Will stayed calm until he tried to move. His left arm and right leg twitched, but there was no other response from his muscles. Fear set in then. He did not know if he could even fight this shadow, but being completely helpless before it terrified and enraged him. He spoke some incoherent words and tried to move again.
“Take it easy,” said a familiar voice. The shadow separated into two forms. The second wore a sort of gown or robe that went to the ground. “Get his feet,” said the first.
Jimmy Duffy, looking taller from ground level. Jimmy stepped from view and a moment later grabbed Will by the shoulders, lifting him. His head bobbed against Jimmy’s chest while the robed figure tried with some difficulty to lift his legs. Will felt strength return and started kicking. The figure dropped his feet at once.
“What are you doing?” Jimmy snapped.
“He’s kicking me,” whined a young male voice, not at all what Will was expecting.
“Useless pussy,” Jimmy grumbled. Then louder, in Will’s ear. “Can you stand on your own?”
“I’m, I’m a...”
“I’ll take that as yes.”
The other two slipped under each of his shoulders and moved forward. Will found that his stumbling feet could keep pace with them. Through the open door they went, where it was brighter than Will expected. A glowing orange rectangle shone in the center of the living room floor. The sofa had been pulled away, the Oriental carpet rolled, just as Sam and Will intended days ago. And a three-by-six foot trapdoor sat upright on its hinges, revealing a narrow stair. The light wavered, and thin smoke drifted upward.
“There isn’t room for us to go down like this,” Jimmy said.
Will shoved the robed kid aside with his left arm, and Jimmy dropped his still-numb right one. And he was standing under his own power. Barely. Jimmy went first, a hand bracing Will’s chest as he descended, one careful step at a time. The younger man came after, obviously afraid to touch Will again.
The chamber was small. Seven feet high and just wide enough for a long wooden table and low shelves crammed with books. Candles were on the table, flickering vigorously as Will came down. The scattered light caught parts of five seated bodies. At the head of the table sat a robed and hooded figure. A dark red book was on the table before it. The robe was gray and supple with age. Symbols were stitched along the sleeves and the belt.
The other four figures were women, and Will began to recognize them. Molly Jordan was on the robed figure’s left, facing Will. A kind expression on her face. He was more surprised to see Margaret Price beside her. Her mouth was a hard line, and candlelight made orange flares of her glasses, obscuring her eyes. Beside her was an empty chair, and at the foot of the table was a very old woman he did not know. Also robed. Two more empty chairs sat on the near side, but between them a woman shifted painfully around in her seat, a cane beside her. Thickset, gray-haired, looking a decade older than she was, Nancy Chester peered curiously at him.
The young man who had come down behind Will took one of the empty seats. Splotch-faced and nervous, he could not have been more than a teenager, and his shiny black robe looked silly and cheap. Like something his mother had sewn for him just a few Halloweens ago. Will balanced himself against the empty chair to the hooded figure’s right. Jimmy hovered next to him, as if fearing he would bolt back up the stairs. It took Will a few moments to notice the last occupant. Standing in the corner, her arms folded. Blond hair covering most of her downturned face. Will was about to say her name when the figure at the head of the table rose and folded back the hood.
“Welcome, William,” said Tom Hall, a warm smile on his face.
“Took long enough,” Margaret Price added.
“Are you all right?” Molly asked. “You don’t look good.”
“We knew he was coming,” Margaret scolded Tom, seemingly annoyed with all of them. “You should have removed the protection.”
“If he’s fool enough not to knock,” croaked the robed old woman at the foot of that table, “he got what he deserved.”
Will didn’t like the old hag’s tone, but he was inclined to agree with her.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, testing his own voice. Then, with more strength: “What are you all doing?”
“Making things right,” said Nancy Chester.
“We’re trying to undo the harm we did,” Molly said earnestly, the candlelight playing wildly on her broad face.
Margaret Price sniffed. She had nothing to do with that earlier business, and clearly did not like being included in “we.”
“Where’s Evelyn?” Will asked her. “Shouldn’t she be here?”
“My mother,” said Margaret, adjusting her glasses, “does not wholly approve of this gathering.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Why are you?” she shot back.
Because I didn’t know what I was walking into, he thought. Though that was at least half a lie. Still, he did not like Evelyn’s absence. She was mean, but he trusted her. He was not sure there was anyone in this room he trusted, however much it grieved him to think that.
“We’re all here tonight to assist you in your struggle,” Tom announced. “If you let us. I think you know most everyone. This,” he said, pointing to the woman at the end of the table “is Ruth Brown, who came all the way from Maine. Eugene Stafford there,” he pointed to the twitchy young man, “is her great-nephew, and not only consented to driving her, but to joining us in our ceremony.”
