Seven Daughters

by Jessica Lourey

  It got to where she wondered how she’d ever gotten by without him.

  And in the midst of the drama, she almost forgot about the papers still in her purse.

  The Catalain Book of Secrets: Accepting Gifts

  A gift freely given creates a vacuum. This imbalance moves the recipient to new levels if they accept the gift. A gift accepted with an open heart changes the world.

  Always accept the good that is offered to you. Always.

  Chapter 9

  The night after Helena’s stitches were removed, she and Xenia walked down to the river behind the Queen Anne. It was a warm spring evening, but it was still March and lacey crusts of ice clung to the river banks. The moon was a slim fingernail in the sky, permitting all the glitter to the stars. The air smelled crisp, like the juice of a green apple.

  The twins hadn’t planned this. They’d just found themselves at the river bank, where Helena stripped. From behind, her body was curves and cream. The angry red scars on her chest held a hideous beauty. Xenia looked away from them, but not before she witnessed the pain on her sister’s face. She refused to glance down at her own body.

  “Xenia, do you remember when Velda took us in for professional photographs?”

  Velda had driven to Fargo with the girls riding in the back of the station wagon and wearing matching outfits—white dresses, white gloves, and black pillbox hats purchased specifically for this. Ursula had been at school.

  “Sula really should be here,” Helena had said. She was five.

  “Shush,” Velda had said. “This is just for twins. I’m going to enter you two in a contest. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Xenia raised the logical objection. “But we don’t look anything alike.”

  “That’ll make you even more unique.” Velda touched up her lipstick in the rearview mirror as she drove. “And we’ll stop for chocolate Cokes on the way home.”

  Helena remembered Xenia being worried. The trip didn’t feel right. Her sister started tugging at her black hair like she did when she got nervous.

  I don’t want to go, Xenia mouthed.

  Helena put a finger to her lips in the universal signal for silence. She reached inside her plastic little-girl purse and pulled out a bag of homemade purple marzipan. The texture was a little off, the almond scent a bit too overpowering, but she saw it work as Xenia took a chunk, a soft smile replacing the tight worry on her face as she chewed. She and Helena played rock paper scissors for the rest of the drive, both of them pulling the same gesture each time.

  Helena savored the memory, sharing it back and forth with her sister. That’s why she was here, naked and shivering on the edge of the river: she needed to soothe her sister, take away her worry, show her that everything would be all right. The stars dropped and sparkled around Helena’s body like sweet fireflies.

  “I love you at your very center,” Xenia said.

  Helena shot her a reassuring smile and jumped into the icy water. The cold grabbed her like a slap, stripped away her flesh and wounds and worries, and left that slippery, eternal golden thread that beat with a hot and permanent pulse. She climbed out of the water, trembling but peaceful. She had washed away some fear, enough to get through some more days.

  But she didn’t tell her sister what she was really thinking. She didn’t want to worry her.

  Helena was terrified in her deepest heart, and the fear was eroding her from the inside out. She knew it wasn’t the cancer that would destroy her. You could excise the tumor and then waste the rest of your life glancing back, mourning what was no longer yours, or worse, looking forward, always wondering when the cancer would return.

  Helena was certain that she would never be free again.

  The Catalain Book of Secrets: Sisters

  Nothing on this earth will double your magic like a sister. If possible, keep one near at all times.

  Chapter 10

  She was healthy enough to move around, and she wore a brave face, but she felt so empty. The trauma of the surgery and the attention of the doctors behind her, she intimately grieved the loss of her breasts. Artemis’s company soothed her to a degree, and Xenia was always on the periphery, quick to appear if she needed something, but it wasn’t the same as having her body whole. She’d lost part of herself.

  She’d run the washrag over her chest in the shower. Her front felt like a corrugated, parched stretch of earth, but she refused to look at any part of herself except her face in the mirror. Now that she no longer required a bra, it was easy to avoid glancing down. She wouldn’t even watch her feet as she pulled on her socks for fear of catching a glimpse of her flat chest.

