“Maybe he feels the love.” I brushed up against Marcus’ side in a playful gesture.
“That must be it.” Marcus smiled and took my hand.
Framed in mahogany, the questionable Harvard diploma hung proudly in the hallway, next to the living room doorway. The lettering looked Latin. Except for the name, Edmund Alcott Knight in bold script and the signatures on the bottom, I couldn’t read a word of it.
“It looks too old to be a fake,” I whispered to Marcus, who was standing beside me.
He pointed to the date, which was written out in Latin and whispered it to me. “Nineteen hundred and sixteen. It just isn’t possible.”
When I turned the corner into the living room, my eyes didn’t know where to look first. Two entire walls were covered with bookshelves, accommodating hundreds of volumes. Stacks of more books littered the floor, arranged to create paths through the room. Several were fanned out over a studded leather sofa.
Uncle Edmund walked over to a rustic beach stone fireplace and leaned an arm on one corner of the mantle. Beside him was a flat screen TV, which sat atop an outdated, wooden floor-model TV.
As I walked farther into the room, I took in the far corner, where an open laptop sat atop a burled wood desk, with a stained glass lamp on one corner and a brass armillary sphere on the other.
To me, this looked like a room for someone of high academic stature.
Perhaps Marcus and his family were wrong. I got the impression the Harvard diploma had been justly earned by Edmund Alcott Knight.
Uncle Edmund walked to the sofa, picked half a dozen books up, and stacked them on the floor, clearing a spot for us to sit. “Please, make yourselves at home.” He waited until we sat down before sitting in one of the two tapestry-covered wingback chairs opposite the sofa.
He picked a pipe up off the coffee table and held it in his mouth, but didn’t light it, all the while studying me.
Uncle Edmund cleared his throat. “So, Marky, was there something you wanted to see me about?” He spoke seriously, as if he’d known that we hadn’t just come to chat. Somewhere in between the garden and the living room, he’d picked up an air of sophistication.
“Well, Brooke has—”
Uncle Edmund cut him off, looked at me again, ignoring Marcus, and said, “Forgive me, but what did you say your last name was?”
I hadn’t said. “Day. Brooke Day.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. Of course it is.”
He mumbled into the mouthpiece of the pipe, but I’d heard him. I looked at him with my eyebrows raised, expecting an explanation, but none came.
He looked back to Marcus. “Please continue, Marky.”
“Brooke has something to show you.”
That was my cue. I pulled a picture out of my bag and handed it to Uncle Edmund; the one of Claire and Christian.
He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his straight nose, then reached across the table and took the picture from me. I couldn’t stop my leg from bouncing nervously up and down. Marcus took my hand and held it in the small space between us. Uncle Edmund studied the picture for quite some time. His only movement was when his eyebrows pulled together, deepening the lines in his forehead.
After a few intense moments, without raising his head, he lifted his eyes above his glasses to look down at our linked hands, and then to our faces and then back to the picture. His deeply tanned face was as somber as Marcus’ was now.
Come to think of it, he and Marcus had the same bone structure, and those eyes; right now they looked like bitter chocolate. The same as Marcus’ eyes looked when he was in a serious mood—like now.
After a couple of intense minutes, Uncle Edmund heaved a heavy sigh and lifted his head from the picture.
“Where did you find this photograph?” He addressed his question directly to me.
I chewed on my lip, not sure if I should divulge that information. Marcus saw how nervous I was and answered for me.
“She found it in a trunk in the attic of the Ravenwyck.”
Uncle Edmund’s eyes widened. “You’re not still working there are you, Marky? I thought you only had a small job to do. I warned you to stay away from that place.”
My leg stopped bouncing, my body stiffened, and I looked at Marcus disbelievingly, wondering why he hadn’t shared that fact with me.
I narrowed my gaze on Uncle Edmund. “Why should he stay away from the Inn? Is there danger there?” I knew there was for me, but … .
