The Blackwood Curse: A Night Shades Novel, page 23
Her eyes flashed to me on the screen, showing me she was still playing her part and I was grateful for it. I needed all the help I could get right now. Wax’s dad and uncle steered her from the room, leaving Wax with Lila again.
I wanted to throw something and rail at him. Every time they were alone, Lila got her claws deeper into him and he couldn’t see it. We were missing our chance to get into the cellar.
Then he shocked me. As soon as they were all out of earshot, he leaned forward on his stool and whispered, ‘What are they working on in the basement?’
For a single second, I thought Lila faltered. Like Wax had really caught her off guard. Then she just laughed and pointed a reproving finger at him. ‘I can see you are the intelligence of the family and shouldn’t be treated like a fool. Pay no mind to Ainsley.’
I simmered as she’d skilfully distanced herself from Ainsley’s treatment of him and edged closer to him on his stool. Pushing herself provocatively between his knees and touching a delicate hand to his face. Then, to my horror, she wound her finger between the tousled strands of hair on his forehead, as some pathetic excuse to touch him.
‘Wax … Wax?’ My blood boiled that he didn’t immediately push her away from him like the toxic thing she was. I covered my eyes, but, at the same time, I was compelled to watch; it was as if I had some kind of death wish.
‘Particularly as we need each other,’ she purred.
His eyes didn’t falter from hers and he didn’t look at me once. I could no longer speak. I was struck dumb; that he could do this right in front of me. Even though we needed the information, I would never do this to him. Not in a million years.
‘What are they working on?’ Wax said more quietly. ‘They’re down there too long to be just chatting over old times and they’re not that close.’
‘Oh my. You’re worried. No need to be,’ Lila said in a slightly mocking tone, edging ever closer to him, making him lose his train of thought. ‘He’s asking for your father’s help in a simple locator spell. His travels in Tibet will help us design a divining rod.’
I wanted to process what she said, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her mouth moving dangerously closer to Wax’s. I swear I would have thrown something if my hand could have gripped something real. Instead, the lights flickered.
She looked around and smiled, knowingly.
Wax drew her straight back to the point. ‘You don’t know where the fountain is?’ Wax’s mind was clearly working as Lila’s lips went to his and then began to kiss him along his jaw.
‘No one does. Jedediah burned the map and destroyed the tunnels that led down from the surface.’
My heart was thrashing in my chest and bile reached my mouth as Wax rested his hands on her hips and didn’t push her away. ‘Where do I fit in?’ he said, drawing her to face him. ‘You must need me for a reason.’ His actions were fluid and easy. Just like he was when he was with me. I couldn’t bear it.
Tears were streaming down my face while she pecked him on the lips and whispered, ‘Clever boy. I can see you will not be guided like the other Waxley-Black men.’ Her arms snaked around his neck and she pushed closer between his legs.
‘Oh pur-lease.’ I felt sick, hating everything about her and him for playing into her hands so easily. She’d moved effortlessly from seduction to flattery and back again and he’d lapped up every mouthful. I’d complained about being clueless with the opposite sex. This woman was giving me a master class with my own boyfriend and he was letting her.
‘I’m afraid, even if the tunnels were intact, we can’t simply go there. Jedediah had been working on his own charms to secure it before his death.’ She looked wistful for a moment, as if she really quite admired him for it. ‘All Waxley-Blacks and Blackwoods are linked to the curse and therefore trapped in this realm. I saw to it myself. So you see, despite being free of the mirrors, until I drink from the waters, it seems I can’t go outside the boundary of the spell.’ She smiled at Wax ruefully. ‘Jedediah saw to it that the mine simply wasn’t in it.’
Clever Jed. She may have manipulated and turned the two brothers against each other, but Jed had seen through her eventually and managed to use her own curse against her. I had to applaud him for that. It seemed a lot more clever than where Wax was sitting right now.
‘Can’t Ainsley just go and get it?’ Wax said.
