“Are you sleeping with him?”
She knew I wasn’t, but she didn’t like how I was avoiding her. We were so good at it, the two of us, so good at avoiding questions and revealing our hearts. A super-power from our super-villain mother.
Time to get nasty. “If you wanted beauty spells, you could have just stayed home and talked to Ingrid.”
Bran choked for a moment. Given that Ingrid, a former coven sister, was both the best at beauty spells I’d ever seen and also one of the worst witches I’d ever seen, it was a nasty blow. I smiled evilly.
Bran’s eyes narrowed and she said distinctly, “Cow.”
“Whiner.”
Bran’s eyes narrowed to mere slits. “I know all your secrets.”
“You knew all of them,” I said. And then I handed her the chips I’d gotten to go with my sandwich and said, “Girl up, Brawny. I’m off to class. You’re gonna have to spill eventually.”
She almost seemed to growl at me before she leaned back and opened the bag of chips.
“You think you’re so smart, but I always win in the end.” She tried to make her voice sound sinister—and honestly, it almost didn’t sound like Bran. But she wasn’t going to get to me.
“I am smart, little one,” I told her, using the name our Daddy used for her. She flinched, but I was on a roll, so I reminded her, “It’s never been over.”
Chapter 3
It was dark when I left potions club. I loved brewing with the others even though the professor was a real jerk and most of the other students didn’t like me. When I felt that many potions coalesce around me, it made my heart—even my skin—happy. Being a Hallow who also brewed made me a pariah to everyone else there. The necromancer who refused to leave the “other” magic to the normal witches. Especially since I was better at brewing than all of them. To them, it felt like I was the princess who demanded to be allowed to also be the pauper when it was convenient.
The moon was high but cloud covered and it peeked through here and there. The oaks across the campus were calling to me, but I wasn’t alone and couldn’t answer the call. During club, I had worked with my maybe-friend Sam. Our club had brewed an allergy reliever whose base was huckleberry smoke and rosewater. We were only class friends so far. He was decent at potions, and he liked brewing, so I liked that about him. And I liked his hair and the way his glasses glinted firelight. And he seemed to smile real smiles behind those glasses of his—an attribute I found genuinely lovely. But, because I was part snake, those smiles also made me wonder what he wanted. I smiled real smiles at people sometimes. It didn’t mean I ‘liked’ the person.
And if I were completely honest, every time I thought thoughts about Sam, it made me feel guilty about Felix. Which was stupid since Felix was not and never had been someone I needed to feel guilty about.
“Hey,” I said to Sam, instantly feeling guilty to Felix for what I was about to do. You couldn’t cheat on a guy you weren’t dating, I reminded myself—yet again. Especially if he already had a girlfriend when he kissed you. And then you’d never talked about it again. It was this elephant in the room. This huge, all the time, elephant. But I wasn’t Felix’s girlfriend. Monica was and the thought of her prompted me to finish my question. “Did you want to get some coffee?”
His mouth opened as if he’d been waiting, or was I reading into that, except, my phone rang. I pulled it out of my back pocket because I wasn’t sure what else to do and saw Cyrus’s name. My coven brother was new to this world of magic and the weakest of us all. But it didn’t matter to our coven. We liked him, he liked us. We were the kind of family that chose each other.
“Um,” I said to Sam, my heart pounding to hear his reply and at the adrenaline of actually asking it, but it was Cyrus who never called me. I answered the call with a simple, “Hey.”
“Rue, we have a situation.”
My heart went from pounding to racing. Cyrus never called me. If I hadn’t been distracted by Sam and his smile, I would have already been nervous.
“Is everything alright?”
“Um, sort of. It’s just your sister came back today and I let her in.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. I might have sounded a bit impatient.
“But when she came inside and the wards tripped.”
“What?” My face must have reflected something because Sam’s expression was worried.
“She’s like…locked to the floor of the entryway.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. We tried to help her. But nothing worked. In fact…Jessie is pinned to the wall.”
