Monstrous Beauty (27 page)

“I’m ready. I know I am. The Lord knows I’ve wai’ed long enough.” He laughed again. “Where ded you find et?”

“You’ll never believe the things I’ve seen tonight, Pastor. I hardly believe them myself. I’ve been underwater, in the bay. For hours—although it felt like a lifetime. Noo’kas—Squauanit—had your flask in a mountain of found objects. She has a penchant for shiny things. I traded it for my silver barrette.” She held up the flask as she walked toward him.

“Wait,” he said, expelling air. He put his hand out. “Wait, just a moment, lamb. Dinnae hand et to me yet.”

She stopped walking. She saw his hand was trembling. She looked at the flask—the treasure from his past, a gift from his mother, and judging by its weight, still full of his beloved McKee family scotch. It must be a powerfully sentimental object, she thought, to affect him even at this distance.

“I know you wanted me to find this—you guided me to it,” Hester said.

“Aye,” he said, again laughing nervously.

“You’re the pastor who died in the crypt.”

“Aye.”

“You’re a…”

“A pinned spirit. I’m sorry tha’ I didnae tell you sooner, lass. Truly I am. One might assume I’d have had a plan en place, having had nearly one hundred forty years to think about it—hopin’ for someone to come along who could see me an’ hear me, waitin’ for you, tryin’ to trick and entice you here.”

Hester went back and sat on the bottom step to keep the flask far away from him.

“How did you know I would come?”

“I knew ten years ago that you exested because Adeline could speak with you. I tried to catch your attention with the hauntings, to make you understand there was magic en the waerld, an’ tha’ you waer special; I was hopin’ to draw you in, tha’ you’d become curious an’ speak to me.”

“But the silverfish were terrifying,” Hester said. “Why scare a child?”

“Och, the selverfish waer an accident, plain an’ semple. I cannae leave the chaerch, an’ so I charged Adeline with drawin’ you enside, so I could speak to you. Poor lass doesnae know haer power. Because of the selverfish we lost you for a decade. Et was a heartbreak for us both.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She also helped me with the overtaerned stones. I had t’ get you back the mornin’ after…” He stopped, flustered.

“The morning after I spent the night with Ezra.”

“Adeline doesnae understand why I asked haer t’ do any of et, Hester. She jus’ wanted t’ see you again.” He spoke in a low voice. “Be kind to haer, please, my dear—unpin haer as gently as y’can. I know tha’ you will.”

Hester looked at her backpack, bulging with not only Linnie’s doll, but also Ezra’s journal. Somehow, through cleverness and uncanny luck, Pastor McKee had maneuvered her into collecting the three objects she needed to release each of their pinned spirits. She scowled. She felt manipulated—by him and by fate.

McKee said, “When we spoke for the faerst time en the crypt, wha’ a miracle tha’ was. You’d come to me at last. But et was defficult for me to fegure out wha’ to tell you, an’ at wha’ pace. I had t’ get you to believe the unbelievable. I knew that guidin’ you to descovery was the surest path, bu’ a dangerously slow one. I worried tha’ you might fall en love with Ezra en the meantime, and then you wouldnae be able to let hem go.”

Hester stared him in the eye, unflinching.

“And now y’ve fallen.” His face was more tired than ever. “And all may be lost.”

She said, “You should have told me that he was a spirit.”

“He’d have sensed my betrayal, and he would have kept you from me. I’m so sorry, lamb.”

“How did you know I would fall in love with him?” Her voice cracked, although she didn’t want it to.

“I suspected, because of somethen’ I saw en you.” He looked as if he wanted to comfort her, but thought better of it and pressed his back into the wall.

“He’ll never age?”

The pastor shook his head solemnly. “I’m afraid no’.”

“He’ll never leave the beach?”

“Et’s where he died.”

Died.
The word was so final. And yet Ezra was so alive, so animated, so present.

“I could visit him every day…” Hester said, staring at the dirt floor. “High tide or low—now that I know I can breathe in the water, it will make no difference what hour it is. I could live out my days with him.”

“Dinnae make the mestake tha’ Sarah made, Hester, I beg you.”

“What mistake?” she said.

“Thenk, Hester. When you’re dead an’ gone, he’ll stell be here. When the human race es gone, he’ll stell be here. As lovely as you are, en mind and body and spirit, from hes point of view you’re a cut flower—you’re dying already. He’ll have no connection with humanity when you’re gone. He’ll be alone. Sarah should never have pinned hem.
Fex
haer mestake, Hester, for only you can do et—let hem go. Let Linnie go. Let me go.”

