Bound

by Kirsten Weiss

  “And look for your sister?” I asked.

  He didn’t respond.

  My heartbeat slowed, struggling through dense matter. I grasped his hand, suddenly afraid. “Don’t go into the woods. Not tonight.”

  “It’s all right. I won’t go far.”

  “Please.” Cold fear raced up my spine, gripped the nape of my neck. The forest wasn’t right, and it knew him now. And even though I knew none of these thoughts were rational, he shouldn’t go there. “It’s not safe. Besides, what do you expect to find in the dark?”

  “Answers.”

  “Please. Don’t.”

  His gaze bored into mine. “All right. I won’t. Not tonight.”

  I realized I was still holding his hand, warm and strong. Releasing him, I edged toward the door. “I’ll see you soon.” I stepped into the house.

  He walked down the steps to his SUV and backed down the drive. His headlights cut an arc, and he disappeared down the dark road, leaving a void.

  I went inside and stuck my head into Ellen’s room.

  My aunt slept. Watchful, my sisters sat on the wing chair and in the window seat. They leaned toward the sickbed, and I knew. The end was coming.

  Legs heavy, I walked into the room.

  Ellen’s breath rattled, paused, and there was a long silence, so long I wondered if… And then she exhaled.

  Rattle, stop. Silence, exhale.

  I fumbled to a chair. “Is she…?”

  Lenore rose and motioned to the door. Jayce and I followed her into the kitchen.

  “Is that…?” My voice cracked. “Is that a death rattle?”

  “I think so,” Lenore said. “It started right after Nick left to find you.”

  “But he said he talked to her, that she was okay. What happened?”

  “She woke up,” Lenore said, “really woke up, and she was petrified.”

  Jayce touched my arm. “I volunteered to go after you. It happened not long after you’d left, but she didn’t want either of us to leave the house. After Nick promised to find you, she fell asleep.”

  “She was so insistent,” Lenore said. “I became convinced she knew something was going to happen.”

  “Did anything happen?” Jayce asked.

  “No, nothing. There was nothing. I bought ice cream.” Remembering I still gripped the bag in my hands, I put the carton in the freezer. “Ellen was wrong.”

  “I’m glad,” Lenore said.

  “I’m not,” I said. “If she was wrong about this, what else has she been wrong about? How much of what she’s told us has been real and how much the cancer?”

  My sisters glanced at each other.

  “She’s seemed lucid when she’s talked about the curse,” Lenore said. “You must have noticed the difference. And the curse story is there, in that old book.”

  “Maybe. And maybe it’s just a story.” When our aunt had spoken of the curse and magic, her eyes had been clear, her voice fragile but certain. And then she’d lost herself in a dreamlike ramble, disconnected. “But when she’s not lucid—”

  “Part of it’s the drugs,” Lenore said. “But I think sometimes she drifts to the other side, or a place in between. That’s what she’s seeing when she wanders.”

  “I’d like to believe that’s true,” I said, “that there actually is an other side.” I believed in a lot of things, because I’d experienced them. But I couldn’t release my skeptical side. Too many people were too credulous when it came to the paranormal. Not every bump in the night was a ghost. Not every bad thing that happened was a curse.

  Lenore touched my shoulder. “Karin—”

  “Well, the other side was wrong about danger to me at the store.” I opened a cupboard and took out a tall glass, poured myself water from the tap. “I got the ice cream without any problems,” I said, my voice light, “the last carton of peach in the freezer.”

  “Karin, it won’t be long now,” Lenore said. “Tonight, I think.”

  Jayce laid a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  I shut off the tap. Laying the glass on the counter, I gripped the edge of the sink. A vein pulsed in my jaw.

  Tonight.

  Ellen had woken up, and I’d been gone. And they’d told me to go to the store, told me it would be all right. And when I’d asked Lenore if she’d wanted to go in my place, she’d declined. Somehow, she’d known. “You said she’d be here when I got back. You let me think it was okay to go.” My jaw clenched.

  “I’m sorry,” Lenore whispered.

  Ashamed, I slumped against the counter. Lenore couldn’t have known Ellen would wake up.