“Are they ok?”
“Jessie seems to be.”
Oh gods, I thought. Gods and monsters. What about Bran?
“I’ll be right there,” I said, ending the call and looked at Sam. “I’m sorry.”
“Everything alright?” Sam smiled but the eyes behind his glasses looked worried. Or maybe he was just reflecting the worry in my own eyes.
“I…have no idea,” Surely there must be some mistake. Why would Martha pin both Jessie and Branka down? How did Martha even do that? Were the spells laid directly into the foundation triggered? If so, how? Jessie had moved in recently and Bran was a Hallow of the direct line. They both should have been safe. Bran especially. She was, I realized, my heir. Martha shouldn’t attack Bran. I didn’t say any of that to Sam. I just said, “I need to get home.”
“Do you need help?”
I paused. I honestly had no idea. Maybe? But even if I did, I didn’t think Sam would be able to help me.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“So….” He took my hand, just for a moment and asked, “Raincheck?”
“Yeah,” I said, and this time my smile was a real one fleeting though it was.
* * * * *
I jogged home with my bag banging against my back, getting more and more irritated with each step. Whatever was happening must be connected to why Bran needed help. Why didn’t she just tell me what was up when she came? She left whatever was wrong unsaid until she was trapped in my house and I had to miss what could have been a sort-of date with a person who liked to brew.
I didn’t need to open the front gate. It swung open for me as it had done since I first knocked on it. I kept my speed up and jogged up the steps, opening the front door, and banging it against my sister’s head. She was plastered to the floor. The look on her face was pained, and she said out of the side of her mouth that was pressed the wide-planked wood floors, “Bout time.”
I squatted down and nudged her. She didn’t move. I pushed harder and could not budge her even the tiniest bit.
“Ow!”
“Whiner,” I told her and rose to turn to Jessie. She wasn’t so stuck. Her hair hung free and she was able to wave her fingers at me.
“It helps,” Jessie said slowly, her eyes fixed on my sister, “If you don’t fight too hard.”
I looked between my sister and Jessie and again. Both Jessie and Cyrus were staring at Branka. Both of them seemed worried. Both of them barely let their eyes skip away from my sister. What had happened?
“Jessie has been practicing deep breathing,” Cyrus said. “She doesn’t like to be trapped.”
“Who does,” Bran snarled. She sounded so mad when this was all her fault. I was a little surprised she wasn’t cracking jokes.
Jessie’s expression was slightly pleading, slightly panicked, and a whole lot of attempted patience.
“Martha,” I said taking in the scene again and wondering what the hell was going on.
Martha had a personality if a house could. And hers was something of a too helpful golden retriever. She’d never done anything like this. I could see her going haywire if we had intruders. But, Jessie lived in the house. Bran was of the Hallow line and Martha liked those who carried our flavor of magic. She even liked the Hallow Family Elders, Leander, Portia, and Martin, and I could barely stand them. But they had my flavor of magic which is what called to Martha.
; The way Bran and Jessie were held in place by unseen hands was creepy and terrifying and not just because a house held them prisoner, but a loving house. A house that kept us warm and…gods Rue, I thought, you might love her but Martha is wood and stone and spells. I shook off those thoughts and refocused on the scene before me.
Jessie and Bran both have red hair and that was about as similar as they got. Jessie was nerdy-cute with auburn-red hair in two long braids. Bran’s red hair was in-your-face orange, sprayed across the floor and just as stuck as the rest of her. When she stood she was a handful of adorable curves and hair. Right now she looked like a rabid chihuahua.
“Get me up,” she growled.
I ignored her and focused on Jessie.
“What were you doing?”
“Trying release commands and runes to get her free,” Jessie’s voice was soft, barely louder than a whisper.
“Martha,” I said. “Release them.”
She rumbled and there was a swirl of air in the house, but it pushed at me. Pushing me away from my sister, sending the little hairs on the back of my spine to full alert.
