Witch & Curse

by Nancy Holder

  Holly squinted up at the windows, feeling the tension along her shoulders ease when she realized almost every window she could see was bright with welcoming light. “Three stories?”

  “Four, if you count the attic,” Amanda answered. “But I think they closed that off. On account of Tommy’s secret insane wife.” She pulled the collar of her black velvet jacket tighter and rubbed her arms. “Come on, let’s go in already. I’m freezing out here.”

  Still reluctant without knowing why, Holly could only follow her cousin up the steps of the wooden porch and wait for someone to answer the doorbell. It was so dark and cold outside, windy—was there more rain on the way? It never seemed to stop raining in Seattle.

  The front door jerked open, and light spilled onto the porch. “Yo, scary yet sexy American babes! Lab partner scary girl!” Tommy cried happily. He reached for Amanda and gave her a bear hug. “Come in—God, the temperature must have dropped twenty degrees in the last hour. In, in, in!”

  Smiling, Holly obeyed, going with the flow as Tommy directed them toward a small sitting room off the spacious front foyer. They dropped their coats onto the growing pile on the couch, then followed him deeper into the house, and Holly found herself getting into the spirit of the party almost immediately.

  The music was jammin’ and everyone was laughing and talking—no frowny faces anywhere—and despite Amanda’s warnings, there was enough food to feed an entire Army of Darkness.

  Most of the faces were still new, but here and there she caught a flash of familiarity. Wait . . . was that Eli over there, with Nicole stuck to his side like a dark-haired imp? They started to turn in her direction and she back-stepped quickly, putting at least a half dozen of the party-goers between her and the couple. Had they seen her?

  Amanda said something in her ear, but someone had turned up the volume and Holly missed it. “What?”

  “I said I’m going to get something to drink,” Amanda practically shouted at her. “Do you want something?”

  “A beer,” Holly said automatically, though she wasn’t sure how much she felt like drinking. “Something light.”

  Amanda nodded and slipped into the crowd, presumably toward the kitchen. Holly had lost sight of Eli and Nicole. More and more people were arriving and the excitement level was rising—Holly could feel it in the air, like a layer of electricity sparking just above the heads of everyone. Now and then she caught a flash from the corner of her eye at ceiling level, as though the chaos and laughter and humanity in here was actually overfeeding something, making it explode into being for a brief, hot second before it fizzled away.

  Not to be overdramatic or anything, she told herself.

  She tried to stay in one place so Amanda could find her again, but she found herself inadvertently circling and moving out of the way of people as they tried to push past, turning this way and that to get a better look at the costumes. There was the usual array of Frankensteins and Vampirellas and, to her, a less-thanappealing array of rubber masks with plenty of painted-on blood and gore. But now and then Holly came across something original, like the cute guy with the red hair who was walking around in a hat and a long, London Fog trench coat. He looked so normal, like some kind of businessman . . . until he whipped open his coat to reveal pant legs that only went up to his knees and nothing else but a construction-paper fig leaf between him and the rest of the world.

  Grinning to herself, Holly pulled her gaze away from what little there was of his costume and tried to figure out where she should be. But the crowd was so dense, and she hadn’t been paying enough attention—now she wasn’t even sure she’d managed to stay in the same room. The foyer was in the center of the house and it had three wide doorways in addition to the one leading to the small sitting room. Each doorway opened into a room that opened into another room, almost like a labyrinth. The same heavily polished woodwork covered every edge and corner; the same rich walnut wainscoting split all the walls.

  Had she and Amanda started in the dining room, or the living room? The only feature unique and large enough to pick out was the massive, curving staircase in the front foyer, and she made her way to the bottom of it. Where was Amanda? Her cousin had probably gotten sidetracked, run into some friends or whatever. Maybe Holly would be better off just searching for her—she felt like a fool just standing here at the foot of the stairs, looking for all the world like the date who’d been stood up and didn’t know what to do with herself. She scanned the crowd, feeling more and more anxious but not knowing exactly why. Maybe she should—

  Across the room, her gaze locked, and she could admit to herself that she had been looking for him.