  Jayce blinked. “Ellen shouldn’t be alone.” Pivoting on her heels, she hurried from the room.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not you that’s got me going.”

  “I understand,” Lenore said. “But figuring out this curse is important to Ellen. You may not believe it—”

  “It’s real,” I said in a dull voice.

  “The curse? You believe?”

  “Doyle’s not right. I see it now. I can see a lot of things I wasn’t able to before.”

  “Seeing things? What sorts of things?”

  “Visions. The present. Maybe the future. Ellen bound my powers when I was a child. Did you know that?”

  “No. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because she only recently told me.” I laughed, shaky. “Ellen said I’ve always had the power to see the connections between people. She bound them so I wouldn’t see the curse and be frightened. Ellen removed the binding spell the other day, but I’m not sure what I’m seeing. I’m a beginner at this, and I still go back and forth between whether what I see is real or I’m deluding myself.”

  “I don’t know what you’re seeing, but I believe in you. You’re the most practical of us all.”

  “Boring, you mean.”

  “Smart. Sensible. Those aren’t bad things.”

  “Do you think…. Do you think it’s more than just us? That it’s Doyle?” I asked.

  “That there are other witches here, you mean?” Lenore asked.

  No, it hadn’t been what I’d meant, but I turned the idea over, thinking of those black cords of energy. “Could Ellen’s death be a part of the curse?” It made sense. Ellen was too young and had no history of cancer in her family. The sudden spread of her cancer had coincided with the other Doyle weirdness. And the rabbit. I’d seen a carved rabbit when I’d gone into the spring. And the madwoman, and Ellen… Was I imagining a connection?

  “I don’t know,” Lenore said. “I hadn’t… Her illness seems natural.”

  “But all the curse deaths look natural, don’t they?” I asked, my certainty growing. “Deaths in childbirth, car accidents, hikers disappearing in the woods.”

  “Hikers?”

  “It all seems natural, and maybe that’s the problem. I’ve been going back and forth about this curse, because there’s a logical explanation for everything. That’s part of its power. That’s why we haven’t looked at it as a cause for Ellen’s illness. The doctors have been treating the symptoms, not the cause.”

  “Even if that were true,” Lenore said, “the cancer is everywhere. Karin, you need to accept this.”

  “Why should I? Ellen hasn’t. She’s not ready to leave.”

  Lenore’s lips trembled. She hurried from the room.

  I shouldn’t have said it. Remorseful, I set the empty glass in the sink. It was true, Ellen didn’t want to die. But telling Lenore had been needlessly hurtful. I should go after my sister, but my legs wouldn’t budge.

  I don’t want to die.

  I choked down a sob.

  Ellen wasn’t ready, and this wasn’t her time. And if magic had attacked Ellen, if the curse was the cause of her ailment, then we should fight it with magic.

  I had to try.

  Slipping to the back door, I went outside.

  This was crazy.

  No, not crazy. Sensible. I was the sensible one, after all, and
I’d fight magic with magic.

  Crickets chirped in the nearby clumps of flowers, their buds closed for the night. Light flowed from the windows of the house.

  I halted, giving my eyes time to adjust to the half-dark.

  Scanning the ground, I walked to the other side of the house. It had been days since the crow had struck the window, and the weather had been hot. I half-hoped an animal had carried the bird off. A black feather stuck in a rosemary bush, and I carefully removed it. “Eight more to go,” I muttered.

  Another ebony feather, beneath a clump of lavender. Stooping, I picked it up, and froze. The bird was there, its black legs stiff in the air. I forced myself closer and grimaced. Black ants poured over the dead bird, its eyes two gaping holes. A line of ants marched inside its beak, down its throat.

  I turned away, choking on bile.

  Feathers lay scattered around the bird. Swiftly, I collected five more. The spell required nine.

  I lightly placed my foot on the bird and grasped a feather, yanked. The corpse trembled at the assault. Wincing, I plucked another. The bird slipped from beneath my foot, tossed into the air, and thumped against the side of the house. It fell to the ground. Ants scattered.