“Brooke works there too,” Marcus explained.
Uncle Edmund’s face grew stone-like. In an even tone he asked, “Does Margaret still own the Inn?”
I nodded, assuming he’d meant Maggie.
“Yes, of course she does.” Holding the bowl of the pipe in his hand, he shook the mouth piece at us. “Neither of you should step foot inside that Inn or go anywhere near it again. It was once, and I suspect still is, a place of great evil.”
I shuddered at his warning.
“What about that brother of yours?”
By his tone, it would seem he wasn’t as fond of Evan as he was Marcus. I thought back to when we’d first arrived, how he’d referred to Marcus as his favorite nephew.
“Evan’s still working there, too. What kind of danger are you talking about?” Marcus asked warily.
Still holding the picture with one hand and the unlit pipe to his mouth with the other, Uncle Edmund started to answer, but apparently changed his mind.
“What is it?” Marcus sat forward, releasing my hand. “Do you know who they are? In the picture?”
For a moment Uncle Edmund retreated back to the befuddled old man I’d met in the garden. “I shouldn’t, no, I mustn’t. It’s time, but how?” Uncle Edmund argued quietly with himself.
“Tell us,” Marcus demanded. When he didn’t answer him, Marcus looked at me. “I’m going to tell him everything.”
I nodded.
Marcus recounted our experiences in full, first my story from the start of my nightmares, to the events at the Inn. He told Uncle Edmund about the well and the pendant. I thought it odd how his eyes lit up when Marcus mentioned the pendant. He showed him his tattoo and told him about my scratches and what I’d seen in the painting. All the while, Uncle Edmund stared down at the picture, lifting his head now and then to look at me, as if he were comparing me to someone.
“May I see the amulet?” His eyes brightened when he asked.
I pulled the chain out of my sweater and proceeded to lift it off my neck. Uncle Edmund jumped up from the chair, as spry as a teenager.
“No! Don’t take it off. You mustn’t ever take it off.”
He looked at me sternly. I sat there in shock.
He placed one hand on the middle of the coffee table for support and leaned over it, picking the pendant up from the outside of my sweater, handling it delicately.
“Fascinating! Just as I’d remembered it.” He slid his hand out from under it carefully, and with his hands linked behind his back, he walked toward the far wall of books.
“I think it’s time you knew everything, Marky.” Uncle Edmund sighed and turned around, grabbing hold of his suspenders; his expression grew gravely serious.
Marcus’ eyes narrowed. “Knew what?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
On top of the highest shelf, Uncle Edmund pushed a few books aside, reached his arm behind a hidden row of books, and pulled out a polished wooden box. He walked back to us, but instead of sitting in the chair, he came around the coffee table and sat next to me on the edge of the sofa. He held the box on his lap, his tanned, aged hands fondling the glossy wood.
He cleared his throat and looked past me to Marcus. “I’ve been thinking about this day since you turned twelve. It was then, that there was no more doubt in my mind. I’d planned on telling you last spring when you turned seventeen, but I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
“Oh, I’d pretty much believe anything now,” Marcus assured him.
“Exactly. Now you
would believe; last spring, it would be highly unlikely. It’s high time you knew the truth—both of you.”
“Both?” I couldn’t help repeat.
Uncle Edmund ignored my comment and opened the box. He flipped through a row of old pictures until he came to one in particular. He pulled it out and looked at it for what seemed like a long time before handing the picture to me.
Too scared to look at first, I held it for a few seconds before setting my eyes on it. When I finally did look, I could do nothing but stare in awe at the only person in the aged picture. I flipped it over. Claire’s name was on the back, and it was dated 1912. I flipped it back to the front.
A young girl, clothed in an early nineteen hundred’s style dress, was sitting on a large rock. Her gloved hands held a closed parasol. Ringlets cascaded down the front of her shoulders. But what took my breath away—literally— was her beaming smile. My smile.
