House of Ivy & Sorrow

FOURTEEN





After Winn leaves, I hop up, trying to ask her what’s wrong, though nothing comes out. She raises a bushy eyebrow at me. “I can’t read lips, dear, but come. You must see this.”

In the apothecary, a picture of my mom—which I assume was in the corrupted letter—hangs from a string that I’m pretty sure is tendon. From what, I’m not exactly sure. Nana claims I should be able to tell the difference between different animal tendons, but seriously, they’re all white and stringy. Two ivory clips hold it in place. Since there are blood marks on it, I figure she’s already performed the revelation spell.

“Watch the wall,” she says, holding up a candle behind the photo.

An image appears, kind of like a projector, but it isn’t Mom’s picture or the words on the back. It’s an image in harsh black and white. A man sits at a desk, hunched over something I can’t quite see. I point to the ceiling, hoping she’ll get that I’m guessing it’s Joseph.

“No, child. Look closer.”

I sigh, which doesn’t have the same weight when you can’t hear it. Stepping right up to the projection, I squint to try and see anything that I missed. It’s very simple. Man with dark hair in a dark suit at a desk. He might be reading. He might be . . . I stop. There is the smallest hint of something. I place my finger on it.

“Yes.” Nana pauses, as if she doesn’t want to go on. She holds the candle closer to the paper, and the image enlarges. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

I stare at the little piece of fluff. Finally it clicks. That’s a quill. He is writing. This isn’t my dad—this is the man who put the curse on Mom’s picture.

My blood goes cold.

Looking back to Nana, I can tell we’re on the same impossible wavelength now. I pray she’ll crack a smile, tell me it’s a joke—anything to stop this terrifying train of thought. She doesn’t.

There’s a loud knock on the door, almost frantic sounding. I automatically go to answer, since Nana always makes me anyway. I catch the hint of something, like a dream just fading.

Someone is worried about me.

Kat. Of course. I pull open the door, and there she is, small and trembling like a wet mouse. “Gwen would not let me go. I swear the girl has a sixth sense for when someone’s not telling her something. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”

I hold up my hand, hoping she gets that it’s no big deal.

She tilts her head. “Something happened, though. I could feel it.”

I wave my hand for her to come in and we head back to Nana, who is still analyzing the picture. She glances over. “Ah, Katherine, good to see the binding is working.”

“Felt like I was going to have a heart attack if I didn’t find Jo,” Kat says.

“You probably would have.”

Kat and I exchange a glance.

“Let’s get you up to speed.” Nana points to the image on the wall. “This is the person who wrote the letter that cursed Joseph, which we were able to retrieve thanks to Josephine giving up her voice for several days. There is something very wrong with this picture. We must figure out how this happened, and fast.”

Kat’s wide eyes narrow as she takes it in. “What’s wrong with it?”

I point to the feather.

“That’s weird?”

Nana taps the photo. “Witches use quills to put spells on paper. Very easy to transfer potions and magic that way. What this implies is that a man put the curse on the photo, which is impossible.”

Kat sits in the chair. “It is?”

I plop down next to her, hating that I can’t express how seriously messed up this is. Nana is acting way too calm for Kat to understand that we’re in a situation I’ve never heard of in all of witchcraft. And clearly Nana hasn’t heard of it either, which is the scariest thing of all.

“Men cannot use magic,” she says. “This image is either false, or it destroys everything known about our world. And unfortunately, I’m inclined to believe the latter.”

“Why? It could be a fake. Or maybe a woman who is really burly?” Kat looks to me for reassurance, but I can’t give her any.

Nana heaves a sigh. “What with the unknown nature of the Curse, it would make sense for it to be something this evil and perverted. A man wielding the darkness? Heaven help us all. I have never felt so out of my depth. What can we do against something we have no knowledge of?”

I grab a pad of paper from her desk and scribble out, How did he get magic?

“I wish I knew, dear. I wish I knew. Since men cannot absorb and carry magic like we can, I am at a total loss as to how this man obtained his abilities. But from what we’ve experienced, it must have been by very dark means.”

I put my head in my hands. When we set out to defend ourselves and find Mom’s killer, I figured we’d discover some evil witch with a taste for blood or a score to settle. Not this. How in the world are we supposed to fight now? We barely know what we’re dealing with, let alone how to get rid of it. And whoever this man is, he has even more reason to kill us now that we know men are probably behind the Curse.

Then I catch sight of my mother’s picture, and my heart aches. I take it from where it hangs, my hands shaking. She’s so young—maybe even my age. She sits at a café table, wearing a sundress and smiling as if she’s madly in love. I wonder if my dad took this picture, and if so, how it got into the wrong hands.

I can’t stop fighting. I have to know who would go to such lengths to ruin our lives. And if at all possible, find a way to end it.

We need help. We need to tell other families, I write.

Nana purses her lips. “It’s hard to know who to trust. He had to have gotten the magic from somewhere, and the most likely is a someone. If we inform the wrong people we could be in worse trouble.”

“But . . .” Kat trails off, clearly feeling out of place.

“Go on,” Nana says softly. The way she respects Kat makes me smile, though it also makes me nervous.

“There must be some families you do trust, and if the Curse impacts them they deserve to know.”

“This is true.” Nana smiles. “The Curse has followed us for generations—he can’t be the first man to wield magic. Witches are secretive, and perhaps these men have kept their existence from us as well.” She stands. “The histories. I will ask our most trusted friends to scour their histories for anything. You two will read our own. It’s been so long since I have read them, and I may have forgotten a vital detail.”


I nod, even though reading the histories is no easy task. Kat seems excited by the idea, but she has no idea what we’re up against.