Accession

by Terah Edun

  Katherine snapped her mouth closed with an audible click of her teeth. It seemed as though he already made his decision.

  “Fine,” she said in a huff as she stood and thrust the squeaking chair back with a scrape along the floor. “I’ll go.”

  “Very good, Katherine,” he said placidly from where he sat, still sucking on that dratted toffee.

  Katherine sniffed and walked to the door. Yanking it open, she turned back to Mr. Nielsen and said, “Just so you know...Ms. Florence is a fucking white witch with the powers of a bunny and the knowledge of a toadstool. She couldn’t lead herself out of a closet, let alone someone else.”

  And with that Katherine left a flabbergasted assistant principal behind and rushed out into the hallway. As she did so, she pulled her sunglasses down from atop her head and hastily pulled them over her eyes just as the homeroom bell rang. It was a good thing wearing sunglasses in the middle of broad daylight was in fashion with the teens at school. She gave no small thanks to the lamia, the blood-drinking fae creatures that humans liked to refer to as vampires after some human archetype or other, for that measure.

  Slinking into homeroom, Katherine crossed her arms and watched a substitute teacher begin to scribble notes on Ms. Peabody’s board for first-period class. Katherine knew it was for them because she had chalked “First Period Instructions” in cursive at the very beginning.

  Slouching as she watched the woman, Katherine waited for her turn around and face the room, but she never did. She just kept scribbling what looked like paragraphs of instructions on the board. Katherine began to feel damned sorry for Ms. Peabody’s first period class.

  She looked around as the surrounding students began to exchange whispers between friends. If they were talking about her, she didn’t care. Today sucked. Not only had she gotten sucker-punched into counseling, but she still had to go to school. Whoever had said life wasn’t fair had been prescient with the knowledge from the gods.

  “Life really isn’t fair,” Katherine muttered to herself darkly.

  “You’re telling me,” said a young a man she didn’t know. He’d been eavesdropping. When he saw the frown on her face, he quickly turned away.

  “Jeeze, Katherine,” said Connor as he plopped down in a vacant seat in front of her. “Scare away all of the potential boyfriends, why don’t you.”

  “I’m not in the mood, Conner,” she grouched.

  “Not for you,” he said in disgust. “I meant for me.”

  Katherine lowered the sunglasses with a tip of her finger and raised an eyebrow. She gave Connor a sarcastic look.

  “What?” Connor said with a shrug. “He was cute.”

  “If you’re into the surfer-boy type,” she said.

  “You know I am,” Connor said proudly, his dusting of freckles standing out on his face and halo of red hair smoothly slicked back across his lily-white forehead and blue eyes.

  She rolled her eyes but grinned. It was true. Connor made no secret of his preferences and was generally very forthright about what he did and didn’t like, potential boyfriends included.

  Speaking of which, Katherine said in confusion, “Why haven’t you asked him out?”

  Connor blinked his baby-blue eyes at her. “Because I don’t know if he likes me, duh.”

  Katherine glared. “You’re a telepath, find out.”

  This time it was Connor who rolled his eyes. “You know I don’t do that with people I care about.”

  “Thanks,” grouched Katherine in a huff, remembering all the times Connor had invaded her privacy.

  Connor quickly reached out and patted her arm. “Oh, don’t be such a doll. You know I think well of you. Which is why I have to see what’s going on in that head of yours to ward off disaster.”

  “Uh-huh,” Katherine said dryly. “Nice save.”

  Connor smirked. “I meant to tell you earlier, by the way. I...I think you did a really good job with whatever that was, and you know, whatever you are, I support you.”

  Katherine leaned forward in disbelief. “Whatever I am?”

  Connor shifted uncomfortable. “Oh, come on Katherine. You and I know we’ve never seen a witch or warlock with powers like yours in the town before. You’re different. Almost otherworldly.”

  Katherine sat back, disturbed as she bit her lip. She couldn’t say he was wrong. But she didn’t want to admit he was right, either.

