Always a Witch

by Carolyn Maccullough

  "Sir," he begins. "Shall I..."

  La Spider flicks her free hand toward him. "Dismissed," she says almost absently. He scurries away.

  Liam looks from Gabriel to me, raising one eyebrow. "And just who is this? Oh, how the puzzle deepens."

  Before I can reply, a gentle voice filters through the doorway. "Really, Lavinia. Has it come to this?" And with that Thom steps into the room, shouldering Gabriel lightly aside with his cane. He is dressed in a perfectly pressed dark suit and his hair is combed neatly back on his head, almost as if he has an important appointment.

  A chill breaks out across my skull. Thom Greene seems unfazed that he's standing in the Knight house. In fact, he seems determined.

  La Spider draws herself upright. "Thom Greene," she says softly. Gabriel begins to inch sideways along the wall toward me, always keeping his eyes on La Spider, but she seems to have forgotten him for the moment.

  Thom inclines his head. "Yes. It has been a number of years. And I see that we must meet again under these most unfortunate circumstances."

  For once, La Spider seems at a loss for words as an almost panicked expression flits across her face. Her eyes dart wildly to Liam as if seeking reassurance. Again, I wonder who convinced whom to start experimenting on the Greenes. And then Cera's words come back to me: La Spider called my mother a fool, but she left. More importantly, she left us alone. And we've lived in peace ever since.

  Apparently, that peace is about to change, thanks to Liam.

  Isobel stirs in my arms and struggles to sit up. "Grandfather," she whispers. At the sight of the blood on her face, Thom's expression hardens.

  "What were you planning to do with her?" he says softly. All traces of gentleness have vanished from his voice.

  Liam shrugs, smiles lazily. "Why don't you ask her? She's the one who came to this house. In disguise."

  Thom nods slowly. "Perhaps. But do you deny that you have been following us, studying us for weeks?" He pauses for a courteous moment, and when Liam doesn't answer, he nods. "Of course you don't." He takes another step into the room, closer to Isobel and me. But he keeps his gaze on Liam's face and I'm suddenly reminded of a professor schooling an errant pupil. "For what purpose, may I ask? Why have you been so suddenly interested in us? Did we not have a pact? To leave each other alone?"

  La Spider swallows, her long throat seeming to convulse, but it's Liam who answers. "Times change, old man. We're only doing what you yourself would have done sooner or later."

  Thom shakes his head. "I think not. We Greenes are not quite as fixated on blood as you are."

  "You Greenes are fools, then," Liam murmurs. "And I for one do not intend to suffer a fool." And with a motion almost too swift to follow he draws a shining silver knife from his coat and plunges it into Thom's side.

  Next to me, Isobel jumps as if she herself has been stabbed. "Grandfather," she screams. Thom turns his head to her, gives a long look, and then almost in slow motion begins to crumple and fall. As he does so, he lifts one hand and the lights go out, plunging the room into darkness. At almost the same time, a tingle slips over my skin. Either Liam or La Spider just attempted to use their power on me.

  "Tam," Gabriel shouts, but then it sounds as if my name has been abruptly choked out of his throat. In the dim light filtering from the window I see Liam and Gabriel wrestling each other for the knife. A flash of silver, then someone grunts. I struggle to pull Isobel to her feet.

  "Come on, we've got to get out of here," I murmur as the gun goes off over our heads and shatters the window behind us.

  "Not without my grandfather," Isobel sobs into my ear.

  In the dim street light coming in the windows, I see La Spider raise her gun and point it directly at me just as Gabriel and Liam crash into her. Liam's outline suddenly begins to waver and shift.

  "Tamsin," Gabriel yells again. This time I reach out and pull hard on Liam and he solidifies again, panting. In the second that Liam takes to catch his breath, Gabriel swiftly kicks his legs out from under him and punches him once, twice, in the face.

  With a shriek, La Spider points her hand at Gabriel, and this time I'm not fast enough. Gabriel's body is suddenly flung halfway across the room. With a grunt, he collides into the leather armchair and slides to the floor.

