by Cecy Robson
Paula stops smiling when she catches sight of my face. “Ah. Do you know him?” she asks when more Lessers mutter in agreement.
I want to say that yes, that in fact, he’s my lover not hers. But I can’t say that anymore. I steal another glance in their direction in time to see Vieve place her hand over his. “He’s best friends with Aric Connor,” I answer. “My sister’s husband.”
Their laughter ceases and they exchange glances. I suppose Vieve was right, that maybe it is my weird magic that makes them wary. But now they’re wary for different reasons. I’m not one to name drop, but I do want them to watch what they say in front of me.
“So you know him?” another Lesser asks, her dark curls sticking to her face as she sweat. “Gemini, the Second in Command?”
“I used to,” I say. I switch the hold on my bucket when the weight begins to pull on my shoulder. “But I don’t anymore.”
I’m not sure what they infer from what I say, I only hope it’s enough to keep them from saying something we’ll all regret. I follow Paula toward a row of cultivated soil that’s empty of Lessers. I stop in place when I take a good look at the seedlings. They’re larger than any typical garden variety. Each leaf is about the size of my palm and there’s some kind of hole at the center of their buds.
“They ward off curses,” Paula whispers.
“But why are they so big?” I ask. “And what’s up with the hole?”
“They’re bigger because of the magic used to harvest them. Oh, and that’s not a hole, it’s a mouth.”
“Of course it is,” I mumble. The water freaks out on you if you insult it, why wouldn’t the snapdragons have mouths?
“Here, I’ll show you,” Paula says.
She reaches into her bucket, cupping her fingers just enough to gather a small amount of water. Their little mouths open and close, drinking in the drops of water Paula sprinkles as she chants.
Oh, and look, they have teeth . . .
I back away. I’m all for being brave, but did I mention the little bastards have teeth?
A woman dressed in a light turquoise maiden gown steps forward, her long grey hair partially wrapped in a bun and a spider-shaped talisman holding a red stone at its center. “I am Superior Wilma. Are you Lesser Taran Wird?” she asks.
“Yes, I—”
“You’re late,” Wilma says. She whirls around and walks down a row filled with what resemble small human skulls clustered between shriveling leaves. “Ten demerits,” she adds, keeping her back to me.
She doesn’t let me apologize or offer an excuse. Not that it would help me and not that I’d dare follow. I’m so unnerved by these skulls and what they’re doing here. Shit, how many demerits did these poor saps get to earn this.
“Don’t look at them for too long,” Paula whispers.
I follow her down the row of seedlings. “What are they?” I ask.
“Dead seed pods,” she says, struggling it seems to keep her gaze away. “The group in charge of their care didn’t chant and water as they should. They didn’t take their tasks seriously and well . . .” She shrugs. “The seedlings died and took one of the Lessers with them.”
“Is this a joke?” I ask.
“No,” the large group collectively mumbles.
“Don’t anger the snapdragons,” Paula presses. “Come on, you need to start.”
Good God. Plant Day sucks.
“Follow me, okay?” she says.
I shadow her, sprinkling the seedlings with drops of water until I learn the chant that empowers the plants with magic by heart.
“Skies above and sun most bright, hear my pleas.”
“Cast the light and nourishment upon this soil.”
“Feed it with your light.”
“Moisten it with your waters.”
“Embrace it with your life.”
“Nurture the young.”
“So it may age and feed us in return.”
“Harvesting our magic, and giving me power.”
“Power,” we all repeat. “Give me power.”
The whole thing wouldn’t be so bad. But each time the Lessers return with more water, I hear more about Vieve and her “boyfriend”, her “lover”, and my personal favorite, “the wolf who rocks her world”.
“Do you think he’s the one?”
“Oh, he has to be, they’re practically inseparable.”
I stop over a particularly large snapdragon, only for it to latch onto my skirt and tug it insistently. I toss water on it, trying to tame it. It gulps it down like it’s thirsty so I give it more, chanting like a maniac. But the little bastard spits it back out at me.
