The Odd Sisters

by Serena Valentino

“That’s a good idea. Let’s check.” But Snow was still making that face, causing Circe to think she was unsure.

  “Do you think we should disturb him? In Gothel’s story, he did say he wanted to rest.”

  Circe smiled. “You are so kind, Snow. And you’re right, he did say that, but I think he would want to know if his witches are about to return.”

  “How much time do you think we have before Hazel and Primrose get here?”

  “Maybe one day more if they’re on foot, I think.”

  “Is that enough time for you to get things in better shape while I take a look in the library and maybe go through the books we took from Mrs. Tiddlebottom’s?” Snow desperately hoped she would find the pages from “The Mourning Box.”

  “Snow, what is this all about, this obsession with missing pages? What is the mourning box?”

  “I don’t want to say, Circe. Not until I’ve read the entire story. Please trust me.”

  Circe took Snow’s hand as they walked toward the mansion. “Of course I trust you, Cousin. I trust you with my entire heart. Let’s see if the library is still standing, shall we? And then maybe break our fast with something from the feast Mrs. Tiddlebottom packed for us?”

  The two ladies made their way up the hill to what was left of the mansion. Inside, it wasn’t as ruined as they had feared. Many of the rooms were still intact and undamaged by the battle. Most of the destruction was to the outer walls and vestibule, and Circe imagined this was what it must have looked like after Manea attacked Gothel and her sisters years earlier. Both of the ladies were happy to see that the morning room they’d read about was still beautiful; only a few panes of glass had been broken, and the furniture hadn’t been turned over or damaged like it had in some of the lower rooms.

  “This won’t take much time at all to manage,” said Circe as she and Snow White continued to explore, in search of the library.

  The library was one of the older rooms in the mansion, not one of the new rooms Gothel had built for her sisters after she sent her mother’s spirit to the mists. It was sad seeing this place, reliving Gothel’s story as they walked the paths she must have taken. Snow made herself comfortable in Primrose’s old customary seat in the library, the one near the stone carving of a tree that was slightly in bloom. The carving was the one display of life in this dreary place aside from the monstrous stone beasts that were carved into the walls of the older rooms. Snow smiled as she thought of Primrose, and she hoped Primrose was the sweet person she had conjured in her mind after reading Gothel’s story.

  “I’m going to leave you to your search if you don’t mind,” Circe said. “I don’t have much time to make this place more inhabitable for Hazel and Primrose.”

  Snow looked up at Circe with her sweet large brown eyes. “And you will look for Sir Jacob?”

  Circe smiled and nodded. “Yes, I will look for him.” Snow bit her lip. “What’s on your mind, Snow?”

  “It’s just I’ve been wondering. How were we able to enter the dead woods? Aren’t the boundaries enchanted? And even if the minions and Jacob are here, how would you summon them?”

  Circe wasn’t sure. “I suppose the enchantment died with the last of the witches who ruled here.” That didn’t seem to satisfy Snow. Circe could tell she had more questions but didn’t ask. Circe, too, wondered how her mothers had entered the woods when they were still girls. For now it would remain a mystery. “I have the mirror in my pocket, Snow. Do you have yours?” Snow looked up from the book she had been perusing while they were chatting and nodded. “Call me if you need me. And don’t forget to keep that locket on at all times,” Circe said.

  Snow shook her head and laughed. “I may not be a witch, but I was raised by one. I’ll be fine, Circe. Now go. I have a lot of reading to do.”

  Circe left Snow to her books while she went through the mansion, repairing the damage with the wave of her hand. She expected this sort of magic to be difficult and exhausting, but it was almost effortless. As she swept through the mansion, her magic bringing the house back to its former glory, Circe felt like she was bringing the past back to life, preserving it for Primrose and Hazel, just as Gothel and Jacob had preserved Primrose and Hazel.

  Circe found herself back in the courtyard, putting statues in their original positions, and to her surprise she found two striking young women standing before Primrose’s and Hazel’s crypts, right beneath the words Jacob had etched into stone:

  Sisters. Together. Forever.

