The Gathering Darkness (27 page)

I cleared my throat twice before I could speak again. “Wh … how can that be?

“When you hear the whole story, you’ll understand,” Uncle Edmund said.

Marcus looked at me wordlessly and shrugged.

Uncle Edmund flipped through a few more pictures and pulled out another one. “Excuse me, Brooke.”

He reached in front of me and handed Marcus the next one. I looked at it with him. It was a picture of two handsome boys. With the exception of hair length, the older boy looked exactly like Marcus. The younger boy looked similar to Marcus also.

And as I’d expected, the back read, Christian Knight, but I didn’t expect to read the name, Edmund Knight, below it.

“Christian and Edmund?” Marcus asked, sounding justifiably confused.

“Christian was my older brother.” Uncle Edmund paused and assessed us over the top of his glasses, and when we didn’t comment he continued. “He was seventeen when he was murdered.” He looked at Marcus again, who was silent. “It’s obvious to me now, that the two of you are Christian and Claire reincarnated.”

Marcus let out a sharp breath that sounded much like a sarcastic laugh. “Reincarnated?”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I said, coming out of my initial shock. “Not that I believe in reincarnation, but if I had been reincarnated, wouldn’t I look different? Wouldn’t we be somebody totally different?”

“Perhaps, but not necessarily. Who really knows? However, there is no mistaking that the people in these photographs are the two of you.”

Uncle Edmund stood and began to pace the room.

“Marky, it was around the time you’d turned twelve when I’d realized how much you looked like Christian; of course, I’ve always had the photographs to compare you with. I see it not just in your looks, but in your mannerisms and voice as well. Everything about you is Christian. The older you grew, the more undeniably certain I became.”

Marcus shook his head as if to clear it. “Okay, let me get this straight. You think that I’m Christian and Brooke is Claire and we were murdered? Who murdered them … us, then?” Marcus looked totally confused.

“You betrayed your coven. You were murdered for high treason against the coven.”

“What coven?” Marcus asked, his tone becoming slightly edgy.

“Margaret’s coven. The Coven of Seven. Claire and Christian were witches.”

I listened wide-eyed, chewing on a fingernail as the revelation of being a witch in a past life penetrated my brain.

“You practiced witchcraft at the Inn. I did odd jobs for Margaret and followed my big brother into the attic out of curiosity and into the woods to watch.

“Margaret was your Mother Priestess. Each of you controlled an element.”

“Wait a minute,” Marcus interrupted, holding up a hand. “You said there were seven, but there are only four elements.”

I looked at him astounded. “How would you know how many elements there are?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know; earth, water, fire and air. Everyone knows that.”

I just stared.

“Spirit can sometimes be a fifth element in the world of magic,” Uncle Edmund continued. “Margaret manipulated spirit, but Claire and Christian had a gift that no others had. A gift brought with them from another lifetime—an ancient lifetime. They could channel energy from darkness and light.

“Christian drew his magic from darkness and Claire from light. It was thought that if Claire and Christian were able to reach their peak in magic, that darkness and light together might have generated great power, but they were never to find out. Margaret had Claire and Christian killed as they were about to come into the peak of their power.”

“I’m lost,” Marcus said.

“As you should be. Jason, your best friend at the time, was one of the seven.” He walked back to the table and pulled another picture from the box and handed it to Marcus.

“No way,” I said, looking at the picture of Christian and Jason. My heart pounded in my throat.

“Yes, Brooke, Jason has been reborn also, and is now Evan. Like you, I suspect they have all been reborn.”

I shuddered at his words.

“Jason was Christian’s best friend and Claire’s fiancé.”

I let out a sharp breath in disbelief. There was no use trying to remember. I was reduced to using my imagination.

Something Uncle Edmund had said a moment ago registered. “We’d betrayed the coven,” he’d said. If Claire and Christian were so much in love, then they must have been having an affair. Claire betrayed Jason, thus betraying the coven.