“I can release you and Linnie first, and him later—”

He interrupted her. “Na, lass. You mus’ release us all together. We are pinned by the same soul.”

Something boiled up and exploded from inside of her. “Then you’ll have to stay in limbo a little longer! It’s not asking much—according to you it’s the time it takes a cut flower to die!”

He looked stunned. She could see him reassessing. Where had he gone wrong? How had he misjudged her character?

Her voice was suddenly weak. “Yes, it’s selfish. I’m being a jerk. I just want
a little time
with him.”

He sighed. “Et was to be expected. Et’s a powerful soul you have there, Hester. I cannae blame you for wha’ you want.”

“I promise I’ll release you someday…”

“Wha’ ef you die, love? Everythen’ depends on you. What ef you walk out of here and you’re struck by a carriage?”

“By a car,” she mumbled.

“Aye.” He nodded, smiling at her. “A car.”

Hester’s mind raced through the possibilities. She could release them before she got old. She could write a will, requiring the unpinning, in case she died unexpectedly. But how could someone else carry it out, without seeing or hearing or touching them? Her instructions would seem to be the ravings of a lunatic.

“You’re forgettin’ about the sea hag.” He broke into her thoughts. “Do you truly thenk she’ll wesh you and Ezra happy, and go on haer way? Do you thenk you’ve won? Thar’s no winnin’ with Squauanit, and you know that. But thar’s more, Hester. A connection—an explanation—tha’ I hoped you would find yourself, but I dinnae think y’have. You see, I suspect your own caerse depends upon freein’ us. Tha’s wha’ I meant when I said everythen’ es entertwined.”

“How do you know about my curse? I’ve never mentioned it to you.”

“I know et drove you to the crypt the faerst time we met. You waere searching for a link to your past. You knew tha’ a tragedy happened here—you knew the sarcophagus meant somethen’ to your family. But more than all tha’: you looked into my eyes and I recognized your soul.”

“What does that mean?”

“Et means—an’ I dinnae know why—that you’re carryin’ the soul of another paerson—one I’ve met before. Hester, my darlen’, you have the soul of Sarah Doyle, Ezra’s wife.”

“The soul of Syrenka,” Hester murmured. She lifted her feet onto the step below her and hugged her knees. She concentrated on breathing.

Needa had insisted she was Syrenka. Noo’kas had chastised her for having too much of Syrenka in her. Ezra had called her Syrenka the first time they had touched. And now Pastor McKee said he saw Sarah’s soul in her—Sarah, who was Syrenka.

Pastor McKee said, “I dinnae pretend to understand how et happened—I never was a brillian’ man, even when I was alive. But somethen’ on that horrible night caused Sarah’s soul to pass t’ you, though you waeren’t yet born. I cannae fegure et…” His voice petered out to nothing.

Needa’s cryptic comments swirled in Hester’s head: she had mentioned a recurring punishment for Syrenka’s family; a cycle of sacrifice that would last forever, all because of a stolen soul.
As long as the infant’s soul is selfishly detained, there is one soul too many on earth
, Needa had said. Hester knew that it was the soul of the baby that Syrenka had used to pin Ezra’s and McKee’s and Linnie’s emotions to the earth. But who was the baby? And why did Syrenka’s soul pass intact to Hester almost one hundred forty years later? Where had it hidden until then?

All of the deaths in her family had happened within days of giving birth, as if each mother was giving her life to pay for that one soul. But why did they
all
have to die, for one baby?

Who was the baby?

Her head ached, and she felt a little woozy. Did it really matter if she figured out a connection to her own curse? After all, she could end the cycle of deaths in her family merely by remaining childless, which had been her plan all along. No, the real consideration was this: three spirits she had grown to love were experiencing an eternity of pain, and Hester was the only person in the world who could end it.

“There has been so much suffering because of that single night,” she said, her voice muffled by her knees.

“Aye.”

“And that witch Noo’kas has enjoyed watching the suffering continue generation after generation.”

She looked up at Pastor McKee. He was staring intently at her.

Hester went on, “Noo’kas wanted me safely under the ocean, lulled into forgetting, to keep me from Ezra. What she didn’t realize when she let me go was that I know how to take Ezra from her forever. I can spare him the horror she’s inflicting on him—and you, and Linnie.”

