Claimed: Faction 3: The Isa Fae Collection

by Heather Hambel Curley

  I packed an apple and a thick slice of bread in the satchel, then cut a wedge from the cheese wheel on the counter. Everything fit neatly in my pack and I laced it shut, slinging it over my shoulder. Only one more thing to get.

  Opening the door only as much as I needed to in order to cross the threshold, I slunk outside and crossed the yard to the privy. It was disgusting. Pa refused to put in anything more than a rudimentary outhouse and, in weather like this, it was miserable. It was even worse in the summer heat.

  I was shivering by the time I trudged into the barn. We only had one horse: an old mare who was no good for plowing, no good for meat, and slower than a healing heart to lumber into town. Still, I couldn’t carry Pa’s order back to the homestead. That meant hitching her up to the wagon and spending the next four hours staring at her rump while we meandered into town.

  At least I had Vaughn to look forward to.

  I patted her side as I led her out of the stall. “I know neither one of us are excited, Domino, but it’s better than rotting the day away here, isn’t it?”

  Domino whinnied and threw her head from side to side, almost yanking the lead line out of my hand. I didn’t need Soleil’s powers of animal empathy to understand that the horse was irritated.

  “It’s not at the top of my list either. And yet, here we are.” I led her to the wagon and tied her in place, just to make sure she didn’t try to wander off while I hitched her to the wagon.

  The horse was old, and she was stubborn. She hated pulling the wagon and let me know it: when I dragged the wagon into place behind her, her rear hoof shot out in a swift kick. It narrowly missed my face. I settled my hand on her flank, gritting my teeth together. “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it needs to be, okay? We’re going. The longer you take, the less time I have to get laid. Let’s talk about what’s really important, you sack of bones. Because it’s been way too long.”

  She kicked again, this time nearly connecting her hoof with my knee.

  I slammed the shafts to the ground. “Look, I get it. It pisses me off too, but once he gets an idea in his head, he doesn’t let it go until we let him have his way. Pa wants this shit from town. The only option we have is going and getting it for him. You play fair, I’ll play fair.”

  Domino stamped her foot, but stood still.

  “Let’s get this done and I’ll give you oats. Apples. Whatever you want; you want to lick the sugar right out the barrel Pa ordered? Fine. Go for it.”

  My pep-talk must have worked, because this time, she let me yank the wagon forward and adjust the shafts at her shoulders. She didn’t move when I attached the trace to the wagon or when I clipped the ends to the shafts and tightened the girth. I patted her flank again, this time leaning my forehead against her. “Thank you.”

  I headed back to the barn and slipped back inside, walking directly to the back, leftmost corner of the interior. Not far from where Domino’s stall was, was a pile of junk: iron and metal pieces Pa had scavenged from abandoned buildings and broken down vehicles. He collected everything for one reason or another, but abandoned every project for one that seemed better. One old treasure was a busted refrigerator, long since rusted and rotted out. Pa had no use for it.

  But I did.

  I yanked the front door open and flipped open the small compartment on the door. Inside was a nub eyeliner and a small, almost completely used pot of black eyeshadow. Using a partially rusted toaster as my mirror, I carefully lined my top and bottom lash lines with the black pencil and then smeared the shadow on my lids. I quickly ran my fingers through my hair to try and encourage some body into the long, straight strands. It wasn’t bad—it wasn’t good, but I looked pretty damn hot for someone who was forced to bathe using an iron tub and stove heated water.

  The barn door creaked; I leapt around, hissing lux as loud as I dared. Heat rushed to my fingertips and lit the interior of the barn. No one was there.

  I shook out my fingers, encouraging the light to diminish. Christ, the last thing I needed was to be so damn jumpy. I tried to relax my mind and focus on the present. There was no one here in the woods but me. I could sense my parents and my sister, as well as the irritated spirit of the horse. Other than that, the woods were quiet. The only souls shifting were animals.