  Tugging Isobel with me, I stumble to his side. "Gabriel," I cry. "Are you—"

  He snaps open his eyes and I swear they're blazing at me in the shadows of the room. "Don't resist this," he growls, and he clamps his fingers around my wrist so tightly that I'm sure I'll be wearing a bracelet of bruises for days to come. with his other hand, he catches hold of Isobel's upper arm.

  "Not without Thom," I cry. Stretching forward with all my might, I lock my fingers into the old man's just as La Spider aims the gun at my chest and pulls the trigger.

  But the gunshot never comes. I flinch anyway as La Spider's shriek bursts against my ears. The sound goes on and on even as darkness and light whirl past me in a kaleidoscope until finally it thins out into a hollow keening moan.

  I open my eyes. A cold wind whips past my ears and the ground underneath me is hard. Here and there crusts of old snow cover the yellowed meadow like so many scabs. A tall gray house looms before me, but its shutters are broken and banging in the wind against the peeling, burnt walls.

  Gabriel keeps one hand locked around my wrist but releases Isobel as she sits up. "Where are we?" she whispers.

  "Hedgerow," I say bleakly. I consider the shell of the house in front of me. The last time I saw it, it was full of light and people and life. "What used to be my home."

  "It was the only place I could think of fast enough," Gabriel says. "Even though I knew it wasn't ... the way we left it. I couldn't find that." He runs his fingers over his lower lip, dabbing away a trickle of blood.

  "Are you hurt?" I ask, checking the rest of his face for bruises, but he shakes his head, so I turn my attention to Thom. With two quick jerks, Isobel has torn off the hem of her petticoat and is wadding the material into Thom's side. But from the expression on her face, she seems to think it's hopeless. Still, her voice is steady when she looks at me and says, "We need to get him back home. Cera can heal him. She knows ... remedies. She can—" Her voice chokes off as Thom reaches up one shaking hand and touches her mouth gently. His eyelids flicker open.

  "It's too late for that," he whispers. He shifts and tries to sit up.

  "Don't," Isobel cries, her fingers working faster to stanch the bleeding.

  "Young man," Thom says, "help me sit up."

  Gabriel hesitates, looks at Isobel for a split second, and then puts his arm around Thom's shoulder and props him up halfway. "Sir, I think—"

  "Shhh," Thom says, and we all fall silent as he turns his head left and right to take in the meadow and the remains of the house. "This is a good place," he whispers at last. "A strong place. I can feel the elements here."

  I stare at the shell of the house. "It was—" I say, and suddenly tears escape my eyes and the pain in my throat is too great for any more words.

  Thom looks at me calmly. "And it will be again, Tamsin. You have to be brave. And you have to make a choice. A terrible choice," he whispers.

  I rub my forehead with the heels of my palms to ease away a sudden headache. "Not that again," I mutter.

  "Always that, I'm afraid."

  He turns to Isobel, blots the tears that are streaming down her face with his fingertips. "And you, too, must be brave. Read the book. But do not let it overwhelm you." There is a sharp hitch in his breath. "It is to be used as a guide only."

  "Why did you send me there?" Isobel murmurs brokenly. "To that awful place? If you knew this would happen? If you knew you were going to die?"

  A ghost of a smile crosses Thom's lips. "Only the very young seem to think that we can avoid death. We cannot. We can only perhaps choose how we meet it." He takes another wincing breath and the lines around his eyes suddenly tighten. "This is a fine place. Bury me here."

  Isobe
l makes a startled sound of protest, but he only repeats, "Bury me here and build the altar over me. Perhaps we will come here." Then he smiles at me. "Again."

