by Kady Cross
Nan came down the steps toward us. She looked pissed. “Look at the two of you! Fighting like a couple of cats. What’s wrong with you? You’re sisters, not enemies!”
She could see both of us perfectly, I realized. And we could certainly see her.
“You’re both grounded,” she announced. “I’m not going to put up with this foolishness. You fight the bad things in this world, not each other. You talk things out with your hearts and your heads, not your fists. Am I understood? Now get in that house and stay there until you can be civil to one another.”
“I have school,” I said.
Nan’s brow arched. “Not today, you don’t.” Then to Ben and the others: “You three had better be on your way or you’ll be late.”
Ben—who luckily didn’t have a scratch on him—nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Noble.” Then he looked at me, and I knew he’d call later.
As the three of them got into the car, Nan turned back to us. Wren actually smirked at her. What the hell had Noah done to my sister? “You can’t ground me,” she said, her tone dripping mockery.
Oh, the look on our grandmother’s face! She was a good and kind woman, and I loved her to death, but at that moment I’d rather go a hundred more rounds with Wren than be the recipient of that look.
“Wrenleigh Noble, as a child of my blood I bind you—” Nan put her finger to Wren’s forehead and drew a crimson line on it. Blood? “—to this house until I give you release.” She drew a line through the other to make a crude cross.
My sister gasped and disappeared. I jumped back. “What the hell?”
“Language,” Nan warned, pointing a finger at me.
“Where’d she go?”
“Your room, I expect. I don’t know. I’m new to this stuff. I’m surprised it even worked.” She stuck the tip of her finger—the one that had drawn the cross—in her mouth.
“When did you learn to bind a ghost?”
“I found it in an old book of my father’s. I suppose it had belonged to Emily—she mentioned it in her diary, and I thought it sounded familiar. I assumed a binding incantation might be a good thing to know, given our family history and the fact that I’m living with two teenage girls.” She smiled. There was a little blood on her teeth.
I stared at her. “What else did you learn?”
The smile faded. “That Emily felt responsible for a young man’s death because of what she’d done to the ghost of his sister, and that the young man vowed revenge upon her and her line.”
Two guesses as to who the young man was.
“Now you go in there and settle things with your sister. I don’t care what you have to do, but it’s obvious she’s not right. I’ll be home after my yoga class, and if anything’s broken, both of you are going to be sorry. Is that clear?”
I nodded. Dumbfounded. Maybe it was weak of me, but I spent so much of my time trying to figure out what to do that it was nice to have it decided for me.
My grandmother kissed me on the forehead. “Good girl. I’ll see you in an hour.”
As she went to get into her VW, I picked up my bag from the driveway and started for the house.
“Oh, Lark?” Nan called.
I turned. She stood with the driver’s door open, smiling at me. “Clean up that glass and put a new bulb in, will you, dear?”
Right. The lightbulb. “You know, technically, that was Wren’s fault.”
She gave me the look.
“Sure, I’ll do it now.”
She smiled again, got into her car and pulled out of the drive. I got the broom and swept up the glass, and then dumped that in the garbage before getting another bulb. I had to use a ladder to remove what was left of the old one and install the new. My ribs—battered by my sister—protested almost every move I made, even descending the ladder.
Hopefully Wren had cooled down some in the time it took me to complete my task. I had, but Wren had more of a temper than I did.
I was cautious as I entered the house, every sense on alert, waiting for my sister’s attack.
None came.
When I opened the door to my room, Wren stood in the middle of the carpet. She wasn’t dressed in shadows anymore, but wore a boho dress that was more her style, and her hair hung smoothly around her shoulders. She turned to face me—there were still dark smudges around her eyes and mouth. She held out her bare arms—ivory pale except for gray-and-black veins just beneath the surface. Those veins climbed up her neck and framed her face, as well.
Her gaze was horrified as it met mine. “Lark, what’s wrong with me?”
WREN
Lark grabbed my arms, holding them so she could look at the dark spiderwebs that hadn’t been there an hour ago.
“Why do these things always happen to you?” she demanded. “Why can’t these douche bags come after me for once?”
She wasn’t mad at me anymore. Not like she had been. I wasn’t mad at her, either. Well, maybe a little, but my fear won out over it for the moment.
“You really didn’t take Noah’s remains, did you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He’d be dust if I had.”
I believed her.
She lifted her head, and her gaze met mine. “I took yours, though.”
I blinked. For a second, I forgot all about the blackness creeping over my form. “You dug up my grave?” My voice rose higher with every word.
“Yup. Hid your casket, too.”
“Why?”
She arched a brow. “Uh, because if Noah can possess Kevin and make him hide his bones, he can make Kevin burn yours.”
“Noah wouldn’t do that.”
My arms fell to my sides when she released them. “What did he say when you asked him why he never mentioned that he was related to Kevin? Did he tell you that he was afraid it might change things between you?”
“Yes. Sort of.”
Her lips twitched. “Let me guess—he talks about not wanting to come between us, but tells you that I don’t understand you, that I’m overprotective, stifling?”
