Episode Five: The Sisterhood, #5

by Tali Inlow

  The Sisterhood: Episode Five

  The Sisterhood, Volume 5

  Tali Inlow

  Published by Tali Inlow, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE SISTERHOOD: EPISODE FIVE

  First edition. December 28, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Tali Inlow.

  ISBN: 978-1393923503

  Written by Tali Inlow.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  EPISODE FIVE The Sheriff

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  Also By Tali Inlow

  About the Author

  EPISODE FIVE

  The Sheriff

  THE STREETS IN THE territory of Owl House are safe at night. Not all the Houses can say the same.

  The air is heavy against Summer’s skin in the dark. She’s cuffed her plaid sleeves up to her elbows. Only once the brutal sun dips below the horizon each day does she dare expose so much of her body to the elements. The acid rains are temperamental at best, spontaneous and brutal at worst. The sun can cook a person from the inside out when it rages just so. And there is a cruelness carried on the Winds, a Sickness that Summer would wish on no one, not even her worst enemies, that even reaches inside the remnants of the city from time to time.

  But the Winds are rare here, the Sickness rarer still; the sun goes down like clockwork, even now; and the air tastes fresh in a way that it hasn’t in weeks. Or months, or years, Summer can’t say. Time has taken on a new meaning since the old world Ended and this new one sprung forth from its remains. Time, to Summer, means opportunity; schedules to adhere to, deadlines to meet. Opportunity leads to victory, and victory to power.

  Power, Summer knows. Power, a skill taught to Summer a long, long time ago—a weapon she knows well how to wield.

  And she does wield it in a very particular way, here in Owl House. A fierce leader, the Sheriff who protects her people—who has allowed them to prosper, even in the eyes of those from other Houses.

  The Sheriff who, even now, protects her House by thoughtfully considering how to continue to protect herself...

  The moon is bright, illuminating the sidewalk beneath her feet and the road before her. Summer picked this part of the city when she, Zosia, and Blake arrived all those years ago for a few reasons, all of which had strategic value then—all of which have reaped dividends for Owl House, and for the three of them.

  The street she’s on now is an older part of the city; no skyscrapers or newer buildings. Instead, sturdy and time-tested architecture, proven infrastructure, all covering a compact but versatile area of land. With old storefronts that now serve as open marketplaces during the early morning and late evening hours, a side-by-side police department and fire station near the center of the territory, and a string of homes hemmed in by another ring of old businesses. It offers a certain protection via deterrence that Summer had known would be valuable.

  She’d even known people would covet it. But she had yet to see the full extent to which they would go to take it from her.

  Even as she wonders about the details of this inevitable attempt at supplantation, Summer knows that she has done what she can, is doing everything in her power to delay it.

  Hence the Summons. Hence her need for her Sisters, whomsoever of them still exist.

  Hence her paranoia and nerves, her tight grasp on the power structure she has manufactured at the world’s End.

  And it is this paranoia—coupled with a deeply ingrained and finely honed familiarity for the other woman—that keeps Summer from being surprised by Blake’s arrival in her periphery.

  “Hey Summer,” Blake says, her voice lilting in that beautiful way it tends toward.

  Summer fingers at the token in her pocket, the threat she had received in the night, that she had awoken next to only this morning. She clenches it firmly in her hand before releasing it and turning to embrace her friend in a one-armed companionable hug.

  “My friend, tell me you have good news?”

  “They’ve received him, not only into Wolf House with his entire family, but into the den of the She-Wolf herself.”

  Malcolm. This news pleases Summer. She squeezes Blake where her arm is wrapped around the woman’s midriff, then drops her arm back to her side. They stay close to one another, walking along, side by side in the near absolute dark. Only the occasional flickering candlelight from inside peoples’ homes cuts a yellow swath across the path they tread.

  Summer had made a calculating decision in cutting Malcolm’s hand off at the wrist. In that one swift action, she had made another choice altogether, and one far more conniving: to heal him, to give him back what she had taken. Sending him away from Owl House, that had been the most deliberate choice of all—and the fact that he has already been accepted into Yuuko’s dwelling? Summer could have kissed the man, his wife, and his children, one by one and with great flourish and affection, if they were within reach.

  But they aren’t. Of course they aren’t. Because the plan, the plan is working. Things have been set in motion, and even though Summer is the one edging things along, pushing bit by bit until the world aligns in her favor, she will also be the first to admit that she cannot yet see the end of it. She’s moving chess pieces in the dark, hoping for the best—the field of play even now unseen to her, no real certainty behind her speculations of Yuuko’s machinations on the other side. Malcolm is a pawn, and he is Summer’s. But Yuuko has many a pawn in play herself.

  This is why the Summons is so important. Whitmore Girls could be nothing so lowly as pawns—Whitmore Girls are knights and bishops, rooks and kings, and queens, above all. Whitmore Girls, however many of their kind remain, will even now be approaching Phoenix, and Owl House, and Summer’s doorstep.

