Witches of Ash and Ruin

by E. Latimer

  Dayna blinked at him. “What…what does that mean?”

  “She became obsessed with you. Watching everything you did, talking about you constantly…Sometimes I’d catch her coming into your room in the middle of the night to just stand there and stare at you, for hours. She’d hurt herself sometimes, too, when the delusions got especially bad, run into door frames and things like that. She said it would make everything quiet again, at least for a while.”

  Her throat was too tight to swallow properly, and her voice was hoarse when she spoke. “Quiet?”

  “The delusion, I suppose. It all seemed to be centered on her belief that you were…I don’t know, not who you were supposed to be.”

  Dayna’s mouth fell open. Suddenly the blacked-out pictures in the guest room made a terrible kind of sense. And what Fiona had said about Dayna not being real, and the symbol on her arm…

  A strange, creeping horror was spreading over her skin.

  “What else did she say about me?”

  “Does it matter? She was delusional. It’s one of the reasons I waited so long to bring her back here. I was afraid seeing you again would make her slip back into it.”

  She shook her head, not wanting to believe what he was saying. “You mean…it’s me. I’m her trigger.”

  Her father nodded slowly, and the guilt on his face made her feel sick. “There’s more.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The reason I sent her away…” He hesitated. “She— I came into your room and she was…um, she was standing over you with a pillow.”

  It felt like frost was creeping through her, freezing her core. “She was trying to smother me?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I suspected it. That was when I sent her away.”

  She leaned back against the shelf, hand over her mouth. The room was spinning, and she dragged in a sharp breath, feeling suddenly light-headed.

  Fiona had tried to kill her. The woman the reverend had brought back into her home had tried to murder her. And worse, the creeping suspicions were only getting stronger the more she thought about it.

  The lines carved into Fiona’s arm, the symbol of the Butcher…it reminded her of the way the root ink on her cheek had looked the night of her ascension, her pledge to the goddess.

  Did that mean Fiona was on his side? That she was helping him in some way? Helping him hide, maybe, or…finding him victims?

  It had come back to her suddenly, the strange way Fiona had looked at her, the way she’d grasped her arm and hissed, Where are the rest of them?

  Dayna had thought she meant her friends, but…what if she’d meant the other gods?

  She opened her mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again. She had to warn him about Fiona. But how did she tell the reverend his wife was somehow tied to a supernatural serial killer? Where did she even begin to explain?

  “Y-you need to get her out of the house.” It came out in a stammering rush, and as the reverend blinked at her she said desperately, “I can’t explain how I know this, but…I think she’s worse than either of us knew. So much worse. You need to send her away, to the hospital, or—or even back to camp.”

  To her frustration he was already shaking his head. “She needs time. I’ll get her help. I’m going to see an out-of-town specialist tomorrow.”

  Just a few days ago that would have been a huge leap for him, but now…once again, he wasn’t listening to her. “You don’t understand, Dad, please. You have to listen. I think she’s really dangerous—”

  “I think you should continue to stay with Reagan.”

  Dayna froze, protests dying on her lips. The reverend’s face was grim, and once again he wouldn’t meet her eyes, shifting awkwardly with his hands in his pockets. “Just for now. Until I can get her sorted.”

  It felt like he’d knocked the wind out of her. She only stared at him, stunned, and the reverend cleared his throat. “I should get to the car. She has an appointment with Dr. Ross this afternoon.”

  So that was that. Fiona was going to stay, and Dayna was leaving.

  It shouldn’t be that shocking, not after the revelation about Fiona, but somehow it still felt like he’d sucked all the air out of the room.

  She told herself this was exactly what she wanted. That living with Reagan was what she’d dreamed of as a kid.

  So why did this feel so bad?

  For a moment she just stood there, but the reverend had already walked around the corner and out of sight.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  MEINER

  They pulled up to the farmhouse, and Meiner paused, watching Dayna slide out and collect her book bag. Dayna had told her a bit of what happened, that her father had said it wasn’t safe for her back at her house. Then she’d lapsed into silence. Meiner hadn’t wanted to pry, but she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about their run-in with Fiona

  Walsh.