  Disgusted, I jogged to the rear of the house and up the stairs, to the attic. I flipped on the lights and hurried to the secretary, trying not to let the boards creak beneath my feet. I laid the feathers on the desk and took the spell book from the glass cabinet.

  A Ladder to Binde the Soule to the Flesh.

  I’d seen sewing supplies beside an old-fashioned, treadle sewing machine in a corner of the attic. Slithering between the stacked boxes, I found the machine, and the plastic case of scissors and needles and thread. I unlatched the sewing case, drew out a roll of thick black thread and a pair of scissors.

  So I was doing this.

  A board groaned beneath my feet. I paused, listening for my sisters’ voices, and didn’t question my need for secrecy.

  I returned to the secretary and open book and sat on the delicate chair. All I had to do was braid the string and tie the nine feathers into it while speaking the incantation. It was a lot easier than most of my knitting patterns.

  I swore beneath my breath. The feathers needed to be tied using Ellen’s hair — a detail I’d forgotten.

  I slunk downstairs. Ellen’s bathroom had two doors — one from the bedroom and one from the hallway. I used the latter entrance to avoid my sisters. Their voices rose and fell in the room next door. I found Ellen’s hairbrush and slipped upstairs, returned to the attic.

  At the antique secretary, I paused. Was this right? Was it what Ellen really wanted?

  I don’t want to die. Ellen’s voice echoed in my mind.

  I pressed my eyes shut. If magic was taking Ellen, then magic might save her. Ellen wasn’t ready to go.

  You’re not ready for her to go, and isn’t that what’s at issue here?

  “Ellen,” I whispered. “Stay.” I thought of my aunt, strong and laughing. My eyes filled with tears.

  Quickly, before I could overthink it, I cut three lengths of string and braided them together. I stretched the braid along the desk and lay nine feathers beside it, equidistant from each other.

  Taking the first feather, I glanced at the spell book. I placed the feather in the braid, tying it with a hair from Ellen’s brush. “Plume of one, my magik’s spun, I call your soul, the earth to hold.”

  I inserted the second feather. “Plume of two, my wille to hew, on Earthe you stay through euer nat’ral days.”

  The third feather: “Plume of three, this pow’r I weave…”

  My scalp tingled.

  “Plume of foure, I lock this door…”

  Heat rushed up my spine.

  “Plume of five…”

  The feather quivered, energy surging through my fingers. Something flashed in the corner of my eyes.

  “Plume of six…”

  “…of seven…” I swayed, head spinning.

  “…eight, so speaketh fate…”

  Sweat streamed down my forehead. My blood was on fire, electric.

  “Plume of nine, euer soule I bind, and heav’n does wait euer soule to take.” My voice echoed weirdly through the attic, and then an unnatural silence descended.

  I collapsed in the chair. My breath rasped, harsh in my ears.

  I touched the braid. “Ellen,” I murmured. “Stay.”

  A cricket chirped outside. Others joined in, a growing chorus.

  Shaky, I rose. I scrabbled inside a drawer and found a black pushpin, hung the ladder of knots and feathers in the window. The feathers spiraled, slow and mesmerizing.

  The power of the spell had surged through me, but I was afraid to hope it might have worked.

  Descending the attic ladder, I stumbled and had to catch myself, my legs trembling with exhaustion. I thought of the crow, its tiny eye sockets, black and empty, and I shuddered.

  I trudged to Ellen’s bedroom.

  My sisters looked up from their seats.

  Doctor Toeller leaned over the bed and took Ellen’s pulse. A stethoscope dangled from her swanlike neck. She was out of her doctor’s gear and in slim, white slacks and an ice-blue, knit top. The doctor laid our aunt’s limp hand atop the coverlet. “It won’t be long now. Would you like me to stay?”

  I sagged against the doorframe.

  The spell had failed.

  Of course it had failed. What had I been thinking? That my magic could ward off death?

  “If you stay, what can you do?” Jayce asked the doctor.

  “Administer morphine, if the discomfort becomes too great.” She brushed Ellen’s cheek with the back of one finger. “I will miss you, old friend.”

