Grounded for All Eternity, page 11
“So if we hadn’t been messing around by the veil, Parris would still be in Hell,” I said. “Which brings this back to being our fault and, again, a Cage-worthy offense.”
“Not if we get him back,” Crowley said, a calculating expression on his face.
“How’s your magic?” I asked.
Crowley held up a hand, and a wisp of barely visible smoke drifted lazily up. I cringed. That was not a good look for our only magician.
There were no homey flames on the horizon, no comforting skitter of leaves—at least not ones that were running around themselves, just dead things being pushed by the wind. I was thankful for the streetlights, since the dark was suddenly scary in a way it had never been before.
Everything would be okay.
I just had to keep saying that.
“You knew,” I said, turning my attention to Lilith. “Before we tried to cross, you knew it wasn’t going to work.”
Lilith said, “If the gate just needed whatever Aleister energy was still attached to his bandana, then it would have let us through the first time. It didn’t let us through then. There’s no reason to think that bringing Aleister up on the scrying mirror would make a difference. We were only supposed to use that to find him, here, on this side of the veil.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Lilith shrugged. “I could have been wrong.”
“You’re never wrong,” I said. And if it sounded bitter, well, even I had moments when I was less than perfect. “What are the odds of being forgiven for this?”
“If we don’t fix this,” Crowley said, “we will pay the consequences.”
“Agreed,” Lilith said.
And I suppose I knew that was the answer. The Powers That Be wouldn’t want to send kids to the Cage, but they would. Maybe Lucifer would let us out after a while, but a while could be a really long time for an infinite being.
“Um, so here’s the other thing,” Lilith said, because apparently there needed to be a But wait, there’s more!
“We only have until dawn. When the sun rises, the veil closes… until next year,” Lilith said, cringing as she added that last part. “That’s why Terrence told us time was running out.”
“But my parents travel all year,” I protested.
“Yeah, to Purgatory and Heaven. Earth is pretty well locked down—you know that whole free-will, nonintervention clause—except for this one night.” She thought for a moment, cocking her head to the side in an adorable tilt. “Well, exceptions can be made at specific points during the year: solstices, equinoxes, eclipses, but those take major power and permission. Neither of which we actually have.”
“So how do we capture a soul, assuming we can even find it?” I asked. “What do they use at home?”
“A morningstar,” Lilith said, first with confidence and then with a look of utter despair.
Yeah, I knew that answer. We all knew that answer. The medallion was practically the first picture we colored when we were in preschool. I was just hoping that Lilith knew something I didn’t. She was supposed to be our squad’s Intelligence, after all.
Morningstars were medallions imbued with infernal magic, used to trap and hold souls belonging to Hell. They were made of a rare metal found only in the farthest regions of Hell and were always heavy and warm to the touch. I had never used one. But I knew how they worked, and how they felt. I had held one in my hand in school. The spiky pentacle over a rayed sun design had caught the light and pressed into my fingers.
“Which we also don’t have. Obviously,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes and taking out one of the comics he’d procured. The cover showed a white figure with little spikes on their head.
I noticed he wasn’t reading the words, which made me smirk for a second. You’ve got to focus on the positive when facing absolute doom. Seeing a crack in Crowley’s bravado, as small as it was, was my momentary silver lining.
“You could use a personal belonging. If the object was significant, there would be a memory, you see.” The woman’s voice, coming from beside us, became muffled with chewing. “Memories want to be reunited.”
We all froze.
“You’ll need some Latin, too, but it would work.” She sighed.
There was no choir. No heavenly light. Her wings drooped, and the white robe was smudged with chocolate and cookie crumbs, but there was no doubt that the woman sitting on a conjured chair next to us now was a heavenly angel.
The same seraph who had been stalking me all day.
TWENTY
Please don’t scream,” she said, holding one hand up and rubbing her forehead with the other, a plate of cookies in her lap. Her halo shifted with the gesture before returning to its place to glow steadily over her head. “I have a terrible headache.”
“Is she a—?” Crowley started, eyes wide, his comic book dropping to his side.
“Yes,” I confirmed. Lilith glared at me, and in her nonverbal dialogue practically screamed that I had been hiding things from her. She sort of had a point.
“You know, I am trying to take you to Heaven. Paradise? You know?” The angel sniffled. “You’ve escaped Hell. You should be jumping at the chance. I’m a terrible social worker.” She began to wail and then shoved a cookie into her mouth.
“We didn’t escape,” Lilith said, her voice shaking only slightly. “It was an accident. We’re trying to go back.”
“Why would you want to go there? Hell is a terrible place,” said the seraph.
“I mean, it’s a little slow on the weekdays, but it’s the suburbs. It’s not terrible,” I said. “It’s not like we live in the Pit.”
“Suburbs?” she asked, looking puzzled and sniffling a few final times.
“Yes, the residential section,” Crowley said with a look that clearly implied she should already know this. “Where do you think all the employees live?”
“Well.” The angel stopped. “I mean, isn’t it all just one big torturous pit of… torture?”
“We don’t live in the Pit,” Crowley said. “We haven’t even been there.”
“There was that field trip one time,” I interrupted.