They had gotten so thin on Browns and Staffords, they had to import them. Three in the room counted as Halls. There was a Price and a Chester. Jimmy represented the Branfords, and of course Will now knew he was a Payson. Which meant that old Tom did too, as there was no other Payson here. Did they all know? Had they known all along? Had Sam?
“Looks like you’ve got one of each,” Will said dully.
“We’re a contrary, bickering bunch,” Tom replied. “But the families always pull together in times of need.” His blue eyes behind the thick lenses were alive with intelligence. Clearly he had remained coherent enough at one stretch to organize all of this. Would he lose focus again in a few minutes? Or was the senile Tom merely a fabrication? Some kind of cover? If so, he was a very good actor, for Will had found his bewilderment convincing.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this the last time we were here?” Will asked, fixing his eyes on the old man.
“There was nothing to tell,” Tom answered. “It was only when I saw you that day that I knew what was wrong. What was necessary.”
“And why are you the man to do this, when you screwed it up so badly before?”
“No,” said Molly quickly. “That was a summoning. We didn’t know what we were doing. This is a banishment.”
“And I’m supposed to think you know what you’re doing now?” Will challenged.
Tom shook his head slowly and raised his hands for silence.
“The ceremony was done properly. There was a break in the circle at a critical moment, and things went wrong.”
“You never should have tried it,” Will said.
“You’re right,” Tom answered sadly, his hands dropping heavily to his sides. He somehow managed to look regal in the ridiculous robe. “I’ve lived with it every day since then. But I can’t change the past.”
At least he had confirmation of that much. The men had argued, as Sam remembered. But it wasn’t Tom telling Johnny not to tamper with evil spells. It was Tom instructing him in their use, and berating Johnny when he got scared. And finally, it was Tom coming over to lead the ceremony himself. The ceremony Johnny had ruined by breaking the circle, by trying to save his son. A transgression he had paid for with his life.
“Why did you do it?” asked Will.
“The same reason as every man before me,” Tom replied. “To do it. To confer with a being outside of our normal experience. To gain knowledge unknown by men, and thereby add to the knowledge of our species. These aren’t small things, Will. We don’t know how much of human understanding, supposedly derived by science, was in reality brought to us by these messengers.”
“I didn’t think professors believed in shortcuts.”
“Oh, there’s nothing easy about it,” said Tom.
“Clearly not. So what were you going to do to me that night?” The old man blinked several times but did not speak. “Tell me,” Will demanded, slamming the table with his hand, toppling a candle.
“Mind your manners,” Ruth Brown croaked. “You don’t speak to an elder that way.”
“I’ll speak to this particular one as I please,” said Will.
“Didn’t your mother teach you better—”
“You don’t even know what this is about,” he snarled, energy returning to his body. “So just keep quiet.”
“Oh yes,” she murmured, nodding her ancient head. “Yes indeed. He’s got a devil in him all right.”
“You heard him,” said Sam, springing from her sullen pose against the wall. “You shut up, old woman.”
They were the first words she had spoken since he entered the chamber. And though he had come to depend upon her calm, her anger at this moment buoyed him. The others looked unnerved by Sam’s words, and Will’s.
“Can we get on with this?” Jimmy said.
“Answer me,” Will persisted.
Tom sighed and hung his head. Less in contrition, Will sensed, than like a professor thinking how to make a complex idea simple. Thunder sounded overhead, rattling the house.
“There is always some risk in summoning a spirit. If done right, the being is caught and held in its own form. Or formless, yet present.”
“What the heck does that mean?” asked Eugene Stafford.
“Hush,” said Ruth.
“If the summoning fails, the worst thing likely to happen is the spirit departs. In some cases, very rare cases, the spirit gets free. Even then,” Tom went on quickly, “there’s little risk, because most are benevolent. And yet a few of them, without doubt, are mischievous, and may choose to stay.”
“You’re talking about possession,” said Will.
“They may, for a time, take control of one of those present. Now, if the spirit is mischievous, and the body it possesses is strong, well, you can see what I’m saying, can’t you?”
“Say it.”
“There is almost no possibility that a being, a malevolent being, would occupy me, for instance. Yet were it to happen, with all that I know... It would be dangerous.”
“What does that have to do with Will?” asked Sam.
“The spirit is likely to choose the easiest body to enter and control.”
“A child,” Will said.
“Dear God,” whispered Molly.
“It’s an old custom to have a child present for a summoning,” Ruth Brown intoned. As if its being tradition justified it. “It soothes the spirit.”
“Luckily,” Tom went on, “that’s also the body from which it can do the least harm. And from which it is most easily dislodged. Assuming it doesn’t get bored and leave on its own.”
