Prophecy of the Sisters

by Michelle Zink

  “The Grigori?” The name rings familiar, but I cannot place the reference.

  “The Grigori is a council made up of angels from Maari and Katla’s time who did not fall. Now they preside over the Otherworlds, ensuring that each creature and soul there follows a set of guidelines established long ago. Using the magic of the Otherworlds anywhere else is cause for punishment, but I do believe your mother felt she had nothing left to lose when she cast the spell of protection around your bed.”

  “But if Mother would have been punished for casting the spell, can we not bring Alice to justice for breaking it?”

  Aunt Virginia sighs. “I’m afraid not. As with our world, there are ways to work within the confines of the rules.”

  “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

  Aunt Virginia meets my eyes. “Alice did not cast a spell of her own, Lia. She simply negated the effects of the spell your mother cast long ago — a spell that in and of itself was forbidden from the beginning.”

  I stand up suddenly, my frustration getting the better of me as my voice rises into the room. “So there is nothing? Nothing we can do to stop her? To hold her accountable for placing me in danger?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m afraid not. Not this time. It seems Alice has somehow learned the full force of her magic and is well versed in using it within the Grigori’s boundaries. For now, we shall have to hope she slips along the way.” She shrugs helplessly. “There is nothing else to do.”

  I stare into the fire, my mind abuzz with this new, unwanted knowledge:

  Alice has all the cards.

  Alice has power I do not.

  And worst of all, Alice knows how to use her power to her aid and my detriment without consequence.

  “I am sorry, Lia, but we shall work through this together, I promise. Let us take one step at a time.” She stands to leave. “Luisa and Sonia are at the breakfast table. I have arranged a trip into town with Alice so that you may search for the list without fear of interruption.”

  I look up at her, feeling the weight of the tasks in front of me. “And then what? Even if we locate the list, we must still find the two remaining keys. And even if we find them, we do not know what to do with them or how to end the prophecy.”

  She presses her lips together before answering. “I don’t know. Perhaps we can locate Aunt Abigail. And then… well, there are always the sisters.…”

  This mention of the sisters gets my attention, for it is the same term used by Madame Berrier. “The sisters?”

  She sighs. “Let us just say that there are those in the world with knowledge of the prophecy. Those with gifts that might be useful. Some are sisters of previous generations, and others… well, others simply seek to use their gifts for the good of us all. But we shall have to leave that for now, Lia. All right? Let us find the list. Let us find the keys. You shall have to trust me — if you call on them when the time comes, there are those who will help you.”

  I suppose I am a coward, for I am glad to allow the details of this new revelation to wait for later. “I trust you, Aunt Virginia. But…”

  “What is it?”

  “What of my night travel? How do I prevent myself from falling unprotected into the Plane while I sleep?”

  Her face darkens. “I don’t know, Lia. I wish I could give you an answer — some sure way to avoid travel. But with the power of the Souls so determined to call you to the Plane, it is all I can do to say you must try to resist.”

  I nod as she rises and makes her way out of the room, leaving me alone with my mother’s letter. My hands tremble as I break the wax seal on the envelope. I unfold the paper to the slender, curving script that was my mother’s, knowing that I may well hold in my hands the long-sought answers to her death — and her life.

  25

  My dear Lia,

  It is difficult to know where to begin. The beginning of this tale stretches back centuries, but I suppose I shall begin at my beginning, as my mother did for me.

  My beginning was with the medallion, found in Mother’s bureau long after her death. It called to me even before I knew it existed. It must sound strange, but perhaps as you read this you are familiar with its temptation and the manner in which it insinuates itself into your thoughts, your dreams, your very breath.

  At first I wore it only on occasion, as I would any other trinket from my dresser box. It was not until I woke to find the forbidding symbol etched upon my wrist that things began to change. I began to feel the power of the medallion seeping through me.

  It spoke to me, Daughter, called to me. It whispered my name even when stuffed under the mattress of my bed, even when I found myself away at school or calling on friends.

  Of course, I wore it. More and more, I am ashamed to say, I wore it over the mark. The Souls called me in my sleep, summoning me to the Otherworlds. At first I resisted, but it was not so for very long. I did not yet know the story of the prophecy or the stakes that lay in my continued resistance. I knew only that I felt most free, most alive, most myself, when traveling the Plane.

  As I grew in the knowledge of my gifts — traveling at will while my body slept, speaking to those that had passed, casting all manner of spells — my life marched forward. I met your father and thought if ever there was a man who could love me even with the burdens of the prophecy it would be Thomas Milthorpe. And yet I did not tell him. How could I? He looked at me with such admiration, and as time passed the secret grew bigger and bigger between us until the thing I would have told him would not have been the truth as I had planned, but the lie I had kept for so long.

  It was just before you and your sister were born that the sirens’ call of the Souls became more insistent. As you and your sister grew in the darkness of my womb, the Souls brought to me my own darkness. They lured me to sleep in the middle of the day. They tormented me in my dreams with images… horrible images. Images that made me ponder doing terrible things to myself even as I knew it would mean an end to you and your sister as well.

