CHAPTER 3
I had expected the holidays to suck when I knew I’d have to plow through Russian Literature in a matter of days and write essays that pretended I didn’t think it was incomprehensible madness. Let alone a crash course in necromancy. My friends were gone, Bran was in a foul mood, we were both healing. That was all enough—more than enough.
All of this would have been much, much easier if my parents hadn’t shown up. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help Daddy. Of course, I did. Of course. He couldn’t trust my mother and who else was he going to go to? Hazel? Maybe, but the truth was any legit witch who wasn’t related to Mother would report her to the Presidium and rightfully so. Daddy—being Daddy—wasn’t going to see Mother punished beyond whatever Bran and I did. Because, of course, she was our Mother. Daddy was too good for any of us—still thinking of us when he was struggling at points to even cross the house.
And seeing Daddy stumbling around, semi-befuddled, while my mother lurked in the shadows scaring me every time she threw out another rancid remark and my sister doing her best to cater to Daddy while avoiding Mother—it was seriously distracting from my essay on Anna Karenina. In the quiet safety of my mind, I admitted that I would have almost preferred that Daddy would have kept living the lie. It was comforting to me to have parents who I had thought loved each other. I had lost a huge piece of my foundation and wasn’t sure what to do about it.
As penance, I was sitting in my laboratory with my laptop and chatroom open while I looked down at a series of diagrams. I needed to assuage Daddy’s withdrawals while helping him find himself again, but it had been so very long since he hadn’t been potioned. And love potions were intended as temporary things. To catch interest if you’re evil or to add a dash of sparkle to a real relationship if you weren’t evil.
I laid my head down on my work bench and considered. There was the worst plan—which was giving Daddy the potions again, letting him reset, and then weaning him off. It would be dangerous given that he’d already traveled through so many of the withdrawals and may not want to be taken off of them once he was on them again. It would give Mother a hold on him again, and I was certain she couldn’t be trusted with that hold again.
Maybe I should just start treating the worst of the symptoms? I wasn’t sure though that more potions wouldn’t just complicate the problem. The thing was…how much of the magic and potion was still in his system? In his very bones. The effects of ‘love’ had worn off, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t still in his bones. That was the most frequent reaction I was getting from my chatroom. That you couldn’t be sure that a standard sleep potion would work just right on him. Not with the long-term effects of the love potion. I mean…was it in his bones? How long would it take before he was fully clean, if ever?
My sister cracked the door to the lab and came in without a word. She sat down on the stool across from me, glanced my diagrams of potion ingredients over, and said, “You can’t do it.”
I didn’t need her to explain any more than she needed me to tell her what I’d been thinking, “I know.”
We were quiet, each of us staring off into the distance. I wasn’t able to travel the instincts of my heart to her. Not with how broken I was. Not since the haunt got me. It hadn’t hurt me physically, but I had so easily been shattered in my soul. I was already barely holding myself together and when I was attacked…it didn’t go well with everything with my family on my mind and how…I hated myself for my thoughts of wanting my parents to be together even if I knew it wasn’t best for them. My heart hurt, my head hurt. I was soul-ached.
I asked the question I knew the answer to already, “Is that why you destroyed Mother’s stash of potions and blocked her magic?”
Bran’s fingers tapped against the table and she didn’t answer right away. Her face had twisted into an unreadable expression before she said, “How can we hate her when he was what we needed?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have an answer for that question. What Mother had done was so very wrong. And yet, I knew that it changed the entire flavor of our lives—for the good.
“I can’t hate her,” I said. “She’s our mother.”
“Do you remember a few Christmases ago when she knitted Daddy that sweater?”
I nodded.
“And do you remember how she grew the kale and goji berries with magic for Daddy’s smoothies?”
I nodded. She hadn’t let us help. She expected and made us do magic relentlessly. But she hadn’t trusted us with the garden for Daddy’s smoothies.
“And how she found a way to flavor mashed potatoes so they were low-calorie and still delicious.”
Gods. Yes. She did all those things.
“She loves him,” Bran said. “She loves him for real. Without potions. Without anything extra. She adores him. And I took that away from her.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. I didn’t think there was anything to say. And really, Bran hadn’t taken anything away from Mother—Mother had chosen a lie of a life rather than the truth. And all Bran had done was make Mother face the reality she’d created. It didn’t mean that I didn’t hurt for Mother. I did. So much so, I did. It was a part, I thought, of what was crippling my attempts to help Daddy.
“Want to go for a run?” I slammed my computer shut and didn’t bother to wait for her nod.
“You mean go for a hobble?”
I looked back at her, down at myself, and remembered how I ached even though I didn’t have a scar to show for my pains. I had forgotten I was injured. I had forgotten that it had been too long since my last run. I had forgotten because I wanted to. I had just kept living my own lie.
“Shut up,” I said since I was useless today and had nothing witty to add.
“Let’s go get Daddy and make cocoa. That way when we can run again, it’ll be even more painful.”
I paused. Looked her in the eye and saw the truth. We both chose to run until it hurt. Not because we loved to run, but because pain seemed to be so very deserved. Run harder. Run faster. Run until it hurts and hurts and hurts and feel something so very deserved.