  The doctor had warned her this could happen. He’d offered her antidepressants. She didn’t want medicine. She wanted to be a woman again, curves and jiggles and flesh and warmth. All the longing for what she was missing exhausted her, to the point that she slept past noon most days, letting Claudette take over for her at Seven Daughters.

  She was getting old.

  She didn’t even care enough about the store or the Queen Anne to worry about Meredith taking them away any more. If Ursula and Xenia found out, they could do something about it. If they didn’t find out, didn’t everything go wrong in the end anyhow? There was horrible unrest in her family. Her great-niece had disappeared. Something had happened to Katrine. But what did it matter? Nothing was right anymore.

  The sense of disquiet was so strong that three days after swimming in the river with Xenia, it drove her outside, into the night.

  And onto the backs of the snakes.

  She was too empty to even be startled. She simply followed the stream of slipping, hissing, urine-scented reptiles away from the Queen Anne. The crescent moon howled at her. People stared from their windows, horrified by the vision of a broken Helena stumbling across the reptiles, her gray-blonde hair tossed by the sharp breeze. But she didn’t stop. She didn’t even think.

  Across town, she heard a siren.

  “Helena Catalain, come inside!”

  She glanced over at the woman standing on her porch, her face panicked. Helena shook her head and kept walking. The snakes were inside her head, whispering to her, their melody hypnotizing. They brought images of people she hadn’t met and a time she hadn’t lived in. The first image was of the Queen Anne in its full, fresh glory, and a woman who looked very much like her niece Katrine walking up the sidewalk wearing an ankle-length brocade dress and a shirtwaist, her hair done in a Gibson Girl.

  That image was soon replaced by one of River Street in downtown Faith Falls, which she recognized, though she didn’t know the unfamiliar old wooden buildings lining the dirt road or the two white-haired men rocking on a porch. And then the mental pictures whizzed back to a plump man astride a horse constructing a rickety fence on the banks of Rum River, then back further to Indians riding horse across the land that would become Faith Falls, and further, and further.

  It was dizzying. She felt like she was walking through time. She would have kept going if the secret snake whispers hadn’t abruptly stopped, leaving her both exhausted and energized. She blinked, awaking from the spell.

  She stood outside of Meredith Gottfridsen’s house. Snakes rubbed over her ankles, slithered across her feet, bumping against and past her, but she could no longer hear their voices, only the cold leather of their bodies rustling against the ground.

  And over that, the smallest sound.

  She cocked her head. The noise was pure sadness, or was it fear? It seemed to be coming from over her head. She had to squint through the shadows caused by the street lamps to spot the source of the crying: a woman, curled in the lowest branch of the magnificent oak in the rambler’s front lawn. She wore a patch over her left eye.

  “Meredith?” Helena asked.

  The woman hugged her knees tighter to her body, but her weeping didn’t stop.

  Helena stepped closer, wading through the snakes. It was Meredith, and in addition to the patch, her right eye appeared to be clouding
over. “Are you all right?”

  “Don’t come any closer!” Meredith’s voice was ragged. She was staring frantically in every direction, as if she were blind. Groceries were scattered on the ground below her, a gallon of milk here and bag of chips there winking through the thickness of reptiles.

  Helena’s stomach tumbled. How had Meredith found her way home? She must be nearly blind by now. “Meredith, it’s Helena Catalain. The snakes are here. We need to get you inside.”

  “You.” The word was so sharp that the snakes froze for a razor-moment. “You witch. You did this to me! And you brought the snakes.” Meredith’s right shoulder ticked on a rhythm, a clock that counted pain rather than time, and her hands were rubbing circles into the bark of the tree. Left alone with her thoughts and her soul, with her only window into the world clouding by the minute, Meredith was going as crazy as Helena. Crazier, because she hadn’t cultivated enough love in her life to survive a low spell.