I tried to speak, but choked on my words. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Uncle Edmund nodding.
“Why does she look like me?” I finally got the words out.
“My dear … she is you.”
Marcus grabbed the picture from my hand and stared at it. My eyes stayed fixed to the empty spot between my hands, where the picture had been.
I cleared my throat twice before I could speak again. “Wh … how can that be?
“When you hear the whole story, you’ll understand,” Uncle Edmund said.
Marcus looked at me wordlessly and shrugged.
Uncle Edmund flipped through a few more pictures and pulled out another one. “Excuse me, Brooke.”
He reached in front of me and handed Marcus the next one. I looked at it with him. It was a picture of two handsome boys. With the exception of hair length, the older boy looked exactly like Marcus. The younger boy looked similar to Marcus also.
And as I’d expected, the back read, Christian Knight, but I didn’t expect to read the name, Edmund Knight, below it.
“Christian and Edmund?” Marcus asked, sounding justifiably confused.
“Christian was my older brother.” Uncle Edmund paused and assessed us over the top of his glasses, and when we didn’t comment he continued. “He was seventeen when he was murdered.” He looked at Marcus again, who was silent. “It’s obvious to me now, that the two of you are Christian and Claire reincarnated.”
Marcus let out a sharp breath that sounded much like a sarcastic laugh. “Reincarnated?”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I said, coming out of my initial shock. “Not that I believe in reincarnation, but if I had been reincarnated, wouldn’t I look different? Wouldn’t we be somebody totally different?”
“Perhaps, but not necessarily. Who really knows? However, there is no mistaking that the people in these photographs are the two of you.”
Uncle Edmund stood and began to pace the room.
“Marky, it was around the time you’d turned twelve when I’d realized how much you looked like Christian; of course, I’ve always had the photographs to compare you with. I see it not just in your looks, but in your mannerisms and voice as well. Everything about you is Christian. The older you grew, the more undeniably certain I became.”
Marcus shook his head as if to clear it. “Okay, let me get this straight. You think that I’m Christian and Brooke is Claire and we were murdered? Who murdered them … us, then?” Marcus looked totally confused.
“You betrayed your coven. You were murdered for high treason against the coven.”
“What coven?” Marcus asked, his tone becoming slightly edgy.
“Margaret’s coven. The Coven of Seven. Claire and Christian were witches.”
I listened wide-eyed, chewing on a fingernail as the revelation of being a witch in a past life penetrated my brain.
“You practiced witchcraft at the Inn. I did odd jobs for Margaret and followed my big brother into the attic out of curiosity and into the woods to watch.
“Margaret was your Mother Priestess. Each of you controlled an element.”
“Wait a minute,” Marcus interrupted, holding up a hand. “You said there were seven, but there are only four elements.”
I looked at him astounded. “How would you know how many elements there are?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know; earth, water, fire and air. Everyone knows that.”
I just stared.
“Spirit can sometimes be a fifth element in the world of magic,” Uncle Edmund continued. “Margaret manipulated spirit, but Claire and Christian had a gift that no others had. A gift brought with them from another lifetime—an ancient lifetime. They could channel energy from darkness and light.
“Christian drew his magic from darkness and Claire from light. It was thought that if Claire and Christian were able to reach their peak in magic, that darkness and light together might have generated great power, but they were never to find out. Margaret had Claire and Christian killed as they were about to come into the peak of their power.”
“I’m lost,” Marcus said.
“As you should be. Jason, your best friend at the time, was one of the seven.” He walked back to the table and pulled another picture from the box and handed it to Marcus.
“No way,” I said, looking at the picture of Christian and Jason. My heart pounded in my throat.
“Yes, Brooke, Jason has been reborn also, and is now Evan. Like you, I suspect they have all been reborn.”
I shuddered at his words.
“Jason was Christian’s best friend and Claire’s fiancé.”
I let out a sharp breath in disbelief. There was no use trying to remember. I was reduced to using my imagination.