  Summer tells herself this. She repeats it regularly. Because Blake and Zosia are fierce and formidable, and Arke alone is equal to a dozen or more foot soldiers herself. But Arke has not yet returned, and even the best among Summer’s friends and found family of Owl House cannot stand against Yuuko, not if the woman rallies more than merely Wolf House to knock down Summer’s door...

  “You seem stressed,” Blake says. Never one to pull a punch, this woman.

  The smile Summer turns on Blake is a small thing, transparent to someone like Blake who has known Summer now most of her life. It telegraphs much to the other woman, the things Summer would have her know as much as the things she would keep to herself.

  “Uneasy lies the head...”

  She trails off, knowing that Blake can fill in the blanks. Knowing that Blake has always understood the stress Summer would one day be under. If the world hadn’t Ended, it might have been a different sort of rule: perhaps one under the watchful eye of Summer’s terrible and terrifying father; or overseas, working with foreign governments in trade agreements or covert military operations. Blake and Zosia had often wondered, late at night, since they were girls at Whitmore and many a time in the years since, whether Summer—with her magnetism and charisma, with the gifts Whitmore had given her from the very beginning—would make her way back to that place, eventually. Perhaps it was Summer who would take up the mantle of Headmistress in time.

  But the world had other plans for all of them. The world always tended towards having considerable and important plans for people like Summer, and Zosia and Blake had realized a long time ago that wherever Summer went? They’d be right there with her.

  “I have to finish checking out the western sector, then I’m turning in. Find me and Zosia late
r, will you? Stress is something you know we can help with.”

  Summer squeezes Blake’s elbow in grateful acknowledgment, then Blake takes her blonde head and lithe, pale figure, disappearing into the shadows as if she belongs to them, or them to her.

  A door opens ahead of Summer on the sidewalk, and a man and a woman emerge, holding hands and sharing nervous glances as they move out towards the street. They stop abruptly when they see her, her figure muted enough in the night as to make it not entirely obvious who she is. Stepping forward, she moves into the light. Comprehension dawns on the two of them like a switch activating, their faces shifting immediately from the nervousness of the unknown to the fear of knowing. Because Summer protects her family, and they love her for it—but they are also keenly aware of how easily trust once earned can still be lost.

  “Sheriff!” the woman exclaims.

  The man hurries forward, his stance tense but eager. He extends his right hand to her, as his partner occupies his left. He’s dragged her forward with him, and she looks up through long eyelashes at Summer as the man shakes Summer’s hand. He is bald, his skin like darkened leather from years beneath the brutal sun; the woman, dark but in a more delicate way. Her hair is blonde, but Summer cannot tell if it is natural like her own or if it has been altered by the sun over time.

  “Sheriff, what an honor—” the man begins, but a new arrival interrupts him.

  Summer has moved forward and positioned herself nearly at a right angle to the doorway, where a small human has just propelled itself out and smack-dab into her side.

  “Oof!” the little thing exhales, having nearly knocked the air from their own lungs.

  Reflexes sharp, Summer reaches down to steady the petite thing. And as she does so, those light blue eyes and light curls of hair look up into Summer’s own stormy eyes; they reach out, dragging Summer down and into a swirling memory...

  It is two years before Summer is to start at the Whitmore School for Girls. She isn’t even eleven yet, but she is nearly there. The sprawling grounds of the Virginian estate make an excellent playground for a young girl like Summer Destiny Norwood. There are fields to run through, streams to wade in for catching crawdads, horses to ride.

  And there are rules to break.

  Summer has tried her level best to be better these past few months at home. Breaking fewer rules is difficult but not impossible. Unfortunately for Summer, her inquisitive spirit often gets her in trouble with her father, whether she’s gone so far as to actually break the rules or not. And Summer’s mother is her own reckoning force. But she can only shield Summer from so much of Russell Norwood’s wrath. Summer’s mother can’t protect her from everything, all the time. Summer is learning this in spades, whether she or her mother are happy about it or not.

  This bright June morning sees a young Summer dressed for exploring the southeastern acreage, where she has become utterly convinced a mystery resides. That there is both a treasure buried there and that a witch has cursed the ground, Summer is certain. This means one thing, and one thing only: Summer needs to explore it. She’s got her boots and her tactical vest on—packed with highly necessary items for exploring. Like her magnifying glass, her pocket notebook and pencil, and a pocket knife with a dozen gadgets and gizmos on it.

  The one catch: the part of the southeastern acreage that Summer is intent on exploring is about three miles from the house. And distance like that would be much easier to cover with four legs rather than two.

  Summer wants to take her horse out with her—he is a dapple gray Arabian named Dakota with an attitude nearly as stubborn as Summer’s. But the stable hand requires Mr. Norwood’s permission—via direct phone call down to the stables, apparently, since Summer fudged his permission enough times in the past to get them both into serious trouble.

  Tiptoeing through the foyer, Summer heads to her father’s study.

  And it is a study, in the most formal sense of the word. Books covering every inch of two entire walls. Massive picture windows to bring in natural light, the best kind for reading. A desk so large and imposing that Summer is only now just getting tall enough to not feel silly standing in front of it. There are two chairs opposite the formidable desk, not intended for comfort, by any means; high-backed and leather-covered. A couch across the room, where Summer has spent many an evening reading—unbeknownst to her father, who wouldn’t have been particularly pleased with any kid, let alone his own, spending time in his study unaccompanied.