  “Anyway,” Connor quickly exclaimed in an obvious effort to change the subject, “where’s that dratted cousin of yours?”

  Katherine blinked and looked around the classroom. Connor was right. Cecily wasn’t here...again. And this time Katherine hadn’t seen her in the last couple days.

  “I don’t know,” she said, mystified, just as the bell rang to transition to second period.

  Chapter 23

  Katherine tried calling Cecily as she hurried between classes with no answer. By the time the end of second period rolled around, she was officially freaked out at not being to reach her. Deciding that her cousin’s safety took priority and she really didn’t want to be around anyway for a third-period physical education class held in a counselor’s office, she skipped out of school and headed across town.

  To—where else?—the family shop.

  Rushing in the front door, Katherine looked around and her shoulders drooped in astonishment. The door had been unlocked, yes, but it wasn’t Cecily who greeted her but the store manager who came in when she was off-duty at the local ice cream shop.

  Forcing a smile, Katherine greeted her, “Natalie, hey. What’s up?”

  Natalie finished wrapping a satchel for a customer and slid it into the elderly man’s hand with a gracious smile before she looked over at Katherine with a sunny smile. “Hey, Katherine! I wasn’t expecting anybody else in for a few hours. Are you taking over your mom’s shift?”

  “Uh, no,” Katherine said nervously. “She’s not on her way, is she?”

  The siren with bright blue hair took a quick look at her watch. “Not as far as I know. I’ve got two more hours on the clock.”

  Katherine nodded nervously. “Great, have you seen Cecily, by any chance?”

  Natalie shrugged. “Not since last week when she and I were on shift together.”

  Katherine’s shoulders slumped. Another dead end.

  “All right, well, I’m going to go see if I can find her,” Katherine said while backing out of the shop.

  “Sure,” Natalie said, puzzled.

  As Katherine reached for the door handle behind her from memory Natalie said, her ink-black eyes unchanging, “Katherine?”

  “Yes?” Katherine paused.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  A flash of pain crossed Katherine’s face, but she took the sympathy as she’d been taught to—graciously. “Thank you, Rose will be missed.”

  And she would be...forever. But the thought of Rose’s memory did nothing but bring up anguish in Katherine’s mind. Nothing about Rose’s death was natural. Nothing about the ceremony they had performed over Rose’s remains had been traditional. Nothing felt right about her passing. It was like a raw open wound in Katherine’s heart that she was absolutely sure she couldn’t heal. How do you heal when you can’t find closure? When no one else around you have sought out closure and no one else seemed to care?

  Least of all the woman that Katherine counted on the most in her life to find out the how and why, the woman who had given birth to them, the woman who was their queen.

  With a rueful sigh, Katherine pushed open the shop door and walked outside.

  Standing on the sidewalk, she called Cecily’s cellphone twice.

  Growling in frustration when she got no answer and none of the texts she’d sent over the past two hours had been answered, Katherine decided to do something she had promised herself she’d never do.

  She was going to go see Ethan Nestor. He, above all others, would know where his foster sister was at all times. The bond between them was as strong as the bond bet
ween siblings.

  “Even stronger,” snorted Katherine as she hopped into Marigold, “considering that Rose and I fought like cats and dogs all the time.”

  Katherine thought she knew where he’d be today. So she turned the key in the ignition and headed over to the mechanic’s shop where, the last time she’d checked, Ethan had a part-time job.

  Getting out the car was the hardest thing Katherine did that day. She almost turned the Beetle around and gunned it out of there. But when Ethan walked out of the door with a rag trailing between his fingers and oil on his face, she had no choice. He had seen her.

  Getting out of the safety of Marigold and walking over, she stuffed her hands in her back pockets and rocked back on her feet away from Ethan.

  He was quiet, contemplative, waiting for her to speak. He had always been able to outwait her when he chose.

  Finally she sighed and said, “There’s only one reason I’m here.”

  “The orb’s fine,” Ethan said abruptly with a shrug. “I gave it to Ceidain and watched as he started the distribution network that would slowly feed the remaining power back into his people.”