I followed Bran down the stairs and felt my house, Martha trying to comfort me with her breeze against the back of my neck and the way the light from her fixtures arched more towards my face. But that left Bran in more shadow and I hated that. Martha couldn’t know—she was a bespelled house that had grown something of a personality, not a person. Not even if I loved her like a person did that make my house an individual. Even still, I ran my fingers along her woodwork and sent her warm, loving thoughts.
I probably imagined the way she responded, but it was felt more than heard or seen. Just a ruffling of my senses that seemed rather like the purr of a cat.
Bran swung the kitchen door open and found my mother trying to get Daddy to drink something.
“What is that?” Bran’s voice was a snap of instant fury.
“Tea,” Mother answered crossly.
I simply crossed the kitchen, took it from Daddy’s hand, and set it on the counter.
“Veruca,” Mother said, crossing her arms across her chest, and scowling, “Was that really necessary?”
“Did you really want me to answer that?”
The doorbell rang a moment later and saved me from having to reply. We all stared at each other until I finally left the kitchen and made my way to the door. On the way, I couldn’t help but think how rarely I had to open it. Chrysie spent a lot of time in the front room and usually was the one who answered the door. Felix or Jessie answered it almost as often. And I couldn’t think of a time that I did. I’m sure it had happened. I missed my roomies and the buffer they provided my family and me.
On the other side were honest-to-goodness carolers. A crowd of them in coats lined with fur and red cheeks singing Silent Night. Only that was followed by a Yule carol and I stepped back in shock. I didn’t know any of them, I really only knew a few students and some of the college staff, but…gods, was that Gwenn
ie?
It was—little Gwennie who’d been stolen by the dark witch and buried alive was singing. And behind her was someone who had the same eyes and nose. Gwennie met my gaze stoically, and I guessed she wasn’t out caroling of her own volition. I hadn’t known her when my coven had saved her, but I knew her now. My house, Martha, was one of the few places Gwennie felt safe. She spent a lot of time there which was fine by me since she didn’t talk much. If she’d been a chattery little kid or if I felt obligated to cosset her, I would have felt differently. But I figured I got a pass on trying to make things ok with her. I helped dig her up. Seemed to be a favor I could count in my column forever and escape things like pretending she was fine when she was clearly not.
I had an essay to write, a Daddy to cure, and holidays to experience. How many carols did I have to suffer through? I stepped back, uncertain of what to do, but I bumped into Daddy and looked up finding him smiling widely. His gaze wasn’t confused and as they sang I forgave them for coming to my door with the look on his face.
But he spoke first, “Come in, come in. It’s so chilly out there. Let’s have some cocoa and tea. Coffee?”
Old Daddy took over, waving people inside, complimenting them. I met Bran’s horrified gaze and we turned as one to Mother. But Mother had pasted a smile on her face and was helping Daddy. Bran and I looked back at each other, at Mother and back at each other again. This was not our Mother. What in all the ever-living hells?
Bran slid in behind the crowd and whispered, “It’s Daddy. Look at him.”
“I saw,” I said.
Daddy had been coming in and out of himself, but he’d been himself for a while now through this song. Further evidence of how Mother actually loved Daddy was as confusing to me as my own desire to re-potion Daddy and give him back to her. I would never do it, of course, but the desire to do so—it was torturing me. I needed to fix Daddy and end this madness before something happened and I gave into that need to have the foundation of my parent’s marriage back. It had just been the one thing about my life that I had counted on and loved. And here I was beating that dead subject even further rather than dealing with these people who went caroling.
“This is weird,” Gwennie said having somehow sidled in next to me. The crowd in my kitchen was far too many people. The kitchen—like all of my house, Martha—was monstrous, so it wasn’t like they had to stand on top of one another, it was just that they were there. And there were seven or eight people that I didn’t even know in my kitchen. I looked down at her, my eye twitched, and the ghost of a smile crossed evil little Gwennie’s face.
“Weird,” I agreed without smacking her as she deserved. We both turned back to the others and expressionlessly watched as my Daddy and Mother acted as a unit. Bran helped just enough to magic up some hot water and then disappear to the side of the room.
She made her way around to us, avoiding everyone as if she were a ghost.
“So,” Bran asked Gwennie, “What’s worse: caroling or being buried alive?”
I froze for a moment, but Gwennie actually laughed. She didn’t reply, but she laughed. Several of her group turned and stared at us, shocked to hear Gwennie’s laugh.
Daddy handed round a tray of drinks and there was cheery talking in the room. Mother followed after with another tray of things like cookies and cream for those who selected tea.
“What fresh hell is this?” Bran whispered, astounded, as we watched our parents play some Leave it to Beaver mockery.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at what happened next as that moment was nothing short of a devil’s prank but a mere second later a large woman in a red coat, plaid scarf, and black lace up boots of indeterminate age gasped and dropped her teacup which shattered on the floor. We all turned to her as one as she clawed at her throat and then followed her cup to the floor, crashing into the remnants of hot tea and shattered pottery.
“Sweet Hecate,” I breathed, “Please not here. Not now.”
