Born Wicked: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One

by Jessica Spotswood

  “Ah. Well. I—actually, I was—” How does a lady admit to lustfulness?

  Brenna laughs softly, and I want to crawl behind the tombstone with mortification.

  “Stop it,” Sachi says, swatting her on the shoulder.

  “Don’t touch me,” Brenna hisses, leaping up. She scales the tomb behind us, perching at the top like an eerie gargoyle.

  “Oh, good Lord,” Sachi says. “Brenna, come down from there. It’s disrespectful.”

  “I can hear very well now,” Brenna calls. “Go on! Tell us more about the kissing!”

  “How—?” I turn to Rory, amazed.

  “I told you, she knows things. Besides, you said it had to do with a man.” Rory gives me her rabbity smile. “He looks as though he’d be quite good at it.”

  “He does?” Of course I find Finn handsome—devastatingly, distractingly so. But somehow I didn’t imagine that he’d be the sort Rory would—

  “Oh yes. I’ve never kissed anyone with a mustache,” Rory admits, her face perplexed. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever have the chance now. Does it tickle?”

  A mustache? But Finn doesn’t have a mustache.

  It wallops me over the head. Paul did. She thinks I’m talking about Paul. They’ve seen him flirt with me and ferry me home from services. They’ve heard the gossip. He’s hardly been subtle.

  It’s easy enough to let them think it. I’m not ashamed of Finn. I don’t care whether Sachi approves of the Belastras or not. But I don’t see any point in correcting their assumption.

  “Rory! Don’t jump to conclusions,” Sachi scolds. “Not everyone is as shameless as you.”

  Above us, Brenna sings tunelessly, kicking her legs.

  “No, it’s true. That’s what prompted it. Both times,” I admit.

  “More than once, was it?” Rory crows.

  My face flushes, but I plow on. “Both times, I felt—well, I felt—”

  “Lustful,” Rory says. “Wanton. Shameless!”

  I flush hotter. “My feelings were—quite intense. I imagine that’s why the magic went wrong. But I can’t risk that happening again. How do you control it?”

  Rory takes another long sip of sherry. “I don’t,” she says.

  I throw my dignity to the wind. “Tell me, Rory, please.”

  Rory scowls, her dark eyes defiant. “I don’t know how to control it and I don’t particularly care to learn.”

  “What do you mean? Doesn’t Nils notice? He could tell his father and have you arrested!”

  “Nils is generally more focused on other things.” Rory smirks. “Sometimes I cast without meaning to, like you said. But more often my magic goes dormant, and I can’t cast for hours after we lie together.”

  I didn’t expect that Rory’s courtship with Nils was entirely chaste—after all, that’s why I sought out her advice—but I’m still shocked that they lie together. I’ve heard of girls who’ve gotten with child and been forced to stand before the Brothers in their shame. I pluck a blade of grass and twirl it through my fingers. What would it be like to lie with a man? I think of the freckles spread over the muscles of Finn’s forearms, over his calves, on the back of his neck, and wonder what it would be like to see more of him. All of him.

  “Love-drunk,” Sachi says scornfully, eyeing the bottle in Rory’s hand. “Except, of course, you don’t actually love Nils.”

  Rory glares and tilts the bottle to her mouth. She holds it there, her throat working until it’s empty, then tosses it aside. It knocks against one of the small gravestones next to Mother’s. “Do you hear the frogs, Brenna? I’m going to go look for them.”

  Brenna leaps down to follow her cousin. As she passes us, she gives Sachi a fearsome look. “You’ll be the one to ruin Rory.”

  Sachi jumps to her feet, furious. “What do you know? You’re mad as a March hare!”

  “I know too much,” Brenna says, her throaty voice sad. “They’ll kill me for it.”

  The hair rises on the back of my neck. Sachi and I exchange wide-eyed glances. I summon up my courage. “Wait,” I say, and Brenna stops trudging toward the gate. “Did you see my godmother? Zara. Was she in Harwood with you?”

  Brenna nods, her hands tugging at her hair in distress.

  “Can you truly see the future?” I ask. “Do you know what I should do?”