I wipe the water and what can only be plant puke off my face. This doesn’t seem to faze Paula. She urges me ahead. “Keep going. They’re testy for some reason.”
The bud pulls up and down, stretching and shrinking its stem, appearing to laugh and mock me.
I continue to sprinkle water. At least, I try.
“Has Sister Genevieve’s boyfriend claimed her?” someone asks, giggling as she stops to remove a pebble from her shoe.
“Oh, I’m sure he has,” another says. “Lesser Maris says she heard them in her room one night.”
“Claim? How is that done?” a Lesser about eighteen asks. The others laugh. “I’m serious,” she says, blushing. “I know it’s an intimate act, but I don’t know much about it.”
My head pounds in dull strikes, making it hard to focus. Don’t go there . . .
“It’s the most intimate of acts between weres and their loves,” another says. She strokes the sweat glistening from her dark skin. “During their lovemaking there’s an exchange of sacred words where the were asks his mate to be his and takes her in return.”
“What are the words?” the younger witch asks.
I don’t need to ask. I know them well. And before I can somehow stop it, Gemini’s voice echoes these same words in my head.
“Do you want me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“May I take you?” he begged.
“Yes,” I answered, speaking breathlessly.
“Then you’re mine, forever,” he promised.
But forever didn’t last as long as we’d thought. I move on to the next seedling and sprinkle it with water. I mumble words that don’t make sense, hoping the others don’t notice my inability to concentrate, and doing my best to ignore what comes next.
The one sharing the low-down on the mating practices of weres removes her bonnet, using it to dab her face. “I think the words vary, but it’s not something they share since it’s private, an exchange of vows of sorts since once the claiming is done, they’re considered married.”
“So they’re married?” someone else says. “Sister Genevieve married him?”
I grimace as the Lesser replaces her bonnet. “No one has said for sure. But according to were customs, if he claimed her they are.” She laughs. “At the very least, they’re having a good time.”
“I bet they are,” another says, making most of them giggle.
I’m trying not to let it get to me, really I am. But it’s getting to me, and I’m not alone.
The snapdragons start sprouting more teeth. Long teeth. Jagged, long teeth.
I jump when one nips at my ankles. “What the hell?” I ask, smacking at the leaf when it stretches several feet to reach me.
“Taran, don’t!” Paula calls.
The leaves from the seedling shoot up, snagging my calves and making me trip. I fall, spilling my water as someone screams.
I don’t dare look in the direction of the scream, or the next one that follows. The water starts snaking along the rows, thickening and taking a serpentine form. At the far end of its very long body, a head lifts, glancing over its back to hiss.
Droplets of water drip from its fangs, and beneath my chin the tail lifts and rattles.
Chapter Fifteen
Fuck. Me.
Literal water snakes, lots of them, some in shape
s of anacondas and others more like boa constrictors, slither from buckets at lightning speed. They fall into clear sloshing mounds at the buckled feet of the screeching Lessers.
I roll out of the way as the first one lunges. The witch who spoke of the claim isn’t as fast. She tumbles backward when the snake slams into her chest and sends her sprawling on top of a row of snapping plants. And good Lord, doesn’t that piss off the seedlings.
The seedlings attack the snakes, and us, biting anything that gets too close. I haul Paula, who is ready to mess her bloomers, and drag her along the rows.
The Lessers smack at the plants biting them, kick at the watery snakes attacking them, while I do the same, swearing like my verbiage of four-letter words can somehow reverse it.
“Taran, stop,” Paula urges, tugging on my arm. “Your emotions are upsetting the plants, and the water, and…and nature.”
I think she’s exaggerating until our instructor, Superior Wilma, busts through the row of trees, the gem on her spider-like talisman emitting a bright light that paints the entire garden red. “What’s the meaning of this?”
At least, I think that’s what she meant to say. Evidently, red is not the color to shine upon the world when nature is angry. The white fir with overhanging branches snatches her up by the ankles, and damn, evidently some witches don’t wear panties beneath dem dresses.
