The Castle of Water and Woe (Briarwood Reverse Harem Book 3)

by Steffanie Holmes

  Rowan was the first person to come running. He hovered in the doorway for a moment, then he must’ve seen my face, because he rushed over and wrapped his arms around me, resting his head on my shoulder. “What happened, baby girl?” he whispered.

  I tried to tell him, but the words still wouldn’t come out. My sister tried to kill herself. I just couldn’t comprehend how this had happened. There must’ve been some mistake. Kelly would never do something like this. She’s the most vivacious, in-love-with-life person I know. Not to mention the fact that she’s a believer. To her, suicide means a fast pass to hell, and she’d never risk that. No, it can’t be real. It’s some kind of mistake.

  Flynn moved out into the hall, and I could hear him talking into the phone. I wanted to run after him and hear what was being said, but Rowan’s arms felt so reassuring around me, I couldn’t move. He was the only thing holding me up.

  Another warm body materialised beside me. Arthur’s strong arms wrapped around my waist. “We got you,” he said.

  Footsteps clattered down the hall. Corbin and Blake burst in the room, crowding around me. “What happened?” Corbin demanded.

  “My sister—” I choked out. Rowan’s hand closed over mine, and he squeezed. When I looked into his eye, I saw panic there, like he didn’t know what to do. But he didn’t let go of my hand.

  Flynn came back in the room. “Okay, I managed to talk to someone at the hospital. She’s out of intensive care but she’s still unconscious. They’ve had to pump her stomach. She’s been moved to a ward until she wakes up. They’ll keep her overnight at least, to monitor her condition, and then they’ll move her to a psych ward for an evaluation. But she’s okay. No lasting damage.”

  Tears of relief streamed down my face. Kelly’s okay.

  “Who is this? What’s happened?” Corbin was practically yelling. His face went all pale.

  “Maeve’s sister,” Jane said, rocking Connor. “Someone in Arizona just rang Maeve to tell her she’s in the hospital.”

  “She swallowed a lot of pills,” Flynn added, giving Corbin an odd look. “But they said she’s going to be fine.”

  “How did you get that information?” Jane asked. “American hospitals are notoriously terrible. They’re only supposed to release details to family.”

  Flynn grinned. “Luckily, I got Nurse Cissy McBimbo on the line, and she succumbed to my Irish charm.”

  “You flirted that information out of her?” Flynn sank down beside me, handing me the phone, and I wrapped my arms around him. “You’re the best.”

  “I know.”

  “Hey,” Blake pushed his way forward, patting his chest. “Give the rest of us a chance, Princess. I could have got that information from the magical talking device if you’d given me a chance.”

  “I have to see her,” I said, reaching for my busted phone. “I need to get on the next flight to Arizona, but with everything that’s going on—”

  “Don’t even think about it.” Arthur took the phone off me and shoved it in his pocket. “Of course you’re going to see her, but in the state you’re in you’re just as likely to book a one-way ticket to New Zealand. We’ll get you to Arizona, fae be damned. This is more important.”

  “One of us will go with you,” Corbin said. He grabbed one of the laptops off the table and flipped it open. “I’ll have a look at flights. We’ll get you there as soon as we can.”

  “But—” It was too much. All of this was just too much. Could I lose Kelly, too?

  “Got it,” Corbin said, clicking away. “There’s a flight leaving from Heathrow in five hours. We need to leave now if we’re going to have a chance in hell of making it. Flynn, can you call an Uber for Maeve and I? This is going to cost an arm and a leg—”

  “Wait a second, you can’t come with me.” Rational thoughts started to plow through the detritus in my head. “You’re the only one who knows where anything is in the library and you can lead the spells if something happens.”

  Corbin looked set to argue, but Rowan nodded quickly. “She’s right. You need to stay here. I’d go, but I don’t have a passport.”

  “What’s a passport?” Blake asked.

  “I’ll go,” Arthur said. “I’ll drive us down in the Jag. That’ll save on the Uber.”

  And that was how Arthur and I ended up speeding down the M1 toward London in that ridiculous gangster car. He talked about sword fighting and Talhoffer’s manuals and how medieval masters used two dimensional drawings constrained by specific religious rules to represent different tenets about timing and distance. Under any other circumstances it would be fascinating stuff, but I didn’t hear a word. Over and over in my head I replayed my last few conversations with Kelly, how I’d forgotten to call her back, how I’d brushed her off when I had more important things to do, how I’d been so wrapped up in my own bollocks to be the big sister when she needed me most.

  When I didn’t respond to any of his attempts at conversation, Arthur asked if he could put on some music.

  “Is it going to be heavy metal?” I asked, making a face.

  “Do you know why I like metal?” Arthur jammed a CD into the ancient discman sitting on a shelf under the dashboard. I knew they didn’t make those anymore, so he must’ve got it from an antique shop or something. “There’s no space. The music fills you completely. It overpowers you and pulls you down this rabbit hole, so there’s just no room in your head for anything else.”