  The medallion found its way to my wrist even after I locked it away in the bureau. Even after I buried it in the ground near the stables. Soon, I woke with it encircling my wrist even when I had not put it on before retiring. I felt sure I was losing my tenuous hold on sanity.

  Looking back on that time, I know not how I managed to survive it, though I feel quite sure it was due in large part to the careful attentions of your father and Virginia. They rarely let me out of view.

  Once you were born, you and your sister, the softness of your heads, the rose blush of your cheeks, the deepening green of your eyes… they all served to make me believe that perhaps there was something worth fighting for in this world even if it meant holding the evil at bay. I thought perhaps I could manage, if only to stay and be your mother.

  And for a time it seemed to work just that way. I still felt the pull of the Souls. I still traveled in my dreams, though not as often. But nothing very terrible happened. You and your sister grew, crawled, walked, and spoke. My family remained safe, and if I brought anything, anyone, back from my night travels it seemed no one was the wiser.

  I know now, of course, that it was a kind of fairy tale, those years when the medallion, the prophecy, and all of us, lived peacefully together. And then I found out about Henry. I discovered that I would have another child, though the doctor had cautioned against it after the difficult birth of you and your sister. Still, what was there to do but be proud that I might finally offer your father a son?

  And proud I was — for a while. But as Henry grew in the darkest part of me, another kind of darkness gripped me so completely that I became truly frightened. I wanted to escape, Daughter. I wanted to visit the Otherworlds every hour of every day, and I wanted to bring the Army back with me, as many Souls as I was able, though I knew it was for no good purpose. Their howl became a song I never wanted to stop hearing.

  But even this was not the thing that frightened me most, that made me realize how far I had slipped into e
vil, how close to madness. No. It was the greed with which I began to view my travels, so that soon I was forcing myself to lie still on my bed at all hours of the day and night in order to will myself into traveling, forgoing food and sometimes company to sleep,only sleep, for never did I feel as complete as when I traveled. It was this that finally made me afraid.

  When Henry was born… well, it was another difficult birth as I was told to expect. The doctor could not do another operation, and Henry’s feet were down instead of his head. His legs… I do not have to tell you, Daughter. You know what happened to his legs. The doctors pulled as gently as they could, but he would have died had they not gotten him out when they did.

  I was very sick after he was born. Not just tired and weak, but sad and angry and hateful, as if all the good had seeped out of me during Henry’s birth only to be replaced by everything mean and evil that the medallion embodied. I would have flashes of love for you, for your sister and brother, for your father, but they were all too brief, settling on me like a butterfly and gone a moment later.

  I slept more than ever, and when I awoke I knew with a certainty both sick and joyous that I had brought the Souls back with me. It is this streak of satisfaction that has made me realize that I do not have the strength to fight the legacy that is mine.

  I am weak. I know you shall think me a coward, but how am I to stop a circle that was begun at the beginning of time? How am I, alone, to fight a thing that has won battle after battle through the ages? And most of all, how am I to pass this legacy, this curse, on to you? How am I to look you in those clear green eyes and tell you what awaits?

  Virginia is wise — wise and clear­headed. She will surely give you better counsel than I, in my current state of despair, can offer. I cannot bear the thought of passing this burden, of all things, on to you, my beautiful Lia.

  So along with it, I shall bequeath you every last drop of my protection. The Souls will come for you, of this I am sure, but I shall use every ounce of power, every spell that would see me banished from the Sisterhood, to see you safe while you sleep. It is all I can do.

  Please know at this moment, as I put this letter in a safe place and make my way to the lake, I am thinking of you with love. I wish I had sage advice, but all I can offer you is my love, and the hope — no, the belief — that you are somehow stronger and braver than I, that you will take this battle to its end once and for all. And win it for all the sisters before you, and those yet to come.

  There is nothing else. No answer. No guidance.

  She knew it was I. That much is a revelation. Aunt Virginia may not have known at first, may not have pieced together the confusion of our birth, Alice’s and mine, and the consequences it would have. But our mother somehow knew that there was no escaping fate, no matter how chaotic and random it sometimes seems.

  It was she who carved the circle of protection into the floor around my bed. Though I was only a girl, I remember moving from the nursery, from the small room I shared with Alice, not long before our mother died. Now the separation seems less a random rite of passage than a calculated move on the part of our mother.

  A move to protect me from my sister.

  That Alice’s rage and greed have led her to a place where she would sacrifice me to the Souls… it is beyond imagining. I cannot even reconcile that my sister could see her way to send me to my death, to something worse than death, by way of the Void.

  My fury, my disbelief, is an itch I long to scratch. But it will only do harm to our quest for answers. The smart thing, the wise thing, is to let Alice think me still ignorant.

  And to let her believe that she holds all the power.

  26

  It is later than usual when I finally emerge from my room.

  The door to the guest room is open, Luisa’s and Sonia’s beds already neatly made, as I make my way down the hall. I have every intention of joining them, feeling badly that I have slept late and left them to their own devices.