“Aye.”

She felt chilled in her wet clothes in the damp crypt. Her flesh was raw with goose bumps, and she was trembling. She worried she would soon collapse from exhaustion—from lack of sleep and the physical and emotional trial Noo’kas had put her through. The night had ended, and morning was near. She stood up.

“I have to release you now, Pastor. I have to save Ezra.”

Pastor McKee heaved a choked sob that had been held back for more than a century. Tears came to his eyes, pooling above pink lids. “Tha’s right—brave, kind gaerl. Tha’s right.”

Chapter 41

H
ESTER’S SHIVERING INCREASED
, but she wasn’t sure if it was just the chill. Unpinning Pastor McKee’s spirit meant ending what little life he had. Was it the same as murder? It was so final. She didn’t know if she had the strength to do it.

“I thenk et’s time you tried your faerst nep of scotch, Hester,” he spoke up. “Et will do you good. Et will calm your naerves and warm you up.”

“Alcohol makes your core body temperature go down,” she mumbled. Her jaw quivered so violently that her teeth chattered.

“Ah … well … no’ en my day. But et will give you fortitude, and you need tha’ now.” He was somber—more subdued than she had ever seen him.

She nodded in agreement. At the very least, she could call it the first step in her miserable task. Maybe subsequent steps would follow, if she just took the first one.

She flipped the flask over and over in her hands. She rubbed it against her shorts—with all of its recent handling, it had regained most of its shine. It was a beautiful little thing, and it showed its age in its fine workmanship. Hester imagined its journey through time: from the silversmith who crafted it, to McKee’s mother, to McKee, to America, to almost a hundred forty years under the ocean, and now to her. Lifetimes had come and gone in the meanwhile. She pulled out the stopper, which was a cork embedded in a decorative silver cap. She sniffed it and suppressed the urge to wrinkle her nose. It might as well have been lighter fluid, as far as she understood scotch.

“It smells good,” she lied, looking across the room at him. He smiled broadly.

She knew enough science to know that there could be nothing poisonous about it: silver is inert; alcohol is itself a preservative; it had been tightly sealed in a dark, cool place. It would be as healthy for her as the day it had been distilled in Morangie, which is to say, not very.

She took a gulp. An instantaneous, piercing burning gripped her throat. It was impossible to swallow and cough at the same time, but her throat tried to make her do it. When she finally did let out a single sharp, spraying bark it was too late: the liquid was already on its way down, making her aware of every inch that it traveled. She felt it coating, burning, easing its way through her insides. By the time it reached her stomach, it was warm and genuinely lovely.

She forced another gulp, and this time she was able to swallow without coughing by holding her nose until the scotch was safely down her throat. And then she stood up, with her heart blazing fire, her face flushed, and the acrid smell of alcohol in her nasal passages.

“Here we go, my friend,” she said.

“God’s grace upon us.”

Pastor McKee walked toward her, and she walked toward him. He grimaced as they got close.

“I only ask, dinnae try to save me,” he blurted.

He extended his hand, trembling. She held out the flask. She tried to think of what she might say to talk him off the earth.

He grasped the flask and collapsed on the spot, as if he had been shot. Hester gasped. She knelt at his side.

He opened the bottle with monumental effort. His entire body began quaking with tremors. He managed to get the flask to his lips. It spilled, but some of it went into his mouth. He swallowed. He closed his eyes, in what Hester thought was either agony or ecstasy. The cork dropped to the ground and rolled on its side in an arc on the floor, landing next to her. In his seizure, he held the flask out to her, with the liquid splashing out of the narrow opening. He wanted her to have it. She took it from him and threw it down, lifting his head and shoulders onto her lap.

“What’s happening?” she asked him.

He looked at her with wide, frightened eyes. She saw bruises forming on his neck, and she gasped. He wheezed at first, and the sound got tighter until a high-pitched whistling barely escaped. His lips began to turn blue. She heard a rattling gurgle as his windpipe closed. She saw the bony structure of his throat collapse, as if an invisible hand had crushed it, and then—worse than the rattling—she heard eerie silence. His eyes bulged until she could see their ball shape protruding from the sockets. His face was bright red, and his body writhed as she held him, but not a sound escaped his mouth. His head shook wildly back and forth, as if saying no, no, no. He didn’t want to die!