The fir branches toss her into the reaching branches of a cedar tree, and then to a sugar pine, and then to a different tree until she looks like Tarzan swinging on a vine, only not as graceful, or swoon-worthy, and definitely not by choice. Superior Wilma is screaming. Everyone is screaming, even the fucking seedlings.
The plants, and the snakes, and by now everything around us that doesn’t like all the noise, reacts. Vines from the forest creep forward, snagging my legs and dragging me away. I’m hauled backwards as a cluster of water snakes gives chase, hissing as they open their maws.
Anger, fear, and pain tear through my veins, sparking that familiar tingle of electrical current from my zombie arm.
The bind strapped along my arm tightens, trying to squelch the building magic. It digs into my skin, adding to the pain as the vines cocoon my legs and waist.
My arm retaliates, jerking wildly as it builds the current. Maybe it should give me hope—make me think I actually stand a chance against what’s coming. But I have no control. This arm is going to do what it wants, and right now, it wants to kick ass.
Like a building tsunami reaching its peak, my arm fights back. It involuntarily lifts, smashing against the earth and charging the air and ground with bolts of lightning. The waves of energy build, crackling against my skin. I can’t contain it. Nor can I halt my screams when the first snake reaches me and clamps down on my arm.
Agony rips through me as a buzzing sound fills my ears, the crescendo swelling until a supersized current of lightning detonates from my arm and sends me soaring backwards.
When my sisters and I were very little, my parents took us to see fireworks. They lit up the sky in pretty sparks of pink, yellow, and purple, followed by extra bright shots of white that seemed to fire across the universe. What happens, reminds me of those fireworks, except that this time around, there are no pretty pastels, only ass-beating blue and enough white to blind.
I land in a rather graceless mess of limbs, watching in helpless terror as the lightning bolt passes through the watery snakes, and rows of plants and bodies, zapping everything in its path.
I open my mouth to shout a warning, only for the field to explode like an overcharged light bulb. My legs shoot over my head. I roll several feet, stopping with the hem of my sizzling skirt over my head.
For a long moment, I don’t move. My knees rest on either side of my ears and I’m pretty sure I blew my shoes to smithereens. But then the passing breeze skimming along my exposed butt cheeks gently prods me to act, reminding me that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t my best look. Yet it’s like every bone in my body is stiff, angry, and refusing to cooperate. I don’t so much as lower myself as much as kick out my feet and pitch onto my back.
A whine has me pushing up my arms and shoving down the layers of cotton over my pink and rather fricasseed panties. I glance up as a midnight black wolf with a white left paw sniffs at my head. My bonnet, what’s left of it, dangles from my neck.
The wolf sneezes when he gets an extra snout filled with what I’m guessing is burnt hair. I know who he is, which only adds to my mortification. He whines again, nudging me with his cold wet nose.
“I’m okay,” I stammer, my words releasing in short, electrified bursts.
This half of Gemini has always been the sweetest and most gentle. But as I reach to pet his large head, his whines turned pained. His long tongue frantically passes along my zombie arm, much like wolves do in the wild when they’re hurt and it’s their injury they’re tending to.
But it’s mine . . .
“Don’t,” I say, stroking his head with my opposite arm. “I’m all right.” His sad eyes meet mine, the torment behind his stare a physical force that cements me to the ground. He bows his head, his long thick tail sagging as he returns to where his human half waits.
Gemini, shirtless, stands by Genevieve in the mud-soaked mess the field has become. The seedlings crawl away from their holes, their roots pushing them toward Vieve like she alone (of course) can save them. But Gemini isn’t watching the plants, the trees resuming their majestic stances, or the tangles of ivy and vines slinking back into the forest. He’s not even watching Vieve as her hair and the skirt of her lovely dress flow ethereally around her. He’s watching me as I lay in the mud, his dark expression heavy with concern.