  Helena put her hand on Meredith’s ankle, the only part of her she could reach. Meredith flinched. “I’ll help you into your house, all right?” Helena asked.

  “I’m not letting those snakes touch me.” The tic in Meredith’s shoulder increased its pace.

  Helena’s head dropped. She couldn’t see her feet for the river of reptiles. They should probably disgust her, but they didn’t. “You can ride on my shoulders. Come on now. You can’t stay out here all night. You’ll be safe inside.”

  Meredith’s mask slipped, but she grabbed it and slapped it back on. “I’ll let you help me into the house, witch, but that doesn’t change anything. I’m still taking your store, and your house.”

  A puff of anger ignited in Helena. For a moment, she considered walking away. Meredith had created her own pain, on the whole, and she had nursed it like a beloved child. If Meredith hadn’t looked so lonely, so absolutely lost, things may have ended differently.

  As it was, like every woman since the beginning of time, Helena moved her own pain to the side to make room to help someone else carry theirs.

  There was work to be done.

  The Catalain Book of Secrets: Equinox Spell

  The vernal equinox has always been symbolic of new life. Also, because day and night are of equal length on the equinox, it is a time of balance and harmony. It is the best time to set things to right and to plant the seeds that you want to grow in the new year. This simple ritual will ensure your safety, prosperity, and joy:

  Materials:

  1 egg

  1 purple scarf

  Paint (egg paint, if you can find it, or tempera paint; you’ll need lots of red)

  Pine needles and sage

  Paper and pen

  Instructions:

  Three days before the vernal equinox, set the pine needles and sage in a small bowl in your workspace. Start them smoldering. With the bowl in your hand, face each of the four directions, centering yourself in your heart and spirit.

  Once you’ve cleansed your space and yourself, place the bowl near you. Ensure that it keeps smoldering.

  Write down your hopes for the new year on the paper, then fold it until it is a strip about an inch wide.

  Paint the egg, thinking about your hopes for the new year as you do. The more red you use, the more powerful your hopes will be, but don’t make the mistake of using only red. Contrast magnifies.

  Let the egg dry.

  Wrap the strip of paper around the egg.

  Wrap the egg in the purple scarf. Put it under your pillow, and sleep on it for two nights.

  On the third night, the night of the equinox, retrieve the scarf from under your pillow. Unwrap it and remove the paper and the egg.

  Burn the paper to release your dreams into the Universe.

  If weather permits, go outside with the egg and crack it onto the ground to set the wheel of infinite possibilities into motion.

  Be grateful.

  Chapter 11

  “You sure you want to go through with it this year?”

  Helena nodded. The worry was spelled across Xenia’s face. It had replaced the surprise that had exploded when Helena told her what she meant to do. After all, there had been so many crises in their family lately, and such a big cleansing on the night the snakes had run like water through the streets of Faith Falls.

  “I’m sure,” Helena said.

  Helena and Xenia cleared the Queen Anne’s drawing room except for a ring of chairs that hugged the walls. From year to year, they never knew how many would show up for the equinox celebration. No invitations were ever sent.

  Food was prepared—morsels of smoked rabbit nestled in a creamy potato broth, lavender-infused Duck L’orange covered in crispy, sweet-salty skin, tiny quails stuffed with sage dressing, wild perch drizzled with onion jam, roasted garlic soup with poached eggs, haricot verts in a lemon-almond sauce, roasted butternut squash, delicate mushroom caps filled with salty bacon, wild rice, and poached raisins, fresh spinach dressed with poppyseed vinaigrette, a wild lettuce salad speckled with sunflower nuts and bits of bright, fresh orange, platters of grapes, apples, nuts, and cheeses, pomegranates seeds piled high like a tower of glistening rubies, blood orange slices as gorgeous as a rising sun, fresh-baked bread still steaming and scenting the air with the smell of home and hearth.

