A Circle of Ashes

by Cate Tiernan

  “You want some nectarines?” Clio asked.

  “Yeah. A bunch. I love’em.” Sighing, I picked out three baking potatoes and put them in a bag. I felt wiped out, stressed and upset and tired. Of course it had been almost impossible to sleep last night. Also, since my bedroom was the top back one, all my windows were broken and the window frames scorched on the inside. My curtains had burned away, and the whole room had been drenched with water. I’d slept on the floor in Clio’s room.

  My throat felt tight. I brushed some hair out of my eyes. I had finally found a home, a home full of love and acceptance, and wham! I’d almost burned it down. My own room, which Petra had given up for me—

  I swallowed and tried to remember whether we had anything green in the fridge at … home.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Clio said, seeing my face. “We’re just not sure.” She lowered her voice as we pushed the cart forward. “I mean, how do we know it wasn’t like Nan said, that maybe someone saw us doing the spell and seized the opportunity to set the house on fire? You know that’s possible.”

  I nodded and let out a deep breath. “Yeah, that’s true.” But inside, I couldn’t help feeling it had been me, something about my magick.

  “Are we out of mayonnaise?” Clio asked, pronouncing it “my-nez.”

  “Close to it,” I said.

  “Do we need bread?”

  I nodded. “It got … toasted.” Clio and I looked at each other, and at the same moment, we burst out laughing.

  “Oh God, that was awful,” she said, laughing.

  “I know. But it’s true,” I said, still giggling. “The plastic was burned off and the bread inside was all … toasted.” I felt much better after we had laughed, but I still had heavy thoughts on my mind. “Clio—there must be something wrong with me. Maybe I’m … like, bad or something. Like Melita. Maybe I’m not supposed to make magick.”

  “No, Thais, don’t be silly. They said that Melita was evil. You’re not evil. You’re not even a little bad. I don’t know what’s wrong with your magick, but I know it’s not you. We’ll fix it. Nan will fix it. Just be patient.”

  “I mean, I think I like magick,” I said, putting a big can of coffee in the cart. I was used to coffee with chicory now. “Sometimes I think it feels really good. Not like a drug or something unnatural. Not like I’m ecstatic. But just that I feel really calm and connected and strong.”

  Clio smiled at me. “That’s what magick is.”

  “But then it goes weird, and it’s big and scary and I hate it.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should forget about it.” But even as I said that, I realized that I didn’t want to now. Maybe a week ago I could have given magick up, never tasted it again. But now something in me was pulling me forward, eager to explore it. The whole thing worried me and made me feel anxious. I hoped that Petra would be back by the time we got home, but then I remembered what that home would look like, smell like, and a weight of depression settled on me.

  “Do Petra’s cases always take all day?” I asked.

  Clio shook her head. “Nope. Sometimes they’re really fast. One time she left at noon and was back by three. But they usually take longer.”

  “Okay. You have the card?”

  Clio pulled out her bank card, and we pushed the cart into the checkout line.

  Two normal teenagers picking up stuff for dinner. Two ancestral witches, tied to a line of immortals, with combined explosive magick, who someone kept trying to kill, picking up stuff for dinner.

  My life had gotten so complicated.

  My fingernails would never be clean or unbroken again.

  After the fire had been put out on Saturday, Nan, Thais, and I had glumly cataloged what work needed to be done on the house. Fortunately, insurance would cover a lot of it, but not all. Some of it we would have to hire someone for. And Thais and I had to do as much of it as possible. Which we were doing after school and in any spare time.

  The outside of the house in back had to be scraped and sanded and repainted. Some of the charred boards had to be completely replaced. The linoleum in the kitchen had to be pulled up because water had gotten under it and would rot the wooden floor beneath it. We had to cut it into pieces, muscle it out of the house, roll it up and tie it, and put it out on the curb for the trash guys to pick up. It was so horrible. We’d done that yesterday after we got back from the store.