  My sisters and I looked at each other, silent communication passing between us.

  “Please stay,” Lenore said. “I’ll bring another chair.”

  “Would you like some tea?” Jayce asked.

  We bustled about, getting the doctor settled. The four of us made small talk in low voices, remembering Ellen, our chairs pulled close around the death bed.

  My nails bit into my palms. Please wake up. Please at least let me say a final goodbye.

  The numbers on Ellen’s alarm clock flipped, ticking off the minutes.

  “You were here when Ellen moved to Doyle,” I said to the doctor. “You must be her oldest friend here.”

  “Not quite,” she said. “I’m afraid, at first, Ellen blamed me for your mother’s death. It took her a long time to forgive me, but not as long as it took for me to forgive myself. I wonder, if I’d had the equipment then that I have today, if things would have been different.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” Jayce smothered a yawn.

  We talked on, watching.

  Midnight. One a.m.. Two.

  Dr. Toeller rose and checked our aunt. “There’s no change.”

  My head came up. “Is that normal?”

  “I’ve learned the hard way not to anticipate death,” the doctor said. “I can fight it, but it comes in its own good time.”

  Outside, a sudden wind kicked up, swirling through the open window, tossing our hair. It set loose gates slamming and wind chimes jangling and trees groaning. The wind carried the electrical intensity of a storm, but the real storm was brewing inside me. I jumped from my chair and slid the window closed.

  The wind blew harder, and a branch squeaked against the window. And even though I knew it was only a branch and only the wind, my heart jumped every damn time.

  At three o’clock, the doctor checked again. “It seems we were wrong. It looks like your aunt is going to be with us a bit longer.”

  “Is she improving?” I jolted forward to the edge of my chair. Had the spell worked?

  “I wouldn’t say that,” the doctor said, “but she’s not declining.”

  Lenore’s brow creased.

  “But that’s good news, isn’t it?” Jayce asked.

  “You girls need to prepare yourselves,” the doctor sa
id, gathering her things. “Take this time to tell your aunt you love her, and that you’ll be all right. Don’t let her leave this world worrying about you three.”

  Lenore walked the doctor to her car.

  Dizzy with relief, I took Ellen’s hand.

  The spell had worked.

  I was magic, had felt it coursing through me, and I wouldn’t let this curse win.

  “Ellen’s not going anywhere without a fight,” Jayce said, grim.

  “No,” I said. “She’s not.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Yawning in Ellen’s kitchen, I poured cereal into a bowl. Ellen had slept through the night for the first time in ages. But her rest had been fitful. She’d muttered, her head tossing. Strange, livid marks had appeared on Ellen’s cheeks, as if she’d been slapped.

  I’d been up most of the night, my nerves taut, checking on my aunt. Lenore and Jayce had finally gone home, while I remained. I’d eventually fallen asleep, curled in Ellen’s window seat, and dreamed of a white spider. The size of my hand, it transformed into a white snake, eating its tail, then turned back into a spider. I’d woken up with aching muscles and a fuzzy brain.

  Now I listened, head cocked, for sounds from her bedroom.

  None came.

  Eyes burning, I stood in front of the porcelain sink and stared out the window In Ellen’s herb garden, the late morning sun lit knots and whorls of greenery. When we were kids, Ellen had led us through the garden and quizzed us on the magical properties of those herbs. Jayce had aced that exam.

  I sighed, remembering. If Ellen woke up today, maybe we could take her outside.

  My head rocked. Was that even possible? That Ellen would improve enough to go outside? Warmth bubbled in my chest. My spell was working. I’d fight whatever magic the curse had unleashed, and Ellen would return.

  Maybe.

  I forced myself back to earth. Maybe.

  The front door slammed. After a minute, Jayce ambled into the kitchen. She stretched, her low-cut, wine-colored top riding up her stomach.

  “Any change?” Jayce slipped a thumb inside the waistband of her black yoga pants, adjusting them.

  “No. She’s still sleeping.”

  My sister grabbed the teapot and filled it with water. “You don’t look like you got much sleep.”