by Kristin Cast
Mercy chewed her lip. “That’s what I tried to do tonight.”
Emily snorted. “Girl, try harder. I could see that Kirk was being super sweet with you, but with the rest of us? Not so much.”
“Okay, I get it. And you’re right. I just—”
Hunter hurried up. “There you are. Let’s go! We’re gonna be late.”
“H, I’ve been looking for you all night,” Mercy said.
“Be serious. Your face has been smooshed against Kirk’s all night.” Hunter strode past them, heading to the grassy lot where Emily’s car was parked and waiting for them.
Mercy didn’t say anything. The fact that Hunter was right didn’t help, but she wasn’t sure why it didn’t help. She wrenched open the front door and started to toss her boho bag to the floorboard, but Em reached around her, pulled the passenger’s seat forward, and then pointed at the empty backseat of the 1966 Thunderbird convertible that had been Emily’s sixteenth birthday guilt gift from her parents three months after her actual birthday, which they had both forgotten.
“Nope. You two sit back there. Together. Now,” Emily said firmly.
Mercy and Hunter climbed into the backseat and remained silent as Em took the windy road that followed Goode Lake around to the two-lane blacktop that led to downtown Goodeville.
“Okay. I’m so over this.” Emily glanced in the rearview mirror at the twins. “Mercy—Hunter, I hate it when you two fight. Do you know why?”
“Uh-uh,” Mercy said softly.
“I hate it because you two almost never fight, and when you do it’s like the fucking earth shifts on its axis and shit is not right. So, fix this right now and stop it. Jesus! It’s your birthday.”
Mercy gave Hunter a sideways glance. She was picking at her fingernails, her tell for being upset.
“H, I wish you’d give Kirk a chance,” Mercy said.
“And I wish you’d get over your hormones. He’s a douchebag,” Hunter shot back.
Mercy slid to the side so she could face her sister. “He’s only like that around you guys because you make him nervous.”
“Riiiiight. I make him nervous. He told you that?”
“Yes. H, underneath all that—”
“Toxic masculinity.”
“No, under all that pretend macho act is a really sweet boy who misses his mom. A lot.” Mercy sighed. “Plus, now that I’m with Kirk we’ve totally made it! H, we get invited to all the cool parties and have lots more friends.”
Hunter rolled her eyes. “You mean you get invited to all the cool parties and you have lots of new friends.”
Mercy threw her hands up in frustration. “Oh my goddess! All you’d have to do is actually participate and you’d be included, too.”
“I don’t know if I want to participate.” Hunter shook her head. “Not with them.”
Mercy chewed her lip. Why couldn’t Hunter just leave the past in the past? She hadn’t been bullied in ages. Can’t she just get over it? Mercy sighed again. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you, especially not today.”
Hunter’s sigh was a mirror of her sister’s. “Yeah, me, either. Sorry. I just don’t like how Kirk talks to you.”
“He doesn’t talk to me like that when we’re alone. Do you trust me?”
Hunter’s gaze snapped to hers. “Of course I trust you.”
“Then trust that I’m right about him.”
Hunter picked at her fingernails some more. “I’ll work on it. Promise. And I’m sorry I avoided you tonight.”
“I’m sorry I let some guy come between us. I promise not to let that happen again. And if Kirk really is a douchebag, I promise I’ll dump him faster than Xena makes Em sneeze—Goode guarantee?” Mercy lifted her hand.
“Goode guarantee!” Hunter’s ponytail bobbed as she nodded and extended her pinky, which Mercy caught with her own—pinkies still hooked, the twins tapped their knuckles together before their hands separated, fingers fluttering like birds as they shouted, “Sisters of Salem!”
“Hugsees?” Hunter said.
“Total hugsees.” Mercy grabbed her sister and squeezed her tightly.
“Yaaasss! Now those are my twins!” Emily grinned at them in the rearview mirror. “And it was a super fun party, though I don’t know what the hell happened with that scary beast thing in the smoke. And Mercy Anne Goode, I’m talking to you.”