  Almost every cupboard had to be emptied, everything inside it washed and dried, then put back. The cupboards and even the walls had to be scrubbed to get off the soot and grime and water stains. About half of Nan’s plants that hung in the windows had died. We had to clean the rest of them. We’d only been at work three days, and I felt like I’d be doing this for the rest of my life.

  “I guess I’ll be repainting my room after all,” said Thais. She was sitting on the floor, scrubbing the kitchen table legs, which were also covered in oily soot. “And getting new curtains.”

  “Yep. Did you switch that load of clothes into the dryer and start a new load?”

  “Yep. Poor Petra, having to go this late.”

  I glanced at the clock—it was almost nine. Nan had left an hour ago on a case. I climbed up another step on the ladder so I could clean the ceiling fan. “Midwives don’t really keep predictable hours.”

  The doorbell rang. At this hour? I froze, looking at Thais, my heart rate speeding up. Then I realized that someone trying to murder us probably wouldn’t ring the doorbell. Relaxing, I tried to feel who was there. “It’s Jules—and Richard, I think. Did you know they were coming over?”

  Thais shook her head. “You think it’s okay?”

  I thought as I climbed down from the ladder. “I guess so.” But I still felt uneasy. Just then the phone rang, and Thais answered it. She held up one finger for me to wait, and the doorbell rang again.

  “Oh, okay,” she said, her face clearing. “Actually, they just got here.” She motioned at me to go answer the door. “When do you think you’ll be home? Okay. No, we’re fine. ‘Bye.”

  She ran to catch up with me just as I was reaching the door.

  “That was Petra,” Thais said in a whisper. “She asked Richard and Jules to come replace the glass in the windows. I guess they know how.”

  “How conveeenient,” I said, and opened the door.

  Jules nodded at us and gave a restrained smile. “Hello. Hear you have some windows need reglazing.” His voice was deep, all the edges smoothed out by his southern accent.

  “Yep,” I said, gesturing them inside.

  Richard held up a package of windowpanes wrapped in brown paper. “You have a hissy fit?” he asked, throwing his cigarette down on the porch and grinding it out with his boot. “Throw a shoe through a window?”

  He was so incredibly irritating. I wished I could say something scathing, but he was here to help, which we needed. He looked me up and down, which was so bizarre coming from someone who looked several years younger than me, and I was suddenly conscious of how grimy and filthy I was.

  I forced myself to meet his eyes calmly. “We set the house on fire. Busted the back windows.”

  His look of quickly masked surprise was intensely gratifying.

  “It’s late,” Thais said, leading them through the house. “Would this be easier to do in the daytime?”

  “Yes,” said Jules. “But we might as well do it now before it rains again. Sorry we couldn’t come earlier—Petra only called us today.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “We appreciate your helping.” I glanced quickly at Richard to find him watching me, one eyebrow raised. I set my teeth and moved the butcher-block thing out of the way so they could get to the back window. Jules took my ladder and went outside, and Richard stayed inside. They set to work removing all the jagged hunks of glass still in the frames, and I got some newspapers to wrap them in.

  “Thanks, babe,” Richard said absently, not even looking at me.

  I glared at his back, then look
ed down at Thais, who was trying not to snicker. I joined her under the table and started washing another table leg.

  After the table, Thais began washing plants in the sink, and I started on one of the bottom cupboards. Most of the top ones had been done, thank God. I opened it and pulled everything out, mostly baking pans, which I could run through the dishwasher. I got a new bowl of hot soapy water, leaned way in, and started washing down the sooty walls.

  The smoke had even gotten inside the fricking cabinets, I thought angrily, scrubbing away. I wrung out my rag and ducked back in. Inside closed cabinets. Smoke could get into everything. All of our clothes had to be washed—we were almost done with that. All the curtains in the whole house needed to be washed, the upholstered furniture taken outside and beaten and vacuumed and aired. The smell of smoke and ash was everywhere, permeated everything. I was sick of it. And it had been all my fault—mine and Thais’s. That was the worst part. I couldn’t even resent anyone else.

