by Teri Terry
I look from one of them to the other. Gran seems to know something she isn’t saying; Piper says nothing, but her shoulders are back, her eyes blazing. She’s furious.
“I’m sorry, Gran,” I say, jumping in before Piper explodes. “I brought her here.”
“Oh? I suspect that this fault is not yours. Yet bad blood must rise from it, as it runs through both of you.”
I frown, confused. Bad blood runs through both of us?
“What do you mean?” Piper says, unable to stay silent any longer. “Our blood is yours.”
“And your father’s.”
Piper shakes her head. “Dad hasn’t got a bad freckle on him, let alone anything else.”
Gran looks back at her, saying nothing, but there is something else there, in her eyes. Piper said that Isobel appeared on Dad’s doorstep with her and told him the baby was his. I decided Isobel must have been telling the truth: she warned me for years about the danger of lying, so how could she herself have lied?
But was I wrong?
I stand there, hands together in front of me, one idly stroking the pendant on my bracelet. Staring at Gran. Somehow I can see the truth—the lie revealed—in her eyes.
“He’s not our father. Is he?” I ask.
Gran doesn’t answer. Half-remembered comments and inferences from years gone by surface in my memory. I’d thought Gran’s negative views of my father didn’t line up with Piper’s dad. I was right: they weren’t about him, because he’s not our dad.
And I feel like I’ve lost something I never had.
What about Piper? This must be a far greater shock for her. I turn toward her, but her face is a mask, betraying nothing.
That night I scoop coal onto the fire as Piper arranges our blankets closer to its warmth. The coal is getting low; I’ll have to make the trek for more tomorrow.
She settles in, and I lie down next to her, snuggle a blanket around me. Cat is against her back, and Ness against mine.
“Poor Zak. He must be lonely,” Piper says. “I wonder if he’ll scoot down to visit us?”
“I doubt it. He seemed to get that when Gran says to do something, you do it.” He’d moved into my room upstairs without complaint when Gran suggested he shouldn’t be sleeping in the same room as Piper and me.
“Who does that woman think she is, lining us up like some sort of freak show and checking us out? I’ve got a good mind to tell her what I think of her and Mum, keeping us apart all these years when we should have been together.”
I feel warm inside. Despite the darkness inside me, Piper still wants to be with me—her sister.
“With Gran, it might be better to keep that to yourself.”
“Well. When I’m angry, it has to come out. One way or another. But it can wait.”
I hesitate, but there is one thing I have to ask her. “Piper, what did you make of Gran’s reaction when I said that Dad isn’t really our dad?”
She takes my hand, turns so she is on her side. Her face, as familiar as mine, is lit up by the fire, a shadow across it in the flickering light.
“It doesn’t matter to me; he’ll always be my dad. And when he told me the story of how Mum just appeared with me, I guessed maybe he wasn’t our biological father. How about you? Are you OK?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why it should bother me. I barely know him. And until a few weeks ago, I never even knew he existed.”
She absorbs that, eyes thoughtful. “Maybe that’s harder because you went from no father, to maybe having one, and back to no father.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“You’ve still got me.” Her eyes are like a cat’s, reflecting the light. “You’ll always have me.” Her hand grips mine tighter.
And I’m afraid she’ll ask me more about what Gran said—about good and bad. Bad blood. That if she hasn’t already, she’ll work out why we were separated.
She doesn’t say anything else. Her eyes close; her breathing evens.
But for me, the escape of sleep is harder to find.
Come: run and hunt together!
The words of the summoning are in me, part of me, drawn out of lips that try to stop them. They are in my throat, my ears, reverberating all around until the very woods themselves vibrate with their power.
The trees crack, and break.
We burst free!
We run.
Front paws, back paws; front, back; loping across the moors—flying over gorse, bracken, rocks. They run with me, in desperate joy and hunger, tongues lolling out, side by side.
The Wisht Hounds of death and nightmare.
I’m terrified to be so near them, but it’s even worse than that. When I look down, I see great black paws and huge claws as I run.
I’m one of them.
Inside, I’m screaming, NO, NO, NO, but I can’t get away.
We fan out to form a circle.
Trapping the mindless prey.
We tighten the ring. Bleating, they run in terror, one straight for my waiting teeth.
The first sweet taste of hot blood, spurting down my throat, maddens my senses. It fills me with lust for more.
I sit bolt upright, heart thudding madly. Gradually I become aware of my own body, the blankets underneath—the ordinary, familiar things of this room.
What a nightmare. It was so vivid; it was like I was there, like it all really happened.
And, worst of all, I loved the kill—the blood, hot and sweet. My stomach turns. I try to force out the memory, the taste, and concentrate on breathing to avoid being sick.
Was I even asleep? It was more like the times I fainted when I was a child. The fainting that so alarmed Isobel and Gran. And that other time, when I left my body to listen in to them. Also, more recently, when I was in Winchester with Zak; it felt like I traveled back in time to when that huge dog was sitting on my chest.
I shake my head. Tonight’s “dream” felt like all those times. What could it mean?
