The Devil's Hand Read online

  III

  “Nine,” Millicent says as Sissy and I slip through the door and into the library. It's a little after midnight, and I've followed through on my promise to come. I feel silly, obviously, but I suppose I need to indulge these idiots if I want to have any hope of getting them on my side. “Scratch that,” she adds as soon as she sees us. “Eleven. We have eleven girls tonight. That's five more than before, so it should go much better this time.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Sissy whispers to me as we make our way around the side of the large table.

  “No,” I mutter, “but I need them all to show up for my attempt tomorrow, so I suppose I have to be here tonight, don't I?”

  “We're awfully glad you could make it,” Millicent says dourly, watching me with a dulled, unenthusiastic stare. “We were worried you'd stick to your guns and refuse. After all, Ivy, you can be very stubborn.”

  “Always willing to help out,” I reply, stopping at the edge of the table. Glancing around, I can't help marveling at the surrealism of the sight, with eleven of us here and each of us carrying a pregnant belly of one size or another. “So how does this work?” I continue, hoping to get the whole dratted thing over and done with. “I trust you have a plan this time, rather than just reading out loud from random books?”

  “We believe we have discovered a text that will help,” Millicent tells me tartly.

  “Witchcraft in the library of Mr. Kane?” I reply, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Why would he allow that?”

  “I imagine he doesn't know the power of this particular book,” she explains. “Besides, I believe parts of the library were inherited from his predecessor, so he probably hasn't had time to weed out anything that doesn't fit with his strict Christian dogma.”

  “I'm surprised it's not just wall-to-wall copies of the Bible in here,” I mutter. “Well, not the Bible. Everyone knows that Kane -”

  “Quiet!” Prudence hisses.

  “We all know it's true!” I continue. “Why won't any of you say it out loud? Kane's Bible -”

  “Please be quiet,” Millicent says firmly. “This is neither the time nor the place, Ivy.”

  “Are you sure we won't get caught?” Sissy asks, tugging on the sleeve of my nightshirt. “What if Mr. Kane chances upon us?”

  “He won't,” I tell her.

  “Or Mrs. Kilmartin?”

  “She'll be passed out by now on brandy.” As soon as those words leave my lips, the other girls start laughing. Except Millicent, however, who merely rolls her eyes and then gestures for quiet.

  “Calm down, girls,” she says firmly. “We're not here to play silly beggars.”

  “It's not silly beggars,” I tell her, “it's silly buggers. That's the phrase!”

  The other girls start giggling.

  “You shouldn't say words like that,” Sissy whispers, her eyes as big as plates. “It's awfully rude!”

  “At least we don't have to worry about Doctor Ratcliffe,” Beryl pipes up. “Did the rest of you see him today? White as a sheet, he was, almost like he'd seen a ghost.”

  “Maybe we should ask him for advice,” I suggest.

  Another round of laughter.

  “That's enough!” Millicent hisses, opening the large, leather-bound book on the table in front of her. She's quite clearly annoyed that I'm proving more popular among the girls who've gathered for her silly little ceremony. “We're here to get some serious business done, not to faff around and make one another laugh.”

  She casts a particularly disapproving look at me, but to be honest I take her disdain as a compliment. She's always been a stuffy thing.

  “I am going to read from this book,” she announces, with the tone of a schoolteacher, “and the rest of you are going to link hands, close your eyes, and pay great attention to every word. It's hugely important that we show the spirits that we're serious, otherwise they might not even hear us. We mustn't act like children.”

  I turn and make a silly face to Sissy, but she gives the game away by bursting out laughing. Turning back to Millicent, I see her roll her eyes again as she looks down at the book.

  “Quiet,” I whisper to Sissy. “We must at least let them go through with their silly ritual.”

  “O spirits,” Millicent says after a moment, her voice sounding several octaves lower, “we beseech thee to bring forward our dear friend Abigail. We have many questions we must put to her, and we wish to ensure that her soul has no unfinished business on this plane of existence. All we seek is contact, and the opportunity to put right any wrongs that she believes were done to her. As a sign of our good faith, we offer this. Our blood.”

