“Sufficient for me to realize it is no ordinary adornment. More, even, than a talisman. There is magic in it. I believe that you have always known this.”
He nodded. “I recognized it at once.”
“And yet you did not think to share with me what you knew?”
“’Twas not for me to speak. Hekate’s jewel will reveal itself only to one worthy of it. Only to one meant to have it.”
“But my father bought it before I was born.”
He gave a stiff shrug. “The brooch will find its way to the one who should wear it. That has always been its purpose.”
“Always been?” She began to feel nothing was making any sense. She had hoped for answers but every time the old man spoke she found she had another question. She put her hand to her brow for a moment, considering with care how to phrase her questions. “Mr. Sadiki, you say you recognized the brooch. When last you saw it, who did it belong to? It has been in my father’s possession nearly twenty-one years, and he bought it from someone who hailed from Cairo.”
“I have not always lived here,” he told her. “My work has seen me travel through distant lands over many years.”
“So you saw the brooch somewhere in the region where my father was working as an archeologist? Was it perhaps in some manner of shop? And if so, how was it that you understood its … qualities? And how did the tinker know of my imminent birth? Or that my father would choose the name Hecate for me? My mother always insisted she favored Alice.…” She stopped, aware that she was gabbling. She reached out and touched the brooch, feeling anew its strange vibration, remembering the moment the serpent had come to life. Come to life to help her. “I want to understand,” she said quietly. “I need to understand.”
He stepped to one side, lifting the wooden flap of the counter, beckoning.
Hecate picked up the brooch and followed him through the low door into the room at the back of the shop. It was a homely space, unremarkable, with a black range in the hearth, coals glowing red beneath a smoke-blackened kettle suspended on a chain. The air was tainted with soot and boot polish. There was a table, wooden chairs, a workbench beneath a window to the rear. The old man took the seat nearest the fire and indicated she should take the one opposite. Once they were both settled he began to speak, his gaze not on her, but turned toward the embers in the hearth, as if the story were written there.
“I was born in Paris, and that was where I learned my trade, in the Arab quarter. My father instructed me in boot repairs and key cutting, for we have always outwardly presented ourselves as cobblers and suchlike.”
“Outwardly?”
He glanced at her sternly, making it plain interruptions would not be welcome.
“It has been the honor and the duty of my family to assist the Goddess of the Moon in her earthly work. We have done so for generations. We were given our name then, the meaning of which is faithful. And so we have always been loyal as Hekate’s own hounds. Often centuries pass and we are not called upon. Others among my forebears have given their lives in her service. We follow Hekate’s jewel, so that we are on hand. So that we are ready. I came to reside here in Hereford the year of your birth.” He paused, shifting his frail frame in his chair as if his old bones bothered him.
Hecate waited, though her mind was bursting with questions, determined to stay silent until he had finished speaking.
“I had seen signs, recently, that a darkness was upon the city. The desecration of the tombs in the cathedral to begin with, and then the killings started.… The more I learned the more certain I became that the curse of the Essedenes had been invoked once again. That Resurgent Spirits stalk the streets, looking for their new homes. When you walked into my shop and I saw the brooch, and heard you confirm your name…” He looked at her again, as if he himself had questions, to which only she could provide the answers. “You are a child of Hekate, though you did not know it. Not a child in the sense you might understand, no. You have parents of your own. You are a mortal being. These things are true. What is also true is that you have in you the spark of the goddess herself. That fragment of light that searches for centuries to find its next home. To find the woman who will be the beacon in the darkness, who will stand as the goddess does, on the threshold of night and day, betwixt life and death. It found its home in you before you were born. The vagabond Phoebe, who sold your father the brooch, was a seer, a wise woman, who had heard the whisper on the autumn wind—that the goddess had found an earthy home once again. She knew before your father did what your name would be. She was sent in search of him. In truth, he was not difficult to find, his reputation telling of his whereabouts, the souls he disturbed in his digging among the dead calling to her. The moment she put that jewel, bearing Hekate’s image, into his palm, the moment its magic leached into his skin, was the moment he named you. In that instant, your destiny was set in motion. And now the time is upon us when you are called to act. And act you must, for the city is in great peril, and you alone can beat back the darkness that threatens to engulf it.”