  There was something about the woman that disturbed her to her very core, and it wasn’t just the overt aggression. The vacant expression maybe, or the hollowness in her eyes. Like a haunted house with no lights on. You couldn’t be sure who—or what—was home.

  Her mind kept flipping between that and what Dayna had said just before they’d run into Fiona. That Meiner’s gran might have been one of the Butcher’s victims…

  It seemed impossible. Gran would have mentioned that, wouldn’t

  she?

  It didn’t make sense.

  They watched as Reagan pulled the van up, backing slowly into the spot between the Callighans’ station wagon and Meiner’s Datsun. Dayna had told the others what happened before they’d left the library and about the mark on her mother’s arm. Reagan and Cora were talking about it as they climbed out.

  “…how could she be involved if she’s been up at the camp?” Reagan was saying.

  “She probably just saw it on TV and copied it because she’s a nutcase.”

  “Don’t be a dickhead.” Reagan flashed Dayna a quick sideways look, but thankfully Dayna seemed totally lost in thought.

  Cora only shrugged, fishing in her pocket for her cigarettes, her hands shaking. Meiner frowned. She’d been too distracted to really notice, but Cora was unusually pale, and there were dark smudges under her eyes. And…had she lost weight?

  When she looked up, Meiner caught her unguarded expression for a split second. Hungry, haunted, desperate.

  She looks like an addict. She wouldn’t be surprised if Cora had got herself hooked on something to enhance her magic.

  Meiner watched her bring her cigarette up to her lips again, catching sight of the dark rust-colored stain under her thumbnail. Cora noticed her staring a second later and drew her hand back down, flicking her cigarette onto the ground.

  The last time Cora had been stressed enough for nosebleeds, they’d still been sharing a room. She’d been fighting with her remaining family about something; Meiner had heard her hissing at them on the phone, and nearly every call had resulted in a bloody nose.

  Meiner hesitated. They used to talk, a long time ago. She remembered lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling as Cora’s voice drifted up from the bunk below, both of them made a little braver by the cover of darkness. She knew things about the other girl no one else did.

  Glancing back quickly, she saw Reagan and Dayna had moved over to the front gate, heads bent together. She turned back to Cora, keeping her voice low. “You okay? You look…pale.”

  Cora blinked at her, hesitating. Finally she shrugged, leaning against Meiner’s car. “I’m just tired. You know how it is in a new place. I don’t sleep a lot.”

  Meiner nodded slowly. For a moment she could have sworn Cora was about to say something else. She leaned back against the car next to her. “Yeah, I know. Me either.”

  Cora’s smile was faint, but for once it wasn’t her usual smirk. Then she turned away as Reagan and Dayna walked back over.

  If Meiner thought Cora looked bad, Dayna was a close runner-up. Her normally glossy hair was tang
led—she’d been working her fingers through it the entire ride over, and her skin was so pale her freckles stood out in stark contrast.

  Meiner leaned closer, bumping Dayna’s arm gently. “All right?” She tried to keep her voice casual, but she wanted to take her by the arms and look her in the face. To make sure she was okay.

  “I just…I can’t believe she carved it into her arm. It looked horrible.” Dayna reached up, tugging at a strand of hair, and Meiner had to stop herself from taking her hand, from trying to distract her. But of course, she could hardly do that in front of everyone.

  “Speculate all you want, but I think we have more immediate concerns, right?” Cora tipped her head back and blew smoke out through pursed lips. “As in, these guys are going to try to resurrect this bitch soon, right?”

  Meiner exchanged a look with Dayna. Tonight. “Yeah.” Meiner cleared her throat. “We’re running out of time.”

  Dayna shook her head, like she was shaking off thoughts about her mother. “We have to stop them before they kill again.”

  From the corner of her eye Meiner saw Cora jerk suddenly, as if she’d been stung. Her eyes looked distant, and then she blinked, apparently noticing everyone staring.