  The doors into the study are the kind that slide open—big old-fashioned things, oaken and heavy. And whoever had last shut them had done a poor job of it, because Summer can see right inside through the gap.

  There is movement inside, someone pacing. She quickly determines that it is her father. Odd, him pacing on this side of the room, in front of his desk, back and forth across the expensive rug—the one he has, time and time again, informed Summer of its luxurious costs, to keep her from making a fool of herself and soiling it in some abhorrent and unforgivable way.

  As if Summer would dare get that thing dirty. She’s had enough spankings in her young life to fear the hand of her family’s patriarch.

  Focusing, Summer holds her breath to listen. Her father is talking to someone. But who? He doesn’t have a phone in there, not unless he’s on his personal cell.

  But no, there’s a second voice! Hushed and wicked, Summer thinks. A bit of a hiss, a slur, then a careful sharpness. He isn’t alone, and whoever is in there with him is stirring up a furious storm, however hush hush they are pretending to be.

  If Summer could hear any of the words then, the memory from her ten-year-old self is lost to her now. But Summer remembers what happens next, as if it had happened only yesterday.

  Her hand, which has been resting on one smooth edge of the door, slips. The door glides away from her frozen form, clacking fully open and drawing four very unwelcome eyes to her from across the room.

  Perhaps Summer remembers those two sets of eyes so distinctly because of the icy fear that her father’s appearance caused then—causes even now—to settle in the pit of her stomach. Or perhaps Summer remembers the fear so particularly, like a metallic grating against her teeth and lead settling down, deep inside her belly, because of the other person in the room: her aunt. Russell Norwood’s sister: Lilith Norwood.

  Something... something about their hushed voices, their hot glares, the fact that Aunt Lilith was sitting in the gargantuan leather desk chair and not her father... It all coalesced into something that Summer instantly recognized: regret.

  She should have done without the horse.

  “Summer Destiny Norwood.”

  Every syllable out of her father’s mouth, a curse. And the glassy stare of her aunt offers nothing—no amount of care or concern, no refuge.

  “Father—”

  But the apology is ripped from her lips by her father’s open-palmed slap to the side of her head. She stumbles but keeps her footing, even as her brain rattles about inside her skull.

  Summer does not cry. Summer never cries. And it isn’t until she’s a grown adult that she realizes that little defiance had, perhaps, made her childhood worse even than it needed to be, under Mr. Norwood’s rule. Summer wonders if to have shed even the smallest trail of tears would have been to elicit a fraction of sympathy from her father’s cold, cold heart.

  It is one of the last times Summer will ever see her aunt. And it is one of the last times she allows herself to be disillusioned by her father as anything other than a businessman—distant and hard, preoccupied by anything and everything but familial warmth and generosity.

  Her ear rings and her vision blurs the tiniest bit, and Summer tries valiantly to explain to her father why she had dared interrupt him. But when she shakes her head and looks towards her father, it’s to see that he’s already undoing his belt.

  By the time he puts it back on, a quarter hour has passed. And any thoughts of riding her horse—at least for a week—are far, far from Summer
’s mind. Even buried treasure and witch’s spells can’t hold her attention, not now.

  But Summer runs, and she runs far and fast. Not three miles, not so far as she could have gotten on Dakota—but far enough that she can try to forget the sting of her father’s belt on the backs of her thighs, and the chill, unrelenting glare of Aunt Lilith’s gaze, looking down on Summer as her brother beat her niece silly...

  “... Sheriff? As I was saying, we’ve just finished a bit of a social gathering for prayer, and we’re headed home, just around the corner there...”

  Summer blinks slowly as her eyes somehow adjust from the light of a Virginian summer day to night on the streets of the House of the Owl.

  The little girl is still looking up at her, gray-blue eyes locked with Summer’s. She can almost imagine her own eyes, how they must be swirling with something dark and dangerous just now. But the child does not give up, does not give in. And the dusky-cheeked little thing, she hardly even blinks. Summer is the one to break their staring contest as she moves to take in the child’s parents instead.

  “Prayer,” she says, “Good, good. Apologies for my having wandered a bit there.”

  “The dusk hours can do that to you,” the child’s mother says. Summer’s eyes cut to her, and she dips her head. “At least, that’s what my grandmother used to say, when I was little.”

  “What exactly did she say, your grandmother?” Summer prods.

  The woman lifts her head again, glancing briefly at her husband. Almost as if looking for reassurance that this—engaging in casual conversation and exchange of childhood tales with the Sheriff, the head of their House and propagator of both provisions and punishment—is a good thing. His nod is dutifully subtle, though Summer doesn’t take her eyes off of the woman.

  “Yes, my grandmother... She told many a tall tale about the quickening hours, when light fades to dark. That the divide between this world and the others is thinner at that time of the day. More susceptible to breakage, if you will.”