“Hey, I don’t know, either! I just did a little witchy stuff to the wood. You shoulda just seen the cool oak tree. No clue what happened.”
“Wait, I think I know what went wrong,” Hunter said. “You only called on oak?”
Mercy nodded. “Yeah, I checked out the woodpile before they lit it—well, from a distance—but it all looked like that old oak that split from lightning last spring. They cut it up and left it at the campgrounds for people making campfires.”
“It wasn’t all oak. Remember the apple grove just after you turn in to the lake drive?”
“I know what you’re talking about. That’s Mr. Caldwell’s grove,” Emily said. “Mercy and I got super sick the summer we were thirteen from eating too many green apples from there. Remember, Mercy?”
Mercy shuddered. “I’ll never forget.”
“Last winter that ice storm killed the oldest tree out there.” Hunter tightened her ponytail as she explained. “Mom told us about it. Mr. Caldwell called her to see if she could save it, but it was too late. I remember she said that the apple wood was being chopped up and given to the campsite.”
“Huh. I got the wood wrong. Still weird,” said Mercy.
“And super weird that it was apple wood.” Hunter touched her T-shaped pendant and shared a look with her sister. Neither needed words to understand the significance of that particular type of tree this particular night.
Emily waved her hand around, redirecting the twins’ attention. “Hey, did you two ever consider that what happened might have just been a fluke and more about the weird smoke caused by your exploding moss fire bomb than anything remotely witchy? I mean, no offense, but that makes way more sense than saying that you actually conjured something from smoke.”
Mercy and Hunter locked their gazes and smiled knowingly.
“You’re right, Em,” said Mercy.
“Makes way more sense,” added Hunter.
“Well, anyway, it was a super cool party! And now that you two are back to your normal psychic-level closeness, all is right in the world.”
“Oh, sod it! I’m a wanker! I didn’t give you—” Mercy began.
“Your pressie!” Hunter finished.
“Mercy, you’re not British.” Emily tossed her mass of tight, dark curls back from her face as she glanced in the rearview mirror at her bestie.
“Neither are you!” Mercy giggled. “Me first!” She fished into her bag until she caught the little box she’d wrapped in silver foil and handed it to her sister.
Hunter shook it and then tore into it. She opened the box and her eyes went huge. “Holy Tyr! They’re unbelievably gorgeous! Mag, you shouldn’t have. They’re way expensive.” The moonlight that came in through the car’s windows glistened off the moonstone studs that were set in white gold and circled by little diamonds.
“The look on your face was worth every second of the six months of babysitting I had to do to pay for them.”
“Seriously? That’s why you’ve been so cheap for the past six months?” Em said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you suck at keeping presents secret!” said the twins together. Then they laughed and, at the same moment, said, “Jinx!”
“I am so good at keeping secrets,” Emily grumbled.
“Yeah, you are—as long as they’re not about presents,” said Mercy. “But don’t worry. We love you anyway.” She held out her hands to her sister. “Okay, now me!”
“You’re super sure I got you something and I have it with me.”
“Of course you did and of course you do. It’s probably something little that you can fit into
that ridiculously small cross-body you carry.”
“Oh, please. What’s ridiculous is that suitcase you lug with you everywhere.” Hunter bent and felt around under the bucket seat in front of her.
“Yeah, but if the zombie apocalypse happens I’m set.” Mercy patted the bulging bag at her side.
“Do not tell me that you hid her pressie in my car and did not tell me about it,” Emily squeaked.
“Okay, we won’t tell you,” Hunter and Mercy said together.
“Stop with the creepy twin speak,” Emily said, and added, “and I can so keep a secret.”
“Happy birthday.” Hunter handed a narrow box to Mercy. She’d wrapped it with green paper covered in vines.
“Ooooh, the paper is awesome!” Unlike her sister, Mercy carefully peeled every piece of tape off and then smoothed the paper as she freed the box. She opened the lid and gasped. “Hunter! It’s perfect!” Mercy caressed the slim stack of squares of vintage lace, then lifted each to study their unique beauty. “Ohmygoddess! I’ll make such cool stuff with these!”