  For dessert, Helena and Claudette had prepared fresh strawberries with lemon verbena pudding, crystallized rose petals, wild angelica meringues, cherry, apple, and banana cream pies, quarter-sized violet and hazelnut cakes, and rich chocolate candies with fluted edges and curving lips. They’d also mulled cider thick with cloves and the sharp mystery of cinnamon and arranged the chairs, but that’s all they could do.

  The house could feel their excitement beating deep in their hearts with a scarlet heat. The vernal equinox was the time of all possibilities, the day and then night when the year of struggle and pain could be laid down without guilt or worry, and the forthcoming year of hope and light could be welcomed. There had been much necessary pain recently, so much so that the air had grown warped from it.

  “How many clients did Ursula meet with this year?” Xenia asked.

  Helena shrugged and arranged her chocolates for the seventh time. “I remember seeing twenty or so, but I think one might have been the new mailman going to the wrong door. I wish she’d tell us, so we’d know how much food to prepare.”

  As far as they knew, there wasn’t an exact correlation between Ursula’s clients and the number of people who showed up at the celebration, but there did seem to be a connection. It was as if Ursula’s magic needed the final seal of the equinox to become permanent. Her clients, at least the most aware ones, sensed this and were drawn like fireflies to the Queen Anne on March 19, 20, or 21 of every year, depending on which day the vernal equinox fell.

  But they weren’t the only ones who felt compelled to approach the house, knock hesitantly on the magnificent scrolled front door, stand outside shifting from foot to foot, entering apologetically once the door was opened. They’d claim not to know why they’d come, and were surprised when they were welcomed.

  Helena expected a record turnout of attendees this year since the weather was glorious. The lilacs, tired of quivering with unspent beauty, burst open, sending purple honey into the air six weeks earlier than ever recorded. Bluebirds warbled, cocking their heads at the sleepy worms that peeked out to wonder where the snow had gone. The high of the day had been 72 degrees, breaking all sorts of records.

  The house waited. Inside, Ursula laughed spontaneously and often, finding reasons to smile in every room. Xenia had already poured herself a glass of Chianti. Helena bustled. Katrine watched the door.

  The first knock sent ichor through each of their veins, steadying them.

  The equinox celebration had begun.

  Helena answered the knock. “Leo!” She wrapped him in a hug. “I’m so happy you’re here. Please, come in.”

  After him strolled a woman who smelled like an ocean, then Xenia’s Cleo, followed by the loc
al second grade teacher, her expression so nervous that her eyes spun like a deer’s, followed by Artemis who carried a bonsai tree as a hostess gift, then Velda, then a woman who called herself Merry but who didn’t let her smile travel past her face. And they just kept coming, eating and talking and wondering.

  A fire blazed in the marble fireplace, cozying the gigantic room. An open window on the opposite wall kept the space from growing stuffy, the brisk, warming air dancing with the smell of woodsmoke. Some of the guests had entered through the back door. They were talking to people they’d never met inside a house most of them had never visited. If someone had pulled the shades and turned off the lights, they would have witnessed the sparks of electricity passing between each guest.

  A bottle of champagne was opened, and then another. Cheeks grew rosy, and the connections multiplied to the point that cartoon-perfect lightning bolts could be observed shooting between people. Helena brought out eggs to be painted, and the visitors fell to work decorating them before hiding them around the house, bumping into one another and giggling.

  At one point, Artemis asked Claudette if it was okay if he touched her.

  “Sure,” she said. There were only a few empty spots on her, on the tips of her fingertips, under her hair.

  Artemis reached out and gently brushed her shoulder. She clenched, but no tattoo appeared. He nodded as if he’d expected this, and from across the room, Helena beamed at him.

  Two women and a man who had entered through the back door talked about the weather and glanced at their watches. They didn’t have any place they needed to be, but time felt like the only real thing in the room. Leo kept the buffet looking nice, rearranging poppy cakes and spring flowers glazed with sugar to fill in spots and wiping off crumbs.