  I watch with a growing sense of shock as she holds out her hand and uses a small steak-knife, no doubt pilfered from the dining room, to cut a line across her palm. Leaning across the table, she places her hand flat against a piece of paper, holding it firmly for a moment before pulling back to reveal a bloody hand-print.

  “Crikey,” Sissy whispers.

  “Your turn,” Millicent continues, passing the knife to Beryl.

  “Hang on,” I say, watching as Beryl cuts her palm and adds her hand-print to Millicent's, “no-one said anything about this!”

  “It's just a little blood,” Millicent says firmly, as Beryl passes the knife to Susan. “It's a token. If we want to receive something, we have to offer something first. This is how the spirits know we're serious.”

  “But -” I watch in horror as Susan cuts her palm. She winces slightly, but she gets the job done and places her hand on the piece of paper, while next to her Clara prepares to do the same thing.

  “Do we have to do that?” Sissy whispers to me.

  Clara cuts her palm, before offering the knife to me. I take it, of course, but I have to admit to a few doubts.

  “Go on,” Millicent says, watching me intently. “The more, the merrier.”

  “This is stupid,” I tell her. “It's almost paganism!”

  “It's what the book decrees,” she continues. “We didn't do this last night, and we got nowhere. The spirits will take notice this time, I'm sure of it.”

  “Oh God,” I mutter, realizing that I'd better go through with it. Placing the blade against my palm, I slice it across the skin, but no cut emerges. Seeing that I'll have to press harder, I try again, but still my skin won't cut. I take a deep breath before trying for a third time, and I gasp as I feel the metal tearing through my flesh, ripping a thick cut that immediately spills several drops of blood down to my wrist.

  “That's a bit deep!” Sissy points out.

  “Tell me about it!” I mutter. I pass the blade to her, wincing as the cut stings my flesh. Not wanting to show that I'm in pain, however, I lean across the table and place my hand against the piece of paper. When I pull back, I see that I've left more blood than all the other girls so far combined.

  “There,” I say to Millicent. “Happy?”

  Hearing a gasp, I turn to see that Sissy has managed to cut her palm.

  “Now what?” she asks.

  “Put it on the paper,” I reply. “The same as everyone else.”

  She leans over and does as she's told. As she passes the knife to the next girl, I look down at my palm and see that I'm bleeding rather a lot, although not enough to need medical attention. I look around for somewhere to wipe the blood away, but there's nowhere and although I briefly consider licking the wound clean, I quickly realize that I'd only end up making a display of myself. Instead, I reach down and surreptitiously wipe my hand and wrist against the side of my night-shirt. I can just tell Mrs. Kilmartin in the morning that the blood came from down below.

  “All done, then?” Millicent says as the knife is passed back to her. “Then we beseech thee, spirits, to recognize our actions here tonight, and to allow dear Abigail to come forward and speak to us. We have many questions to ask of her!”

  We stand in silence for a moment, but nothing happens. Even the candles don't so much as flicker. I glance at some of the others,
and I can see the growing sense of doubt on their faces. They all know this is poppycock.

  “Close your eyes,” Millicent tells us.

  We do as we're told. Standing in silence and unable to see anything, I force myself to suppress a faint smile. I knew this whole thing would be a bust, but it's still amusing to experience Millicent's attempt to contact Abigail through some bizarre ritual she found in a dusty old book. I wait, tempted to open my eyes just a crack and peep at the others, but I figure Millicent would only complain that I hadn't joined in properly and that it was my fault the ritual failed, so I decide to be absolutely well-behaved and to do as I'm told.

  And then suddenly I feel it.

  A hand, reaching from behind and resting gently on my night-shirt. I flinch, but I don't dare look, I don't even dare say a word. After a moment, the hand pulls away again but I'm left trying to control my fear.

  It was a trick.

  It has to have been a trick.

  Opening my eyes, I turn and look, but of course there's no-one behind me.