I look around me. Apart from Ness, I’m alone.
Where’s Piper?
Piper
The sun is nearly here; soon it will steal over the hill and take the night.
I’m not cold. I should be, but my blood is hot, like in that crazy dream I had last night—I was running over the moors, all the way to Wistman’s Wood. My hands on the bark called forth the hounds trapped within the dark trees.
When we went to bed last night I was still angry, so angry, with Gran—her saying I should never have come here. When it is my home. I’d closed my eyes, stilled my breathing, but inside I stewed, unable to sleep. When the dream finally came, I imagined it was Gran’s throat I ripped out.
When I woke up, I was outside, past the gate: am I sleepwalking now? My bare feet were caked in mud, sore; there were scratches on my legs. I walked back through the gate, past the ruins to the front step, and sat there, with only Cat for company.
Not cold, not tired, though I should be both. My spirits sing with the sun as it rises.
It’s still very early. I should go in, clean myself up, pretend I’ve been in my bed asleep all night so no one worries . . .
So no one questions.
“Come on, Cat,” I say. “Let’s try to catch some z’s.”
Later, after breakfast, I pull Zak’s hand and drag him outside. “Alone, at last.” He wraps his arms around me. “Your gran must be in cahoots with your dad.”
“Ha. As if! And the thing about that is, I’m pretty sure he’s not my dad.”
“What?”
And I tell him the story, what Gran said, what she didn’t say.
“Do you think it’s true?”
“Probably. I’d kind of guessed it. I mean, Mum was a stunner and, what, twenty years younger than Dad? And she just appeared with me and said I was his. I wonder if even he believed her. I don’t think he minded, either way, so long as she stayed with him. But I wonder if that’s why he didn’t want me to come here. Maybe he didn’t want me to find o
ut.”
“He’s still your dad; the one who raised you.”
“And he always will be. But that’s not all I found out.”
“What else could there be?”
“Gran said some weird stuff. The gist of it seems to be that when Quinn and I were born, she could see that we were half good, and half bad. And so we were separated. She seems to think us being together is dangerous.” What I don’t tell him is that Mum said much the same thing to me.
He shakes his head. “That’s crazy.”
“Well, there is something about Quinn that isn’t quite right. There always has been, but she seems, I don’t know, weirder here.”
“She’s had a lot to deal with.”
“I suppose.”
“Piper, this is rubbish. Don’t let that superstitious stuff from your gran freak you out. Besides, I’m here, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if it’ll make you happy, I’ll see if I can get Quinn to open up a little.” He wraps his arms, warm and solid, around me.
There’s a throat-clearing sound behind us. We turn. Quinn is standing in the doorway, an odd look on her face. How much did she hear?
“Anyone want to help me fetch some coal?” she asks.
Quinn
“Quinn, talk to me,” Zak says.
“What about?”
“I don’t know. The weather, who your father might be, how your gran is freaking Piper out. Anything.”
“Well. The sun is out today, but with a northerly wind of about ten knots, I’d say.”
Zak laughs. He’s taking his turn at pushing the empty wheelbarrow up the path. “Anything else?”
I shrug. “Gran seemed to imply that our father isn’t who we thought, but from what you said, Piper must have told you, so why ask me? And as far as Gran freaking Piper out, well. Freaking people out is kind of what Gran does. She freaked you out with that thing about your name, didn’t she?” We round a tor. “Stop here,” I say, and Zak looks around as if expecting a coal shop to appear.
“Coal? Here?”
“Yes. Here.” I find the place under some twigs and dirt, and pull the lid open.
Zak peers in. “Right, so why is there what appears to be a coal bunker dug in the ground in the middle of nowhere?”
I start shoveling coal into the wheelbarrow. “Well, actually, it’s not very middle-of-nowhere here. We’re not far off a farmer’s track.” I gesture the opposite direction from the way we came.
“And how does the coal appear here?”
“Well, the farmer keeps it filled up for us, of course!”
“Oh. Obviously. And why does he do that?”
“He kind of owes Gran a favor.”
“Forever?”
“That’s what owing Gran a favor is like.”
We start back. “Do you usually do this on your own?”
“Of course. I’m stronger than I look.”
“I get that. But if you want to talk to somebody, Quinn, I’m here.”
“And then you can report back to Piper.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Sure.”
We continue, in silence. We take a different path from the one we did on the way to the coal, a slightly longer way but easier with the full wheelbarrow. With Zak to help, I put more in than I usually would but insisted on taking equal turns.
We round a corner, and I slow. There is something about this place. What is it? I’ve come this way many, many times, but it’s not that bugging me now. It’s something else.
Zak turns back. “Tired? Let me take it.”
I shake my head, frown. I put the barrow down. Leave it, and take a thin path through some rocks to the side. Zak follows.
“Quinn? Are you OK?”
I don’t answer. My blood is racing, as if I’ve been running. I’m back in that dream, or vision, or whatever it was, from last night—running across the moors. Chasing, circling round, herding them to where the ground dips down, and . . .
There.
This is the place.
