13 Curses (43 page)

Red held her hand in front of her face and couldn’t see it. There was nothing but darkness, as though an inkwell had been upset and the contents had gone into her eyes. She found the wall of the tunnel and clung to it for support, her thoughts of the charm pushed from her mind.

Eternal darkness… was this to be her curse? Never to see light, never to see anything again? Something forced its way up her throat, a sob mingled with a scream. It erupted as a strangled sound that seemed alien to her.

“Red!” Tanya called. “Try not to panic! We can do this—once you get the charm it’ll be all right. Trust me! We’re going to get you out.”

“How?” she cried. “I can’t even see an inch in front of my face!”

“Just stay calm,” Fabian shouted. “The darkness has confused you—you’re facing the wrong way. Turn back around, listen to our voices to guide you.”

Red turned, still keeping one hand on the wall to steady herself, and started back the other way.

“Good,” said Fabian. “Now you need to come out into the center of the tunnel. Take three small steps to your right.” He paused while she did as instructed. “Now get back down on your hands and knees and start moving slowly in this direction. The charm is directly in front of you.”

Red crawled forward, grit digging painfully into her knees and the heels of her hands. The darkness was all-consuming, and Fabian’s voice was her only
beacon. She tried to block out everything else and just concentrate on what he told her to do.

“Now stop,” he instructed. “The charm is right in front of you! Reach out slowly until you find it.”

Red patted the ground in front of her, careful not to brush the charm away. Her hand found it, cold and hard. She curled her fingers around it and felt in her pocket with her other hand.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m getting the bracelet out. If I can get the charm back on it—”

“No!” Tanya shouted. “You could drop it. Just get the charm and get out of there.”

Reluctantly, Red pushed the bracelet deep into her pocket, though every instinct was fighting to do whatever it took to try and see again. Attaching the charm to the bracelet was the only thing that would stop the curse….

She stood up uncertainly and began to move on. No sooner had she stepped past the point where the charm had lain than the air changed again, growing heavier, swirling around her in fierce gusts. And suddenly she realized it was not just air… it was the shadows, fighting angrily against letting her go….

“Red, keep moving!” Tanya yelled. “The shadows are all around you—just keep coming toward us, you’re nearly there!” Her arm was aching with the pressure of keeping the flashlight trained on Red. Fabian had taken his flashlight back and also had it pointed at the girl staggering blindly toward them, her arms outstretched.
All around her the shadows loomed, engulfing her, growing more turbulent by the second.

“The steps are in front of you!” Fabian called.

Red stumbled, landing heavily on the cold stone. She cried out as her wrist took the brunt of her fall, but somehow managed to keep her fist clamped around the charm. Close to tears, she crawled up the steps, feeling the welcome air of the outside on her cheeks. Then hands were on her, hauling her out of the cavity and onto her back, where she lay on the spongy wet grass in the blackest night she had ever seen.

Tanya grabbed Red’s clenched fist, prying it open to reveal the charm in her palm and taking care not to touch it. She looked into the girl’s eyes, and saw them dark and blank and unseeing. It was a terrifying sight, and she prayed that whatever curse the charm had put on her would be dispelled once it was back on the bracelet.

Fabian had drawn the drawstring pouch from Red’s pocket, and was now carefully lifting the bracelet from the mound of salt inside. He brushed it over the candelabrum. The moment the charm reattached, Red gasped and her eyes cleared.

Simultaneously, a vast, hissing wall of shadow burst forth from the tunnel entrance like lava from a volcano, whooshing past them and sending Tanya’s hair flying skyward. It curled up into the sky and then filtered back down, settling into the darkened cracks and crevices of the churchyard. The shadows were now as they should be.

Red lay on her back, half laughing, half crying, with Oberon licking her face enthusiastically and Tanya and Fabian looking on in relief. The navy-colored sky was full of cloud, allowing only the brightest stars to shine through where it parted.

It was hardly perfect, but to Red it was beautiful. She allowed herself a minute to take it in. Then she got up, pushing any thoughts of defeat or vulnerability from her mind, and faced Tanya and Fabian.

“Are you ready to look for the next charm?”

Beneath the fake gravestone, the entrance to the tunnel was surrounded by a low stone frame that held the slab a little way from the ground. There were three sections to the slab, the centerpiece being the one that concealed the tunnel. Had the three sections been one, it would have been impossible to lift. Under the end sections there was just earth. There was a dip in the frame where they sifted through dirt, dead leaves, dead insects, and mice, with bated breath, for the next charm.

“Remind me of the ones we still have to find,” said Fabian, poking a twig into another crevice. “We might be able to try and prepare… you know, what to expect.”

“In the way of curses, you mean?” Red asked.

Fabian nodded.

“There’s the Staff for strength; the Dagger, which drips blood that can heal any wound; Glamour, the mask of disguise; the Key, which will open any door—even to other worlds—and the
Book of Knowledge
.”

Tanya sifted through a handful of soil.

“I don’t fancy finding any of those in a graveyard.”

“Well, one thing’s certain,” Red said grimly. “There’s nothing here.” She shook dirt from her lap and stood, looking over to the edge of the graveyard.

“Shall we shift the slab back in place?” Tanya asked.

Red shook her head. “Leave it open in case we have to make a quick escape.” She started walking, away from the center of the graveyard and over to where the real grave was. She sensed Tanya and Fabian dragging behind reluctantly, and pointed them over to the caretaker’s keep, where two heavy shovels sat.

