May felt Maguire’s focus return to her. She reached down and wrapped her hands up in the length of her apron, but Maguire snatched up her right hand. She struggled to free herself from his grasp, but even though his lower extremities had failed him, his hands revealed a steely strength. He watched the sparkles with an enraptured glee in his eyes.
“Yes, I knew old Tuesday was lying,” he said, turning May’s hand over so that he could see the palm. He traced the crease of her hand with his index finger, then leaned forward and attempted to kiss her palm. May’s revulsion was so complete that it gave her the added strength she needed to break free. In the same movement, she scooted her chair back a good two feet.
The old man tilted back, his eyes widening for a moment in anger, but then a hearty laugh broke free from him.
“I don’t use it.” May tried to make the statement sound matter-of-fact. Final. “I promised Mama.”
“Well, your mama is longer here. I’ve been bound to this damn chair since the day Tuesday left this world. She tried to take me with her, but all she managed to do was this.” He pulled the blanket covering his legs to one side and slapped his hand angrily against his unusable limbs. “She took my legs.” He hesitated. “And she took my power. Now you,” his right eye twitched as he spoke, “you’re gonna help fix what your mama done broke.”
He’s the one, May thought. This is the man my mother died trying to stop. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t. A vow is a vow, whether she is with us or not. She made me promise not to make the same deal she had made.” Even though May knew the other staff must have been ordered to stay away from the dining room, she still cast a nervous glance around before continuing. “My mama said she made a deal with the devil to use her magic. She made me promise I wouldn’t do as she done.”
Maguire pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. He leaned forward, his body convulsing, and at first May thought he had developed a coughing jag. When he sat back up, tears of laughter were rolling down his flushed cheeks. “Oh, my dear girl,” he said after he managed to catch his breath. “A deal with the devil?” He paused. “If only it were anywhere near that easy.”
“No, sir.” She shook her head. “No, sir. I want nothing of it. I’ve never used it. I never will.” She focused on the floor, not daring to look him in the eye.
“You used magic last night, May.” His words came out in a slow grumble. “I can smell it on you.”
May realized her head continued to shake as she spoke. “No, sir. It wasn’t me. Whatever you think I did, it wasn’t me.” May did her best to recompose herself. She forced a smile and smoothed her skirt, preparing to stand and make her exit.
“That’s the way with your kind, always lying when the truth would serve you better.” He paused, as if giving her a chance to confess, and then boomed out, “I saw you there with my own two eyes,” any pretense of civility cast aside. May startled in spite of herself. His face was nearly purple with rage.
May was an honest woman. It pained her to tell a lie, let alone be caught in one, even by a man such as this one. “Only a little. Last night was different. It was the first time. The only time. I was so afraid . . .” May’s word died in the air as she wondered again at the Maguires’ role in the events of the previous night. The father could never have managed it. The son was graceless. He could never had entered and exited with such stealth. Still, if they hadn’t done it themselves, they’d arranged for it to happen. They couldn’t have relied on magic, for the haint blue her mama had made her use at every entrance and window would’ve kept hostile magic from creeping in. No, it could only have been a flesh-and-blood intruder. May wished she knew how they’d worked it, if only to prevent it from happening again. But she dared not even confront them with their crime.
Maguire disregarded her silence. “And still, first time out, you achieved outstanding results.”
May’s knees went weak, too weak to stand. She drew her arms around herself, folding them over her chest as if to protect her heart. “Yes. I used it last night. Somehow. But I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know anything about the magic, sir. Mama, she never explained it to me.” May thought of the creature who had come to her at the edge of the clearing. She came close to mentioning her, but something told her to hold her tongue. “It just happened, like it’s happening now.” When she held up her hand, the sparks were still shooting along her fingertips. “I don’t know anything about it at all.”
“What is the source of your magic?”
“I . . .” May’s lips moved, but it took a while for her words to catch up. “I don’t know.”
Maguire’s anger faded as quickly as it had been kindled. “No, maybe you don’t,” he said and chuckled. He looked over his shoulder at Sterling. “What do you think, boy? You think she’s telling us the truth?”
“I am, Mr. Maguire. I swear it. I am sorry for any difficulties between you and my mama, but I’ll never be any trouble to you.” She forced a smile again, grateful that the tingling in her hands was starting to fade and the tiny sparks were once again disappearing. “You got nothing to worry about from May. Nothing at all.”