  I thought about Arthur and how he struggled with anger, how his whole life was a balancing act, an attempt to stop himself losing control. I’d always thought that listening to angry music was a bad idea, that it made people think and do bad things. But maybe I’d misjudged it. Maybe angry music was how he kept his emotions from taking over.

  I could do with some of that right now.

  The music started, low and heavy – bass strings plucking a mournful tune. A woman came across the speakers, her voice dripping with emotion as she sung an operatic melody. The words were in Latin or Italian or whatever language opera was usually in, so I had no idea what she was actually saying, but she sounded so achingly, impossibly sad. The music swelled behind her, the drums pounding, the bass thumping inside my hollow chest.

  And then a man’s voice joined hers, not singing, but growling. Like a beast risen out of hell, he roared and rumbled through the speakers, burning a dark hole into my skin, over my heart. The riffs soared and the drums rocketed like machine guns.

  It was dark and heavy and intense and insane. Arthur was right. I was so busy listening, putting all the components together, being swept away in the intensity of it, the righteous power of it, that I didn’t break down when Kelly’s face flashed in front of my eyes. Instead, the music drove me to remain calm and strong, for her.

  “Who are these guys?” I asked when the song finished.

  “They’re a band from the states, called Blood Lust. They kind of have this gothic vibe – they have lots of operatic songs like this, and they even dress in old fashioned frock coats when they play live. People on the internet love to say the lead singer’s a vampire. He does kind of look like one. Do you want me to turn it off?”

  “Hell no.”

  We sped down the M1, our heads banging in unison to the pounding music, my mind gloriously empty, my eyes dry. When the Blood Lust CD finished, Arthur put on a band called Beauty in Lies. “Rumor has it all the guys in this band are in a polyamorous relationship with the same girl,” he said.

  “Oh. Cool.” I expected him to say more, to try to talk to me about what happened yesterday. But he just hit play and a great and beautiful blasphemy rose from the speakers and hit me in the face, obliterating every thought.

  By the time we pulled into the parking building at Heathrow, my ass hurt from the hard bench seat, but my head felt light.

  I pointed to the CD player. “Can I bring that on the plane?” I asked.

  “Sure.” Arthur gathered up the cords and a pair of headphones. “But I don’t have any othe
r CDs—”

  “That’s okay. I want these ones.”

  He grinned as he lifted our bags out of the boot. I clutched the discman to my chest for dear life as we ran toward the terminal. That music might be the only thing that got me through the next fourteen hours.

  Fourteen hours before I could see Kelly. It was hardly any time at all and yet, it was a whole world away. My stomach squirmed, and I squeezed Arthur’s hand.

  We didn’t have any checked luggage, so we went straight through security and headed to our gate. There was a candy shop opposite the gate (‘lolly shop’, according to Arthur. Have you ever heard such a thing?), and Arthur dragged me inside and helped me fill a huge bag with weird English candy I’d never heard of before. He was being so nice, but every sugary lump he placed on my tongue tasted like coal.

  Our flight was called, and I leapt into the queue in front of all the businessmen. Arthur let me have the seat by the window. I watched the plane take off over London and saw the glittering lights of the spinning Eye, which only made me think of the burning Ferris wheel that killed my parents. I started to cry.

  Now that I was on the plane, Briarwood and the guys and magic and the fae seemed like a million miles away. The last two weeks felt like a dream, and now I was waking up to the real, living nightmare.

  The cabin lights went off as we soared over the Atlantic. They served some cardboard food and alcohol that neither of us touched. Arthur watched some dumb action film with lots of explosions. I tried to close my eyes, but all I saw was Kelly’s face, bright and bubbly, and my gut twisted.

  I shoved Arthur’s earbuds into my ears, and blasted Blood Lust all the way into Denver.

  FORTY-FOUR: MAEVE

  “I’m here to see Kelly Crawford,” I gasped, as I gripped the edge of the nurses’ station counter and struggled to catch my breath.

  We’d driven to the hospital straight from the airport. There were roadworks going on right outside the hospital, so the taxi wouldn’t even drop us by the entrance. He’d left us on a street corner a block away, and I’d sprinted all the way here with all the speed and none of the grace of an Olympic athlete. Lucky Arthur was as fit as he was, or I would’ve lost him. As it was, he was only just now puffing down the ward after me.

  The nurse thumbed through a stack of paperwork. “What did you say the name was, again? Hospital policy only allows family members to visit—”

  “She’s my sister!” I yelled. I tossed my passport across the table at her. She took her time opening it and checking the image, while I drummed my fingers against counter with the rhythm and ferocity of a Blood Lust song. Finally, after an entire Ice Age had passed, she read a room number off her clipboard.

  “Immediate family only,” she wagged a finger at Arthur, who looked ready to argue. I placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s okay, really. I think I need to do this alone.”

  “I’ll be right here.” Arthur settled down in a plastic chair in the waiting room. His bulk spilled out the edges. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I swallowed hard. “I’m going to have to be.”

  He squeezed my hand. “You’ve got this, Maeve Moore.”