“Why don’t you see if you can find a way into the church?” she said to Tanya, once Fabian had brought the shovels over.

Tanya did not relish the idea, but it was preferable to sticking around while Elizabeth Elvesden’s grave was dug up. She vanished around the side of the church, leaving Red and Fabian staring at the ground.

“Let me dig up the grass,” Fabian said at last. “I can do it in sections, so we can replace it afterward.”

“You mean like turf ?” Red asked. “All right.”

Fabian set to it, removing small, square sections of grass piece by piece. The dampness of the ground
made it easy work, and thankfully the grass was holding together. Once enough had been removed, Red picked up the other shovel and they began to dig.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Fabian muttered. “We could go to prison, you know.”

“We’d have to get caught first,” said Red, throwing another shovel of soil to the side.

Soon they were three feet down into the grave. The deeper they got, the less they spoke, nerves overtaking everything. Soon Tanya returned from the church.

“I think I’ve found a way in,” she said, purposely avoiding looking into the grave. “Around the back—there’s one of those narrow windows that doesn’t have any glass. It’s got mesh over it instead, but it’s coming away. We could probably pull the rest of it off. There are bottles of turpentine and things on the window ledge, so I think it must be a storeroom. It’s too narrow for an adult to get through, but I might be able to manage.”

“We’ll try the church last,” said Red.

Tanya turned from them and went to sit a little way away, near one of the other unconsecrated graves.

“I don’t know how you can bear it,” she said. “I won’t be able to look when you open the coffin.”

“There won’t be much left,” said Fabian. “The decomposition process would have happened much quicker back in those days when—”

“Thanks, Fabian,” Tanya interrupted. “I didn’t want a science lesson.”

Fabian shut up and carried on digging. As he struck the shovel deep into the earth, a loud rumble came from nearby. Red stopped what she was doing.

“Whose tummy was that?”

Fabian paused and looked at Oberon, who was sitting at the edge of the grave, looking in.

“Not mine. It must have been greedy guts over there.”

“He’s not greedy,” Tanya began crossly. “He can’t help having a big appetite—”

The rumbling came again, louder this time and more of a shaking, rattling sound.

“What
is
that?” Fabian said.

There was another sound now, a creaking, groaning noise over where Tanya was sitting. She leapt to her feet at once with a shout.

“It’s coming from… from
underneath
us!”

All around the graveyard, the ground scratched and creaked and shifted. Roots shot up through the earth, and as Red looked down at the disturbed ground, she saw writhing masses of underground creatures oozing out of their habitats: worms, beetles, centipedes, and slugs. She shook a worm off her foot and stepped back, placing her hand against the side of the grave, then jumping and flinging away something slimy that it landed in.

“What’s going on?” Fabian whispered. “It’s as though something’s driving everything out of the earth!”

They got their answer that very second when Tanya
screamed—a shrill, piercing sound that rang through the graveyard. Something long and pale had burst from the earth and brushed against Tanya’s ankle. Red grabbed her flashlight from the side of the grave and jerked it sharply in Tanya’s direction. It took a moment to aim it correctly, but when Red finally saw what it was, the flashlight slipped from her hand and fell to the ground.

“Tell me that’s not a hand?” Fabian yelled. “Or to be more precise—a
skeleton’s
hand!”

But that was exactly what it was. With a shout, Tanya started to run—as a second skeletal hand broke free from its grave and clawed at the air in front of her. She dodged it, only to be faced with another.

Red opened her mouth to shout to her, but was silenced as the dirt beneath her and Fabian trembled.

“Get out, now!” he yelled, pulling himself out of the grave. He reached for Red’s hand but she ignored it and remained where she was.

“We must be near a charm!” she said. “It’s the only explanation—there has to be one in the grave! We can’t leave now!”

“You’re nuts!” Fabian shouted. “We can’t stay here, look what’s happening—look around you!”

“Exactly—we’re close!”

Oberon yelped as bony fingers pushed through the dirt and skimmed his tail. He fled to Tanya’s side, whimpering.

There was scratching beneath Red now, the scrabbling and tapping of bone on weak, rotten wood. Red
heard it give, splintering as the thing inside that should be dead pushed against it, forcing it to yield. Then from the dirt a hand of ivory bone pushed its way into the night air for the first time in two centuries. Tattered fabric flapped at its wrist like an injured bird—the lacy remains of some once-grand burial dress that was now barely more than a cobweb.

The hand reached around wildly, seeking something to grab that would help launch it from its grave. Red stood well back, rooted half in fear and half in determination. Another scratch, more splintering wood. A second hand, balled into a fist, escaped the depths of the earth. And within the gaps in the bones, something tiny and silver.

“The Key,” Red whispered, the short hair on her nape rising like a cat’s. “Now it makes sense.”

“What makes sense?” Fabian yelled, hopping from one foot to another, dodging the rapidly increasing number of hands appearing all over the graveyard. From the more recent graves came nothing but thuds and dull moans. These were the fresh ones, where the wood was still good and strong, keeping the contents in. And suddenly Red thought of her own parents, dead in the ground.

“The Key can open other worlds,” Red said softly. Her fear ebbed away with understanding. “It’s opened the world of the dead, bringing us to them, or perhaps even them to us. We don’t have to be afraid of them.”