  I snagged a pair of leather mounted goggles off a hook above the worktable, pushing them back in my hair to hold my bangs back, and then carefully slid a knife into a compartment in my boot. Just in case; after all, the world had changed since the war started. Mortal men had fled the cities and sought comfort in smaller, suburban areas. Everything was volatile, the cities more so, but the last time I’d traveled to Distant—the only town within a day’s ride—it hadn’t been that bad.

  Now could be different.

  Things seemed so apt to change anymore.

  I tried to shove the feelings out of my head and focus on what I needed to do. At the top of my list was Vaughn, of course, but then I had to pick up all of Pa’s order and then make the trek home. The wagon would be heavy. That meant I’d get home….

  ….I had to do the math twice. Barring anything out of control, I should be home by dusk. Domino was slow. She’d be slower with a wagon load. Great.

  Backtracking to the wagon, I unhooked the line and crawled onto the wagon’s bench. Domino shifted her weight a little, but then her ears perked up. She was ready. I wasn’t convinced that I was, but I clucked my tongue and gave a quick flick of the reins. “Come on, girl, let’s get this over with so we can come back here to glory land.”

  She tossed her head from side to side. Yeah, she knew. She no doubt agreed—but I wasn’t my sister. I didn’t understand the deeper issues of horses and animals and lightening bugs. I was just me. Wren Richards: the witch who was basically useless.

  Domino remembered the way to Distant, so I had little actual maneuvering to do. There wasn’t an actual trail or road for several miles but she meandered through the cut grass, barely twitching as we passed thick, wild Indian grass. I was somewhat surprised, but pleased. Maybe the dumb horse knew how much I needed to see Vaughn.

  I wasn’t sure the horse and I were actually that close.

  Back before the war started, I’d driven a cute, little British import car around the city. I complained about gas prices, was fanatical about getting it washed when it was dirty, and even saved up money from my retail job to put in a killer stereo system. I never thought about how long it would take to drive fifteen miles. I just didn’t care. Now? Now I was being jerked and bounced on a wagon. It was going to take hours to ride the fifteen miles to Distant. Four hours to drive, an hour to fuck Vaughn, twenty minutes to load the wares, and four hours to drive home.

  My father’s paranoia had caused this. It wasn’t even the war, it was my father—convinced—that the upheaval man’s law was going to result in a new age witch hunt. Our coven broke, yes, but we were one of only two families to completely disappear from communication.

  The other family was dead.

  My head throbbed. The migraine; the stab of pain into my skull that had jolted me the day prior. Something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t pinpoint it, but there was something about the source of the wind or fall of the early morning shadows. It was like a shoe that didn’t quite fit or a collar that was just too tight. I didn’t like it.

  My fingers tightened on the reins. Domino wasn’t acting out of the ordinary, so I had a hard time convincing myself we were being stalked by a mountain lion or a timber wolf. The small hairs on the back of my neck pricked upwards. Something in my brain twitched; I could almost hear two heartbeats in my mind, pulsing through my body like it was physically shaking me.

  Sliding the reins down my leg and letting them loop over my boot, I focused all of my concentration into my palm. The crackle as the energy grew was comforting; at the height, I whirled around and thrust my hand outward. “Duratus!”

  Green light flashed out from my flesh. It hung in the air for a moment and then dissipated over
the back of the wagon like morning fog. I heard a soft mew. It was somewhat reminiscent of a kitten that had just been stepped on by a horse.

  I frowned. Pain radiated through my skull; this was not what I wanted. This was the last thing I wanted. “God damn it, Soleil. What is wrong with you?”

  A bunched up tarp in the back moved slightly, then slid back to reveal my sister. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks flushed pink—that kind of shit had no effect on me. She could be cute and sweet and innocent until she was blue in the face. I welcomed that challenge.

  She tucked a blonde curl behind her ear. “I wanted to help.”

  “Bull shit. You don’t care about going into town for supplies; the only thing you care about is being Pa’s perfect little princess.” I narrowed my eyes. Leaning over the back of the bench, I yanked her up by her arm. “Did he put you up to this?”

  “No!” She struggled against me. I was stronger than her; with my other hand, I used an energy burst to pin her other hand to her side. I didn’t need a deer or blue bird pummeling me off the wagon.