  I took a ragged breath and started down the ward toward her room. You got this. I really didn’t think I did.

  I found the room. The door looked exactly the same as all the other doors – grey with a thin window of safety glass. A big, clunky metal handle. I felt as though it should look different somehow, more terrifying. Perhaps what was behind it was terrifying enough.

  I sucked in a deep breath and pushed open the door. The first thing that hit me was the smell. Acrid, sterile, bleach. Cold grey walls. Four beds, separated by faded blue curtains, only one of which was drawn.

  My sister had the bed in the far left corner. She lay still, her face turned toward the window, which only showed a view across a tiny courtyard to the children's’ ward of the hospital. I swallowed the lump in my throat and managed to croak out her name.

  “Kelly?”

  She jerked her head around. “Maeve? It’s really you?”

  “Of course.” I rushed to her bedside, throwing my arms around her. Her body felt tiny, bony, not like Kelly at all. And she didn’t smell right. The Kelly I’d grown up with always smelled fresh and sweet, like roses. This Kelly smelled of disinfectant. “I heard what happened and I jumped on the very next plane.”

  “It was horrible. They fed this gross stuff down my throat, and I threw up, and now all my poo is black.”

  “It’s charcoal,” I said, remembering something I’d read about feeding patients charcoal to make them throw up.

  She wrinkled her face. “Gross. Why would they do that to a person?”

  “To save your life.” Tears burned in the corners of my eyes. “Kelly, talk to me. What happened? Why did you do this?”

  She turned her head away, and took a breath. “I can’t …”

  “You have to. Kelly, I’m so worried about you.”

  “You aren’t though, not really. And I don’t blame you.” She continued to stare at the ceiling, but her voice took on this high-pitched tone, like she was struggling to keep herself chipper. “You’ve got your castle and your hot guys and a real chance at a future. I know you’re sad about Mum and Dad dying, I’m not saying that. But you did all right out of it, you know? I’m sleeping on a leaking air mattress in a cold bedroom with bars over the windows. I live with a person who makes Mum and Dad look like members of a biker gang. I’m not even allowed to eat refined sugar! Uncle Bob threw out all my makeup the other day, and every skirt in my closet cut above my ankles. Every Sunday I have to walk to church past our old house. And last week, last week...”

  I remembered the dream I had the other night, where I’d huddled in fear while Uncle Bob loomed over me, his face twisted with righteous anger as he raised his hand. “Uncle Bob hit you.”

  She whipped her head around. “How did you …?”

  “I’m your sister. I’ve known you my entire life, and when I think what it might take to make you think about doing something like this. I just draw a complete blank. Except when I remember Uncle Bob’s eyes that Christmas when he yelled at me about evolution and ‘the gays’, and I wonder what it might be like to live with him.”

  “He’s horrible,” Kelly sobbed. “He wants everything to go back to biblical times, where women raise babies and never raise their voices. I’d only be them a day when I saw him slap Aunt Florence because she slightly overcooked the steak. He was trying to force me to quit working at Roby’s, and I said I needed the money for college he got all smug and said he’d taken care of that for me. Tat’s when I found out I was going to bible college to learn how to be a good pastor’s wife. It was one step away from a nunnery.”

  “Oh, Kelly.” Tears streamed down my face. The dream was real. It was real, and I hadn’t helped her.

  “I don’t even know if I really meant it. I just saw Aunt Florence taking those pills and I guess I thought that maybe that’s what got her through. So I stole them, but then they made me go to that stupid camp and it was all about how to glorify God and be the best Christian and I just kept thinking about how Mum and Dad were 100x more Christian than Uncle Bob, and they were dead, and everything good about my life died along with them. I just go so angry and so sad, and I wanted to see them again. Why not, right? No one cares.”

  “Oh, Kelly, I care. I wish you’d told me you felt like this. I would’ve...” my words trailed off. I had no idea what I would’ve done. This wasn’t in any of my astronomy textbooks.

  “I tried, Maeve. I didn’t really have the time zones messed up. I called you, but you either didn’t pick up or you were busy. And I know I should have said something anyway, but I just... couldn’t.”

  My heart dropped to my knees. I remembered Kelly’s phone call, how her voice had sounded drawn, strained. I’d put it down to the unreliability of international calls, but she’d been depressed. She needed me, and I’d brushed her off. />
  Tears streamed down my face. This is all my fault. I should have been there for my sister. I should have seen this coming, but I’d been so wrapped up in everything that was going on at Briarwood that I hadn’t paid attention, and I’d almost lost her.

  “I’m here now,” I said. “And I’m not leaving your side.”

  ***

  True to my word, I sat by Kelly’s side for hours. We talked about everything – all the things we should have said to each other after Mum and Dad died but didn’t because we were too sad. We cackled with laughter as we remembered Dad’s ugly Christmas sweaters and that time a frog got loose in the church during the middle of his sermon. We sobbed together when we remembered Mum giving us each a silver cross necklace on our thirteenth birthday. Kelly lifted her collar down and showed me hers. I opened up my wallet and showed her mine.