  Surprise flowed through Katherine. Of all the things for him to bring up, she hadn’t thought that would be the first. But she knew Ethan. When he had a job to do or a responsibility to maintain, he did it. Without fuss and unrelentingly. Which was why she’d come to him first about Cecily. He considered her cousin and his foster sister his responsibility, as Cecily’s birth mother was always away on one mission or another. It was Ethan who had made sure Cecily ate when they lived in the same house; it was Ethan who had given bullies—warlock, fae, or human—black eyes when they messed with Cecily; and it was Ethan who kept tabs on her every day.

  It wasn’t that Cecily was flighty. It was that she was prone to fainting spells as a consequence of her prophetic witch’s gift. She used it sparingly, but as she had grown, the negative effects of using her gifts had worsened year by year. At first it was just an extra bout of hunger when she was young. But now Katherine knew Cecily could be laid out with migraines for a day if she used her gift too much.

  She felt a pain of regret at asking Cecily to use it to find Rose as she flashed back on what Cecily had said: The black thorn.

  But Katherine knew no one else in town with her sister’s gift, and her grief over Rose’s death had been so fresh that she hadn’t thought about the consequences.

  Taking a deep breath, Katherine said, “That’s good. Really good. I’m sure the queen will have Ceidain’s actions monitored tightly.”

  Ethan nodded. “Yeah, she sent over representatives already.”

  “Great,” Katherine hurried to say, “but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Oh?” Ethan said thoughtfully as he rubbed a spot of oil from his hands. Her mind remembered him rubbing that same spot months ago when he’d splashed paint on it trying to help her give Marigold a new look. It hadn’t really worked—the makeover, that is. Marigold had a tendency to absorb any paint colors she didn’t like, a legacy of her days as the former ride of a traveling salesman with the magical gift of living art. It was a pain in the ass, as far as Katherine was concerned, because Marigold actually seemed to like looking like a diseased stray cat with orange tiger stripes.

  Katherine huffed out noisily, trying to clear her head before any other uncomfortable memories flashed over her. Memories of when she and Ethan had been on better terms. Flashes of better days went through her mind. For a moment all Katherine wanted to do was rush over to him and get one, caring hug out of this craptastic day. But she scuffed her boots on the floor and resisted the urge to go over to him as he waited patiently. She wouldn’t go over and let him into her life again. She just needed to find out about Cecily and then she would leave.

  Katherine had thought she’d gotten over her hurt, but she hadn’t. Every time she came into Ethan’s presence the memories emerged, both the good and the bad. And the bad? Well, they were pretty bad. At least for a teenage girl facing the first guy she’d had an actual flat-out crush on. Because Ethan had broken up with her. Because he had left her after a moment she never wanted to talk about and a night that didn’t end well for either side. She had ended that night in tears in the swamp. Crying on Gestap’s slimy shoulder and thinking her world had ended. When he hadn’t returned her calls, ignored her texts, and ditched school for the entire semester afterwards, she had known her life was ending.

  Ethan had been her first boyfriend. Her first kiss. Her first love.

  Now he stood across from her with carefully blank eyes and waited for her to voice why she was here. And all of sudden Katherine was angry. She didn’t exactly know what it was she was angry about. She wasn’t sure if it was the hurt, the pain, the rage, or the sorrow, but she knew one thing. She could feel in it her bones that there was one thing she had never done after Ethan had broken up with her that she desperately wanted to do now.

  Now she would get some satisfaction for that. With no warning she raced up to Ethan, but not for a hug. She slapped him so hard across his face that the imprint of her hand on his cheek could be clearly seen on his fair skin. He didn’t retaliate as his head snapped back.

  He simply rubbed his jaw and said softly, “I deserved that. At least, if that’s what I think it was about.”

  She glared and squared her shoulders. “It probably was.”

  Ethan clenched his jaw. “If you’d just let me explain...”

  “No, I think you said enough that night,” she said spitefully.

  As she swung back for another hit, he caught her hand harshly in his own.

