Accession

by Terah Edun

  The one person in town she dreaded seeing more than the demon-hunting aunt she’d left behind at the house stood in the middle of the herbal shop staring at her.

  Ethan Warner leaned back against a wooden table covered in herbs, glass jars, distillers, and tools. His expression was unreadable. To everyone but her that is. Frustration lined his face.

  Well, he could take a number in line.

  Closing the door behind her, Katherine glared at him. As she stalked forward she stared at his well filled-out frame. He hadn’t changed a bit. Still drool worthy. Still untouchable. He stood at least six feet tall with a fit form visible under the cotton blue t-shirt he wore. Washed out jeans, Timberland boots, and crossed arms completed his disgruntled appearance.

  Swallowing, she walked forward to greet the boyfriend she hadn’t seen, heard from, or talked to in over six months.

  “Katherine,” Ethan said coolly as he rose from his slouched position.

  “Ethan,” she practically snarled back. “What can I do for you?”

  Her exterior was furious. Her interior was ready to break down and cry. She hadn’t seen Ethan in six months for a very good reason. They had broken up for a very good reason. Her sister had called her a prude for a very good reason. And it was a reason that she did not want to face right now. Not when it felt like the world was ending and she was going right along with it down the bath drain.

  “Rough day?” he said, amusement crossing his face as he took in her disturbed appearance. She wasn’t sure if it was her wind-tossed hair, rumpled appearance, or mascara-streaked face the most amusing, but it didn’t matter anyway.

  A tic appeared in her eye. She reached up to the snarled mess of hair on top of her head before dropping her hand with a red blush on her face.

  “Rough day?” she said softly. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  His demeanor didn’t change as he looked her up and down like a pig before auction. Dryly, he said, “Even for you, this is a bit much. You know...looking like a night hag isn’t going help you win that football player over.”

  For once Katherine was mystified. “What?”

  Ethan’s face darkened as if she were deliberately playing with him. “The guy you went to go see yesterday.”

  Katherine looked him in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous?”

  “Of Kevin?” Ethan said as he paced forward aggressively. “Not a chance. Just thought you had better taste than dumb jocks.”

  “And I thought you had better things to do with your life than stalk me?”

  Anger flashed through his eyes. “I wasn’t stalking you, the whole town was talking about you showing up a bar looking like you tumbled through a bed of weeds.”

  “Tumbled is right,” muttered Katherine distastefully. “And people need to mind their own goddamned business.”

  “What about me?” he taunted. “Should I?”

  “Yes, because who I’m with is none of your goddamned concern! You made that clear six months ago.”

  Ethan cursed. “Well, I’m sorry, Your Highness, for still caring about you shacking up with a loser.”

  Katherine was visibly shaking with anger. She was so upset that she crossed her arms and grabbed each elbow to keep lightning from shooting from her hands. One of the perks of her witches’ gift was the high probability for deadly and destructive accidental magic.

  Ethan saw her move her hands to stop the flow of magic from releasing.

  He asked, “What in the world is wrong with you? Even you have better control than this.”

  Katherine felt her anger tip into rage. If there was one time she wished her protectors that appeared with no warning and no call, would just appeared in a maelstrom and descend in a homicidal rage, it was now. But they didn’t really respond to her calls, as so aptly expressed by their leader. They did what they wanted to do.

  “Yeah, well, my sister died. Or didn’t the gossipmongers in town tell you that?”

  Ethan’s expression dropped into sorrow. “Katherine, I didn’t know. I’m sorry, I—“

  “I don’t care about your sorrys right now. Just get out. Because, as you pointed out, my control is kind of out the window, you being a bastard isn’t helping, and so help me god, if I see you still in this shop within the next minute, I will unleash a bolt of lightning so powerful you’ll be fried into a crisp,” she snapped.

  His expression immediately changed. His hands dropped to his side as he said, “Katherine, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Get out,” she said tightly.