Something Uncle Edmund had said a moment ago registered. “We’d betrayed the coven,” he’d said. If Claire and Christian were so much in love, then they must have been having an affair. Claire betrayed Jason, thus betraying the coven.
Marcus ran a hand through his hair, tossed the picture on the table and stood. I was too weak to use my legs. I had a million questions, but couldn’t find my voice, so I sat there, waiting to hear more.
Uncle Edmund began again. “Christian was also betrothed.”
He handed Marcus another picture. Marcus looked at it for a second, laughed at the irony, then threw it on the table and walked away from us. I could see it clearly enough without picking it up. It was a picture of people who looked like Megan and Marcus playing dress-up in old clothes. His arms were around her waist and they looked happy.
My stomach twisted into knots. So Megan was telling the truth in the bathroom; he had loved her. “No wonder Megan hates me,” I mumbled to myself. “How could all of this be true? I don’t want to believe it, but everything that’s happened to me since I moved here shouldn’t be real either, and it is.” I let out a long slow breath.
Marcus sat heavily in a straight-backed chair across the room. Maybe he suddenly felt as weak as I did. This wasn’t just about me any longer. Marcus was every bit as much a part of this twisted tale as I was.
“You said there were seven of us, but you only mentioned four so far,” Marcus said.
“I have another picture,” I said to Uncle Edmund, remembering the picture of the seven black-robed people I’d found in Claire’s book. I pulled it out of my bag and handed it to him.
He pointed to every person, reciting their names as he did. “Jason, Christian, this one is Claire, Julia, Margaret, Sally and Emma, they’re all here.”
A cold shiver passed over me when I looked at the person he pointed out as Maggie. “She wants the pendant,” I said pointing to her.
“Of course she does. Its magic is deep and she knows it. Are you ready for more? Have you digested what I’ve told you?” He looked from Marcus to me.
“Tell us,” Marcus said from across the room.
I nodded, eagerly.
“The amulet possesses great power. Besides granting its possessor eternal youth, in certain hands, it can be forged into a powerful weapon by channeling energy fr
om deep emotions, such as love and hatred, or severe weather, anything that emits natural energy—energy that only magic users have insight into. Used properly, the amulet can also channel energy from all five elements, plus light and dark.
“Claire found it on Skull Island. She’d said something beyond her control compelled her to go there, and once there, she felt a pull deep within her. That pull brought her straight to the amulet. She couldn’t help but take it.”
“Was it Maggie’s?” I asked.
“No. I will reveal the true owner’s identity soon. But, I will tell you that Margaret had the amulet in her possession for centuries. Margaret has never been reborn. With the aid of the amulet of immortality, she has lived a very long existence.”
“Why doesn’t she have it now?” Marcus asked.
Uncle Edmund hesitated briefly. “I took it from her, and she aged.”
Marcus and I looked at his uncle disbelievingly.
“It’s true. Once you were both gone, she’d let her guard down. It was easy for me to find it and take it.
“I wore it, on and off, for forty years. Today, at one hundred fourteen years old, I am as a man of seventy-four. Forty years younger than I rightly deserve to be.
“I knew I couldn’t stay young forever without speculation, so I tossed the amulet into the well on Skull Island where I knew Margaret had hidden Claire and Christian’s remains.”
I flinched at the visual that popped into my head. The bone I’d pulled out from under my leg in the well belonged to either Marcus or me. The inside of my head felt as if it was spiraling downward and I felt dizzy. I closed my eyes and composed myself as best as I could.
“Margaret found out about the affair between Claire and Christian. She used it as an excuse to execute them, though her real motive goes much deeper.” There was a moment of silence, and then Uncle Edmund said, “Tea anyone?”
His change-about was so sudden, it startled me. I was afraid he would retreat back into the befuddled old man I’d first met and not finish the story.
“Is that it?” Marcus asked, shocked. “Aren’t you going to tell us the rest?”