  Jer.

  He wasn’t wearing a costume. He was dressed in his customary black; with his dark hair, eyes, and brows, he reminded Holly of the Devil. That girl was with him, and two other guys, and they were very ill at ease.

  She inhaled and everything in the room went sharp, then abruptly faded away in a strange, lightly swirling gray fog as he started walking toward her. Am I supposed to breathe now? Or stand still? Was her heart even still beating? She felt like a mouse, helpless and paralyzed when it realizes the killing gaze of the hunting hawk has found it.

  It should have taken him a little while to navigate the crowd, but oddly enough, it didn’t—she blinked and he was right in front of her, standing so close that she could see the candle flame reflected in his eyes, the hint of a day’s growth of beard on his chin. His scent was clean and earthy and warm, and having him so close—only an inch or two away—sent little pulses of excitement rippling along her bare arms.

  Standing there, Jer tilted his head in an almost quizzical movement, as if for the barest of instances he didn’t understand what was happening to him, to them. But that flash of confusion was forgotten in the next second, when someone from the party—no more than a shadow in Holly’s peripheral vision—bumped him from behind and pushed him straight into her arms.

  He reached out reflexively, and the instant his flesh touched hers, they were lost.

  Jer’s hands slid down her arms, and their fingers entwined. Holly felt as if she’d been deliciously scorched, soaked through with flammable sensation. Her face filled with heat; her arms and hands burned; her chest tightened with unexpected desire so that she could barely breathe.

  When they turned together and moved up the staircase, she couldn’t have said where they were going and why . . . only that they needed to get there together and they needed to do so now. The laughter from the party, the music and the sounds of conversation, it was all gone; now there was only her, and Jer, and the mist, which had shifted into a soft silver-green that enveloped the two of them and separated them from the rest of the world.

  Holly felt the stairs beneath her feet only in the vaguest sense—there wasn’t any solid wood beneath her shoes, more a sense of pressure as she climbed, the two of them walking on their own personal carpet of cloud. They reached the top of the stairs and he paused, looking around as if trying to decide which way to go. Holly glanced behind her, knowing in her mind that somewhere down there was a mass of people, but she couldn’t see or hear anything at all. For one quick moment she tried to snap out of it. As if he sensed her effort, Jer squeezed her hand, then slid his thumb across her skin where their hands were clasped. The sensation was unaccountably erotic, and Holly nearly gasped aloud.

  He moved down a hallway swirling with mist and Holly followed, pausing with him twice as he pressed his ear to a door and listened. The third time he tried, he finally seemed satisfied that no one was inside and he pushed open the door. The graceful plumes of fog stayed at the threshold as if unwilling to cross; without letting go of her hand, Jer pushed the door shut with the toe of his shoe and turned to face her.

  There was no small talk, no question about will or whim or why on earth they were in this room like this. Holly stepped in front of him and tilted her head, and when his lips came down on hers, everything else in her world, in her universe, simply stopped
. There was only her, and Jeraud Deveraux, and this small, private slice of space and time that they could share.

  It was so very strange—Holly felt as if she had known him for years, or at least for a lifetime. The feel of his hands sliding down her arms and around her waist, the way the muscles of his chest quivered beneath her fingertips, the rhythm of their hearts beating in utterly perfect unison—it was all so familiar, so right. Her hand came up, and she relished the softness of his hair as it ran through her fingers, arched her back to press her breast more firmly against the palm of his hand when he pulled apart the ribbon that held the side of her costume together.

  When he lowered her to the surface of the bed, nothing else mattered but Jer and being with him, getting as close to him as she could. He rolled on top of her and she pulled at his sweater, wanting to feel his bare skin against hers—the weight of him was driving her crazy with desire as every part of her screamed to join with him, to be with him as one, body and soul. They were so close—

  “Holly?”