  He looked at her with pity in his eyes. She looked at him with rage in hers.

  Without another word he exited the shop.

  Katherine slowly lowered her arms, trying to rub the magical friction out of each arm as she did, and let out a deep sigh. She refused to cry. Today wasn’t a day for tears. Her sister wasn’t even home yet, let alone buried with all the sacred rights of a future queen. No, she would cry when it was over. Not before.

  Now...now she had to find Cecily.

  Chapter 7

  Not being able to stand a minute more alone with her thoughts of Rose and Ethan, Katherine rushed through the storage and down the three shorts steps into the storage room. It went a lot deeper in the ground than that, with a cellar on the bottom level for the things best kept in darkness and surrounded by the chill of the earth, but this initial basement was normal. With normal products—a normal mop and broom, wooden shelves made by human hands, and a spotless interior. As she caught her breath and fought not to hyperventilate from the anger coursing through her, Katherine looked around. Being around Ethan in general tended to make her upset. Being around him today of all days, when her sister was dead and her school looked like a tornado had run through it...courtesy of her...made her infuriated. She wouldn’t allow thoughts of why that was so to course through her brain. Rehashing her past with him was the last thing she needed on her mind today.

  Taking a deep breath and muttering to herself to stay calm... She wouldn’t want her protectors to show up for the second time in a row on the same day after all.

  That would be a record, she whispered to herself while shutting her eyes and clenching her fists to force the ill thoughts away. Then a dark realization came upon her. One of shock...and trepidation.

  The protectors haven’t killed anyone today, Katherine realized. She ignored how serial-killerish that sounded for the moment and shuddered. There had never been a time those protectors had appeared and they hadn’t killed someone.

  How is that possible? Katherine wondered to herself.

  Control, whispered a voice inside her.

  Then another voice spoke, but this time it was aloud. It was Cecily.

  “Control,” she heard but didn’t see Cecily muse aloud. “I need the control for the verbena, otherwise this spell wouldn’t work.”

  Katherine shook her head hastily but kept her eyes shut and slumped her shoulders. She wasn’t a fool, but she had hope. Just a minute more and maybe one good thing would come from this day. She had thought...just for a moment...that she had her own personal spirit guide.

  Spirit guide...ancestral guardian...token mascot, she thought to herself. I’ll take anything right now.

  Some witches were blessed with them. Ancestors whose spirits reanimated to guide them through their witching hour. The witching hour was both the time between darkness and the break of dawn but also the time in a witch’s life when she or he not only assumed their greatest strengths but all their inherited weaknesses. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty their gifts grew, their blood resounded with like witches, and their fates became aligned with their natural path. As much as Katherine has made fun of the Labrador, but he and her sister had found each other, their blood had run afire when they were together—or so Rose had said—and his magic complemented hers.

  “Derrick,” she whispered to herself harshly as she leaned back on the door that wasn’t far off, considering how short the steps were, both in width
and height. Katherine may not have respected her sister and her sister’s choice of a mate in life, but she certainly would in death.

  “Although it couldn’t have been that hard to find him,” she said. “They went to the same schools all their life and were nominated and won prom titles in their sophomore year.”

  Meanwhile she was hiding out in dark forests with a kobold her sophomore year.

  She opened her eyes with a sigh to really see the cellar. As her eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness of the cellar, she let the hope inside her die as she acknowledged that no more whispers were coming. She had walked into the room in a storm of anger from memory. Going up and down those same three steps from kindergarten until now had its advantages. Her mind had interjected all the familiar sights and sounds of walking down into the room, but just as her fists were clenched by her side in a physical attempt to ward off unwelcome thoughts, her eyelids were shut tight to banish the visions of Ethan hovering in her gaze. She almost laughed. It was such a childish response. To close your eyes and hide under the covers until the monster was gone.

