Page 38 of The Women of Wild Hill
“And how old was Mama when she died?” Lilith had asked her.
“Twenty,” Ivy said.
“I would like to live a lot longer, so I’ll do things differently and avoid falling in love.”
“I think that would be wise,” her aunt agreed. “At least at your age.”
“Mama thinks so, too,” Lilith told her. Then she caught herself and scowled. “Please don’t tell Sadie I can talk to ghosts like she does.”
“I won’t,” Ivy promised. “You want to choose your own gifts, and I support you.”
“I don’t want to be like anyone else. I want to be like myself.”
This was excellent news as far as Ivy was concerned. She’d spent decades working to further the family mission. Sadie, who loved nothing more than the violence of storms and the flash of lightning, had little interest in Ivy’s quiet, solitary research, which she found terribly dull. But Ivy believed in her heart that Rose had brought Lilith into the world to help her.
THAT BELIEF WAS PROVEN UNDENIABLYtrue when twenty-year-old Lilith took up scrapbooking. Every day, Ivy would watch her meticulousniece snip pictures and articles from the papers—then carefully paste them into a large album with black pages and a thick black cover bordered in gold.
“Most girls these days collect pictures of movie stars,” Sadie commented the morning Lilith brought her scrapbook to the breakfast table. It happened to be her birthday. As her granddaughter took a pair of shears to theNew York Times, Sadie picked up a clipped illustration of a walrus-like man in a dark suit. “Our Lilith finds sixty-year-old businessmen irresistible.”
Lilith didn’t take the bait. By twenty, her hair had deepened from brown to black. She wore it brushed back from her face like Lauren Bacall, to whom it would later be said she bore a resemblance. Like Ms. Bacall, she sometimes smirked but rarely smiled. She had no time for her grandmother’s bullshit.
Ivy waited until Sadie had cleared the breakfast room. “May I see?” She pointed at the album, which had just received its latest additions.
“Certainly.” Lilith slid it over to her.
The pages were filled with pictures of men, but if her grandmother had bothered to take a closer look, she would have seen they weren’t all businessmen. There were politicians and doctors and men who read the evening news on the radio. Beside each man’s photo, Lilith had added notes in white pencil.Fire in his factory killed 53 girls, said one.Experiments on female patients. Removes healthy uteruses, said another.Dumps factory waste into the Hudson. Kicked Native families off their land. Encouraged radio listeners to attack suffragettes.
It was a rogues’ gallery of villains—all based in the New York area. “Why are you collecting these?” Ivy inquired.
Lilith looked up from her work. “Our mission is to topple tyrants, balance the scales, protect the earth, and avenge the wronged, is that right?” the girl asked, her voice clipped and correct as always.
“Yes,” Ivy told her.
“Well, I intend to topple these tyrants. I have researched my targets and selected them with great care. I believe the world will be a better place without these men. Just think how different things would be right now if someone did away with Hitler and Mussolini.”
Ivy flipped through the album. “How did you choose these individuals?”
“They’re all known to visit the Island,” Lilith said. “Making contact with them will pose no challenge. Now that I’m old enough, I can finally get started.”
“How will you do it?” Ivy asked. “Have you settled on what your powers will be?”
“Yes,” Lilith told her. “Discipline and determination. Those are the only powers I’ll need. I’m rich as hell and reasonably attractive. As sad as it seems, those two facts will open most doors for me. I won’t need to knock them down with supernatural powers.”
“Have you decided on a weapon yet?”
This time, Lilith frowned, mildly miffed that her aunt had found the flaw in her plan. “No,” she admitted.
Ivy smiled. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course.”
“Then follow me.”
Ivy guided Lilith outside and across the lawn toward the rose-and-vine-covered mansion. She walked around to the building’s shady north side and squatted down in the tall grass. Carefully, she began to search through the foliage at the base of the wall, pushing each stem to the side just enough to see the soil beneath.
“Aha!” When she stood up at last, she held a small black mushroom between her thumb and index finger. “Bessie showed me one of these a few years ago. Hold out your hand.”
Lilith examined the fungus her aunt had placed in her palm. “How lovely. What’s its name?”