  “Is something wrong?” Millicent asks.

  Turning to her, I realize that the other girls have now opened their eyes.

  “I...” For a moment, I can't shake the feeling that maybe I'm the victim of some huge trick. When I turn to look at Sissy, however, I see that she's the only girl whose eyes remain closed.

  “Come on,” I mutter, nudging her arm and then hurrying past her. “This is dumb. There's noway Abigail is going to show up just because a bunch of us cut our hands.”

  “Are you okay?” Millicent calls after me, with a tone of amusement. “Ivy, please -”

  I hurry out into the dark corridor and make my way toward the dormitory. I can't help thinking back to that moment when I felt a hand pressing against my night-shirt, and I swear to God I can feel it happening again and again, as if my mind is determined to remind me of that terrible sensation. I keep telling myself that someone was fooling with me, but by the time I get to the dormitory's door and stop to gather my thoughts, I feel as if I might be about to burst into tears. Glancing out the window, I spot Mary and some of her friends sitting on the lawn, no doubt once again invoking the king of the fairies in an attempt to contact Abigail. Damn it, does every girl in this school have her own idea about how to -

  Suddenly I hear footsteps. I spin around, startled, but it's only Sissy hurrying to catch up.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Fine.”

  “But back there you -”

  “It was nothing,” I tell her. “I just thought I felt...” I pause, before realizing that I'd only end up scaring her. “I just got sick of all that drama,” I continue. “You can understand that, can't you?”

  She nods. “There's blood on your shoulder.”

  “What?” I tilt my head to take a look, and sure enough she's right. There's just a faint smudge of blood on the fabric of my night-shirt, and for a moment I don't understand what happened until, finally, I realize that the smudge is exactly what would be left behind if a girl with a cut palm placed her hand there. “It was one of them,” I mutter, allowing myself a faint smile as I lean back against the wall with a sigh of relief. “Damn it, I knew I shouldn't have let myself get spooked! They're probably all laughing their heads off at me right now!”

  “What was one of them?” Sissy asks, clearly completely lost.

  “Nothing,” I tell her. “Come on, it's late and we should get back to bed. Let the others carry on with that silly ritual if they like, but tomorrow night we're going to get in touch with Abigail for certain, and we'll finally find out what really killed her!”

  I glance over my shoulder and look along the corridor for a moment. It's hard to believe that I fell for such an obvious trick when some idiot put her hand on my shoulder in the library, but at least I'm certain now that it was a trick. The whole 'Devil's hand' thing has always been a joke, a way for us to scare one another. Only an idiot would believe a word of it.

  IV

  The scream is shrill, piercing the darkness of the room as I sit bolt upright. All around me, I can hear the rustling of bedsheets as other girls do the same, but the scream continues over on the other side of the room.

  “What's going on?” Sissy asks, sounding terrified. “What's wrong?”

  I climb out of bed as quickly as I can. By the time I get half a dozen paces along the aisle, someone managed to hit the light-switch and the bulbs flicker to life above us. Over in the far corner, Susan is still screaming as she cowers on her bed with tears flowing down her face, and a couple of the other girls are trying to comfort her.

  “Quiet!” Catherine hisses, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Do you want tipsy old Mrs. Kilmartin to come running?”

  “Or Mr. Kane himself,” Beryl adds, her voice filled with fear.

  “Come on,” Catherine continues, holding Susan closer, “it's okay. You must've just had a nightmare, that's all.”

  “I saw her,” Susan stammers, staring with tear-filled eyes at a spot just a few feet from her bed, close to where I'm standing. I can't help noticing that her whole body seems to be trembling, and I'd wager that whatever happened, she's not faking any of it.

  “Who did you see?” Catherine asks, stroking the girl's hair. “Calm down and tell us everything.”

  “It was her!” she hisses, her face red and flushed. “I saw Abigail!”

  “What?” I ask, stepping forward. “Are you sure?”

  “Rubbish,” Catherine tells her. “Like I said, you had a nightmare.”