“Yes, but we didn’t go past the offices,” argued Crowley.
“The point is,” Lilith interjected, “that we live with our parents in a nice residential area, not with the souls and demons in the Pit. Why would we want to go to Heaven?”
“Because it’s Heaven,” said the seraph, happy to be back on familiar territory, but clearly she still wasn’t quite getting it.
“Look, as much as my parents irritate me sometimes, I still want to live there,” I explained. “We all do.”
“But that’s just the thing,” said the seraph. “I can’t leave you with demons. You need to be brought to Heaven before they corrupt you, too. You’re all so innocent.”
I snorted. Crowley raised an eyebrow.
“Wait… demons?” Lilith asked.
“Yes, your parents.”
“Our parents are not demons,” Lilith said. “And we’re certainly not going to turn into them either. Demons, that is, not our parents.”
“Speak for yourself,” Crowley said. “I’m not turning into my parents, either.”
“I’m sure they’re very nice,” the seraph said. “But you see, I can take you to Heaven right now. There’s no need to worry.”
“We don’t want to go,” I said very, very slowly.
“Yes, you do,” said the seraph, just as slowly. “You just have Stockholm syndrome.”
What was that supposed to mean? I glanced at Crowley, who was staring at the seraph like she was insane.
“Okay… I think we should start over,” said Lilith. “I’m Lilith. That’s Malachi, who you apparently have already met, even though he didn’t say anything like he should have, and this is Crowley.”
“I’m Cassandra,” the seraph said.
“So, Cas,” Lilith started.
“Cassandra,” corrected Cassandra. All right, we were not going to be buddies.
“Right, sorry,” Lilith said. “What were you saying about a personal possession being used to contain a soul?”
Cassandra straightened and brushed a few crumbs off her gown. “If you have an object that was important to the soul in question, then when you touch the soul with the object and say, ‘anima coniuncta,’ the two will combine into one. It’s a sort of metaphysical object memory. You can hold the soul inside the object until the counter-spell is spoken, ‘anima separate.’ ”
“So we just need to find an object that belonged to him,” Lilith said. “What do you know about Samuel Parris?”
Cassandra frowned. She waved her hands, and an ancient book with tattered yellowed pages appeared, floating before her. She muttered, “One sixty-five, one sixty-five…,” and the pages flipped of their own accord until she stopped them with a sharp poke of her finger.
“ ‘Reverend Samuel Parris was the puritan minister in Salem, Massachusetts, during the Salem witch trials, one of the most horrific cases of mass hysteria in American history,’ ” Cassandra read. “ ‘He was also the father of one of the afflicted girls and the uncle of another.’ ”
“He was a reverend?” I asked. “From… here? Exactly where we are?”
Parris was from this town? Had the opening taken us here because it used to be his home?
“Yes,” Cassandra said. “A terrible one, who orchestrated the Salem witch trials of 1692. More than two hundred people were accused and twenty were executed. Samuel Parris collected quite a bit of the accused’s belongings and property. It was just awful.”
“Afflicted girls?” Crowley asked.
“Girls who said they were victims of witchcraft. Their accusations were taken as truth,” Cassandra said. “You see, Parris excelled at causing chaos. All to his benefit, of course. It’s not that difficult; humans are always looking for an enemy. He preached at the meetinghouse at the corner of Forest and Hobart.”
Cassandra waved her hands vaguely, and glowing lines raced across each other as a map drew itself in the air. I memorized the route just before Cassandra realized what she was doing, and with an angry swipe, the book and map were gone.
“Why are we talking about this?” Cassandra demanded, and for a moment her glow brightened ominously. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I said. “We didn’t do anything.”
Cassandra studied our faces for a few moments, but we must have looked honest, because her glow lost the harsh edge and then faded away altogether.
“But,” I said, “we think he may have slipped through the veil and returned to Salem.”
“But if this is true, it’s terrible,” Cassandra said, suddenly standing, dropping her plate of cookies in the process. Instead of shattering, the plate, and the cookies with it, disappeared just before it hit the ground. “Oh dear.” She looked down, frazzled, at her rumpled appearance, cookie crumbs and chocolate smears staining her gown. With a wave of her hand, she was clean and glowing brighter than ever. “I have to alert the office.”
She started to leave, then turned and looked at us hesitantly. We all took a step back. She scowled momentarily and disappeared.
“Let’s check out that meetinghouse,” I said. “Fast.”
TWENTY-ONE
We were able to find the intersection of Forest and Hobart Streets in no time. And it wasn’t like I’d been exactly expecting a little glowing ball of Parris soul hovering over the object we needed to bind him (how convenient would that have been?!), but I had been expecting something more. Like maybe a building, but instead of a meetinghouse there was a small, paved area surrounded by grass, and a blue signpost holding a plaque.
Lilith approached the metal plaque and began to read: “ ‘Directly across from this site was the original Salem Village meetinghouse where civil and military meetings were held, and ministers including George Burroughs, Deodat Lawson, and Samuel Parris preached. The infamous 1692 witchcraft hysteria began in this neighborhood.’ ”
A chill went up my spine. I really missed the warm glow of flames and the friendly cover of blackness at home, which was so different from the empty dark of the Salem night.