  Holly blinked. Had she heard something? Someone calling her name? No, of course not—the swirling mist was back, but she and Jeraud were the only people in this room—

  “Holly, stop!” Amanda shouted from the doorway.

  Jeraud’s expression, one moment suffused in passion as he kissed her, suddenly twisted and he whipped his face to the side, his eyes flashing with rage. “Go away!” he snarled.

  Startled, Holly sucked in air and felt a spike of discomfort shoot across her temples.

  “Amanda? Is that you?”

  Wind swept across her face and her eyes widened as she saw her cousin standing at the side of the bed. Everything behind her was glowing, as if she were backlit by the moon, and she looked furious.

  Amanda reached forward and grabbed her by the hand.

  A sound exploded inside Holly’s ears, like a crack of lightning inside a huge metal can. Pain razored through her palm as she suddenly felt like she was holding a live coal. Light, hot and yellow, boiled out of nowhere and surrounded them, and when she tried to cover her face with her hands, Amanda’s hand came with hers, swinging wildly. At the apex of the movement, Holly felt the comforter below her fall away as she was lifted up and off the bed. She lost her grip on Amanda’s hand and sailed across the room like a thrown rag doll.

  When she opened her eyes again, all that was left was the anxious face of her cousin and the agony in her left arm.

  “How are you doing?”

  Perching on the edge of the hospital bed, Holly looked up to see Amanda cautiously peeking around the curtain of her area in the emergency room. The other girl looked even paler than normal, and thin inside her black gown.

  “Better,” Holly said with a shrug. She regretted the move immediately when it set off a dull ache along the arm now immobilized against her chest in a nylon-and-canvas sling. They’d iced it to the point of freezing it off before the doctor had given it an excruciating double tug to set it properly, and now all she was waiting for was the last of the paperwork and a prescription for pain pills.

  She desperately wanted to get out of here and go home—it was bad enough that she’d broken her arm, but did she have to endure sitting here in silver body powder and a costume and being stared at by everyone who passed? It was humiliating. Add to that the nauseating smells of overused antiseptic, bleach, and latex, plus the seemingly never-ending squawk of the intercom system, and Holly could have screamed . . . continuously. “I just can’t wait to get out of here.”

  Amanda nodded sympathetically. “I hate hospitals, too.” She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Holly shifted uncomfortably on the table. Had that been her earlier in the bedroom of Tommy’s house, had she really almost fallen into bed with a guy she barely knew? The whole episode seemed weird, like it had happened to someone else . . . but of course, she had the proof of her own behavior right here, in the form of a nice, nasty jab up her arm that hit her at about every third pulse.

  But what threw me across the room like that? Amanda? No way could the slender girl have done something that required such strength. And what about—

  “I burned my hand,” Amanda said abruptly. She held out her left hand and, grimacing, unfolded her fingers. “See?”

  Holly stared down at it, feeling her heartbeat quicken. After a moment, she used her right arm to hold the sling out enough so that Amanda could see the burn on her own left palm. “Look,” she said softly. “I have a nearly identical burn on mine.”

  Amanda’s mouth fell open. “What? Let me see.” She peered at Holly’s hand, then finally twisted hers until she could get it side by side with Holly’s immobilized one. “Wow—that looks like some kind of pattern, a flower of some sort.”

  “Yeah,” Holly agreed. She had to practically press her chin against her chest to see it. “What do you think it means?”

  Holly glanced at her cousin and found the other girl staring at her. Amanda said, “No clue.”

  Holly said slowly, “One clue.”

  Kari sulked all the way back to her apartment, where Jer was living, now that he had broken with his family.

  “What were you doing to her?” she demanded. “You said we had to go there to warn them, and then I find you . . .” She clamped her mouth shut and stared out the window. “Kissing . . .”

  Jer wanted to say, “I’m sorry.” But he wasn’t.

  Holly.

  Her name danced on his lips, in his veins. Touching her, feeling her move beneath him, knowing that she wanted him . . .