  “There’s a way we can find them. But…the others won’t like it.” She cut the farmhouse a quick sideways look.

  Meiner frowned. She wasn’t at all comfortable with this sudden shift in Cora. “What are you talking about?”

  “We might be able to access them—the brothers, I mean. Someone who’s had contact is liable to be able to scry successfully. It could tell us where they are.”

  Meiner’s mouth dropped open. “We’ve been over this. Contact scrying is way too dangerous.”

  “What else do you suggest?” Cora shot back. “We’re running out of time, and this is the only way to guarantee results. Contact scrying is a direct link; it can find them no matter how warded they are.”

  “Bronagh shot this idea down already.” Reagan shifted from foot to foot, clearly uneasy. “Oya, we should just go inside.”

  “That’s right. It’s incredibly foolish.” Meiner scowled at Cora. “It’s dangerous and completely stupid to attempt it.”

  Cora ignored this, gaze locked on Dayna’s face. “Three victims to go. Just how many witches do you think are in this town? One of us is next, and you know it.”

  Meiner remembered the look on Dayna’s face when she’d said she would do anything for her coven. Anything and everything.

  “Absolutely not,” Meiner said, at the same time as Dayna said, “I’ll do it.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  DAYNA

  Meiner seemed deeply unimpressed. She kept glaring at Cora, fists clenched at her sides, a muscle twitching in her jaw. She looked like she was barely holding herself back.

  But Dayna couldn’t help agreeing with Cora. The risk was worth it. It was worth it because of Margery, because the memory of her bloody eye sockets would be with Dayna for as long as she lived. Because she barely slept anymore, lying awake obsessing over each breath, feeling her legs twitch and shake.

  But mostly it was because she was desperate for a way to protect them. To keep her coven safe.

  They were the only real family she had left.

  What her father said shouldn’t have surprised her. She’d realized this on the car ride back to the house. He’d always been strange and secretive about her mother. It had taken him ages to even reveal she was mentally ill. And when he had, he’d skirted around the subject. Wouldn’t tell her what it was, or what Fiona’d done. What her behavior had been like, or when she might be well enough to come home.

  Maybe he’d thought he was protecting her. Or maybe he didn’t want to risk Dayna telling anyone.

  “I can pull you out if need be,” Cora reassured them. “It’s not hard.” When Meiner gave her a suspicious look, Cora shrugged. “I’ve been researching. It seemed like a good plan in case we kept coming up against dead ends. Which…we have,” she said pointedly. “It wouldn’t have worked before because none of us have touched them, but since the dog bit her…”

  Dayna shivered, reaching up, fingers grazing the bandage on her shoulder. The idea the wound gave her some kind of connection to the brothers was unsettling. It made her want to curl in on herself and hide. But it might be to her advantage, the perfect solution.

  It didn’t even matter that her burst of power from the ascension was so depleted, since scrying depended on the favor of your god and not your personal store.

  Dayna took a deep breath, turning back to the others. “Okay, how do we start?”

  Cora tapped the roof of the Datsun, where she’d balanced her “Resting Witchface” water bottle. “It’s juice. Dark enough to use in a pinch. It will do in a pinch. We need a bowl, though.”

  Reagan looked doubtful. “There’s a plastic bucket we collect eggs in.”

  Meiner shot her an irritated look. “Oh, so we’ve agreed to this now, have we?”

  Reagan didn’t reply, just moved to the side of the house, looking for the bucket. Dayna turned to Meiner, putting a hand on her arm. The other girl blinked and looked slightly subdued though still sullen.

  “It’s my choice,” Dayna said quietly. “She’s not forcing me into anything. You didn’t see the— You didn’t see Margery. I can’t let that happen to anyone else. To any of us.”

  Instantly her thoughts flooded with horrible images. Reagan, sprawled on the grass, bloody and still. Or Bronagh, her face pale and drained of life. Brenna’s crow feathers scattered in the dirt…

  No. Dayna shuddered, telling herself to stop. She could drive herself mad thinking like that. And that was exactly why she had to do this.