She tipped her head as if he’d made a good point. Ainsley, his mother and father were all alive in the ordinary sense. ‘You would have thought so, wouldn’t you?’ she said, bitterly. ‘But no.’ Her eyes took on a faraway look and she moved back to perch on her stool. ‘When Jed discovered that Ainsley had helped preserve me in the spell, he was incensed and they fought.
Of course Jedediah tried, but he couldn’t break my curse and he knew Ainsley would kill him for the mine in the end. So before he died, he left one very clever caveat to the Will. The mine was to be held in trust in each generation of Waxley-Blacks and could only be inherited by the one who broke the curse. That is you, Master Waxley-Black. Not your father, not your uncle, but you. You brought the Blackwood here and you enacted and broke the curse. The mine is yours.’
Wax looked down at her hand that had covered his own and frowned. ‘Why didn’t past generations simply sell it or get rid of it if they could never do anything with it?’
I was still reeling from the information and I knew he was grasping at straws, but he still made a good point. Surely someone would have offloaded it in the past.
‘Foolish superstition. No one dared. All felt the weight of the curse so keenly they simply wanted to be freed. There had been no happiness between the two families and to lose the mine was to lose the opportunity,’ she said, proudly, with her crafty, self-satisfied smile. ‘Plus, everyone knew there was something of great value there. Greed made them hold onto it in the hope to one day obtain it.’
I guessed that would do the trick. The chance that someday someone in the family would be rich.
Wax was quiet, running things through his mind like I was. It was a lot to take on. We were the couple who had triggered the curse, except, this time around, I was the right person that fit the criteria to free Lila and Wax was the Waxley-Black now eligible to fully inherit the mine.
My mind went over and over it, but kept coming back to the same thing. Wax must never go there. All we had to do was stall until Lila’s time was up and she would simply cease to exist like she should have done a hundred and fifty years ago.
I was nervous at Wax’s hesitance. I knew he would have come to the same conclusions as me. Was he looking for a way to beat Lila, or was he running through his options now he stood to inherit a fortune? ‘What if I refuse to help you?’ he said, making me breathe a little easier.
She smiled regretfully and trailed a finger down the side of his cheek. I wanted to snap it off.
He smiled haplessly back. ‘I don’t exactly have much incentive to help my uncle, even if I wanted to help you.’
She put her head to the side, pursed her lips playfully and in a tiny, childlike voice said, ‘But all I need is one tiny vial, filled from the waters of the spring that flows through that mine.’ Her eyes narrowed and she became more shrewd. ‘You can bring back what you will – bucketloads, should you so wish. You could sell it and make your fortune. Banish your uncle,’ she said, with a flick of her hand. Then, more softly, ‘Give it to your brother and friends that I know are still around you. You could set them free too.’
His eyes brightened and a light came on with every word she said. I saw it clearly. Who could refuse an offer like that? It was an answer to all his prayers. His parents would be happy again. They could live a normal and happy life. ‘And Beccah?’
She smiled sweetly and pinched his cheek as if he should already know the answer to that one. ‘She is the crux of the curse, Wax. In your heart you know she can never leave. You yourself put her there. She must hold the two worlds up. The spirit and the real. Without her, none of the blessings I mentioned can happen. Without her, everything else falls.’
She held out her arms with her palms up. ‘Everything here. The halfway realms will collapse and she will simply die. Because she is neither one nor the other. To get her out would be to lose her for ever.’
Everything paled into insignificance after that. Wax was riveted to her every word. She had spelled it out so plainly. I was trapped and there was nothing anyone could do.
‘You can have it all, Wax. Your brother back, riches and go anywhere you want.’
* * *
I didn’t wait for Wax to carry me back to his room. I was too upset. I transported myself back to his computer screens in order to be life-sized when I faced him. I felt diminished enough.
Wax found me as soon as he walked in. There was no sheepishness, just a look directly into my eyes.