  But it’s not just about us. It’s something to do with what is going on with my father and my brother.

  They are witches. I felt it. I knew it. And those visions that I’ve had . . . their family and mine are linked. I’ve seen enough, I know enough. . . .

  We share a legacy. We were to become the new dynasty, but our parents betrayed us . . . then Isabeau betrayed Jean . . .

  . . . and now she walks, until she kills him again. . . .

  But why? For what reason?

  Kialish and Eddie remained silent in the backseat of Kari’s VW Beetle, respecting the artificial bubble that was created by lovers who quarrel in public. They had left Kialish’s car at Kari’s apartment.

  When they arrived there, they quietly said good night and left. Kari was still yelling at Jer.

  And the only reason he let her do it was so that he wouldn’t have to interact with her. His mind was on Holly Cathers.

  My mind, and my spirit, and my body . . .

  Holly lay in bed, drifting on painkillers, remembering each touch, each kiss with Jer.

  My mind, and my spirit, and my body . . .

  What happened? Why did he come to me, do all those things to me?

  Bast touched her forehead, then her cheek, and then she settled beside Holly’s face and stared long and hard at her mistress. Holly stared back, and then she fell . . .

  . . . into the arms of Jean of the Deveraux, who was carrying her to their marriage bed, murmuring, “Je t’aime, je t’adore, Isabeau. You witch, you have bewitched me.”

  He laid her down ever so gently and murmured to her, “Let me get a boy on you. Let me unite the House.”

  She opened her arms to him, her fierce, dangerous, damned husband, heir to all that was Deveraux.

  I am lost, she thought with glorious abandon. I am his. . . .

  Holly jerked awake. Bast licked her paw with sedate tranquility, then flopped onto her side and stared at Holly.

  “I am his,” she said aloud. She felt as if she were floating above the bed, rushing headlong down a stream.

  “I am his.”

  Then she looked down at the bandage covering her burn. When she tried to exactly replay what had happened, she couldn’t.

  Was it . . . was it something supernatural?

  Bast stared at her.

  Was it . . . could it have been . . . magic?

  The cat began to purr.

  The next day dawned drizzly and wet. Th
e wild night of Halloween was over. Decorations and pumpkins sagged in the rain of All Hallows’ Day. Back in San Francisco, Holly knew a lot of people would be celebrating the Day of the Dead. It would seem that such was not the case in Seattle, at least not among the people in Upper Queen Anne.

  There was no word from Jer, no sign of him, to follow up from what had happened the night before. Holly was devastated.

  After school, Aunt Marie-Claire and Holly had to go to an attorney’s office to sign guardianship papers. Both were somber. It was a closure.

  Marie-Claire had dressed carefully for the occasion in a dark suit and heels, and her trademark heavy makeup and jewelry. She looked like a TV evangelist’s wife.

  Holly didn’t want to go. She didn’t want a guardian. She wanted her parents to be alive again.

  While her aunt made a few calls, she went looking for Amanda, who was in her room reading a book. She looked pale, and very tired.

  Holly came in, her arm aching, and Amanda put down the book and watched Holly intently.

  “So,” she said nervously. “You’re going to the lawyers to become an Anderson.”

  “No. I’ll still be a Cathers.”

  “I think . . . I think I’m a Cathers too,” Amanda said faintly.

  Without another word, Holly unwrapped the bandage on her hand and held it out to show her cousin.

  Amanda pressed her burn mark against Holly’s.

  They looked at each other.

  “I have to tell you some things,” Holly said in a rush. “I’ve had these dreams, and these . . . these weird things have happened. And my father . . . I think my father stayed away from Seattle for a reason.”

  “We all have reasons,” Amanda said slowly, but it was clear she wanted to hear whatever Holly had to say.

  Quickly, before she had to go, Holly had told Amanda all about the sleepwalking and the visions . . . and about Jer.

  And about Nicole and her mother, in the living room.