“Tell cousin Cindy that,” replied Will.
Irritation flashed in the old blue eyes.
“Cindy was a troubled girl long before that happened. Her father was a fool. No, that’s not fair. But Gerald was damaged in the war, not in his right mind. He never should have attempted something like that.”
“Sounds like you were there,” said Will.
“I was around, yes. You can learn from bad lessons as well as good ones.”
“So,” Will said, standing up straight. “I was someplace to dump the malicious little fiend if things got out of hand.”
“That’s a hard way to put it,” Tom replied.
“But true.”
“It never would have come to that,” the old man maintained.
“We don’t know, do we?” But he felt the fight going out of him. They could debate the past all night. His mother and Muriel might want them all to suffer for their offenses, but all he wanted was to be whole again. He looked at Sam. “Do I do this?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, hardly able to look at him. “You have to decide.”
It was what he expected. She had neither called him to this place, nor prevented his coming, which meant she was torn. Her grandfather at the head of the coven would have been enough to throw her all by itself.
“When you summoned the spirit,” Will said, turning back to Tom. “What name did you call it by?”
“No name,” Tom replied. “I know it’s been done that way. But it seemed foolish to call a single being, who may or may not be real, or respond to that name. Better to open ourselves to whatever spirit might be within the range of our call.”
“Then how the hell were you going to get rid of it afterward?”
“You continue to misunderstand,” Tom said calmly. “Most of these messengers are friendly. I intended that it should come of its own volition, converse with us at whatever length it chose and leave when it wanted to.”
“What if it didn’t?” Will pressed.
“There are means for extracting a name,” Tom said reluctantly. “If it came to that.”
“And you have it in mind to use those means tonight?”
The old man looked confused.
“I thought you knew the name,” he said. “That the being had spoken it to you.”
Will glanced at Sam, who wore a guilty look on her averted face.
“It spoke a word,” Will clarified. “Which might or might not have been a name. And which I might or might not have correctly understood.”
“It’s no good if it’s the wrong name,” Ruth tutted, shaking her head.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, Tom,” Margaret said.
“Wait,” said Nancy Chester. “What’s the consequence if it’s the wrong name? What would happen?”
Tom shrugged, obviously rattled by this unexpected turn.
“It won’t work. I can’t think of any consequence beyond that.”
Will looked hard at Ruth Brown, saw her puckered old mouth drawn up in a pout, as if she might have more to say on the matter. But it was Tom’s circle, not hers, and she kept quiet.
“Seems like Will ought to decide,” said Jimmy. Reasonably enough.
“We don’t have twelve people,” Will said, stalling.
“Twelve is ideal,” Tom replied. “But nine is sufficient.”
All eyes turned to Sam, who stood apart. Each of her hands squeezed the opposite shoulder. At first Will thought she had not heard, but it wasn’t that. She looked searchingly at his face. He had no idea what expression he might be showing, nor what she would see beneath it. Sam dropped her hands to her sides and stepped over to the table. Will began to sit down in the chair in front of him.
“Oh no,” said Ruth Brown, coming toward him, “that’s not your spot.”
After a brief protest, he climbed onto the table and lay down on his back, forcing himself to relax. Ruth arranged his arms and legs so that each pointed to a corner. She took off his sneakers and socks with the careless ease of a mother. Then she placed the five candles. One between his knees, one by each hip and two bracketing his head. He could see the flames jittering, feel the warmth on his ears. Finally, she took a pouch from her robe and flicked a pinch of the contents into each flame, muttering unheard words under her breath. Will smelled something spicy, sage or rosemary. He wanted to ask what she was doing, but instead imitated the dead silence of the others.
When she was finished, Ruth returned to the end of the table and placed one hand on each of his bare feet. Eugene Stafford and Jimmy placed a hand atop each of hers. Margaret took Jimmy’s right hand in her left, and Molly’s in her right. With her free hand, Molly took Will’s. Across the table, Eugene’s free hand linked to Nancy Chester’s, hers to Sam’s, and Sam’s to Will’s. They were all joined, except Tom. Who now pulled the hood of the robe over his head and peered downward.
“Close your eyes,” the old man said.
Will did so, and after a moment’s pause felt Tom’s hands clasp his temples and forehead. A current, low but strong, seemed to run through Will’s arms and legs, to hum in his belly and quiet his mind. There was a particular warmth where Sam touched him, and his sore right arm and shoulder felt better. He had not guessed it could feel so good to be physically connected to other people. To be encircled by care and protection. He felt tears seeping from his eyes.
“That’s all right,” said Tom. “It’s normal. Now, I need everyone’s full attention. Center your energy on young William here. Clear your minds.”