The ground is stained with blood. There are three sheep, or what is left of them. Their throats are ripped out, entrails scattered. There are footsteps in the blood—a heel pad and four toes, like a dog’s but with long claws, and the whole thing way too big for any normal dog.
Hot, delicious blood.
I’m split between here and now, and then. My stomach rises and I fight not to be sick. Did that really happen? Was it me? I was asleep. It couldn’t have been.
Yet here is the grisly scene that remains.
There are footsteps behind me.
“Oh my God.” Zak’s voice.
I whirl around.
“What could have done this?” His eyes are fixed on the remains, his hand raised to his face, and that is when I notice the smell, the flies. I was seeing it in my mind as if it had just happened, the blood warm and fresh. Not this.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, and hurry back to the wheelbarrow, wanting to put as much space between me and that as I can.
“Gran? Can we talk?”
She gestures me into her bedroom. I shut the door behind me. Nervous feet take me across the room to her bedside. I’d waited until Piper was asleep, too freaked out to sleep myself. I have to know. Did I really do that? How?
Only Gran will know, and I’m more afraid of myself than I am of her now.
I sit next to her.
“You’re frightened,” she says.
“Yes. Something happened. It doesn’t make sense, but I’m afraid I did something bad.”
“Tell me.”
I describe the dream of the night before, the scene of the sheep today. Gran remains silent, her face grave.
“Well? At first I thought it was a dream. But I saw the sheep; Zak did, too. It couldn’t have been a dream. So what was it?”
Gran’s face is etched with sadness. “It wasn’t a dream. What you have described is spirit traveling—when you leave your body behind and go somewhere in another form. From what you’ve told me, I believe you were present this way when the hunt was summoned. Whether you led or merely followed, I cannot say. If you led, you will be marked to the hunt now.”
I look back at her in horror. “Spirit traveling? Me? But I can’t do stuff like that.” I deny it even though, deep inside, I know: those other times weren’t dreams or imaginings, either.
“It’s in your blood, Quinn, and it always has been—as my granddaughter. And you did travel when you were younger. I stopped you for a time using various means—spells and herbs. Do you remember?”
This means . . . no. It can’t be true. Am I . . . like Gran? Am I a witch? I shake my head, in denial of all I have been remembering since I got back here.
“It is true. And now the hunt has been awakened, for the first time in many years: a call I have resisted my whole life. None are safe on the moors.”
My blood chills and slows in my veins. “What did you mean when you said if I led I’m marked to the hunt now?”
“That you are part of them, fated to join them over and over again, whether by traveling or death. I tried, Quinn.” Her hand touches my cheek, then falls away. “I shielded you from your powers and stopped you traveling out of your body. I used every charm and spell I could come up with. It was hard staying one step ahead of you. But wearing Isobel’s bracelet blocks spells—it broke the protective shield I had around you. Yet still I hoped that your fear of dogs would keep you away from the Wisht Hounds.”
I stare at her, shocked. That’s why she made me terrified of dogs when I was a small child.
I touch the bracelet on my wrist. “Should I take it off?”
“No! Don’t ever take it off. The shield is broken, and I lack the strength to replace it now. You would be at far more risk without it.”
“What about the pendant?” I say, and touch it: smooth stone on one side, markings on the other that not everyone can see. “Is it really a pendant of power? Is it part of what the bracelet do
es, or something else?”
Gran’s eyes widen at the words pendant of power—the name Wendy told me. She nods. “That is what it is. But I can’t say for sure what the pendant will do for you: it varies with the wearer. It will help you with whatever is most important to you. You’ll have to work that out for yourself.”
“What can I do to put things right?”
“Quinn, I have told you your whole life, you must guard against the darkness. Don’t let it take hold of you. There is nothing I can do to save you if it does.”
“How can I stop it?” I whisper.
“Only you can answer that.” She shakes her head. “I’ve done all I can.”
“This is why I was separated from Piper and kept here. Isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
One word that confirms every fear I ever had.
“Quinn, when you were born, I saw your path. That you would destroy your family and steal your sister’s life. Your mother and I separated you and Piper in an attempt to break the tie between you, the tie that would lead to this path. By finding your twin, you have taken the first steps to destroying your family. All I have done your whole life is try to prevent this.” She shakes her head. “Don’t make me a failure. Now go.”
Her eyes are kind and full of pity, but her face is repelled. Like she can’t bear to look at me any longer. The same way Isobel always looked at me.
I stand, knees shaking, and walk to the door.
Downstairs, I slip back under the covers next to Piper. I watch her chest gently rise and fall. We may look the same, but somehow she has a spark that I don’t have, that makes her beautiful. Even in sleep, she is so alive. My sister. Something I thought I would never have.
Could it really be so dangerous for us to be together? My hand reaches out, strokes her hair. She murmurs in her sleep, moves toward me. I’m shaking; hungry for warmth, for life.
For love.
I hold my hand up in the firelight. The pendant on my bracelet glistens. What is most important to me? I don’t know. Freedom, maybe. Or being loved for who I am.