  “Fine. But don’t think I’m going to let you slap me again.”

  Frowning, she stepped back while jerking her hand free.

  “Fine,” she snapped.

  He sighed and ran a finger through his hair. “Why are you here, Katherine?”

  She shuffled her feet.

  “Really, tell me why. And don’t tell me you came all the way down here to slap me across the face. You may be feeling bitchy, but you’re not vindictive.”

  “I’m not so sure that was a compliment.”

  “Wasn’t meant to be,” he said, crossing his arms defiantly.

  Reluctantly, she said, “I was looking for Cecily. I didn’t see her this morning in class.”

  “What do you mean you ‘didn’t see her’?” he said tightly.

  “I looked for her in homeroom and then I realized I haven’t seen her since that night at the house,” she said, trailing off.

  “Go on?”

  “Well, I thought she was with her mom or you. But Aunt Sarah’s been gone, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her, and when Cecily wasn’t in class I came here,” Katherine said weakly. “She’s not answering her cell phone, either.”

  “Damnit,” cursed Ethan while throwing the rag to the ground. “I knew I couldn’t trust that bitch to watch over her.”

  “Who?” said Katherine, confused.

  “Your aunt,” snapped Ethan as he tugged out his cell phone and proceeded to dial some numbers. Cecily’s phone, presumably.

  “Why would you ever trust Aunt Sarah to take care of Cecily?” Katherine asked, genuinely shocked.

  “She insisted on it,” Ethan said tightly, “and Cecily backed her up on it. Said they had witches; stuff to do for two or three days and would be out of contact. Cecily made me promise to give her some peace while they went through it.”

  His phone rang and rang with no answer. Ethan began dialing through his messages, but from his tense shoulders Katherine could tell he found nothing.

  Katherine felt some pity for him. Cecily had been Ethan’s foster sister before Aunt Sarah blew a gasket and kicked him out. Long story. But suffice it to say that not just their romantic relationship that imploded six months ago in July. Her aunt was a pretty horrible mother and guardian. Ethan still watched out for Cecily, though.

  “So she’s been gone with Aunt Sarah for three days?”

  Ethan turned
furious eyes on her. “Gone? Gone where? They were supposed to be at the local coven meeting hall.”

  Katherine shook her head. “According to Mom, Aunt Sarah had to take care of something out of town.”

  Ethan closed his eyes in horror and then opened them again. “We have to find Cecily.”

  “All right, where else could she be?” asked Katherine.

  “Maybe the house,” he muttered. “I was going to take a jacket by yesterday in fact. She left it with me over the spring. Went by the house, but it was dark, so I assumed they were still at the coven hall.”

  Katherine nodded. “Then let’s check the house first. Sometimes Aunt Sarah checks in there before letting anyone know she’s arrived back in town.”

  Ethan said thoughtfully, “You know, I passed the school along the way there. Looked like a tornado had been through it.”

  She looked away, guilty.

  He didn’t miss it. “That was you?”

  “Maybe.”

  He sighed. “Of course it was. And Rose—did the same thing happen with her? Losing control of a gift? Maybe it was Derrick’s fault.”

  “We don’t know, actually,” Katherine said darkly. “No one knows exactly why she died. Cecily, Cecily was supposed to help me find out. Why Rose died. If it was deliberate, then I will kill the person who did this to her.”

  “You’ve never killed anyone before.”

  “Actually, I have.”

  He looked at her askance.

  “Fourth grade, remember?”

  He chuckled. “That’s right, you decapitated that piece of crap. Well, he had it coming...attacking Cecily like that. It was a good thing the sheriff was able to prove you were protecting her. Even your mother couldn’t have stopped them from arresting you for murdering a warlock.”

  Katherine shrugged uncomfortably. She hadn’t even told Ethan that it wasn’t her doing, but rather her riders’. Everyone assumed that she had some weird-awesome fighting ability, even her mother. Only Cecily, and now the whole homeroom, knew what she really called down with her witch’s gift.