The Cursed Blood, стр. 88
He took a bite of pizza, chewing slowly as he let the silence draw out just enough before continuing. “Took me an hour to coax her out of her silence and when she finally spoke, I almost wished she hadn’t as she proved my fears well warranted.”
Gramps grunted and pinched his nose as he smoked and tiredly shook his head as if he was staving off a devil of a headache that this story was threatening to make worse. White Owl ignored his skeptical look and resumed the story.
“She said the victim, Magdalen, had sent her to bed early and was planning to have her boyfriend over for a kissing scary movie session on her parents’ new couch. Typical teenager stuff. Told her that if she ratted on her, she would hex her cat. Alice didn’t like this much but felt she didn’t have much of a choice.”
“So, what happened?” I queried uneasily.
“Jesse said she was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and absolutely flummoxed that Magdalen had confiscated her favorite stuffed rabbit. A silly fluffy pink thing with a waistcoat and pocket watch that her Aunt had given her for her last birthday.”
“Well, that’s not nice. Why would she do that?” I asked perplexedly to which Gramps snorted and White Owl shook his head.
“Who knows.” He sighed. “But as Jesse lay there under her blankets in her pajamas, she said something felt different. She said it was cold, making her shiver even though the house was lovely and warm. Something was just not the way it should have been, and she pulled her blankets up over her head.”
“How could she be a witness then?” I asked confusedly. “If she had her head under the blanket how could she have seen anything at all, never mind a Click-Black?” Gramps gestured to me with a full mouth with his half-eaten crust as if to say, See, even he sees it’s poppycock, and he’s just a kid.”
“We’ll get to that in a moment,” White Owl answered with a full mouth. “She said she could hear the popcorn popping, her babysitter talking on the phone mounted to the wall by the stove in the kitchen, but she also heard something else…”
“What did she hear?” I gasped excitedly.
“A click-clacking. Like something tapping on stone and wood. I found out later that there was a vent to the basement in her bedroom, right beneath her bed,” he explained as he chewed. “She was hearing it creep from the boiler and up the stairs.”
“It comes from the boilers?” I asked wearily. That sounded preposterous. What kind of thing comes from the boilers?
He nodded and Gramps rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes indeed it did. Legend says that’s where it was made, so that’s where it climbs out of every year.”
“Made?”
White Owl grunted in agreement. “Yup. They say it used to be a young woman. A FeyBorn who was burned at the stake during the Witch hunts of colonial America—”
“Who says that specifically?” Gramps asked shrewdly between chews as he gave his old friend a one eyebrow arched look of heavily sarcastic disbelieving curiosity that earned him a rather rude gesture from the old Master.
“I say it. I am a very credible source.” At this Gramps nearly choked as he burst into laughter, ignoring the dark look he was getting from White Owl as he chewed on a candy corn. “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. She was a colonial girl. A Witch, and a skilled healer. But to them it didn’t matter a bit how much good she did precisely, condemned to be burned at the stake for what the ignoramuses that went for town folks deemed ‘Black-Magic.’”
“Wouldn’t the Oldfable have stopped them from seeing her magic?” I asked incredulously.
“Good point,” Gramps chuckled approvingly.
White Owl scowled and shook his head. “The Oldfable isn’t perfect, as you both know. The mundanes she lived amongst must have found it odd that folks who went to her, a simple country girl, for healing and medicine were better off than those treated by their educated physician. So, to them she was a devil worshiping Witch. It’s why Fey healers rarely help mundanes even now.”
“That’s awful.” I shook my head at this.
“Indeed, it was. To them her works were unnatural. Which to the ignorant means evil, and so as she stood tied to her log surrounded by kindling, just as they set a torch to her. She warned her killers they would never be rid of her. That her seared soul would come for those whose hearts hid darkness with the wings of reverence and decency on the anniversary of her death every year from then on.”
“An awful lot to say as ones burning at the stake,” Gramps scoffed derisively between bites. Once again White Owl ignored him as he carried on with his tale.
“Well, anyway. Jesse said she heard the creek of the basement door then an awful scream as she shivered under her blanket, then nothing but more clicking and clacking.” He finished off his slice and wiped a bit of grease on his blue stripped flannel shirt and again taking up his cup.
“What happened?” I asked as he poured more hot cocoa into his cup from his nearly ever present battered old thermos and took a sip. I remember at the time my heart was thundering in my chest and I was hanging on his every word.
“Her door creaked open,” he explained as he eyed the pizza box hungrily and set his cup back on the end table. “Little Jesse huddled in horror, shivering under the sheets, and heard something creeping across the carpet.