  But that is before I see the half-open door to Alice’s room.

  Though I can see only a small portion of her chamber from my vantage point, her room emanates an aura of emptiness. I know, even from the hallway, that Alice is not there.

  Looking quickly down the hall to be sure no one is coming, I step into the room and close the door quietly behind me. I stand for a moment, surveying Alice’s room. It has been years since I have spent any time in it. It is different. Older. I stop to remember the years when toy animals and fine porcelain dolls sat atop the bureau and writing desk. But remembrances are a luxury I cannot afford, and I move farther into the room with careful footsteps.

  I don’t know where the list might be, but the possibility that Alice has somehow found it ahead of me cannot be ignored. I begin with the bedside table, opening the small drawer identical to the one in my own room. In it are some of Alice’s stationery, a quill and ink pot, and a jar of rose-scented hand cream. I continue searching, resisting the pull of disappointment as I search the wardrobe, the desk, and even under the bed.

  The bureau is the only place left, the only remaining hope for finding the list in Alice’s room. I begin with the top drawers, working my way down to the larger, deeper drawers at the bottom. My fingers slide between nightgowns and capes, feeling for a slip of paper that might have the names of the keys. Instead, my hand closes on something heavier, wrapped in cloth at the back of the largest bottom drawer.

  I pull the bundle from the drawer, surprised at its weight, and rest it atop the bureau for a better look. The object gives me pause, for surely it is not the list. But curiosity gets the better of me, and I lift the edges of cloth one by one until a knife is revealed in its center. I draw in my breath at the sight of it. It is no ordinary knife, but a rather large one with many-colored jewels inset into its hilt. I reach toward it, pulling my hand back when I come into contact with the ornate handle. I touch it again, feeling the tremor of raw power that pulses through the handle and up into my arm.

  I look at the door over my shoulder, knowing I must hurry. I grab the knife with authority, my body humming with new energy as I lift it off the bureau for a better look. What I see on its blade freezes the blood in my veins.

  Wood shavings cling to the shimmering silver. They are small, but I know them for what they are, and now I know the knife for what it is: the knife used to reverse Mother’s spell of protection. The knife used to defile the circle on the floor of my room.

  Rage surges through my body. It is far more powerful than the energy that courses through the knife, and I carefully wrap the sharp blade in the cloth, putting it in my drawstring bag and closing the drawer to Alice’s bureau. I do not feel guilty taking such a thing from Alice. A thing used for so dangerous and evil a purpose.

  I make my way from the room without a backward glance, leaving the door wide open. Perhaps it is reckless, but the battle lines have been clearly drawn. There is no longer cause for pretense between my sister and me.

  “You’ve been keeping secrets.” Henry’s voice comes to me from the parlor as I step off the staircase.

  I take a couple of steps back to locate his voice. He sits near the window in the parlor, already bundled in his winter coat and scarf for the ride to town with Alice and Virginia.

  Assembling a smile on my face, I move into the room. “Whatever do you mean, Henry?”

  His face is somber. “You know.”

  My own smile falters. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  He lowers his voice to a whisper. “You’re the bad one, Lia. Aren’t you?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know, Henry. I don’t feel bad.”

  His nod is solemn, as if this makes perfect sense. “Only time will tell, Lia.”

  “Only time will tell? And who told you that, Henry?”

  “Aunt Virginia,” he says simply. “She said there is no sure way to know who the bad one is, even with the mark. She said that only time will tell.”

  I am surprised by his knowledge, but there is not much to
say in the face of such wisdom. “I do believe she is right, Henry. I suppose we must wait and see.” I turn to leave.

  “I love you anyway, Lia,” he calls after me. “Until time tells, I mean.”

  I turn to him and smile, loving him more in this moment than any other. “Until time tells then, Henry, and beyond. I love you as well.”

  “However are we supposed to find anything here, Lia? I’ve never seen so many books, not even at Wycliffe!” Luisa turns from the bookshelf, leaning against it and putting a hand to her forehead in exasperation.

  I look up from Father’s desk, sitting back in the leather chair. “Well, I don’t know where else to search. If Father were to hide something, I feel sure it would be here. The library is where he spent his time. Everything that is dearest to him is in this room.”

  “And yet, we have searched every conceivable location here!” Luisa says.

  Sonia stands suddenly. “Here. We’ve searched every conceivable location here.”

  Luisa shrugs impatiently. “Yes. That’s what I said.”

  But I think I understand to what Sonia alludes. “Wait a minute… what do you mean, Sonia?”

  “We haven’t searched his chambers,” she says.

  I wave away the implication. “Yes, but the library was Father’s sanctuary. And it’s where the book was found.”

  Sonia nods. “Exactly. Is that not more reason why the list could be hidden elsewhere?”

  I chew my lip, contemplating her words. I do not want to admit that it is a possibility, not because it isn’t, but because violating my father’s privacy by searching his room gives me pause, even now that he is gone. Still, I cannot ignore the merit of the idea.