I laughed derisively. ‘So that’s why she’s been playing up to you.’ I felt spiteful and wanted to wound him in any way I could. I wanted a reaction. Hurt. Anything that would possibly make him feel bad for me and hate her. It was petty, I knew, but I was betrayed and scared and, what the hell, jealous. I hated that I hardly knew him and he could make me feel like this. ‘Only the one who broke the curse can enter the mine,’ I mimicked with my poorest impression of her posh British accent.
Wax looked at me curiously and sat on the stool. ‘And Ainsley has my father helping him make some sort of divining rod.’
‘What even is that?’ I said, guessing it was some kind of pointer.
‘It’s an ancient method to locate underground water or precious metals. It’s usually two sticks or metal rods that move independently.’ Wax crossed over his arms to demonstrate. ‘They cross when they find something, so I believe.’
I stared at him, amazed that he was so matter-of-fact over all this. His eyes dropped away from me and I knew. This wasn’t cut and dry for him. A ragged breath left me. Everything that had gone before had gone and I’d lost him. Not that I ever really had him, but still it hurt. I was dead and the stunning and beautiful Lila was there, promising him everything he could ever want. With a leaden heart I realised that I’d be selfish asking him not to.
Pity, pain, regret, guilt, crossed his face in a devastating millisecond of emotion. I recognised it and nodded without saying a word. I didn’t even mention the notion of stalling the month. I didn’t need to.
‘I need to go and get it for Ollie and the others.’ When he looked up he was desolate.
A lump formed so big in my throat I couldn’t swallow it down. ‘Of course you must.’ I knew in that moment, that if the chance had arisen for Pete and me, I would probably have done the same. I just hoped Lila had given him all the facts and would allow him to give the precious liquid away. ‘Can anyone else leave the house?’
He shook his head. ‘Just homes, jobs. Things in the make-believe world of this spell.’
‘Then she knows you have to bring it back here.’ My anger had gone. I studied him sadly. ‘I just hope she follows through on the plan.’ I had my doubts she’d let him give it to anyone once she had what she wanted. It was all too easy.
Wax looked distraught, while I became oddly detached. He was being forced to drop me from his radar of worry in order to concentrate on his family. I got it, but it hurt. ‘Maybe you need to talk to your father. He and Ainsley seem buddies at the moment?’
He nodded, distracted, as if there was more he wanted to say. ‘Good idea.’ Then he got up and, without a backward glance, strode from the room. I was left staring at the big empty space he’d left behind him.
It then hit me in one great tsunami of emotion. I couldn’t bear it. I was so utterly alone. I was far from my parents, Pete had gone and my new friends were nowhere to be found. They would have to help Wax, anyway. I would never escape this prison. Lila was right. She hadn’t even bothered to lie to Wax to keep him on her side. She was that confident that there was nothing anyone could do. I was the sacrifice, the pillar, that would hold everyone else up. Wax had seen that and accepted it, without argument, as fair exchange. Maybe it was time I did too.
I had no idea where that left me now. I wasn’t alive, but I wasn’t dead either. Did I shrink away, or do I help them? But if I helped them, wouldn’t they all leave the confines of the spell then and I’d be all alone?
I thought of Tallulah and Ollie and their playful budding relationship. Nicola and Archie and the others. I guess I had to give them a chance, even if there was none for me. I looked down at the computer-generated keypad that Wax had coded for me. He would be angry if I moved, but I think all this meant he’d kind of lost the right to tell me what to do.
Without further thought, I brought my finger down hard on the Escape key and landed hard in the grey of the Inside Out. The weight of the gloom hit me instantly in a heavy mist. For a moment I longed for sunshine, something I would no longer see. ‘Lucinda?’ came out in a strangled whisper. I couldn’t lose myself to self-pity. I couldn’t shout properly. I didn’t know what else would come.
It wasn’t Lucinda that answered.
A great moan made me swing around. Jedediah stood at the edge of the room, huge and looming, darker than ever. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, but the blackness in his soul permeated everything around him, giving me a feeling of dread. ‘Hello, Jed,’ I said, warily.