  Meiner still looked like she wanted to protest, but Dayna shook her head, jaw clenched. She wasn’t going to risk losing anyone.

  Meiner must have seen something in her face, because her brows shot up, and she took a step back.

  Reagan returned with the bucket—she’d rinsed it out, but it still smelled faintly of chicken coop—and set it on the hood of the car. Cora leaned over, wrinkling her nose, before dumping the contents of her water bottle into the bucket.

  “There now, we’ll scry with this. Dayna, you’ll be in the center. Scry like you normally would but try to picture the dog in your mind.”

  Dayna took her place in the semicircle. They stood close, close enough that her right shoulder was touching Meiner’s and her left brushed Cora’s. Scrying had never been her strong suit, and the dark liquid was harder to see into than the crystals had been, but she knew the logistics. Focus on the surface of whatever you were using—it could be anything, a bit of dark glass, a lake that reflected the moon, or apparently, an egg bucket filled with juice—and let your gaze go soft. Go someplace else in your mind, Yemi had once told her. Be open to anything the surface is telling you.

  Dayna blew out a heavy breath and tried to soften her gaze. Tried to make her mind open.

  The liquid was dark and smelled faintly of grapes. It was reflective enough that she could see their warped faces in the surface. Even with the curve of the bucket blurring their reflections, she could see the deep frown on Meiner’s face.

  Dayna straightened her shoulders, mentally shook herself. She couldn’t think about Meiner right now. This was too important.

  For a couple of minutes it seemed like nothing would happen. Dayna blinked slowly, almost sleepily. There was something mesmerizing about the purple-black liquid. Maybe the way the light rippled off, or the shapes of their warped reflections.

  Something shifted subtly in the dark surface. One of the girls had moved, Dayna thought, faintly annoyed. But then, no, it was another shape. A face had appeared and then disappeared, not one of theirs.

  Her shoulder throbbed now. A deep, pulsing pain, like a heartbeat. It sent a shiver down her back, but she stayed where she was.

  A second passed, then two, and each one seemed to deepen the silence around them. There should have been noise, she realized
. They were outside, on the farm. There should have been the distant sound of chickens clucking and scratching, the thump of hooves and breathy chuffing of horses in their paddocks. But there was nothing, only silence.

  Her throat was suddenly tight, and every breath seemed labored, harder to drag into her lungs.

  The liquid rippled, and Dayna wanted to refocus her eyes, to shake herself out of it. To stand up and gulp air back into her lungs. Meiner was right; this was a bad idea. This was dangerous.

  Only…she didn’t seem to be able to move.

  Something was drawing her down, down into the liquid, into the black surface.

  And now she was someplace else.

  She was aware that she was at the coven house. That her body stood, muscles locked, in a semicircle with the other witchlings. That there was a bucket that smelled faintly of chicken crap and grapes within a few inches of her face. But…she was also in a hotel room. Or what looked like one.

  Her panic dissolved the slightest bit. This was a vision, just like the last one, and Cora could pull her out if she needed to.

  Dayna looked around at the room, at the dark cherrywood armoire, at the stone fireplace and the gold-framed oil paintings. It was dim inside, lit only with dull electric lights in lamps along the wall. Her gaze was drawn to a number of smudgy black sigils scrawled across the wallpaper, which was probably why she didn’t see him right away.

  There were two queen-sized beds with dusty velvet canopies in the center of the room, with a nightstand between them. An emerald-green washbasin and pitcher sat on top. On one side of it lay a thin silver box with a moon etched on the lid, and on the other, a leather guest book embossed with the name of the inn.

  Beside the window in the far corner of the room was an overstuffed armchair, and in it was a man.

  He sat barefoot and cross-legged, facing away from her at an angle, and he was surrounded by a scattering of white paper, pages spilled across the carpet, smudgy ink drawings she couldn’t make out. In the dim light she could see his shape, his broad shoulders, and the way he sat stiffly upright.