  She huffed into her perfect hair. “Wren, you’re hurting me.”

  I hesitated for several moments, long enough to let her know I was serious—and then shoved her back against the bench. “If you think you’re going to go running back to Pa and tell him about Vaughn, I swear, I’ll slit your throat while you sleep. I’m not even kidding, Soleil. My need for sex is far greater than my ability to reason right now.”

  “I’m not here to spy on you.”

  “Then why the hell are you hiding in the back of the wagon?” I stared at her. She wasn’t dressed for a supply run; she was wearing tan leggings, a tiered white skirt, and a green velvet vest fitted over a white bodice. Ridiculous. “I’m not going to baby-sit you. You’re not coming into Vaughn’s house, first of all, and you’re going to sit under that tarp, in the barn, until I’m done.”

  “That’s fine.”

  I wanted to reach over and smack her pink, pursed lips. This was not the typical Soleil. My parents coddled her, they had since she was an infant. Even with our off-grid living, she always managed to be tasked with the easier work: washing window or sweeping the Lodge floor. She was weaving baskets while I was tilling the garden. She cut Pa’s hair while I was trying to fix a broken wagon axel. She didn’t just wake up and decide, hey, a trip to Distant sounds fun.

  She was up to something.

  Three

  Vaughn Sterling lived on a farmstead a few miles outside of Distant. He lived there with his younger brother, Emmett, and their mother, Mercy. They didn’t know their father. Mercy was blind, having lost her eyes in a textile mill explosion years before the boys were born, but despite that I always felt like she saw me better than anyone else could. We were civil to each other. I had it on good authority she thought I corrupted her son.

  Soleil slept for the entire trip to Distant. Typical. As the road structures went from dirt to gravel to cracked, potholed pavement, I glanced up at the sun. We’d made good time. The trails to town were surprisingly quiet, especially as we got closer to Distant. The last time I’d gone on a supply run, I’d been pushed off the road twice and almost rear ended a rickshaw.

  Come to think of it…and the more I actually thought about it, I didn’t remember passing any wagons or people as we lumbered across the countryside. Sure, I was distracted by the thought of Vaughn’s weight pinning me to his mattress and the bed frame that squeaked with every thrust of his hips—but we hadn’t seen anyone.

  I glanced at my sister. She was snoring lightly, a thread of drool glistening on her chin. She was so soft and innocent in her sleep; her blonde hair laying in perfect waves at her shoulders, her skin unblemished. So peaceful. So beautiful.

  I kicked her in the shin. “Wake up. We’re almost there.”

  She jumped, clambering for the sides of the bench like it would steady her. Her eyes widened in some kind of panic and she dragged her wrist over her face. “Already?”

  “Sure, if you want to quantify sleeping for like, six hours as ‘already,’ we can go with that.” I flicked the reins sharply, forcing the horse back to the center of the road. “I haven’t seen shit on this trip. It’s odd.”

  “It’s not that odd.”

  “An informed opinion.” I glared at her. “How many times have you gone on a supply run? I mean, really, I’m interested to hear your impression of today’s trip as opposed to all of your other travels to Distant.”

  “Are you saying the road is quiet today?”

  “I’m saying it’s abandoned.”

  Soleil crossed her ankles and tucked a smooth curl behind her ear. “Do you remember what day of the week this is?”

  “Don’t be a damn fool, Soleil.”

  “No, I mean maybe it’s the weekend. Maybe they’re all at worship services.” She hesitated, uncrossing and recrossing her ankles. “Do humans still worship their gods?”

  “I don’t see why they wouldn’t. It’s all they have left.” She had that attitude, that we’re not human, we’re the gifted few shit that she pulled. She got that from our father. For my sister and her seemingly never ending list of abilities, of course being a witch was some kind of blessing to her. It was my curse.

  I urged Domino forward, dropping my hand to the knife hilt. Something in the air felt wrong…there was a thickness to it that I hadn’t noticed before. It felt like it clung to my face, stifling my breathing. I’d feel better once I was in Vaughn’s arms. Then we’d get the supplies and go. It couldn’t be all that bad, right? After all, we were making good time.

