Malice (13 page)

“Derek found it in an upstairs bedroom at the house. It’s a journal McMurphy was keeping. I’ve only glanced through it briefly but …”

She found what she was looking for and handed the book to Lysander. He was hardly able to believe what he was seeing. He felt his breath catch and the world swinging away from him. He held the book open over the etching he had drawn on the ground. The eyes were the same—watching, searching. The only real difference was that the eyes in McMurphy’s journal filled the whole page.

The elderly librarian, her hair tied into a painful-looking concoction, greeted Sam and Lysander with a keen look of annoyance.

“We’re looking for information on this,” Lysander said, holding open McMurphy’s journal to a page where a single giant eye had been sketched.

The librarian looked suspicious. She did not want to become the butt of some teenage prank.

“We’re serious,” Sam told her.

The gray-haired woman blinked. “Well, your picture does bear some resemblance to the Eye of Horus, so you might wanna start your, err, research in our section on ancient Egypt.”

“Thank you,” he managed, fighting the urge to say something nasty to the old hag, knowing it would only confirm her judgment of him. Sam, however, had no such compunction and scratched her nose with her middle finger, wiggling the tip at the woman in case she hadn’t quite got the message.

They climbed a marble staircase with wrought iron railings. At the top, by a water fountain they found a computer. Sam typed the following into the search bar: Eye of Horus.

1054 hits.

Lysander nudged her out of the way. “Searching for stuff in the library’s a tricky thing. You can’t just type in exactly what you want. You gotta do it in a roundabout way, otherwise you won’t get diddley-squat.”

“What can we find here we couldn’t get on google?”

“Sam, any hack can put up a website or write a Wikipedia page. We don’t have time to sift through mountains of crap and false leads. Besides, I try and spend as little time at home as I can.”

Sam moved aside and swung her arms in an exaggerated motion toward the console. “I think you’re just a Luddite, but be my guest. Let’s see what you can do.”

“What’s a Luddite?” Lysander asked puzzled.

“Look it up. You’re the wanna-be librarian.”

He giggled as he laid his hands on the keyboard—an off-white IBM clone maybe fifteen years old—and typed: Ancient Egypt beliefs. Two generic volumes on Egyptian history came up on the screen, but nothing useful.

Sam smiled.

Lysander tried something else. Ancient Egypt superstitions.

More generic volumes.

Ancient Egypt religion was Lysander’s next attempt.

The computer returned six entries. The most promising was The Search for God in Ancient Egypt.

Lysander winked at Sam. “Getting hotter.”

Then he tried something different. He typed Ancient Egyptian religion “eye of horus” and hoped that the quotation marks might single out books that were especially relevant.

The following volume came back:
The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt
.

Sam threw her arms around him. “You’re a genius!”

Lysander blushed. “It’s on this floor,” he said sheepishly. “Let’s take a look.”

They left the computer and disappeared into shadowy stacks of old books. Lysander let his fingers skim the dusty spines until he found it. The book was large, and they had to bring it to a table to open it up. Sam began flipping through the pages.

“That’s not the way you do it,” Lysander said.

Had he been anyone else she might have punched him out, but Lysander didn’t mean it in a bad way and she knew that.

“Always check the index at the back for what you want. It’ll save you a heap of time.”

Sam snorted. “Yeah, well, I don’t hang out in libraries much.”

Lysander laughed. “You will if you intend on going to college.” He drew his finger down the listings under H.

“We’re looking for eye,” Sam blurted. “Shouldn’t you be looking under E?”

“No, Horus is what we’re really looking for, not eye. Find Horus and we find what we’re looking for.”

And sure enough there it was.

“Horus, eye of, 374.”

Lysander felt a surge of exhilaration. Eagerly, they flipped to the page. What they found there was a hieroglyphic eye, very much like the one drawn in the journal and on Hume, but with the addition of what looked almost like long spindly legs.

They scanned the page looking for the word Horus and started reading from there. When they finished, Lysander seemed uncertain about something.

“So the Eye of Horus was a talisman used to protect people against the evil eye,” Sam said, thinking out loud.

“Evil eye?” Lysander asked. “Isn’t that like giving someone a bad look?”

Sam’s face became grave. “Kind of,” she said. “But so much worse. In the old days, people believed that you could hurt someone just by looking at them a certain way.”

“You mean like a spell?”

Sam nodded. “Sort of.”

“Sometimes you Wiccans scare me.”

Slowly, the corners of her lips curled into a devilish smile. “Good.”

“You think this is what we’re after?” Lysander asked her.

She turned serious again. “I don’t think so. The Eye of Horus doesn’t look a whole lot like our eye. Look here. It mentions that the eye was used by more than one culture…in fact, at one time, it may have been the most popular superstition in the world.”

“If the eye on Hume isn’t from ancient Egypt, then where should we be looking?”

Sam kept reading. “Says here the evil eye is most commonly associated with—”

“Witchcraft,” Lysander said, his finger pressed down under the word. He looked about him. “We need an encyclopedia.”

Minutes later, a stack of encyclopedias were piled crookedly before them. Lysander was holding
The American Encyclopedia
, Sam the
Britannica
.

“We need pictures,” Sam said.

“What we need,” said Lysander, “is to find an eye that looks just like ours.”

Growing frustrated, he dropped the
American
and picked up
The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology.

“Have you thought about the possibility that we’re wasting our time?” she pointed out. “I mean, what are the chances that anything we find—”

“Oh shit,” Lysander cried. “This is it…the one I saw on Hume.”