  “Yes—and no. I’m broken.” Brenna heaves a great, mournful sigh. But she paces back to me, standing very close—so close I can smell the sherry on her breath. My palms tingle. Am I really asking advice from a mad, drunk oracle? She peers down at me with her strange eyes. “You’re lucky. He loves you. But the crows—oh, the crows don’t care for love. No. It’s always duty with them, isn’t it?”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Sachi mutters.

  Brenna reaches out and grabs the front of my cloak in both hands. Her voice is urgent. “You can stop it. But not without a sacrifice.”

  I trip away from her, sprawling on one of the baby headstones.

  Brenna runs off, and Sachi pulls me back to my feet. “There are not many things in life that frighten me, but she’s one of them. I wish Rory would stay away from her.”

  I lean down and pick up the discarded bottle. I don’t believe that Mother’s spirit lingers here, but leaving trash is disrespectful to the dead.

  “Will Rory be all right?” I ask, concerned. Between the liquor and Nils and her magic, she’s taking far too many chances.

  “At the pond or in general?” Sachi sighs. “She’d never do anything to hurt any of us, if that’s what worries you. Only herself.”

  “Why?” I sit next to Sachi on the tomb. The marble is cold under my thighs.

  “She hates the magic. Nothing I say seems to make any difference. She’s so blasted careless,” Sachi swears. “It’s almost as though she wants to get arrested. Father looks the other way where she’s concerned, but for how long? Even his nepotism can stretch only so far.”

  I wish I were more like Tess. I don’t know the right thing to do, to say. I never imagined I’d be sitting in a graveyard at midnight, listening to Sachi Ishida pour her heart out. I know that mix of love and worry well. It’s just how I sound when—

  My eyes pop.Nepotism. Vocabulary has never been my strong suit, but if it means what I believe it means—

  “Oh. She’s your sister? Your father—”

  Sachi curls into herself, a small dark figure against the white marble tomb. “You mustn’t tell.”

  I think of Mrs. Clay, the woman from the registry who accused Brother Ishida of adultery. “Of course not.”

  Sachi grips my knee. “No one can know. No one. Rory doesn’t know it herself.”

  I look at her solemnly. “No one. I swear it.”

  “I’ve never told anyone else. I’ve wanted to—I almost did tell her once. After they took Brenna away. The notion of her being sent to Harwood—I couldn’t bear it.”

  That, I understand. “What made you decide against it?”

  “I was afraid she’d do something rash. She drinks too much. Usually she just gets sleepy, you know, and a bit silly. But I was afraid she might confront Father.”

  “How long have you known?” I trace the letters carved on Mother’s tomb:beloved wife and devoted mother.

  “Since we were ten.” Sachi passes her hand over her face. Six years. Lord, how exhausting it must have been, keeping a secret like this for so long. “Her mother came to the door and insisted on seeing Father. She was drunk, but not so drunk she didn’t make sense. She wanted money, and she laid out very plainly why he ought to give it to her.”

  “Why didn’t he arrest her?”

  Sachi squints, trying to make out Rory and Brenna crouched on the bank of the pond. “Because of Rory, I suppose. Father’s a hypocrite and a coward, but he wouldn’t want his bastard raised in an orphanage. And there was a scandal before. Another woman. He had her tried and sent away. I don’t think he could risk it again. It wouldn’t serve his standing in the community,” she moc
ks.

  I reach out and squeeze Sachi’s gloved hand.

  “I’ve always wanted a sister,” she says. “I didn’t know she’d be so broken.”

  There have certainly been days when I’ve wished Maura were easier to manage. But then she wouldn’t be Maura, would she? Who else would act out the plots of romance novels I’ll never read? Who else would sing bawdy songs, push the furniture to the walls, and dance across the sitting room with me?

  I look over at the five small headstones, my gaze lingering on the last one. Danielle. She would be three now: a toddler running pell-mell through the house. What would it have been like if she’d survived? If Father had had a baby to care for, would he have stayed home more, or would he have remarried and foisted us off onto someone else?

  “We don’t get to choose who we love. Or stop loving them when they’re difficult.”