“Martha,” I snapped. “Stop it!”
She quit pushing at me, but didn’t let Bran or Jessie go.
“Let Jessie go,” I told Martha, leaving Bran for the moment.
“Hey,” Bran snarled. Martha rumbled again and I said, “Now damn it.”
Jessie gasped and stumbled forward and Cyrus caught her, holding her back from Bran.
“Thank Hecate,” Jessie said, letting Cyrus wrap his arms around her and squeeze her tight. Her eyes were fixed on me and Bran, Jessie’s breathing was jerky, and it seemed the panic she’d been able to hold back before was boiling up.
“Deep breaths, Jessie. You’re ok.”
I squatted down again and met Bran’s eyes. The thing was—Branka Penelope Jones was a green-eyed, pocket goddess. The eyes staring at me were black that swirled to red and yellow and back again.
“Huh,” I said as if I weren’t tempted to run away screaming. Or as if I didn’t need to scream at Bran. What in all the hells? How could she have something like whatever this was going on with her and not tell me?
Bran snarled and tried to twist.
“So….” I turned to Jessie and Cyrus and said calmly, “This seems very bad.”
“Yes,” Jessie agreed. She and Cyrus took a step back that seemed almost instinctive as Bran snarled again.
I started down at my sister who was trying to move, trying to reach out for me. I don’t know how I knew that, but I knew Bran so well. So very, very well.
“I think…” My mind was racing, trying to come up with anything. I had zero idea what to do. I wasn’t some catholic priest, and I wasn’t sure what was happening at all. Was she possessed of ghosts.
“Get this stupid house to let me go.”
“You know you love Martha,” I told Bran.
A string of foul curses was her reply.
“I’m going to wash our your mouth with soap, young lady,” I told her to infuriate her further. I was so angry. What, by Hecate, was happening? Why hadn’t she told me what was going on? Why had she let it get to be this bad? And was this fixable? If it wasn’t, I was going to beat this pseudo version of my sister to death with my bare hands.
“Um, Rue…” Cyrus trailed off and I turned to look at him. “Please don’t make it—”
The look on my face stopped him there and he cleared his throat several times before he finished, “Her. Don’t make her mad.”
“Is she scary?” I asked mildly as if I wasn’t terrified. I wasn’t sure that anything could be scarier than this experience right now, and I’d seen some pretty horrible things. It was just…Bran was my sister. Her face was one of those memories carved inside of me. Seeing her like this was like seeing my childhood pet come back from the grave. It was unacceptable. It was…
Cyrus’s answer was a high-pitched laugh but he backed a little further away from us both, and he pulled Jessie with him.
“I’m going to make an adjusted pentacle around my sister,” I told them to remind them that she was my sister. I wasn’t saying I wasn’t also tempted to send someone for holy water. Whatever it took. The pentacle was the barrier and a safety net. A lot of times it was a vehicle for a spell.. The right runes in the right places with magic and will—that was powerful stuff. Even if you weren’t quite sure what you were doing.
In this case, it was a barrier between her and us. My very best friend, my sister, the one person that meant the most to me. And I was putting her in a magical cage.
My voice was emotionless as I calmly said, “There isn’t enough room to do a traditional one with her in the center.”
She had to be in the center because I needed to form the lines around her. The lines of a pentacle were the physical representation of the border of a spell. The pentacle was the symbolic boundary allowing a witch to take a tiny piece of the universe, temporarily make it her own, and enforce her will therein. In this case, it would be a protection spell for those of us outside of the pentacle, a binding spell to keep my sister inside of the pentacle, and possibly a revelatory spell to show us what the hell was happening.
My heart was racing and my mind tripping over itself. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know the answer. Even still, I drew the pentacle and placed the runes of discernment, protection, safety, barrier, and because she was my sister and we’d done spells together time and again a complex rune that meant family and love and knowledge of the other—all mixed up into one ineffable feeling that only family that adores and needs one another feels.