  “Well, at least I faced this monster head-on first,” she whispered wryly to herself as she slowly unclenched her fingers and winced when she felt her nails ease from her flesh, assuredly leaving reddened half-moon marks behind. Then she opened her eyes and looked around. Her eyes took in the semi-dark room with rectangular windows high up on the wall, like peepholes but larger.

  Katherine grumbled to herself in a distracted tone as she looked around with the light from the windows filtering down to form pools of sunlight encased by thin slivers of darkness where the pools didn’t overlap. When she spotted Cecily, it was as if the cloud of anger around her dissipated like smoke, instead leaving a knot of anxiety in her breast. Here was someone who she could talk to. Someone who understood her better than anyone else in their small town: Cecily Carmichael.

  Katherine stared up at her cousin with a slight smile on her face. Cecily’s hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail with brown spiral ringlets bouncing every which way like a living thing on the back of her head and more tame curls framing her face that Katherine couldn’t see but knew were surely arranged in an attractive manner. Her hair always was. Where Rose was...had been...drop-dead gorgeous with her perfectly coiffed hair, layered makeup, and expensive taste in clothes, Cecily was pretty in an effortless way. Her radiant smile could brighten a dull spring day while her eyes framed by charming round spectacles always seemed to be dipping towards the edge of her nose, and the dusting of freckles across a slightly brown face pointed to a mixed-heritage background. Katherine wasn’t actually sure what background Cecily’s father had come from, she wasn’t even sure what he was. She and Cecily had speculated on it endlessly as children, but aside from one fiery incident with Aunt Sarah, they had quickly realized that it wasn’t a subject to bring up with the older members of their family, including long-distance relatives who probably didn’t know anyway.

  The only thing Aunt Sarah would say was that he was from a faraway land and the simultaneous best and worst thing that had happened in her life. Katherine was firm in her belief that he was someone wildly beautiful from a land like Morocco, but Cecily loved to point out that her mother hadn’t traveled to North Africa, only East Africa and India, so he had to be something like Ethiopian or Nepali. Wherever he had come from, his daughter had been born with a natural beauty and vivacity. Cecily could light up a room whenever she walked in...any room that didn’t contain her mother, that is. Cecily had inherited the light brunette color of her bouncing curls from her mother, darker skin from her father that Katherine envied in the summer for its radiance, and a brilliant personality all her own that sparkled through her hazel eyes.

  As Katherine stood at the foot of the steps, her hands awkwardly twisting behind her, she waited for Cecily to acknowledge her. For Cecily to turn around, take one look at her, and realize that something was wrong.

  But Cecily’s mind was wholly concentrated on her task. Katherine gave a small smile. That was most like her cousin. Once her mind focused on something it was hard to distract her from it. Katherine wasn’t sure if Cecily has guessed that Ethan had walked through the storeroom door and was going to wait silently on her. Or if she just hadn’t heard the door open at all, but either way it was Katherine who would have to initiate contact.

  Walking over to her brunette cousin, she watched as Cecily reached high above for a mason jar full of fresh herbs while standing on a ladder.

  “Need some help?” asked Katherine, her voice odd as she braced the ladder.

  “Oh, thanks!” said Cecily quickly as she descended down the ladder steps holding the medium-sized jar.

  When she got to the last step and turned Cecily paused her outstretched hand. She had gotten one good look at Katherine’s face and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  Katherine had been expecting her to start crying herself. Cecily was emotional where Katherine was usually stoic. But...well...it hadn’t occurred to her that no one had informed her cousin of a death in the family. There were only so many people to call to notify in case of an emergency like this and her mother was usually meticulous about such matters. But then again, neither of her daughters had ever died before, either.

  “You don’t know?” said Katherine, shocked.

  Cecily frowned. “Know what? You mean about the disturbance earlier? Did the unicorns riot?”

  “What? No? Why would they—” Katherine said in confusion. “Never mind, there’s something I have to tell you. Something not good.”