  “Don't act like I'm a fool!” she shouts, pushing her away. “I saw Abigail Cartwright standing right there!” She points to a space next to me, and we all turn to look. There's nothing there, but when I turn back to Susan I see that she's broken down into a series of great, heaving sobs.

  “See?” Maud says, rolling her eyes. “This is what happens when you lot keep talking about ghosts. You get everyone worked up and then people start imagining things and -”

  “She was right there!” Susan screams, scrambling across her bed and almost falling as she clambers off the end and hurries toward me. I reach out and grab her, to make sure she doesn't fall, but she pushes me away and then turns as if she's looking around for some sign of Abigail. “You all think I'm stupid,” she continues, “but I know what I saw! Abigail Cartwright was here! You were all asleep, I was having trouble so I was just trying to count sheep but then I realized I could hear someone walking about. When I turn and looked...”

  She spins around, as if she expects to find someone behind her, and then she turns to me.

  “This is your fault,” she stammers, before turning to Mary, “and yours!” She turns to Millicent. “And yours!”

  “Why's it our fault?” Millicent asks.

  “You kept trying to summon her!” she shouts, stepping back toward me. “You all kept going on about how important it was to get in touch with Abigail and call her back!” She turns to Mary again. “One of you did it! I don't know who it was, but one of you actually managed to get her to come!”

  “Wait a minute,” I reply, stepping toward her. “Susan, can you at least tell us what you saw? Maybe it wasn't Abigail's ghost, maybe it was just, I don't know, someone coming back from the toilet?”

  “It was her!” she yells breathlessly. “I was in bed, everything was dark but I watched this figure, this silhouette, coming across the room.” She turns and points toward the far window, and then she aims her finger at the nearby aisle. “She was walking slowly along here, she was really calm, and then when she got close enough I realize I recognized her silhouette. I told myself I was wrong, but I held my breath, I was terrified and then she seemed to turn toward me.” With tears in her eyes, she steps back against the wall. “She saw me,” she stammers. “There was just enough light from the window, and she saw me. And then she came closer, and I saw her eyes!”

  “And it was definitely Abigail?” I ask, as my heart pounds in my chest.

  “As God
is my witness,” she continues, her voice tense with fear, “I saw Abigail Cartwright walking in this room! You were all fast asleep, but she was here, and she...” Her voice fades to a terrified whine, as tears stream down her face. Slowly, almost as if she's collapsing, she drops to her knees and leans back against the wall, while placing her trembling hands over her face. “She was here,” she sobs. “She was right here, and she knew I could see her and she walked toward me and...”

  “And what?” I ask, taking a step toward her. “Susan, please, did she say anything to you? Did she give you any kind of message?”

  I wait, but she seems to be just sobbing now, burying her face in her hands.

  “This is nonsense,” Maud says with a sigh. “It's clear and obvious nonsense.”

  “Either that or the blood ceremony worked,” Millicent replies. “I knew I'd got it all sorted out!”

  “We were outside tonight,” Mary adds. “Maybe we were the ones who called her back. Maybe Oberon listened to our prayers and answered them by sending Abigail back!”

  “Or it was our chants at the lake,” Emily suggests eagerly. “Last night a bunch of us were down there, we stripped down even though it was cold and we called to the gods of the natural world to hear our prayers.”

  “Or it was us,” Sissy whispers to me, her voice filled with fear. “Ivy, do you think we summoned Abigail back?”

  “Maybe,” I reply, watching as Susan continues to sob, “or maybe it was none of us. Maybe she came back because she has something to do here still.”

  “You're just jealous,” Prudence sneers. “You thought you had all the answers, and it was Millicent all along!”

  Ignoring her, I kneel next to Susan and reach out to touch her shoulder. She's wailing now, as if she truly can't process everything that she's seen, and one thing's for certain: I believe she's telling the truth. Sure, it's possible that she was mistaken, or that someone tricked her, but I'm absolutely sure that she thinks she saw Abigail's ghost just now. And given how things have gone around here lately, I have no reason to believe that such a thing is impossible.