I had that dropping feeling inside. “Maybe.”
She didn’t gloat like I expected her to. “I’m sorry, Wren.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry I picked a fight with you.” I frowned. “I was just so angry.” In that moment I had hated her and wanted to destroy her. My God, I’d wanted to kill my sister. How could I have ever wanted that?
She took one of my hands and tugged me toward her vanity. “I need you to see something.” She gestured to the mirror.
I bent down to look at myself.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered. My hair was normal, but there was darkness around my eyes and mouth, and black veins like the ones on my arms. “My aura’s not right.” It had splotches of green in it. Like Noah’s aura. “We merged,” I whispered. “I’d never done it before, and it was so incredible. But he left some of himself behind, inside me.”
Lark made a face. “Didn’t need to know all that, but, okay. Looks like Noah’s infected you with a spectral STD. Which is, you know, gross.”
I smiled—not that there was much to smile about. “You always do that.”
“What?”
“Joke about a serious situation to make it seem less terrible. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
She looked surprised. “Thanks.”
“I don’t like it when we fight.”
“I don’t either.” She paused. A sheepish grin curved her lips. “But we were pretty freaking awesome, weren’t we? I mean, I felt like we had at least a few more rounds before we tired each other out.”
We laughed, and I felt like I might choke on it. “I don’t want to believe Noah did this to me on purpose.”
“Hold up. We don’t know for sure that this is a bad thing. I mean, m
aybe it’s some kind of protective spell. I mean, maybe Emily was wrong. Maybe Kevin’s wrong, too. Hell, even I might be wrong. Maybe Noah’s exactly as he presented himself to you.”
She didn’t believe any of what she’d just said. I knew that just by looking at her, but she wanted it to be true, for me. My sister would do anything for me, and I would do anything for her. Wouldn’t I?
At the moment I was getting the oddest urge to attack her again. This anger was unfamiliar. Strange. It wasn’t mine. It was Noah’s. How could I have been so foolish?
“I don’t think this is for my protection, and there’s nothing good about it.”
Lark put her arms around my shoulders and pulled me into a fierce hug. “No,” she murmured. “But I’ll fix it, Wrennie. Nobody’s going to take you away from me.”
I was so close to her I could rip her eye out of its socket before she could blink. I let that realization just hang there for a bit. I could bite her. Punch her. I could do all sorts of violence to her.
I hugged her tighter. “I’m scared,” I whispered.
“It’s going to be okay.”
God, I wanted to rip her throat out. “I don’t think it is.”
She pulled away and looked at me. “You look like you want to kill me.”
“I think I do,” I replied. “I don’t. But...I do.”
Lark didn’t look concerned. “Wreck this room, and I’ll get Nan to bind you to a sewer drain.”
“This isn’t a joke, Lark!” Panic gripped me by the throat. “I want to hurt the only person who has ever loved me!”
“So do it.”
I gaped at her. “What?”
“You’re standing there flapping your lips about how much you want to hurt me, but you haven’t even flicked me in the eye. Come on, then. Hurt me.”
“I...I can’t.” Not now. Even though the urge was there, I couldn’t bring myself to harm her.
“Then shut up about it. We’ve got bigger things to worry about. We’ve got to do something.”
“We’re grounded, remember?” It came out more snide than I intended. “I’m bound to this place until Nan lets me go.”
Lark raised her gaze—to the bloody cross on my forehead, no doubt. “It’s a neat trick. I think we need to take a look at some of the family books she’s kept.” Books. The living kept so much information in books. Lark and I had learned so much on our own when there had been books in this house that could have helped us if we’d only known.
“But first,” she continued, “we need to find out what’s wrong with you.”
“Unless you’ve become an expert in spectral infections, I don’t think you’re going to have much luck.”
“Not me,” she replied. She gestured to the full-length mirror. “Emily.”
“You really think we can summon her? That she’ll even know what’s wrong with me?”
“Hey, she knows we’re Melinoe. That puts us ahead of us.”
“Melinoe?” I echoed. “She said that?”
“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to look it up.” She turned on the laptop on her desk. “How could I have forgotten? And why do you have that expression on your face?”
“Noah called me that the other day. When I asked what it meant, he told me it was ancient Greek for ‘a pretty girl.’”
Lark glanced over her shoulder at me. “Sounds like he was fishing to see if we knew what it was.” She turned back to the computer and started typing. “Let’s find out.”
I drew closer and peered over her shoulder at the screen. “How do we sort what’s correct and what’s not?”
“We look for anything that seems to describe us.” She clicked on a link. “Nope.” Then another. And another. And then...
“The daughter of Persephone and Hades—or Zeus, depending on what version you prefer.” She scrolled down a bit. “Okay, here we go. ‘Melinoe travels between the world of the living and the land of the dead, driving people mad with fear and defending the living from the vengeful dead. She rules over ghosts, hauntings, madness and restless spirits. She is often depicted as half white, half black, but early depictions show her as half white, half red. There are those who say she’s not a single creature at all, but twins, one born to the living and one born to the dead, representing Persephone’s agreement with Hades to spend part of the year in the Underworld and part of the year on earth.’”