He began speaking in Latin. The older women recited with him, as if it was a familiar invocation, like the Lord’s prayer. Will caught something about “the heart’s circle” and “the powers of the earth,” but his disused Latin and dulled brain could do no more than that. Indeed, he felt his consciousness shifting in and out, and he began to lose track of time. At some point, the words slid from Latin to another language, more obscure and difficult. Welsh, or an old form of Celtic. Now only Ruth’s voice echoed Tom’s, and even hers went silent for stretches. As if the old man were venturing into enchantments unfamiliar to all but him. A long rumble sounded overhead. Again, Will felt himself slip out of and back into awareness. It took a few moments to realize the words had returned to English.
“...by the strength of our united and single will, and with the aid of those powers here present, we summon thee by the name of...” Will opened his eyes to see Tom’s face, red with effort, staring down at him. “Speak the name,” the old man instructed.
And a name came into Will’s head then. An unexpected name. It was on his tongue, ready to come forth, when Molly spoke first.
“Wait,” she said, and the energy of the circle wavered. “You mean banish, not summon. We’re banishing it.”
Tom huffed, and Will saw a frightening expression flicker over his lined face.
“We must summon it here first,” Tom said, keeping his concentration locked on Will. “Then we can banish it.”
“I’m not sure that’s right,” said Margaret uneasily. “Ruth, is that correct?”
Will could not see Ruth from his position, but the old lady made no reply. Tom’s grip on his damp forehead had slackened, but now the strong hands reasserted themselves with great force. Will felt the current rip through the circle once more, felt his tailbone rise up off the table. The sensation was not pleasant this time.
“Speak the name,” Tom said again.
Will tried to say something, anything. But the pressure on his head was making him take short, panicked breaths, and scrambling his thoughts.
“Speak it,” Tom ordered.
“Don’t” said Samantha urgently. “Don’t say it, Will.”
She seemed to be squeezing his hand, but then Will realized she was actually trying to release it. With the vise grip on his forehead, he barely managed to tip his eyes toward her. He saw her face grim with effort as she pulled her fingers away from his, one by one. Tom twisted Will’s head back straight.
“Speak the name,” he commanded again, in an ugly voice.
“What are you doing?” Will shouted through his fear. “What do you want?”
Tom’s reddened face was inches away, his eyes bulging. Furious. Mad. And then his expression morphed swiftly from rage to surprise. Or even fear. As if the circle held him hostage, and not the other way around.
“I only want her back,” he whispered.
Samantha’s fingers came free from Will’s, and the circle sprang apart. Will heard gasps and grunts all around the table, chairs scraping back. His own limbs quivered violently a moment or two and then were still.
He rolled onto his stomach, sweeping candles from the table, and rose to his knees. Tom Hall was collapsed on his chair. Arms at his side and glasses askew. The strong and fearful presence he had been just seconds before was utterly gone. He looked blasted, and Sam knelt by his side.
“Jane,” said the old man weakly.
“She’s not here,” Sam answered, taking his hand.
“She wasn’t supposed to leave.” The voice had become that of a sulking boy. “Cindy said I could have her.”
“Cindy?” Sam asked.
“No,” said Will, guessing. “He means the thing inside of Cindy. The demon.”
“They locked her in the cellar. She said if I let her out she would make Jane love me.”
“Jane loved you all on her own,” said Sam, her voice breaking. “But she’s gone.”
“I’ve seen her,” the childish old man cried.
“I have too, but that’s as much as we get. She won’t ever be back the way she was.”
“It promised me.”
“That’s why you called the coven that night,” Will said. “To bring it back. To make it keep its promise.” Tom made no answer. The long decades had vanished for him. He was a ten-year-old boy in love with the twelve-year-old Jane and willing to deal with the devil to have her. “I was going to be your host,” Will went on. “Like Cindy was before. Except my father interfered, and you called down lightning on him. You struck him dead.”
“Will,” Molly said. She was bent over in her chair, looking hardly better than Tom. “I’m so sorry. You never should have seen that. We should have thought of you sooner. Someone should have gone upstairs. It was so awful. A boy should never see his father like that.”
Her words were strange. His mind veered around them like negatively charged particulars. Refusing to adhere.
“I didn’t see anything,” he answered.
“Of course you did,” Molly said, “you ran right by him.”
“No. No, I went down the back...the back stairs.”
Visions flickered in his mind. Nausea rose in his gut. He looked at Sam for help. She gazed back at him steadily.
“There are no back stairs in your house,” she said.
There was a silver flash in the room above, and a loud boom. A ghost wind passed through the dank chamber and all the remaining candles were snuffed. Silence. And then one voice spoke.
“It’s here,” said Ruth.