Mr. Sadiki seemed to slump then, to fold in upon himself. At first Hecate thought he was ailing, and that the burden of his secret and the effort of at last sharing it had taken its toll. But then she looked again and saw a lightness in his expression and knew that it was relief she saw. That he was glad she had found her way to him. His story, her story, was astonishing, and yet it made perfect sense to her. Indeed, it made so many other things make sense, too. She felt no fear, only excitement. She imagined what her father would make of these revelations and knew at once that he would believe her and that he would stand ready to help her.
“Thank you,” she said, leaning forward in her seat, “for your trust. You have given me a great deal to think about, and yet I still have questions, if I may…?” When he nodded she continued. “You say you grew up in Paris.… There was another occasion of darkness, of risen spirits, in France, a little over a century ago. Does the location of that event have anything to do with where your family found themselves?”
For the first time, he smiled. “The goddess was right to choose you, for bravery without wisdom is a blunt instrument.”
She smiled back. “On this occasion we have my father and the British Museum to thank. So, your ancestors, did they try to stop the Essedenes at Piedmont Abbey in France?”
“Some were slain in the struggle. That cursed place!”
“You consider the place of holy men was cursed?”
“Look to its founder! De Furches had wickedness running through his veins, as do all his descendants. No amount of money spent on building abbeys would change that. ’Twas but a veil to be drawn over their own truth. They were as far from Christian as it is possible to be. No, their souls were forfeit to an older god, for they had long ago allied themselves with the power of the Essedenes.”
“You mean, they knew of the necromancy? Of the raising of spirits?”
“Knew of it and practiced it. For generations they have summoned the dead and placed them where they chose. Shoring up their power at court, or winning battles with an advantageous strategy whispered in a general’s ear, or ridding themselves of a barren wife to further their own line … In such ways the evil has continued. De Furches cursed his own family with his greed, for the Essedenes protected their interests. The nobleman might have thought the ancient necromancers served him; the reality is his descendants are ever bound to raise spirits, every hundred years, be they willing or no.”
“And your forefathers knew this? They fought at the abbey?”
“They did. One of my ancestors survived, with few allies. Their success was only partial, for some Embodied Spirits escaped and fled throughout Europe.”
“And did they take with them a particular book?” she asked, her mouth dry as she waited for his answer.
He nodded again. “You have felt for yourself the strength of the magic that surrounds it.”
“I have encountered its defenses. I can only guess at the power of its contents. I believe it contains the words necessary to return the spirits to their rightful places. I must gain access to it, but…”
“The Essedenes did not leave their legacy unprotected. Had they done so, you and I might not be here this day, conversing on this very subject.”
“I have to find a way to subdue the book and use its contents, Mr. Sadiki. Can you help me? You have done so much already, making the keys for me without question, sharing what you know. How can I get past the magic that guards that book?”
“Alas no key can help you with this, so it is beyond my doing.”
“The serpent knew what to do, but it only vanquished the dreadful creature that stood guard. The book itself was too wild, too resistant, to be read, let alone studied quietly. Do you think something else on the brooch might help, perhaps?” She still had it in her hand and now held it up to the blurring light of the oil lamp on the table. “The key…? The moon…? The goddess herself…? But I cannot see how. Do you believe there is a way?”
“I believe that if there is, you will be the one to discover it.”
“There’s something else.” Hecate was eager for more answers and felt that her host was tiring. “The first contact I had with the Essedenes was through those depicted on the Mappa Mundi. And the map has communicated with me more and more as the situation has grown more grave. The figures on it have helped me. It seems to me that the map and the Essedenes’ activity are linked but confusingly so. The drawings of the Essedenes were alarming, their contact with me not benign at all, and yet otherwise the map has guided me, protected me even. Tell me, was there a similar ancient world map at the abbey? I know there were others which have not survived the years.”
Mr. Sadiki nodded slowly. “Not all the secrets of the Essedenes’ methods are yet known, despite the efforts and sacrifices of my family. But you are correct; the proximity to such a map is a common factor in the activity of the curse.”
“As a force for good or ill?”
“Both, naturally. Things are rarely so simple as to be black or white, night or day, bad or good. You of all people know that it is within the liminal realms that most of us dwell.”