  I was swearing to myself, rubbing furiously away, when someone touched my bare foot. I shrieked and banged my head against the top of the cupboard. “Damn it” I pulled my head out of the cabinet to see Richard squatting on his heels in front of me, trying not to grin. A lit cigarette dangled from one hand. I looked at him, unable to keep the anger off my face.

  “Put that out,” I said curtly, sliding out to sit on the floor. “Nan doesn’t let anyone smoke in the house.”

  “I understand,” Richard said, taking a puff and blowing it toward the stained ceiling. “You don’t want the house to smell all smoky.” His dark brown eyes looked like they were challenging me. “Next you’ll be telling me it’s bad for my health.”

  My eyes narrowed at him. I didn’t care if he was helping—he irritated the piss out of me. “Your health isn’t the problem,” I said, sounding snippy even to myself. “But Thais and I still have just the two, nolifetime-warranty sets of lungs. So give us a break.”

  After a moment Richard smiled as if to say, Point to you. He stood up and put his cigarette out in the sink. I felt uncomfortable and didn’t know why. Richard didn’t feel dangerous—but he set me on edge, kept me off balance in an incredibly annoying way. I felt too aware of my dirty tank top and short cutoffs that barely covered my underwear.

  “Where’s Thais?” I asked.

  He motioned toward the back door with his head. “Outside, picking up glass. We’re all done.” His hair was too long and cut all raggedy, as if he’d done it himself. The natural color was the same warm brown as his eyes, but it was streaky with different shades of blond. His eyebrow ring was gone, but he had a small silver wire through one side of his nose and three earrings in one ear and two in the other. One of them was way on the top of his ear. He was wearing a black T-shirt with the sleeves torn off, showing the tribal tattoos on his upper arms. The cloth was so old and worn it had a comet tail of holes spread across his stomach. I could see smooth tan skin through the holes, and then I realized what I was doing and looked up quickly.

  Damn, damn, damn. He was watching me examining him, and he had that half-amused smile on his face.

  “Like what you see?” he said, almost sounding teasing.

  “Oh, right,” I said sarcastically, standing up and brushing off my shorts, completely without result. In the next instant he stepped toward me, and I looked up in surprise. He was only a couple of inches taller than me, inches shorter than Luc. I was so taken aback I froze, and he deliberately put one hand on my waist and pulled me to him. Then he lowered his head, watching my eyes, and kissed me. His lips were warm on mine, firm and gentle, and I had the utterly insane, unbelievable thought of yes.

  In the next second I pushed him back, hard, and put my hand to my mouth, horrified. Just then the back screen door opened, and Thais came in, looking filthy and exhausted. Jules was behind her, carrying his box of tools, as cool and unruffled as when he’d arrived.

  “That window’s fixed,” he said, nodding toward the one on the back wall. “This one has cracked panes, but nothing that can’t wait till tomorrow. I’ve stapled plastic over the windows upstairs in case it rains. Tomorrow I’ll get an earlier start and finish them all up.” He looked over at Richard, who was standing unsmiling by the sink. “You ready, Riche?”

  Richard nodded and flicked me a glance, then walked out of the kitchen. I let Thais show them out and make all the grateful noises—I was too freaked to deal. Oh my God, Richard had kissed me. I mean, I’d been ducking unwanted kisses since I was twelve—I knew how to avoid them. How had he gotten to me? Was I just so surprised I—

  I waited till I heard the front door close, then headed into the hallway where the stairs were. “You look wiped,” I told Thais. “Go ahead and take a shower first.”

  She nodded tiredly and headed upstairs.

  I sat down on the bottom step, my chin in my hand. I couldn’t stand Richard. Andre—Luc—was the only person I wanted to kiss, the only kiss I wanted to remember. Now Richard had changed that. I knew how he’d felt when he’d held me to him, knew how he kissed.

  Damn him.

  Undermine All Their Plans

  A cool shower. That was what she needed. A cool shower, some Tylenol, some food, and she would feel fine.