  The women looked exactly as Circe had imagined them.

  Primrose had vibrant red hair and a light speckling of freckles across her cheeks and nose. She had soft curves, apple cheeks, and an unmistakable energy about her. Circe could feel Manea’s blood running in her veins, though she wondered if the girl sensed it herself. Then there was Hazel. To Circe, Hazel was like an ethereal goddess of the dead. Her long silver hair cascaded over her shoulders and down to her waist. Her face was so pale and luminescent she didn’t seem quite human.

  Simultaneously, both girls turned to face Circe and smiled. There was no fear or questioning in their eyes. It was as if they knew who she was.

  “You must be Circe,” said the fiery beauty, Primrose.

  Circe flinched. “How do you know who I am?”

  Primrose and Hazel looked at each other and smiled. “We know all about you, Circe. We hoped we would find you here.”

  Circe walked toward the lovely girls. Seeing the witches home, and alive again, made Gothel’s losing them, and their losing her, all the more real. “Then you know about your sister? I’m so sorry.”

  The girls smiled again. “We know everything, sweet Circe. Please don’t worry. Of course our hearts broke for Gothel, but she chose her own path. As you are about to choose yours.” Circe wondered how the witches knew so much, but she felt it was rude to ask.

  Primrose giggled. “It isn’t rude to ask, Circe. We trust you.” Circe stood silently, waiting for Primrose to continue. “We’ve been in the place between since we lost our lives. Gothel tethered us to this world by preserving our bodies, but our spirits resided in another place.” Circe was horrified. The idea of Gothel’s sisters trapped between this world and the next sent chills through her.

  “It was difficult at first—until we learned to listen,” said Hazel, who had been, until that moment, silent. Her voice was serene. “I just wish Gothel was with us. I wish she had the same opportunity to listen, and learn. Time to rest, and to recover from what our mother did to us. I wish she’d had the same time we did to let Manea’s blood empower her as it has us. Then she would be here, and we could be witches together, as she always wanted.”

  Circe’s heart ached for the three of them, sisters who would never be reunited. She didn’t know what to say. Grasping, she said, “You’ll be happy to know your beautiful morning room is just as you left it.”

  Primrose and Hazel looked around. “It seems everything is almost as we left it, thanks to you.”

  “Shall I walk you up to the house, then? I would like to introduce you to my cousin Snow White. She’s in your library, looking for the missing pages to a story that’s intrigued her.”

  Primrose narrowed her eyes. “Missing pages? Are they important?”

  “Well, Snow seems to think so. She’s been obsessed with reading stories about the dead woods since we read your sister’s story.”

  “Well, if the pages were ripped from the book of fairy tales, I don’t think she will find them in our library. Jacob had everything that was important taken from the library and hidden away. He was trying to protect Gothel, to keep her safe from any stories or books that might hurt her or help her to foolishly try to resurrect us without the flower.” Circe had to remember these witches probably knew more than she did, having spent so long in the place between. She had to remember they were hundreds of years old. “Yes, though we feel as if we’re still your age. And I suppose in body we still are,” Primrose said with a smile. “Shall we go find these books and pa
ges that Jacob wisely hid away from my deranged sister?”

  Circe hardly knew what to say. It wasn’t surprising Primrose would hold that opinion of her sister, but she hadn’t expected to hear her say something outright.

  “We love our sister, Circe. We do, but we see her clearly. We see her more clearly than she ever saw herself. We had nothing to do in the place between but listen and learn. Don’t mistake us, we do mourn her, but we’ve been mourning her for a very long time, long before she turned to dust and passed into the mists to be with our ancestors.”

  The three witches walked the paths Circe and Snow had read about, past the weeping angels beneath the dead willow trees, their long hanging branches swaying in the breeze and making the sunlight dance. They reached the crypt Circe remembered from Gothel’s story, the one with the large anatomical image of a heart in stained glass. Circe gasped, startling the young witches.

  “What is it, Circe? Are you all right?” Circe didn’t know how she felt about waking Jacob, if he was there at all. She wasn’t sure it was fair, even if they needed his help.