It was with that last rune as the pentacle magic fueled that my sister was freed. Martha allowed me to take over and dropped whatever wards were in place. I wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t react again if the pentacle were disassembled, but for now, I had space to work. A series of sounds—sort of grunts, growls, gnashing—whatever it was—it wasn’t Bran.
“Oh shi…,” Cyrus said as he spoke the front door opened, and Felix and Chrysie came in.
“Hey,” Felix said and then took in what was happening. “Um…”
“Oh my gosh!” Chrysie said at the same time, her head swing back and forth between myself and Bran.
“So,” I said casually as I wiped the sweat from my brow that was forming. “It seems that Bran is in more trouble than I anticipated.”
As I spoke, she screamed and jumped to her feet to rush the pentacle. An unseen wall flung her back. And an unearthly scream rang in my ears.
“Well,” Felix said. “Maybe we should…”
I looked at him and he at me. I had no idea what to do. Was this some necromancy spell gone wrong? I didn’t know where she’d been or what she’d been doing. It had been evident from the little brushes of our souls against each other that Bran had been up to some sort of mischief. But the truth was—that was her normal. She flung herself from one case of madness to another. And I’d spent much of my life doing just this—trying to protect her from the consequences of her choices.
“What can I do to help?” Felix asked as he finally shut the door behind him and Chrysie. My cousin, Chrysie was already kneeling next to me. She’d taken my hand with her good one and was whispering those inane, heart felt murmurs that people whispered when they had nothing else to say.
“I don’t know,” I told him. Clearly my sister had stumbled into something bad. I didn’t think she was possessed—she wouldn’t have been herself for so long of her visit if she was. I wondered…and my head cocked as I considered.
“What if I put a containment spell on the pentacle?”
Felix thought for a moment and then nodded, “It couldn’t hurt.”
“It’s going to be ok, Bran,” Chrysie said. “You can count on Rue.”
“Oh,” Jessie said as she let go of Cyrus’s hand. “I have an idea.”
Jessie ran from the entrance hall while the rest of us discussed possible runes for a secondary set in a large pentacle. It would be hard to ma
ke it around her, given the space, but it was just a focus device and I could write very, very small and still be effective. My chalk formed the pentacle and at Chrysie’s and Felix’s suggestions, we decided on the runes for recovery, self, safety, peace, and containment.
I powered the spell and waited. It took a while. She stopped trying to get out of the pentacle first. And then dropped to the ground and tucked her knees against her chest, rocking back and forth next. Then she was quiet. Finally, when she looked up, I saw her Bran’s gaze staring back at me.
“What the hells?” I asked her.
She shook her head and then said, “I’m ok now. You can let me out.”
“Yeah right,” Cyrus said with his high-pitched, terrified, laugh.
“What he said,” Felix agreed calmly.
“What in all the ever-lasting hells, Branka Penelope?”
“You listen to me Veruca Dominique,” she countered but didn’t end her threat since I cut her off.
“Listen to you? Listen to you!” I shouted as I stood up and paced. “What are you going to do if I don’t? Leave? You can’t, can you? You were pinned by the wards on Martha and you’re blocked in that pentacle.”
“It’s over now. Let me out,” Bran shouted back at me. She rose and pounded on the invisible wall. “I am going to punch you into the next life.”
“Girl up,” I shouted back. “Girl up and confess, you idiot.”
“No!” She shouted back. We faced off, only inches apart but blocked by the pentacle wall. She slammed her hands against it and said in short, precise, statements, “Let me out.”
“I would be stupid to let you out given what we just saw.”
Her eyes widened slightly and she took a step back. She tossed her curls which were more of one matted mess than her normal luxurious locks and clenched her fists. Finally, she said softly, “I don’t know.
“You don’t know? Shut up and tell the truth.”
Sisters and Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery (The Rue Hallow Mysteries Book 4) Page 2