  Axelle glanced at her watch as she opened her front door. Not much past ten. Thais would be home, maybe already in bed. Inside the apartment, she dropped her purse on the table. Minou trotted up and rubbed against her legs.

  “What’s the matter?” Axelle murmured. “Thais didn’t fee—”

  Axelle sighed. Right, no more Thais. She went to put food in Minou’s bowl, which she had to find first. Then she opened a bottle of water and rummaged for the Tylenol in a cupboard. She took four of them and washed them down with Pellegrino.

  The refrigerator revealed no food. Which would have been fine and normal if Axelle hadn’t gotten used to Thais keeping the fridge full of yogurt and interesting cheese and sliced ham and even eggs.

  Axelle found half a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats in a cupboard and took them to the living room. She flopped down on the couch, opened the box, and crunched some up dry. With each one her chewing became angrier. This was pathetic! She was pathetic! She’d gotten along all this time with no Thais, no one, and it had been fine. Was she going to fall apart now that Petra had stolen Thais away? Not bloody likely. Axelle stood up and threw down the box. She would take a shower, change, and go out for real food. Tons of restaurants stayed open all night. Or she could order in.

  She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke across the room. The fact was, she kind of missed Thais. Not that Thais had been a barrel of laughs. Just the opposite. She’d covered the dining table with boring school-books and made pained expressions when Axelle left clothes on the floor. Clio, the other one, would have been much more fun. She would have liked going to bars, while Thais whined about being underage. She would have been fun to shop with, whereas Thais seemed content with her boring, schoolgirl clothes.

  But Thais had been something new and interesting in Axelle’s life—the first time Axelle had had even a superficial resemblance of responsibility for someone else. Maybe she hadn’t done such a great job—she wasn’t some TV mom. But still, had it been so bad that Thais should run off to Petra’s the first chance she got?

  Damn Petra anyway. She thought she had the right, that she knew best, that she could just undermine Axelle and Daedalus and all their plans. Fine. Take Thais. It didn’t change anything. Everything was still going forward as planned.

  Axelle found herself in the hall in back of the kitchen, standing in the doorway of Thais’s room. She had saved Thais’s life! Had she remembered that when she’d been racing out to Petra’s car? No.

  Axelle had thought about that night a lot but still wasn’t sure who’d been behind the magickal attack on Thais. She knew it wasn’t Daedalus or Jules—they both wanted, needed the twins to do the rite. They were all hell-bent on doing the rite, like it was some big magick party where everyone would get a prize. Maybe t
hey didn’t remember what it had been like, had felt like that night. How could they have forgotten? It had felt terrible, like death. Some of the secret magick Axelle had worked with Melita so long ago had been scary, left nasty hangovers. But nothing had ever felt as bad as that night.

  And Cerise has died, leaving behind baby Hélène, a pretty thing. Everyone expected Petra to raise her, but she’d been adopted by Louise and Charles Dedouard.

  Axelle picked up one of her wooden cups. After Thais left, Axelle had put them on the little desk in Thais’s room. She smiled wryly, remembering when she’d found them in Thais’s bathroom, one holding swabs, one holding cotton balls….

  The wood was cool and smooth. Axelle rubbed it on her black silk shirt, making the wood shine. The grain of the wood was thin and straight—the tree had been hundreds of years old. Jules had carved these for her out of the charred stump of the Source tree. Maybe he’d felt sorry for her, with Melita being gone. They’d been like sisters. Much more like sisters than Melita and Cerise. Cerise had been a bubble-headed idiot who’d gotten herself knocked up when everyone knew how to prevent it. And why hadn’t the father prevented it, if he was a witch? Men could do it too.

  Unless the father hadn’t been a witch. Or had wanted the baby for some reason.

  Axelle put the cup down next to its mates. Jules used to make nice things. That was one of the first things anyone noticed about him, that he could make pretty things out of wood. That and the shackles on his wrists and ankles.

  No one in their famille had ever owned another human being. It was bizarre, unthinkable. Why would the slave owners do that to themselves? They were probably still working out the bad karma.