May’s eyes drifted up to the younger man’s face. As their eyes met, May searched for even the tiniest spark of humanity. She found only ice. “I believe her,” he said.
“Yes, I do as well,” Maguire said, turning back to May. “It’s a pity, really, that power should be wasted on one such as you. The Beekeeper—you saw her last night, don’t pretend you didn’t—that’s where your mama’s—and your—power comes from.” The name made sense to May, from the creature’s heavy veils to the way it broke apart into a thousand stinging wasps. “I’ve only ever seen the creature twice, but I’ve felt her presence many times. You could even say I’ve courted her, but she has never warmed to my overtures. This creature’s magic feels infinite. The wonders I could perform if I had access to it . . .” Maguire’s voice took on a wistful quality. “Oh, the wonders I have performed with what little power I cou
ld attain.” Images, unclean and full of cruelty, rose up in May’s mind. Her hands rose to her eyes, as if they could shield her from those scenes.
Maguire chuckled at her distress and rubbed his hands together in pleasure. “Perhaps, once I have been set to rights, I should make a study of you, but for now I believe it is I who will give you a little lesson.” He looked over his shoulder at the ever-attentive Sterling. “Help me take off my jacket.”
Sterling stood behind his father and helped him extricate himself from his suit coat, which the son then folded and draped over his arm. Freed of the jacket, Maguire unbuttoned the sleeve of his starched white shirt and slid it toward his elbow.
A scent like a freshly struck match reached May’s nose. Her nostrils flared as she pulled away from the scent. May was shocked to see the elderly man’s arm covered by scarred and blackened flesh that ran from his wrist to beyond the point on his elbow where the fabric was bunched up.
“This here,” he said twisting his arm so that May could fully take it in, “is your mama’s handiwork. A parting gift, if you will, from old Tuesday.” May shook her head and tried to avert her eyes. “Look at it,” Maguire’s words came out in a snarl, “so that you may understand what has been taken from me. You see, some people, are born to magic. It’s born right in them. Others, such as yourself and your mother, have magic come to them. Then there are people like me, those who seek magic out. I am . . . I was what some refer to as a ‘collector.’ ” The sleeve slipped down, and his ancient, mottled hand caught it and forced it back up above his elbow. “A long time ago,” Maguire said, his voice taking on a singsong quality, as he held out his forearm for her examination, “I did someone very powerful—someone who was born to magic, call him a witch if you will—a very big favor. In return, he put his mark on me. It was nothing more than a single band back then, but over time it grew.” He rubbed his hand along the scarred tissue, stopping to tap his index finger on the ruined remains of what must have been some kind of symbol. As he did so, it took on a faint and sickly luminescence, which spread out along a spider’s web of increasingly visible traces.
Maguire looked at May and nodded. “Thanks to your mama, there’s not much magic left in me at all. She damaged me so these markings no longer work the way they once did,” he said as the lines began to take on new shapes. He leaned in toward her conspiratorially, intimately, as if they were lifelong friends. “The energy of every life I took with this hand would become mine to do with as I wished.” His smile fell flat in reaction to something he must have read in her eyes. “Oh, May, even you must admit that so many people waste their potential. Rather than letting them continue to shuffle from disappointment to disaster, I relieved their worthless, unhappy souls of their burdens and turned their energy toward something more productive. In a way, it could be argued that I showed these unfortunates great kindness.
“But your mama”—his eyes took on a strange fire—“she didn’t see it that way. No. She didn’t like how I got my magic, and she sure as hell didn’t like what I did with it. I tried reason, but reason is not an arena in which the weaker sex excels.” He nodded backward toward Sterling. “Even a young fellow here like Sterling can attest to that. Can’t you, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” Sterling responded, dropping his answer as mechanically as a jukebox will play a favorite song for a nickel.
“Your mama was an extreme case. So rebellious, she was, but the women in your family always were. No matter how many times you faced the whip”—a smirk rose on his lips—“or the rod.” He leered at her, leaving May feeling soiled. His voice changed in the next instant, taking on the patient and benevolent timbre of a Sunday school teacher. “This world, you must understand, was built to work in a certain way, but your mama refused to see it. Refused to see that this world needs to have its masters. We’re the ones who carry the weight of the world and maintain order. We protect you.
“This, my girl, is the white man’s world. The way it was intended to be. I’ve spent so many years, more than you can begin to know, dedicating myself to protecting the natural order. Without men like me, there would be chaos. Your mama, she refused to understand, and she did some damage. Now it’s up to you to set things right.