His movements were slow, but his arm came up and he pointed to the small door behind the staircase. The one that led down to the tunnel between the houses. ‘You want me to go to my aunt’s?’
He didn’t answer. Instead, he moved in that direction, indicating for me to follow. I looked around in the hope I’d see Lucinda, but she was nowhere to be seen. I took a breath and followed the black hooded shape of Jedediah, like the harbinger of death, leading me off to hell.
The corridor gave way to rock, as I remembered from before, and we were in the dark tunnel, circular and rough, barely a man’s height. Inadequate torches were placed at intervals on the wall, casting an eerie grey light every twelve feet or so. I wondered briefly who put them there, but dismissed it as part of the spell.
Jed glided on and I followed as fast as I could, so as not to be left behind. ‘What is it, Jed? Where are you taking me?’ I said more than a few times. When he didn’t answer, I remembered that previously he’d spoken very little.
He came to a halt and pointed a bony finger at the rock wall. I didn’t understand at first, until I took a closer look. The torches were father apart and the tunnel bent at this point. There was a fissure in the rock. It wasn’t that big and you could easily miss it. No more than a few inches wide, but a slim person could squeeze their way through.
Jed was still pointing.
I was uncertain. He was definitely telling me to go that way. ‘Where does it go?’
He didn’t answer. My eyes went from his long white finger back to the gap in the wall.
I took a closer look. A breeze hit my face. There was definitely more beyond the wall. I looked back at Jed. His face was obscured, but I could see the stubble of his jawline, just visible from his hood. ‘You want me to go this way?’
He slowly nodded. I was scared, but I started to think. My mind darted over everything I’d learned. The Inside Out had been originally designed to save Lila from death and extended between the two houses. Jed had turned it into a prison and it was him who’d linked the mine to the curse to stop them getting their hands on it. My breath caught in my throat. ‘Is this a tunnel to the mine?’
Jed nodded slowly again.
This was huge. My mind raced over all the implications. I had to tell someone. I wasn’t brave enough to go alone. I looked up to tell him I just wanted to get someone to go with me, but he’d gone. He’d completely disappeared.
I started back towards Wax’s house at a jog. Jed had shown me that place for a reason. He was telling me something. Wax might be the only one who could go into the mine above ground, but someone else might be able to go in from down here.
Then a thought struck me. The Inside Out mirrored the real world. The tunnel must exist there too. That meant Wax could use the tunnel if he knew it was there, maybe even Ollie and the others too. Lila and Ainsley definitely didn’t know about it, that was for sure.
I sped up my pace. I just had to find out how far Ainsley had got with Wax’s dad. We needed to be ready to find the fountain.
Chapter 26
By the time I got back inside the house, it was after dark. Wax was gone.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ollie said. ‘This is typical behaviour. He just can’t bear to be in the house with my uncle.’
I stared out of the mirror, miserably, not convinced. ‘But I’m here,’ came out a pathetic whimper. I coughed and pulled myself together. So what, if it was more proof we were over. I’d have to suck it up and remember we’d only known each other five minutes. Wax was just riddled with guilt and could no longer face me.
Ollie must have read the whole thing on my face. ‘He’s not very good at relationships,’ he said, kindly.
I nodded and swallowed my disappointment, then caught them up with what had been said between Wax and Lila in the kitchen. I made sure I left out all the smoochy details, but there was a definite dimming of his eyes and more than one telling look to Tallulah as I spoke. Somehow, his reaction made it hurt so much worse.
I decided not to tell Ollie about Jed’s tunnel just yet. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, it was that I wanted to hold it back from Wax and Ollie would undoubtedly tell him. Lila mustn’t know about it at all costs.
‘Wax cares a great deal for you, Becks,’ Ollie said, cutting through my thoughts.
‘That’s true, Beccah. I’ve never seen him act like he does with you.’
Great. Now I had Tallulah’s pity on top of everything else. It made me squirm in my seat. ‘What happened to all of you?’ I said, to change the subject.
Ollie instantly brightened. ‘We spied on the cellar.’