  Worry crossed Cecily’s face. “Well, out with it. I haven’t heard anything from Mother. But I know she and the queen ran out of here pretty urgently two hours or so ago.”

  Biting her lip while holding back a sob, Katherine said, “Something’s happened to Rose.”

  “What?” Cecily asked as Katherine sank down to the floor by the ladder and she sat down on the steps holding her hand with the jar at her feet. “What happened to Rose?”

  “Her plane crashed and she died this morning,” said Katherine numbly.

  “Oh my god, Katy, that’s horrible. How could something like that happen?” First shock appeared in her face with widened eyes. And then tears began to roll down Cecily’s cheeks.

  Katherine shook her head. “I don’t know. Your mom wasn’t very forthcoming, and my mom pulled me out of school in hysterics. Kind of. Sort of. Well, I was already outside of school, but it doesn’t matter now.”

  Cecily looked at her with tears streaming down her face. “I don’t even think I want to know right now.”

  Katherine gave a shaky laugh. “Probably not.”

  “So are they sure? About Rose?” Cecily whispered. “Where is she now? I mean...her body?”

  Katherine grimaced. “Not here. Not yet.”

  Cecily nodded. “A plane crash? Where was she going? How did it go down?”

  Katherine looked over at her while wiping away a lone tear. “I was hoping you could help with that. You know, find out what happened. Those are questions I wondered about and—”

  Katherine’s voice trailed off as she was interrupted by Cecily’s buzzing phone and a ringtone that Katherine had made her promise to change at least a hundred times already. Cecily quickly grabbed it, looked at the screen, and turned off the harsh jangle.

  “It could have been important.”

  “It wasn’t,” Cecily said while helping her stand. “I’ll do anything I can to help.”

  “Thanks. I thought with you searching for clues we might find something,” sniffed Katherine as she handed over the scarf in her hand.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean a plane crashed with a fully functioning crew and team of coven members. None of them should have died. Especially not Rose. And Derrick could control the freaking weather.”

  Cecily swallowed harshly. “So you think it wasn’t an accident.”

  Katherine looked at her numbly. “It’s hard to believe it was.”
/>   Cecily cut her off with wide eyes. “It’s been six years, Katherine...you can’t be thinking—”

  “I wasn’t,” said Katherine harshly. “I wasn’t. We know how he died. It was an accident. No matter what Mother says. But this...”

  Katherine stood up and paced. “This can’t be right.”

  “Does it feel wrong to you?” Cecily said, standing up to herself.

  Katherine laughed cruelly. “Wrong? In the sense of a witch who can sniff out a lie?”

  She turned back to see Cecily’s arms crossed defensively.

  Katherine’s tone softened. “No, it doesn’t. But you know me...my magic has always been useless for...you know...useful things.”

  Cecily raised an eyebrow. Not questioning. But cautious. If Katherine was in a mood, more of a mood anyway, she probably didn’t want to provoke it.

  “Like washing clothes?” Katherine offered weakly as a peace offering.

  Cecily cracked a smile and chuckled. “Or dyeing your hair. Remember that time you went to school with snakes in your curls and bright orange hair?”

  Katherine let a smile grace her face. “That was the night after that sleepover. They transferred from her to me. She was lucky. She only had one snake.”

  Cecily shook her head and they both broke out into laughter. Katherine’s body released its tension. It was good to laugh with Cecily. Like today wasn’t the worst and weirdest day in her life. Like Rose wasn’t dead.

  Her laughter slowed and a grim line appeared on her face. “I just... Cecily, the facts don’t line up right. The one and only time Rose leaves coven lands and protected territories and she’s dead?”

  Cecily sobered herself. “It is strange, I agree. What do you want to do?”

  “Solve it.”

  “Solve what?” Cecily said, stepping forward, this time a hint of unease on her face.

  Katherine gripped her hands. “Solve Rose’s death. There’s something they don’t want us to know and something we must find out.”