  “No.” Sachi sighs, swiveling toward me. “I knew you would understand.”

  She stares at me expectantly. A cloud passes over the moon, shrouding us in darkness, and I watch the warm orange flicker of the lantern. I don’t know what she wants me to say. Just because she confided in me, am I obliged to return the favor? I don’t know how female friendships work. The trading of confidences—is that expected?

  “It’s not Paul I’ve been kissing,” I say finally. “It should be. He asked me to marry him. It’s Finn Belastra.”

  Sachi laughs. “The bookseller? Isn’t he a bit—”

  “If you say he’s beneath me, I’ll slap you.”

  “I was going to say serious. He looks quite serious!” she protests. “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this all to yourself. What are you going to do?”

  I lean back against the tombstone, groaning. “I don’t know. It’s down to nine weeks now. Five before your father would give me to Brother Anders.”

  Sachi shudders. “That’s revolting.”

  “I know. But I can’t marry Paul when I’m in love with someone else.”

  Sachi grabs me by the shoulder. “Yes, you can. To save yourself, you can. Do you think I love Renjiro?” She laughs, and it’s Rory’s laugh, bitter and humorless. “I do not. He’s an idiot. But we do what we have to do, and it could be worse.”

  We could be in Harwood. We sit together in glum silence. “I suppose so.”

  “You have a lot of secrets, Cate Cahill. That wasn’t what I expected you to tell me,” Sachi says.

  I bite my lip. “What do you mean?”

  “Your sisters. One of them is a witch,” Sachi prompts me.

  “No.” I pull my cape more tightly around me. “What makes you think that?”

  “You said your magic went awry and you couldn’t reverse it yourself. You didn’t come to Rory or me. You’d only go to another witch. Who else is there?”

  My mind whirrs frantically, trying to come up with a pat explanation. No matter how friendly and open Sachi’s been, she’s still Brother Ishida’s daughter. It’s one thing to tell her my own secrets. That can’t hurt anyone but me.

  There’s a great splash, a mad cackle, and then Rory’s plaintive voice. “Sachi!”

  I jump to my feet, relieved at the interruption. “The pond is freezing. She’ll catch her death.”

  Sachi pulls her cloak tighter around her shoulders. “You don’t have to tell me now. But I want you to know you can trust me, Cate. If you ever need me, I’ll help. So long as it doesn’t put Rory in danger.”

  “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind,” I say.

  But I hope I won’t need her help.

  That night, I dream I’m at one of Mrs. Ishida’s teas. In the dream, I’m wearing Marianne Belastra’s awful rust-colored dress. It’s starched and it itches. Whenever I move, the skirts rustle, loud as a fire crackling, and everyone looks at me. Sachi and Rory bend their dark heads together and whisper behind their hands, and I just know it’s me they’re whispering about.

  What have I done wrong? I feel suffocated—by their stares, by the high ruffled collar of this dress. My hands fumble at the buttons but I’m too rough; one button falls off in my hand. It’s gray; it doesn’t even match. Is that why they’re laughing at me?

  That button—it’s familiar somehow.

  I fight my way back to consciousness, gasping for breath. The gray button. It was beneath the floorboards with Mother’s diary.

  I leap out of bed. The light coming through the windows is weak and watery; the gray sky is streaked with palest pink. It’s been only a handful of hours since I went to sleep. I inch the door open and pad barefoot down the hall in my chemise. Around me, the house is silent.

  The button is still where I left it, in the right-hand drawer of Mother’s writing desk. Small, plain, unprepossessing.

  I weigh it in the palm of my hand. Now that I know what I’m looking for, I can feel the magic in it, pulsing strong and steady as a heartbeat. Does that mean my magic is stronger now than Mother’s?

  “Acclaro.”

  The button reveals itself as a note, folded twice over and sealed with wax.

  Mother used her best blue stationery. The handwriting isn’t the dark, frantic scrawl at the end of her diary. This was written before—deliberately. Thoughtfully.

  Why didn’t she give it to me sooner?

  My hands shake as I begin to read.