Lark turned her head toward me.
“Well,” I said, “that seems to describe us a bit.”
My sister looked dumbfounded. “We’re not goddesses. No freaking way.”
“Of course not,” I agreed. “But we’re not human, Lark. Not entirely. We’re something else.” Two halves of the same whole. It was true.
“Greek, apparently.” She made a sound that I thought was supposed to be laughter.
I crouched beside her, so that I wasn’t bent over her shoulder. “Lark, we’re not freaks. We’re not some weird accident. We’re meant to be. We have a purpose. Isn’t that wonderful?”
The expression on her face made me wonder if maybe I was the one with domain over madness. “We’re mythical!” Her voice was a hoarse squeak. “Like freaking Thor.”
“He’s very cute.” She gave me an exasperated look, so I decided to leave the joke-making to her. “Lark, I know this is a lot to process, but I think you’re missing the positive part of this.”
“Enlighten me.”
“We protect the world from vengeful spirits. According to Emily, Noah’s a vengeful spirit. He never told me what Melinoe meant because he’s afraid of us. If he’s afraid of us, that means he sees us as a threat. We can stop him. Why else would he want to set us against each other?”
“We’re stronger together than we are apart.”
“Exactly. Now I’m going to go over by the window because I really want to eat your face.” Oh, yes, I was definitely the crazy one. Strangely enough, I was fine with that realization. It made me suddenly make sense to myself.
“Touch my face, and I’ll take you back to Noah myself.”
I think she meant it.
LARK
The black veins were getting worse. And so was Wren’s aggression. Her mood swings I could handle, but I didn’t know what to do about the veins.
I went looking for books in the den, but the only one I found was the one that had given Nan the binding spell. It was an old book on Protection From and For Restless Spirits by Alexander Murray. A relative of Nan’s, I guessed. It had lots of interesting information that I wanted to learn, but nothing that could help Wren at that moment.
She was on the bed, her pale skin completely crisscrossed with black. How did a ghost even have veins? Or was it just a manifestation of the infection? An easy way to make itself known? There was so much I didn’t understand about my sister and what she was. So much I didn’t understand about myself. I thought maybe the whole Melinoe thing would give us answers, and it did, but it brought more questions with it.
Nan would be home soon. I didn’t know if lifting the binding spell would help Wren or not. I didn’t know if my sister would try to hurt our grandmother, either. I really didn’t know much of anything, except that if Noah McCrae weren’t already dead I’d cheerfully kill him.
I sat down in front of my vanity mirror and tapped on the glass. “Hey, Emily? Are you there?”
Nothing.
The spirit board with the image of the red and white twins was in front of me. The last time I’d touched it Wren and I had ended up in the void, but what if I touched it by myself? Two days out from Halloween I probably shouldn’t even look at it, but what the hell.
My instinct told me to place my hand on the white-haired twin, which made sense since I was the white-haired twin attempting to contact another white-haired twin. Why hadn’t Emily told us what we were befor
e this? How hard would it have been to tell us to research Melinoe?
We weren’t really aspects of a goddess, were we? That was a bit much, even for me. But...well, I wasn’t going to pretend it wouldn’t be awesomely cool. All my life I’d felt like a freak—or at least since I was old enough to be called one—and the idea that there was something bigger to it, something with meaning, was incredible.
Still, I didn’t know what would happen when I touched the board. Maybe nothing. I glanced at Wren. She looked to be asleep, but she didn’t sleep. I didn’t know what was wrong with her, and that was my biggest concern.
I put my hand on the board, directly on top of the white-haired twin. A jolt ran up my arm, like a little shock from a wall plug.
My reflection in the mirror swam, distorting my face, twisting it into something strange and gruesome, before putting it back together as someone else.
Emily.
My ancestor looked disoriented—probably the same way I appeared when she contacted me this way. Had I summoned her to a mirror, or was there one near her wherever she was?
She seemed startled to see me. “Lark. How did you do that?”
“There’s something wrong with Wren,” I told her. And then, “Are we really Melinoe?” tumbled from my mouth. So much for trying to be calm and focused. “I touched the spirit board, that’s how.”
Emily’s gaze didn’t quite meet mine but seemed to be fixed on a point above my left shoulder. I glanced up and saw Wren standing there, looking like a statue carved from black-and-white marble.
“He’s with her,” Wren said, tonelessly.
I heard a chuckle that sent a shiver down my spine. Noah. He stepped into the mirror, standing at Emily’s side. She moved her arm, as though trying to avoid touching him. I didn’t blame her.
God, I hated him and that smug smile of his.
“Miss Noble, so nice to see you again. Wren, darling, you look distressed. Come home, dearest, and all will be well.” He looked right at me. “Your sister’s condition will only worsen the longer she is away from me.”