“I can’t wait to see what you come up with,” said Hunter. “Happy birthday. Love you twin.”
“Happy birthday, love you, too, twin.”
In the rearview mirror Emily smiled at them all the rest of the way home.
* * *
Mercy loved everything about the old Victorian home that had housed Goodes since the mid-1800s. It was the last house at the northern most edge of Main Street, backing onto acres and acres of cornfields or, depending on the year, bean fields. This was a corn year and the stalks were already as tall as the twins. Mercy loved it when the mature corn secluded their house and the expansive gardens that filled their five acres, which included a koi pond with a fountain of Athena, their mother’s patron goddess, complete with plumed helmet, an owl on her shoulder, and a dolphin beside her spouting water from its mouth. And, of course, in one corner, surrounded by lilacs and framed by a wrought-iron fence covered with wisteria, was the meticulously tended Goode family cemetery.
It was over the top, but the entire Victorian house was gloriously over the top. The majority of the house was butter yellow, with its ornate trim painted highlights of purple, fuchsia, and dark green. The double front doors were the same bull’s blood red as the wraparound porch. Literally bull’s blood red, as their mom liked to remind them. Every time the house had been repainted, actual bull’s blood, as well as protective spells, were mixed into the paint.
“There are my birthday girls! And right on time. Was the party fun?” Abigail Goode hugged each daughter in turn as they came inside. Without giving them a chance to respond she hurried on. “You need to get upstairs and change. Quickly. Then meet me in the kitchen and we’ll gather the rest of the supplies together for the ritual.” Abigail pushed them gently toward the stairs when they didn’t move fast enough. “Quickly! Tonight is too important to chance being even a minute late.”
The twins sprinted up the winding staircase to their side-by-side rooms. Mercy rushed to her closet. She’d hooked the hanger on which her ceremonial dress hung on the outside of her closed closet door, and she couldn’t help taking a moment to reverently run her fingers over the intricate design of vines, flowers, and falcon feathers—one of the goddess Freya’s favorite symbols. It had taken Mercy an entire year to finish the embroidering. The cut of the dress was simple—cream-colored hemp jersey flowed long and free from a teardrop neckline. Mercy stroked the material. “Soft as silk, but a lot easier to embroider,” she murmured to herself. It was her artistic hand at embroidery that made the dress special and Mercy had meticulously decorated the neckline, sleeves, and the hem of the full skirt with symbols that celebrated the earth and her chosen goddess. She didn’t wear an amulet that represented her goddess, like Hunter did her god. Instead Mercy imagined Freya as part of the earth itself, so every flower and tree, even every blade of grass symbolized her goddess.
Mercy hurried out of her clothes and then sighed happily as the dress slid over her head and down her body with the smoothness of water. Quickly, she brushed out her hair, put on big silver hoop earrings she’d saved for this night, dabbed more of the homemade lilac scent she loved so much behind each ear, and then slathered on her favorite pink lip gloss. Mercy blew her reflection a cheeky kiss, hefted her bag over her shoulder, and almost ran into Hunter as she bolted out the door.
“Sheesh, Mag, be careful!” But Hunter’s annoyed frown turned into a soft smile. “Wow. I haven’t seen it since you finished it.”
“Do you like it?” Mercy twirled so that the full skirt of the dress swirled around her long legs.
“Yeah, I really do.” Hunter cleared her throat and nervously smoothed her hands down her dress. “What do you think? Too plain?”
Mercy cocked her head and studied her twin. Hunter had chosen a short-sleeved tunic dress that looked like a long T-shirt. The color of the fabric was unusual. It brought to mind newly blooming purple pansies washed with the silver of a full moon. Her legs looked slim and strong—and appealingly cute, especially because she was wearing simple high-top canvas sneakers. The dress had no embellishment, which only served to highlight the T-shaped amulet that was her only jewelry.
Mercy touched Hunter’s sleeve gently. “This color is absolutely perfect, H. Seriously. It’s exactly like the very center of your amulet.”
Hunter’s smile was a beam of sunshine. “You really think so?”