Marcus ran a hand through his hair, tossed the picture on the table and stood. I was too weak to use my legs. I had a million questions, but couldn’t find my voice, so I sat there, waiting to hear more.

Uncle Edmund began again. “Christian was also betrothed.”

He handed Marcus another picture. Marcus looked at it for a second, laughed at the irony, then threw it on the table and walked away from us. I could see it clearly enough without picking it up. It was a picture of people who looked like Megan and Marcus playing dress-up in old clothes. His arms were around her waist and they looked happy.

My stomach twisted into knots. So Megan was telling the truth in the bathroom; he had loved her. “No wonder Megan hates me,” I mumbled to myself. “How could all of this be true? I don’t want to believe it, but everything that’s happened to me since I moved here shouldn’t be real either, and it is.” I let out a long slow breath.

Marcus sat heavily in a straight-backed chair across the room. Maybe he suddenly felt as weak as I did. This wasn’t just about me any longer. Marcus was every bit as much a part of this twisted tale as I was.

“You said there were seven of us, but you only mentioned four so far,” Marcus said.

“I have another picture,” I said to Uncle Edmund, remembering the picture of the seven black-robed people I’d found in Claire’s book. I pulled it out of my bag and handed it to him.

He pointed to every person, reciting their names as he did. “Jason, Christian, this one is Claire, Julia, Margaret, Sally and Emma, they’re all here.”

A cold shiver passed over me when I looked at the person he pointed out as Maggie. “She wants the pendant,” I said pointing to her.

“Of course she does. Its magic is deep and she knows it. Are you ready for more? Have you digested what I’ve told you?” He looked from Marcus to me.

“Tell us,” Marcus said from across the room.

I nodded, eagerly.

“The amulet possesses great power. Besides granting its possessor eternal youth, in certain hands, it can be forged into a powerful weapon by channeling energy from deep emotions, such as love and hatred, or severe weather, anything that emits natural energy—energy that only magic users have insight into. Used properly, the amulet can also channel energy from all five elements, plus light and dark.

“Claire found it on Skull Island. She’d said something beyond her control compelled her to go there, and once there, she felt a pull deep within her. That pull brought her straight to the amulet. She couldn’t help but take it.”

“Was it Maggie’s?” I asked.

“No. I will reveal the true owner’s identity soon. But, I will tell you that Margaret had the amulet in her possession for centuries. Margaret has never been reborn. With the aid of the amulet of immortality, she has lived a very long existence.”

“Why doesn’t she have it now?” Marcus asked.

Uncle Edmund hesitated briefly. “I took it from her, and she aged.”

Marcus and I looked at his uncle disbelievingly.

“It’s true. Once you were both gone, she’d let her guard down. It was easy for me to find it and take it.

“I wore it, on and off, for forty years. Today, at one hundred fourteen years old, I am as a man of seventy-four. Forty years younger than I rightly deserve to be.

“I knew I couldn’t stay young forever without speculation, so I tossed the amulet into the well on Skull Island where I knew Margaret had hidden Claire and Christian’s remains.”

I flinched at the visual that popped into my head. The bone I’d pulled out from under my leg in the well belonged to either Marcus or me. The inside of my head felt as if it was spiraling downward and I felt dizzy. I closed my eyes and composed myself as best as I could.

“Margaret found out about the affair between Claire and Christian. She used it as an excuse to execute them, though her real motive goes much deeper.” There was a moment of silence, and then Uncle Edmund said, “Tea anyone?”

His change-about was so sudden, it startled me. I was afraid he would retreat back into the befuddled old man I’d first met and not finish the story.

“Is that it?” Marcus asked, shocked. “Aren’t you going to tell us the rest?”

“In good time, Marky. Right now it’s tea time. You digest what I’ve just told you, and I’ll be back in a flash.”

Uncle Edmund exited the room, leaving the two of us alone and in utter shock.