She took the enormous book from him and studied it for a moment. “Says here that during the Middle Ages, they used a symbol of an eye to protect themselves from witches.” Sam then read directly from the book. “The practice of shielding oneself from the perceived effects of the evil eye were most apparent during the trials of accused witches. The belief, a carryover from ancient times, held that by branding an eye with a hot poker into the flesh of the condemned, it would nullify the witches ability to curse any of her accusers or those that had gathered to watch her execution. This practice carried forward even into the new world. Most notable among them was Rebecca Goodman, accused and burned in Millingham in 1648.”

Sam looked skeptical. “Millingham? Our Millingham? The most boring town on earth, burning witches? I don’t believe it. Lysander, what do you thin—”

Lysander’s complexion had become gray and chalky. Seeing that look on his face, the stray thoughts in her mind began falling into place.

“Your session with Avery …” Her voice trailed off.

Lysander’s lips were trembling.

Sam looked down at the encyclopedia and the witch’s name, Rebecca Goodman. “We need everything on this woman we can find.”

Lysander nodded vacantly. Biting her nail, she rose and headed to the computer console, leaving Lysander half hidden behind a table piled with books.

He felt himself in some strange limbo. A great unraveling was taking place, a rescanning of all past memories, thoughts and dreams to see how they fit into this new paradigm. Conversations he had, places he visited. Was he losing his mind? Or was all of life just some unending dream with varying shades of substance and form? Lysander felt himself lost and tumbling down a long dark hole. His hands fumbled before him, feeling for something hard, something tangible. His eyes found the McMurphy journal and he could have sworn it had changed. It was happy. He fingered its cracking pages, hands numb with fear. In all the places without words, there were eyes, hundreds of them, staring back at him from the yellowed pages.

He shook his head to dispel the image. He concentrated on the text. McMurphy had written entries, like any other diary.

The first began normally enough.

May 9, 1963

I had never thought that a record of my life was important, in so much as to say that I believed it was a vain and narcissistic endeavor if ever there was one. But as they say, a task begun will wilt if unattended, and so I know the regularity of the exercise will do me some good.

The entries went on in that vein for a few years. McMurphy was not a constant diarist. Apparently he had written only when the mood had gripped him.

May 30, 1965

An odd and disturbing dream last night, the details of which I strain to remember, but cannot grasp. I awoke and swore someone stood at the foot of my bed. A man, dressed in a dark cloak and wearing a wide hat. I closed my eyes, thinking myself still dreaming, and when I opened them again he was still there. He was plump under his cloak and I knew this, for I could see his belly pushing against the fabric. He seemed a petulant and harsh little man, and even in the few seconds before he disappeared I felt as though I disliked him very much. I have decided not to speak of this for reasons that should seem obvious to anyone.

June 19, 1965

This journal was intended to be a chronicle of my inner thoughts and the events of my life, but has since, through no fault of my own, become a catalogue of strange and bizarre occurrences. I was up late last night, working at my desk, as I have been doing of late. This business of zone development should not be left in the hands of the city council, that group of bumbling autocrats. I descended to the kitchen some time after midnight, careful not to wake any of the family. (Thomas can be so disagreeable when he’s woken. If only I had the time and inclination I would find myself a wife and gladly leave this madhouse.) On my way back, a chicken sandwich and a glass of warm milk in hand, I had the strangest experience. A voice, so real I swore the person whispered into my ear, called my name. James, it whispered. And when I turned there was no one there.

July 1, 1965

Almost every night now as I begin to doze, I sense that I am being watched. It is an eerie feeling that I cannot shake. Even when I switch the light on and order whatever or whoever it is to leave, still they remain. I haven’t been sleeping well of late, and it is perhaps for this very reason. Last night, when I again turned on the light for the same reasons I’ve mentioned above, something so strange happened I’m hesitant to mention it even in the private confines of this journal. I’ve always been a religious man and know not what to make of it, but when I glanced at the cross above my bed, perhaps for consolation or guidance, I could have swore I saw Jesus’ eyes scan the room before finding my own, wide and disbelieving as they must have looked. I lay awake all last night and took the cross down first thing this morning, though by all intents and purposes it appeared solid and normal.

July 15, 1965

I’m beginning to wonder at the possibility that this old house of ours, the house that’s been in our family for over three generations, is beset by some restless spirit.

September 1, 1965

I was up late again last night, making myself a quick meal, when I heard that same voice whisper into my ear. It sounds strangely feminine, but also masculine. I again wondered at the possibility of a ghost, since not so long ago I saw a man standing by my bed appearing as solid and impenetrable as any real thing I had ever seen. I tried ignoring it and continued back to my room and the hours of work I knew still awaited me, when I heard it speak again and this time the words were tinged with a kind of even-handed hatred I had never felt from the presence. What they pertain to and how it has anything to do with me, I have no idea, nor do I care to find out. However, if I close my eyes, I cannot help but see those words as though a placard, crooked and battered, has been erected inside my head and will forever remain.

The voice said one simple thing: ‘I’m coming.’

It was nearing dusk when Samantha and Lysander reached the Millingham cemetery. The gate was bolted shut, and protecting the grounds was a stone wall ten feet high. Samantha said she knew another way in. Together they walked under the wall’s creeping evening shadow.

Back at the library, she had returned with several books on witchcraft in America and had found more than one mentioning Rebecca Goodman by name. One such source came from the private writings of the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.