Mercy nodded. “Yep. Totally. We look fantastic! Abigail is going to be so happy! Come on.” She grabbed her sister’s hand and together they raced downstairs to the kitchen. Before they walked in, Mercy pulled Hunter back and whispered, “Wait. Don’t you love watching her putter around in the kitchen?”
“Yep. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Hunter said, keeping her voice low.
“Like a goddess,” Mercy agreed.
The sisters stood, hand in hand, and watched their mom as she hummed a tune and collected supplies from her expansive pantry, placing each carefully in the basket that never seemed far from her. Mercy used to think her mother was an actual goddess, and then as she got older she understood that she was a mortal who worshipped a goddess, but that didn’t diminish her beauty or the magic aura that hovered around her like the scents of cinnamon and spice she cooked with so often.
Abigail Goode had just turned forty-six, but she could easily have passed for a decade younger, especially dressed as she was that night in her favorite ritual garb—a dove gray floor-length silk dress that was as simple as it was flattering. Over her left breast was the only adornment on the dress—an owl that Abigail had painstakingly painted on the silk. Her long, brunette hair was usually pulled back in a cute French knot, with only a few tendrils allowed to escape. But tonight, as every ritual night, it drifted free around her waist—dark and wavy.
Without turning around she shouted, “Girls! We must go!”
“Jeeze, Abigail, you don’t need to shout,” said Mercy.
Their mom startled and pressed her hand over her heart. “Athena’s shield! You’re going to give your old mother a heart attack!”
Hunter snorted. “Old? You did not just call yourself old.”
Mercy shoved a gingersnap cookie in her mouth and around it said, “Abigail, you won’t be old until you start wearing a bra.”
Their mother looked down at her perky though ample breasts. “Well, then, I’ll never be old.” When her gaze returned to her girls a smile blossomed across her face. “You two look perfect. Absolutely perfect. Hunter, the dye job on your dress is exquisite, and a wonderful match for Tyr’s amulet. Mercy, I was worried your dress would be too plain because it’s just an off-white flowy thing, but your embroidery is lovely. I particularly like the addition of your goddess’s falcon feathers. Both deities will be well pleased tonight by my magnificent daughters.” Then she turned all business. “Mercy, your apple pie has cooled nicely. It’s still on the rack there by the window. You’ll need to collect it and your candles quickly. Your
basket is on the counter.” Abigail fired instructions at the girls as she continued to gather items from her spacious pantry. “Hunter, your beer is on ice in the sink. It’s going to be so interesting to invoke a god. I’ve been rereading our ancestors’ grimoires and I couldn’t find one instance where any of them chose a god. Huh. It’s actually surprising that’s never happened before.”
Hunter picked at her fingernail. “Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Sweetheart, as I told you three years ago when you chose Tyr as your deity—it is your choice. There is no wrong answer. And today I’ll add to that by saying that it’s about time a Goode chose a god instead of a goddess. It’ll keep things interesting.” Abigail paused and brushed a long, thick lock of hair from her face. “Now, stop worrying and get your candles together. And don’t forget the opener for the beer bottle.” She tapped her foot as she stared into the pantry. “Ah! Matches! That’s what I was forgetting.” Abigail looked over her shoulder at her daughters. “Go on! We need to leave in the next five minutes to make it to the tree in time. Shoo, my little chickies! Shoo!”
Mercy and Hunter grinned at each other.
“That’s what we were waiting for,” said Mercy.
Hunter nodded. “Yep, to be called your chickies and shooed.”
“Are you making fun of your mother?” Abigail put her fists on her curvy waist and tossed back her thick hair that was artistically streaked with a blaze of silver gray that looked professionally created, but was actually as natural as their mother’s sweet smile and brilliant green eyes.
“Us?” Hunter said with mock surprise.
“Perish the thought, Abigail!” Mercy added, clutching her pearls.
“Xena! The girls are making fun of me again,” Abigail called.
In a heartbeat the huge Maine coon padded into the kitchen to wind around their mother’s legs as she chirped and mewed accusatorily at the twins.