“ ‘On March 1 accused witches Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and Tituba were interrogated in the meetinghouse amidst the horrific fits of the “afflicted ones,” ’ ” Lilith continued. “ ‘Thereafter numerous others were examined including Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Bridget Bishop, Giles Corey, and Mary Esty. Many dire, as well as heroic deeds transpired in the meetinghouse. In 1702 the meetinghouse was abandoned, dismantled and removed to this site until the lumber “decayed and became mixed with the soil.” ’ ” Crowley muttered something about people being thorough, but Lilith ignored him. “ ‘In 1992 a memorial was erected to honor the witchcraft victims, and to remind us that we must forever confront intolerance and “witch-hunts” with integrity, clear vision, and courage.’ ”
“It’s gone,” I said.
“You know,” said Lilith, “I never really give much thought to what’s in the Pit. They tell us in school, of course, but you never really think about what it holds. Or why. Our parents’ jobs—our jobs—are really important.”
The familiar argument of My wings don’t define me tried to claw its way out of my throat… but it was a weak protest. The job was important. For someone to do.
I had seen images of souls in the Pit before. They were so insubstantial, foggy white specters, oblivious to anything but their own suffering. It was hard to see them as a threat. But they hadn’t always been like that, and there was a reason why they were there. There was a reason why they had to be locked away.
“We shouldn’t have been messing around by the veil,” I said.
The Pit wasn’t just punishment. It was necessary to keep the universe in balance. It was necessary to keep evil and its influence locked away where it couldn’t drive out the good. Where it couldn’t infect creation like a virus. Something like that could turn a perfectly peaceful world into chaotic madness.
You know, like Salem at this very moment.
I froze. Hadn’t I thought things felt wrong? Hadn’t Sean said things were crazy? Didn’t that imply that the chaos was not just because of Halloween or the full moon?
I wasn’t naive enough to think that a manipulator couldn’t be dangerous. I knew they could. Hitler had made a pretty big splash when he’d arrived, and he was held in the eighth circle, but it was rare that a manipulator caused mass damage. The harm was usually on a much smaller scale.
Most souls weren’t even aware of their surroundings, and they certainly didn’t change. Dead souls were static, but not Parris. And now he was not only free from his prison but loose in the mortal coil.
I found myself angry at my friends again. If we hadn’t been messing around by the veil, Parris would have still been in Hell. Maybe not in the Pit where he belonged, but still contained. Still surrounded by his guards. I knew I was being unreasonable. They hadn’t meant for it to happen, and even though I had given token protests, I hadn’t really thought there was any danger either.
“It’s not like we knew it was going to happen,” Crowley said, echoing my thoughts. “And what did they expect, locking us away all week? During vacation! It was supposed to be awesome, and it sucked—the whole thing. I would say this is not even the worst part.” And then his rant faded away, and his face fell. “Though I could be wrong…”
I followed Crowley’s gaze and turned, and any questions about what exactly had happened at the veil and whether we truly had brought Samuel Parris through with us were answered with surprising clarity.
He should have been nothing more than a shimmer of light, the faintest glimpse caught out of the corner of your eye. In fact, exactly like the thing I had been seeing all night. So there was no way I should have been looking at a fully realized man. A fully realized man that could only be Samuel Parris.
Okay, he was see-through and flickered occasionally, but I could see him.
Pointy nose, curly dark hair that fell to his shoulders, a black suit and weird white ruffly thing at his neck; it was all visible. And it shouldn’t have been, not at all. He looked more like Faust than the imprisoned soul he was supposed to be.
We backed into each other, forming a tighter group as we looked in horror at the thing that should not have been. Parris smiled and took a deep breath, though a soul shouldn’t need to breathe. Shouldn’t be able to, really, what with the no-lungs thing. He flickered and was gone.
“That’s not right. How is that possible?” Crowley asked.
“I—I don’t know,” Lilith stuttered. Whether she was shocked more because of Parris or because she didn’t know the answer was probably a toss-up. I could count the number of times Lilith hadn’t known an answer.
Seven. The number was seven.
“We are in so much trouble,” I said, wondering if perhaps taking Cassandra up on her offer was really such a bad thing. How bad could Heaven be? I was sure I’d be adopted by a perfectly nice family who wouldn’t blame any of this on me. I could learn how to play a harp, and hopefully I would get my wings back. They might end up all white and fluffy instead of black and razor sharp, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make.
“It’s not possible,” Lilith said.
“Clearly it is,” Crowley said. “We need something to capture him.”
“The sign says the humans let the building crumble to the ground and disintegrate, because of what they did here,” I said. “Anything associated with Parris was probably destroyed, and there’s no way we’re going to find a morningstar here.”
If something was so hated that the ruins of a building associated with it had been left to fall and disintegrate, a concept I couldn’t really process, then why would they have kept anything from inside the building? I couldn’t understand, and that was the problem.
I wasn’t human, and this wasn’t my world. And yet Crowley and Lilith were looking at me as if I would immediately have a plan, like I would have all the answers. How was I supposed to do that?