  Twenty-Three

  THE SOUND OF SILVIUS'S howling seems to ring through the Greenes' house even though Isobel and her wolf have fled to the woods. An hour ago gabriel, Isobel, and I Traveled back. But before doing that, in my time we buried Thom in the meadow behind the ruined hulk of what had once been my family's house. It had taken the better part of three hours to finally hack a deep enough hole in the semi-frozen ground and place Thom's body in it. And all the while, Isobel hadn't made a single sound, but the tears had run freely down her cheeks as the three of us stood over the makeshift grave. Finally, she joined hands with the both of us and led us in the traditional prayer for a soul's release, and if the harmony of our three voices seemed weak and thin under the rising wind, she didn't protest. Then, with our hands still locked, gabriel had taken us back to 1887 to Isobel's home. In that front room where we first met Cera, her brothers, and Thom, we explained what had happened at the Knight house to Cera, Philben, and Phineaus. And then with a single glance between them, Philben and Phineaus had gone to summon the rest of the Greene family home to keep them safe. Isobel had left the room abruptly, her fingers wound tightly in Silvius's fur, while Cera, Gabriel, and I sat in silence as the firelight shifted and dimmed into darkness.

  Finally, Cera stirs, crosses to the side table, and begins to fiddle with the wick on an oil lamp. Under her fingers, the light from the lamp begins to grow and cast golden shadows across the plain white walls. Only then does she turn to face us again, and it's then that I can see her eyes are swollen. With a pang, I recall Thom's Talent to bring light or darkness to any room.

  Another mournful howl echoes from the woods. Right about now I feel like pressing my hands over my ears and screaming, too.

  But instead I pick and choose among the hundred questions that are jostling for first place. "Do you believe us now?" I whisper.

  Cera seems to be holding herself very still, as if she's afraid she's going to break into a hundred pieces. But she manages to nod. "It was never a question of believing you or not believing you," Cera says finally. The flames in the oil lamp seem to quiver in response.

  Could have fooled me. But I decide not to say this out loud, and Cera continues.

  "It was a question of how to respond to your warning."

  I take a breath. All at once her eyes flood with tears and guilt twists across her face, so I bite down on whatever I was going to say.

  "He knew what was coming and he still let it happen. In fact, he went out and met it deliberately." Her mouth twists downward. "What's the good of being able to read the future if you can't prevent anything like this?" she whispers, her words stirring the still air of the room.

  Hesitantly, I say, "He told me that dying is never a choice."

  Cera removes her hand, blinks at me. I can't tell if this is any comfort to her or not. She shakes her head, then says in a stronger voice, "Now we have to make sure that he didn't die in vain. And that he's not buried ... there ... alone. Forever."

  I nod. "We need to make the Domani. We need ... needed the clock that I told you about. The one hanging in the Knight house. But Alistair, I think he already had them destroy it."

  I turn to Gabriel. "Can you find it at all?"

  He closes his eyes briefly, then shakes his head. "It's gone."

  I shiver. The skin under his eyes has taken on a darker tinge. It's the night of the second day. He doesn't have much time left. Think, think, think. "The Domani," I repeat doggedly, hoping some flash of an idea will come to me. "We need to make sure that it's done differently this time. Last time it was ... an imperfect solution, as my grandmother put it."

  "Blood," says a voice, and all three of us jump. Isobel is standing in the door. In the lantern light, her face is all hard planes and angles. Silvius stands at her side, watching all of us with narrow golden eyes.

  "We'll make certain it's done right. The Knights are not the only ones who understand the power of blood spells."

  "Isobel," Cera murmurs, but the younger woman's face is resolute.

  "I don't care. After what that man did ... to Grandfather. I don't care how much of their blood we spill." She buries long white fingers in the fur at Silvius's neck.

  "We are not going to spill blood," Cera says sharply. "That is not what we—"

  "Oh, but we will," Isobel says softly. Then she straightens up, opens her mouth, and says in a singsong, eerie voice, "One stood for North and one stood for South. One stood for East, and one stood for West. And one stood Center. North summoned Air, and South carried Water, East called Fire, and West brought Earth." She pauses. "And the Center offered blood. And all bound together."

  I feel a chill break out across my arms as the words of the Domani spell spill forth from her lips.

  "I read it," Isobel says. "For the first time tonight, it appeared in the book." White lines bracket her mouth as if she's clenching her back teeth to keep from screaming. "The fifth element. It's the only way."

  Alarm bells are clanging through me. "It's not," I whisper. "It doesn't work. In my time, the Knights rise again. An imperfect solution at best," I remind her, as if my grandmother's words will carry weight. But Isobel doesn't even look at me.

