nora had arrived at Brighmor. In a matter of seconds Mary told her what had happened, and together they went off into the woods, calling for the men. It didn’t take long before their frantic cries were heard and help came running.
So in lieu of formal charges, I insisted Mary leave Hopewell for good. She departed Brighmor that very night with enough money to ride the coach into Philadelphia and subsist for the next few weeks. It would then be her choice to stay in Pennsylvania or continue on to another colony and a fresh start. For all I cared, she could have gone to the Devil so long as I never had to see her again.
And I learned Alice and Evie felt the same after enduring weeks of suspicion on Mary’s behalf. Not to say that Alice didn’t have plenty of her own guilt for not sharing her suspicions sooner. She was fairly certain that Mary had made the witch’s bottle, but when nothing else happened she, like me, had simply wished the whole affair away. Once it became clear that Mary was up to her old tricks again, Alice had tried to warn me. And she would have succeeded if not for being locked in the cellar with Evie when they were sent to fetch a barrel of cider.
Three days after that horrible night, Ben was the sole representative from Brighmor at Edgar’s funeral. Ben had never had an affinity for Edgar; he had gone to see the man buried, and then report back for my own peace of mind. Henry and I were sitting in the drawing room with James when he returned to recount the morning’s events.
“It was a sparse crowd,” he said from his seat on the sofa. “No more than a dozen folks showed up to pay their respects. During the funeral, three more men came by on horseback. I thought they meant to join us, but they only watched for a minute from the road before continuing on into town.”
“Do you know who they were?” I asked.
“The gravesite was too far away to get a good look. I don’t think they were local though, probably just stopped out of curiosity.”