His twin wolf gives me one last glance and one more whine before leaping into Gemini’s back, his large form disappearing deep within his being. Yet the moment they connect, it’s like all the sadness his wolf demonstrated paints across Gemini’s handsome features.
The Lessers gasp in awe of the merge, and maybe with a little lust too, despite how everyone looks about as sexy as I do. They’re oblivious to his sorrow, but I’m not. Maybe because I’m feeling it, too.
Gemini doesn’t notice their reaction. He stalks toward me as I push from the mud on legs that refuse to fully straighten.
“How are you?” he asks when he reaches me.
“Great,” I say.
“How are you really?” he asks, his tone straddling that line between beast and man.
I lift my chin as much as I can without losing my balance. “About as good as you are,” I reply.
He mutters a swear, abruptly averting his gaze. I don’t know what to interpret from his response, anger, hostility, frustration? Is it torment? That’s what I’m feeling.
I can’t bring myself to ask, just like I can’t bring myself to wrap my arms around him. So I limp toward the rest of the group because that much I can manage without breaking down.
His wolf was upset and desperate to care for what he thought was a wound. But the man he’s a part of . . . Jesus, I can’t even begin to guess what he’s feeling.
My fists clench at my sides. I don’t want to think about how easily I once settled both the man and wolves within him by simply touching him and whispering gentle words that carried my love. But thoughts of the past easily invade what I feel in the present, making those steps I need to take so much harder.
I force my attention ahead, toward where a Superior witch with a machete chops at the vines fastened around our instructor’s ankles. I’ll say this, if anyone knows how to make a lasting first impression it’s me.
I ignore the jolt I earn when I step into one of the puddles, staggering forward and pretending I didn’t feel the zing shoot across my molars as I straighten.
Paula inches to my left. I motion to where our instructor remains dangling and panty-less. “Is Betty all right?” I ask.
“Wilma,” she whispers, trying to tame the red afro her hair has become.
I grimace. “Sorry,” I mutter at the same ti
me my arm involuntarily jerks.
Without turning to look, I feel Vieve approach, and Gemini, too, because I don’t have enough of an audience. After another two whacks of the machete, Superior Wilma lands as ungracefully as she swung at my feet.
“Here, let me help you,” I offer, extending my hand.
She, I shit you not, crab crawls away from my hand like it’s ready to bite, her eyes wild. I’m new at this gig, but I’m pretty sure my first day fiasco has earned me another demerit or two.
Yet she doesn’t mention it. Vieve, conversely, has plenty to say.
“I suspect our plants didn’t react well to your presence, Lesser Taran,” she begins, her arm passing elegantly along the seedlings tugging on her skirt.
“What was your first clue?” I ask, forcing a smile as the seedlings, Lessers, and air continue to snap, crackle, and pop with static around me.
Gemini groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Vieve, bless her perfect looks and mannerisms, maintains her smile. “I had several clues, Taran, including: turning our beloved earth against your instructor, electrocuting your peers and plants with lightning, infuriating the elements, and pretty much soiling and destroying one of our most sacred and beloved tasks. I’m afraid you need more help than I could have ever predicted.” Her smile dwindles in true “poor pathetic you” status as what I think is supposed to pass for empathy fills her stare. “But don’t fret,” she adds, placing her hand on Gemini’s shoulder and giving it a rather suggestive squeeze. “We’re here to help you, despite your limitations, struggles, and mounting imperfections.”
“Mounting imperfections?” I repeat.
“Yes,” she says, glancing toward Gemini as she drops her hand away. “I fear you possess more flaws than any of us could have predicted.”
Worry and fear spread along Gemini’s darkening features. Vieve gives his shoulder another squeeze, whispering something I don’t quite hear.
“Thank you,” he mouths as he turns to regard her.
They’re having a moment, here and now, not caring who’s present. I see it, and so does everyone else.
The Lessers closest to me gush, despite the mud coating their faces, their tattered pilgrim wear, and the frizz their hair has become.