  Cera's face is troubled. "We have never, never taken our Talents into that realm," she whispers.

  "We have never had a need to. Before," Isobel says.

  "Let's say we do need this clock, then," Cera begins. "Just how are we going to get it? It's gone. Are you proposing that we just walk in there and ask for it nicely?"

  Gabriel shifts, clears his throat. "I've been thinking about that. In our time, Alistair said something about losing it in a card game. What if I Traveled back to an even earlier time and—"

  "It won't work," I say instantly. "Liam knows who you are anyway."

  Gabriel pauses, raises one eyebrow at me, then continues. "As I just said, I could Travel back before this all happened and somehow—"

  "No! Don't you see? Liam got you once already. That's how he was able to come to the future, to our time. Don't you remember when he said, 'Don't be angry with your young man. He put up a good fight'?"

  Gabriel snorts, but I speak over him. "And please don't say something stupid about how you could take him in a fight and—"

  "Well, it's so obvious, so I don't need to say it—"

  "Don't be such an idiot. How much more can you Travel anyway, Gabriel? You're dying."

  Gabriel opens his mouth once, then closes it again. He locks his hands together and stares down at them.

  "It's not a clock, anyway," Isobel breaks in. "It's a small timepiece. Nothing like a wall clock as far as I can understand. The gift of time freely given. That's what the book said."

  "Given freely?" Gabriel interjects. He frowns. "That would have been good to know before we tried to steal the damn clock."

  But Isobel ignores him. Her gaze sharpens like a knife on me. "And according to the book, you have it."

  I blink at her. "Me? I don't have anything like that. I—" I shift in my seat and it's only then that I feel a small pinprick against my thigh.

  Jessica's cameo pin. That happens to be a little watch. That she gave me. Freely. Slowly, I reach into my pocket and curl my fingers around the watch. Its steady ticking is like a heartbeat.

  Isobel's stare is bright and burning with triumph.

  "Okay, so you have the timepiece, but how are you going to get one of the Knights? La Spider and Liam will be on their guard, and—"

  "It's not La Spider or Liam," Isobel interjects, stroking Silvius's fur. "It's Jessica. I read that much in the book. The daughter's blood sacrifice will bind the spell."

  My fingers clench around the cameo pin. "No. Not Jessica. She's the only one who..."

  "Who what?" Cera asks curiously. Her face is troubled.

  "Who seems to have a heart," I finish, even though I don't know
if that's true. She did let Livie die, after all. Still, I try again. "Making Jessica the sacrifice isn't going to work—"

  Isobel turns her head. "Enough. We're doing what you wanted us to do."

  "But you're not," I say, trying not to let my voice quaver. "This isn't what's supposed to happen at all. Or actually, it is what's supposed to happen and then it all unravels somehow in the future."

  "Then what's the right answer?" Cera asks quietly, turning to face me.

  "It has to be her. And it has to be tomorrow night. Samhain." Isobel's voice is flinty hard. Cera draws in a breath, nods slowly.

  "Tomorrow night? How are you going to get Jessica then? You know La Spider won't let her leave the house, and—" My words grind to a halt.

  "What is it?" Isobel asks, and the way she turns her face so sharply and regards me with those unblinking eyes makes me shiver. "You know a way to get her out of the house, don't you? Don't you?"

  I shake my head.

  "You said yourself that he's dying," Isobel explodes suddenly, flinging out one arm toward Gabriel. Silvius whimpers once, sits, then comes to his feet again. He bumps his nose against Isobel's hand, but she ignores him. "We're all going to die soon enough if you don't act. If you know a way to get her out of the house, then say it."

  A terrible choice, Thom told me. Either help to kill someone or do nothing and know that everyone you love will die. Glancing once at Gabriel, I realize it's not a choice at all.

  "Her music tutor. Before Gabriel. She's in love with him. If you send a message to her saying that he needs to see her, she'll sneak out of the house. She'll come for him."

  I close my eyes so I don't have to see the triumph blazing across Isobel's face.

  "Nothing yet?"

  Gabriel looks at me, the firelight flickering over his wan features.