  Dearest Cate—

  If you have found this, I am gone. Have you read my diary? If not, you will find it nearby. That is the place to start. I do not knowhowto tell you this . . . I am not as brave as you, my dear girl, but you must knowit. You must knowit and do everything in

  your power to guard against it.

  If Tess is a witch, then the three of you may well be the three sisters of the oracle’s last prophecy. The prophecy foretells that one of the sisters will be the most powerful witch born in centuries—powerful enough to bring about the resurgence of the Daughters of Persephone or, if she falls to the Brotherhood, bring about a second Terror. But only two of the sisters will survive to see the twentieth century—because one sister will kill another.

  My heart breaks to think it—I cannot imagine such a thing.All sisters have their petty arguments and jealousies, but I have seen howyou and your sisters love one another. Yet your godmother spent years researching the oracles, and she found no fallacies. The prophecies of Persephone’s oracles always come to pass.

  You must find a way to prevent this, Cate.

  I stop reading, though there is more.

  I go back and reread my mother’s words, sure I’ve misunderstood.

  No, it says it quite plainly:one sister will kill another.

  It can’t be me and Maura and Tess, then. I might want to slap them sometimes, Maura especially, but I would never harm them. Never. I keep reading.

  If Tess has manifested, I imagine the Sisters are watching the three of you closely. Mind-magic is a rare gift. If they discover that you possess it, they will want you to join their fight against the Brotherhood. They can offer you many things—protection and education among them. But they don’t think of individuals, only the legacy of magic.

  I do not regret many things in my life, Cate, but I used mind-magic at the Sisters’behest when I was at their school, and I do not believe it was warranted or right. I used it again to escape that life, and I have never forgiven myself. It is wrong to go into the minds of others without their consent. I have tried to instill in you the belief that it must be used only under direst circumstances. The Sisters would have us wield it freely to regain the witches’power. Their goals are worthy, but their methods can be suspect.

  I would not have you forced into a war you did not choose, but with your gifts, I fear it is inevitable.

  Be careful, Cate. Choose wisely. Protect your sisters.

  Love always,

  Mother

  By the time I finish, I’m hunched over on the floor, my knees tucked to my chest. Bile rises in my throat, and I force it back down. It leaves my mouth dry and sour.

  Now I remember Ele
na’s warning that making Maura angry was tempting fate. She promised to do everything she could to keep all three of us safe—but the way she said it, with doubt in her voice—and the way she looked at me when she said it, her brown eyes filled with pity—

  Brenna’s haunting voice:You can stop it. But not without a sacrifice.

  Mother believed in the prophecy. Elena believes it. The Sisterhood believes it.

  How will I stop it?

  CHAPTER 17

  I RETREAT TO THE SAFETY OF MY room, Mother’s letter crumpled in my hand. I open the curtains and sit on her old velvet settee and inhale the very faint scent of rose water that still permeates it. I watch the sun rise, salmon and pink, over the hill. I listen to the bright twitter-songs of birds and the sounds of the house waking up around me. I think of what to do.

  The Sisters will do what’s best for the Daughters of Persephone, not what’s best for the Cahill girls. Mother’s letter made that painfully clear. But how can I keep us out of their clutches?

  I don’t want girls throughout New England to grow up frightened and powerless. But my first priority is my promise to Mother. First and foremost, I must keep my own sisters safe.

  When I go downstairs for breakfast, I find Elena lurking in the hall. She gives me a serrated smile. “I was waiting for you.”

  “Why?” I demand gracelessly.

  “It’s time to tell me the truth. Can you do mind-magic, Cate?”

  I fight the urge to back away. Instead, I draw myself up to my full height, looming over her. “I told you, I don’t know.”

  Elena’s brown eyes bore into mine. “I don’t believe you.”

  I glare down at her. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  She sidesteps the question, fiddling with one jade teardrop earring. Her dress is pink with mint-green piping today. “I think you’re frightened. I couldn’t break your glamour in the garden. Neither could your sisters. A witch that powerful would be welcomed—celebrated—by the Sisters. You’re too powerful to fritter away your talents like this.”