A
s soon as Uncle Edmund left the room, my cell phone rang. After a whole repetition of the tune I’d downloaded for its ringer, Marcus lifted his head off the back of the chair and said from across the room, “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

I came out of my trance and pulled the ringing, vibrating phone from the back pocket of my jeans and looked at the display. “Damn,” I said when I saw who it was.

“Hi, Luke.”

“Hey, Country Girl. How’s it going?”

Oh geez, he was using Evan’s line in reverse. “Um, I really can’t talk right now, Luke.”

I hated to give Luke the brush-off, but with everything I’d just learned from Uncle Edmund, I couldn’t deal with normal life.

“What’s up? Its lunch time there, isn’t it?”

I’d completely lost track of time and the fact that it was a school day.

“Yeah, it is.”

I glanced across the room at Marcus, who stared at the floor, fidgeting with a corner of his shirt tail, looking as if he was in a daze.

“Um, I’m at basketball tryouts.” I cringed at the lie.

“Oh. Call me later then, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He hesitated. “I have something to tell you. Well, I’ll talk to you later. I miss you.”

I blinked back tears. “Yeah, me too. Hey, tell Courtney I said hi, okay? See ya.”

“Who’s Luke?”

Marcus’ voice was closer then I’d expected it to be. I jumped in my seat and dropped the phone onto the floor. Marcus bent over, picked it up, and handed it to me.

“Um, Luke’s an old friend, Courtney’s boyfriend.”

I hadn’t liked lying to Luke, but I hated lying to Marcus. A huge pang of guilt nestled in among the other emotions I was feeling.

Marcus sat beside me on the edge of the sofa.

“Do you believe any of this?” I asked, intentionally changing the subject.

“If I hadn’t witnessed your miracle the other night, then I probably wouldn’t. But the fact is, those scratches healed themselves right in front of my eyes. Or something healed them. So why not believe it?” He sounded defeated.

I nodded.

“And what about the pictures?”

“Well, if it is true, I was meant to move to Deadwich. This was all meant to happen. Maggie probably expected me.”

“I wonder how old she really is,” Marcus said.

Just then, Uncle Edmund entered the room carrying a tray. On the tray sat a China tea set and an assortment of sandwiches, cut into triangles with their crusts cut off.

“Morwenna is her Welsh name. She arrived in Massachusetts on the Mayflower in 1620.”

“1620?!” Marcus blurted.

“Yes. However, she is older yet. Christian and Claire were first born in Wales about a thousand years ago.”

My eyes bulged at the time frame.

“Then, Christian’s name was Kalan and Claire’s was Bryn.

“What would you like in your tea dear?”

Although Uncle Edmund meant well, the interruption was annoying. I didn’t even drink tea, but took it with a drop of milk and one sugar cube. It wasn’t that bad. He insisted we eat the sandwiches he’d made while he continued.

“Where was I?” He laid a finger on the side of his chin in thought.

With a mouthful of pastrami and Swiss, I blurted, “Wales! A thousand years ago!”

“Right you are. Kalan and Bryn came from two very different families. Kalan was born of the most powerful family of witches in all of Britannia.”

I stopped chewing and looked at Marcus sitting next to me, seeing him in a new light. He stared, expressionless, into his cup.

“Bryn … .”

Uncle Edmund paused and looked at me above his glasses. I swallowed my last mouthful of sandwich and held my breath, staring intently at Marcus’ uncle.

“Well, Bryn’s family was also powerful in magic for their kind.”

“Their kind?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“Yes. You see, Bryn was a fairy.” He sat quietly, staring at me.

A sharp laugh burst out of me. I cupped my hand over my mouth in case there was any food left inside. “Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes to the ceiling then back to Uncle Edmund. I’d never seen a more serious look on anyone’s face. I shook my head in total disbelief.

“Uncle Edmund, you can’t be serious,” Marcus said leaning forward. “You don’t expect us to believe in fairies too, do you?”

“I assure you, Marky, it is very true. From what Christian had told me, fairies had grown out of their wings ages before and blended effortlessly among humans for centuries, but their power had never diminished.