  “He will be happy to see you, Circe. Call him.”

  “Happy to see me? He doesn’t even know me.” Circe felt as if the witches knew far more than they were sharing.

  “He knows of you. Your mothers spoke of nothing else. Wrote of nothing else in their missives.” Primrose and Hazel were smiling at Circe like she was an old friend, not like she was someone they had just met. It was strange, this feeling of familiarity they seemed to have with her, and how comfortable she felt with them. How oddly at home she was in this strange and beautiful place.

  “But that wasn’t me. That was their real sister. That Circe, the one they wrote of, she died,” Circe said in a small voice.

  “Oh, you are her, Circe. You are real, and you were always meant to be. Now, please call Sir Jacob. I promise he will answer if he is within,” said Hazel, urging Circe to be brave.

  “What are the words?” Circe felt she was on the edge of something. She felt that in doing this, she would somehow be changing her life forever.

  “You’re right, wise witch,” Hazel said, reading Circe’s thoughts. “Now use your own words and summon Jacob.”

  Circe took a deep breath, and she said the words. Words that came not from a spell book, but from her heart.

  “Sir Jacob, the living are in need of you once more. If anyone is deserving of rest, it is you. So, please, forgive our intrusion and know it pains me to rouse you from your slumber.” Primrose and Hazel smiled as they heard Circe’s choice of words. Circe could see they approved.

  The door to the crypt opened slowly, with the terrible sound of stone moving against stone. Circe understood now why it had set Gothel’s teeth on edge when she heard it.

  Jacob stood in the open doorway, squinting against the sunlight. He looked much the way Circe had expected. Exceedingly tall and large boned, and she could tell he had once been very handsome. He held his top hat to shield his eyes from the sun as he slowly made his way out the crypt door. As his eyes adjusted, he saw them. He saw his witches. His Primrose and Hazel. His face twisted into his customary strained smile, and it sent joy into Circe’s heart to see it. Both girls rushed to their dear old friend, hugging him around the waist. Then he looked up and saw Circe. She saw it wash over him: a look of recognition she hadn’t expected. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought the man knew her. Loved her. And was happy to see her.

  “Well, the one made from three has finally come to the dead woods. But does she bring her mothers crashing down on us, as it was foretold, or have they been safely stowed away, as the ancestors hoped?”

  Circe was taken aback, too confused even to answer.

  Sir Jacob looked to Primrose and Hazel. “She doesn’t know, then?”

  The witches shook their heads. “No,” Primrose said. “She came here with Snow White seeking answers about her mothers. I think it’s time she learned the truth.”

  Snow White was sitting in the morning room with a stack of books she had brought up from the library. She liked this room better than the others. What little light there was in the dead woods filtered through the windows, giving the room an almost cheerful glow. She felt sad that Gothel had never been able to truly appreciate the room the way she’d wanted to with her sisters. Snow couldn’t help remembering reading about the solstice party Gothel had thrown for her sisters, and about how much she’d wanted them to love living in this house together.

  A voice interrupted her musings. “Snow, we have company.”

  Snow looked up and saw Circe standing in the doorway with two beautiful young women. All three of them were holding stacks of papers and books.

  “Primrose! Hazel!” Snow White stood up from her little window reading nook and rushed to the young witches, embracing them as if she had known them for many years and was not meeting them now for the first time.

  Primrose smiled. “I knew you would be sweet,” she said as the witches put down the books and papers. “And so pretty. I hadn’t expected you to be quite so pretty.” Snow White blushed deeply, lowering her eyes. She was never comfortable with people commenting on her beauty. It wasn’t something that was important to Snow. It wasn’t where she got her self-worth. Watching her mother’s obsession with vanity, she had learned at a young age that a woman’s true virtue resided in her heart.

  “Here, come sit down. I just made a pot of tea and there is plenty for all of us. I’ll just go get us some more cups.”

  Hazel took Snow’s hand. “No, dear. I will have Jacob arrange for that.”