  My eyes drifted to the long stretch of road in front. It was empty. Somehow, making good time didn’t seem quite so exciting when compared to the nagging feeling prickling the back of my neck. The road to Distant was never like this; it shouldn’t be like this. Soleil’s carefree “maybe they’re all at church” was a cute and tidy way to explain it away. Which was fine—except I remembered life before everything changed. Weekends were for relaxing and listening to music or fucking around with Vaughn in the muddy river bank at the edge of his western field. People were still milling around everywhere. There was always movement of life.

  And today there wasn’t.

  I tightened my hand around the reins, giving a gentle snap against Domino’s flank. I didn’t want to be on the road anymore. Something in the air didn’t feel right; it wasn’t just the missing traffic or the silent roadway. There was something else. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  “I think this trip was a mistake.” I blurted the words out, not necessarily because I wanted my sister’s opinion, but because I needed someone else to know. We should have stayed back at camp. How important were these supplies anyway?

  Of course Soleil had an answer. She probably felt my worry in her bones. “Someone has to do it.”

  “It didn’t have to be us.”

  “Pa needs help at camp, you know that as well as I do. And now that we’re older—“

  “Would you wake up? What kind of enchanted, mystical world do you live in?” Her voice was always enough to infuriate me. It was soft and gentle, yet had such an arrogant, condescending lilt to it that, most times, I wanted to smack the smirk of her porcelain-hued face. “We have been given gifts. Crafts. We don’t need to be doing ninety percent of the work we do. Don’t you wonder why Pa won’t let us? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  “We weren’t allowed to use it before—“

  “God, yes, before.” I was guilty of saying it, too. It was as if there was this magical like between the before and after; of when the world was pure and when it ended. The problem was, though, that before, we followed Coven rules. Now, it was Pa’s—and I found I agreed with his far less than then I did the Coven.

  Domino trudged down the dirt lane that led to Vaughn’s farm. The fields looked like they normally did this time of year, or rather, what season I assumed we were in. Pa said we were nearing winter. There didn’t seem to be much reason for lying about
that…possibly. The corn rustled in a light breeze; other than that, there was silence.

  My eyes flicked to the horse. Her ears looked relaxed, like this familiar trek, though undesired as horse schedules go, wasn’t all that bad. If Domino was calm,then it was fine. “I thought I’d at least hear the generator by now.”

  “Maybe he’s at church, too.”

  I jumped. I hadn’t meant to make the comment to my sister, more to the horse. I snorted. Vaughn wasn’t the least bit religious. “The only time he mentions God is in conjunction with my name. In bed.”

  Soleil didn’t respond. I almost laughed at that—sweet, innocent Soleil. She could keep her rainbows, butterflies, and control of spinning wheels. I’d rather be able to intoxicate a man.

  Especially this one.

  I tugged on the reins, guiding Domino to the far side of the barn. It was shaded enough; not that I actually cared. That was a lie—I was concerned about the horse.

  I jerked my head towards the back bed of the wagon. “Keep your mouth shut and wait for me.”

  “What if someone sees me?”

  I jumped down from the wagon and looped the reins over a broken down tractor. Vaughn still hadn’t gotten around to fixing it. “Then put the blanket over you. It worked before.”

  She crawled into the back, sinking down onto her knees. “Just hurry.”

  “I’ll take my time, actually.” I ran my fingers through my stringy hair as I walked, trying to add volume and some manner of beauty. It was easier before, back when we lived in town and I’d just crawl out my bedroom window. I’d run to him in the dark, in the rain. It didn’t matter. Vaughn wasn’t my first, but he was by far the best.

  The tall double doors of the barn were shut, which seemed strange. Cupping my hand over my eyes, I looked out into the farm fields. Black lumps littered the nearest fenced in section: cows, no doubt. So, he was here somewhere—he once told me he rotated the grazing fields. There was some method to his calculations and I really hadn’t cared, but he said he put them in the First Field to start with; every time.