But Hecate didn’t hear my prayer. Someone started screaming, “Joni.” Possibly several someones, I couldn’t focus on that as there was a dying woman jerking around on my floor.
CHAPTER 4
“Oh gods,” I said, leaping across the room to pull her scarf away. A man dropped down next to me and we turned her onto her back as one. Joni’s face was contorted and she was seizing as she heaved. She hadn’t stopped clawing at her throat and she was gasping as if there were no air in the room.
“What’s that smell?” Gwennie asked. She was right behind me, her eyes fixed on the woman who was jerking on the floor.
I don’t know why I heard Gwennie over the shouting and crying. I heard my sister behind me, calling for emergency help, but Gwennie finished her thought.
“It smells like almonds.”
I froze. I’d seen that movie and given the way this woman was twitching I thought, it couldn’t be, but I knew it was. And then she stopped breathing and someone was wailing and holding her hand and petting her hair and others were crying, and she was dead. I didn’t need to feel her pulse because I felt her spirit leave her body. I pulled the ether into me and shoved the ghost through the thinning. I didn’t care if I could have talked to her. I didn’t care what was happening. I was utterly and completely sure that I didn’t want my beautiful house, Martha, haunted by some random caroler who was cruel enough to show up at my door and die here.
Someone was letting in firemen and police officers, others were crying, Bran was pulling me away from the body as the officials started working on her, but it was too late. It was too late before she was dead. It was too late before we’d tried to save her. It was too late before they were called. It was too late the moment the woman had swallowed cyanide.
Someone seemed to be comforting Joni’s spouse while another person was pacing back and forth, but as for me—if my assumption was right, we had a murder on our hands. With drinks my parents had been serving and there was no way that the killer wasn’t one of this group. I didn’t see how else she could have been killed. Not with the singing, she might have drunk something while they were between houses. I didn’t know how long it took to kill someone with cyanide, but it seemed in movies and books to only take a few minutes. I…gods…why couldn’t I even have a Christmas and Yule without something terrible happening.
I was kneeling in this little island in the center of my kitchen with Gwennie behind me, a dead woman in front of me, and I was actually whining in my head over my holidays being ruined. I shook my head and edged farther away from the emergency response team who was working so hard to save Joni, whoever that was, still hating the woman a little bit for dying in my home. This, I thought, is what came from being part-snake.
Speaking of….I glanced around, looking for my mother, and I found her—gaze fixed on the dead body in front of us. She knew, I realized, Mother knew what had happened. Her face showed a rare expression of worry and reminded me that she was, at least the tiniest bit, human.
“What happened here?” Officer Drake asked.
I looked up at his familiar face and shook my head. I struggled for a moment and then I rose and suggested that we step outside of the kitchen. It was weird, so weird, that I was the one who he was speaking to. I mean, I knew it was my house, but this moment felt like more than that. More than the fact that I’d worked with him before over a supernatural murder. In fact, it felt a little bit like he was treating me like the Keeper of the St. Angelus Thinning and the eldest of the eldest of the eldest of the Hallow.
Gods, what was next? I wanted to run up the stairs to my bedroom, leap into my bed, pull the covers over my head, and wait until my life stopped being so impossible.
“What happened?” Office Drake asked again when we were in the little room off the hall. It was just a tiny little space, I guessed that at one time it had been the telephone room for there was a table, two comfortable chairs, and an old-style rotary phone.
I thought for a moment, I wanted to play stupid. I wanted to sh
rug and tell him to ask my Mother. I wanted to refer him to the stupid carolers who had just ruined my holidays with their dumb songs. Instead, I briefly described what happened.
“Are they witches, too?”
I shook my head and then said, “I don’t really know who they are. Gwennie is here with at least a few of her pack. They’re werewolves. I don’t know any of them beyond Gwennie.”
“Gwennie Thorpe?”
I nodded.
“They’re pretty close with the Sandition Coven. I wonder…”
I shrugged. I just didn’t care. I wanted to—there was a part of me that wanted to be different. It wasn’t that I was completely indifferent. It was just…I didn’t know her. I had seen her die, and I wanted to unsee that very badly. The only thing that made this woman different from a traffic accident was that it happened in my house.
Office Drake said, “We’ll have to interview everyone and get their information before they leave.”
Help, Rue, I told myself. Help him get this done and get out, so you can get back to your life. I couldn’t forget who had been serving the drinks, whose house it was. I wanted to say that it was always the spouse or the neighbor of the person who had seen them before, but there was another truth which was that this town hated my mother and rightfully so.
Therefore, Rue, I reminded myself again. Be helpful. Give them a reason to be grateful. “So you want somewhere where you can do that?”
He nodded and I thought for a second and then said, “We can move everyone to the library and you can use the front room. That way you can push them out the door and keep them separated.
“Rue,” Daddy’s voice cut into the interview. He had peeked around the doorway, but he had also said my name hesitantly. I felt immediately sick, Officer Drake didn’t need to know that my daddy was the mess he was. And when I looked up, I saw that he’d faded again. He seemed lost, hand on the doorjamb while he looked around as if he’d never seen the room he was in. “Your Mother…”
Yule Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery (The Rue Hallow Mysteries Book 5) Page 3