  Snow looked around for the man she had read about. “Jacob? But where is he?”

  Hazel looked toward the entryway. “He’s just out there. He was afraid his appearance would frighten you.”

  Snow rushed to the entryway and found Jacob right around the corner. “Jacob, I am so happy to meet you.” She put her hands on the sides of his face. “You are just as beautiful as I imagined. It’s no wonder Manea was so in love with you.” Jacob didn’t say anything as Snow White led him into the morning room to sit with her and the witches. “Everyone, please sit down and have some tea.” Primrose laughed, and suddenly Snow felt foolish for acting as the hostess in the witches’ home. “I’m sorry, of course it’s your place to offer the tea. I didn’t mean—”

  Hazel stopped Snow before she could continue. “No, Snow, you’re fine. We always imagined you would be a sweet woman, and we’re just pleased to see you in real life.” Snow White felt the same way. She was in awe of these witches, brought to life from the pages of Gothel’s story. To have just read about Hazel and Primrose, thinking she would never have the opportunity to meet them, and to be in their home speaking to them was the most magnificent thing she’d experienced in many years.

  Jacob cleared his throat, drawing her attention. “I understand you were looking for some missing pages. May I inquire which story you were reading? I might be able to help.”

  Snow White bit her lip, afraid to answer Jacob. She couldn’t bear to admit the story was about him. It didn’t seem proper to ask him to provide the story of his death. She didn’t want to hurt him. “Don’t be afraid, Snow. Jacob is here to help us. We could never imagine you hurting anyone on purpose,” Primrose said.

  Snow White smiled and asked playfully, “So you can read my mind as well? Am I surrounded by mind readers, then?”

  Primrose laughed. “We cannot read your mind, sweet Snow, but we can read Circe’s. And she can read yours. So I guess in a way we know what you were thinking. It’s all very strange, isn’t it? And it must be maddening. We’ll do our best not to drive you to distraction with it. I remember dreading others knowing how I was feeling or what I was thinking, and now I find it quite comforting.”

  “I suppose it does make things easier,” Snow said with a laugh, then turned her attention back to Jacob. “Dear Jacob, I was reading a story involving you and Manea in the book of fairy tales. Her mother was threatening to kill you. The
title of the story was ‘The Mourning Box.’”

  Jacob became unsteady on his feet, losing his balance and almost falling. “Jacob! Please sit down.” Snow White rushed to help him to a seat and got him a cup of tea. “Here, dear man, drink this.” Snow White looked down at him as she handed him his tea. His eyes were beautiful, or at least she thought they might have been once upon a time when he was alive. She could almost see the man he once was, and her heart broke as she remembered the story “The Mourning Box.” Primrose and Hazel rushed to Jacob and sat on either side of him, each taking one of his hands. Snow could see Jacob wasn’t used to this sort of attention and it made him uncomfortable, but she could also see he was so happy to have the young witches back that he wasn’t about to protest.

  Snow White laughed quietly to herself. The poor man was besieged by witches. Circe kneeled down in front of him and put her hand on his knee.

  “Jacob, are you quite all right? Is there something I can do for you? I’m so sorry if our coming here has upset you.”

  “No, my little witch. You are more than welcome here. I have been expecting you for a very long time. Your coming was foretold by the ancestors.” Circe’s face was full of confusion. “I think you’d better read this.” Jacob handed Circe the stack of papers he had been holding. It looked like they had been torn out of a book.

  “‘The Mourning Box’! This is the story Snow was reading?”

  Snow took the pages from Circe, her heart racing. “It is.” She went to her stack of books, took the fairy tale book from the pile, and handed it to Circe. “I really should have told you about this before now, but I wanted to be sure I wasn’t jumping to wild conclusions before I did.”

  “Your conclusions are far from wild,” said Primrose, smiling at Snow White.

  “Here, I think you should all read this first,” Snow said, showing them the book of fairy tales, which was open to “The Mourning Box.”

  “Oh, we already know the story,” said Primrose. “And I daresay Jacob couldn’t forget it if he tried.”