An image flashed in front of my eyes – a figure hanging from a gnarled branch, her face all blotchy, her eyes glass. Blonde hair trailing over the rope. Kelly following where Keegan had led.
I shook the image away as I ducked down the next row, calling Kelly’s name.You’re just scaring yourself. Surely Kelly wouldn’t…
But she’d attempted suicide only a week ago. There were no coincidences in magic, and Briarwood was the most magical place there was. I picked up my pace, crossing into the next row and peering between the towering plum and citrus trees.
“Kelly!”
“Over here.”
The voice was so faint I wasn’t sure I’d heard it or it was just my imagination. But at least it was a voice. I jogged down the next row of apple trees. Kelly came into view, starfished on the ground in front of an enormous plum tree, her mouth stained red from the fruit. A trail of pips led across the grass. She pulled herself up and rubbed her eyes.
“Hey,” I slid in beside her. “What you doing out here?”
“It’s pretty,” Kelly said. She pulled a wide-brimmed yellow hat lower across her face, and sighed.
I waited. I knew that if you waited long enough, usually a person would start talking. That’s how I always smoked Rowan out.
It didn’t take Kelly long. One thing I knew about her was that she loved to talk. “Maeve hates me.”
I wanted to say she didn’t, but Maeve had said those exact words to me, and I wasn’t going to lie. “You may not realise it now, but her hating you is actually a good thing.”
“How could it possibly be a good thing?” Kelly sniffed.
“Hate is just the other side of love. If Maeve didn’t love you, she’d be indifferent. Instead, everything you said cut her deep because it came from you. And so she said some things that cut you, because they came from her.”
“Gee, you’re soooo good at this cheering up thing.” Kelly stared at the sky – a brilliant blue cloudless day, one of those rare English Summer days that we should’ve been spending at the beach or on the footy field, not solving existential crises in the middle of a pile of ripened plums. “I guess I messed up real bad, huh?”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
“I never should have said what I said. But she was lying to me again. I wanted her to see that she could trust me with her secrets. That’s why I snuck into the library when I heard you all moving around this morning. I just wanted her to see that I could deal with all the witchcraft stuff.”
“So you know everything now.”
She laughed. “I already knew, Corbin. I saw that cult ritual thing you guys were all involved in at Avebury. And there’s the little fact that last night you carried in a woman who looked an awful lot like Maeve, which makes no sense since Maeve’s an orphan with no family.”
“She does have family. She has you.”
“It’s not the same to her,” Kelly sniffed again. “Maeve never belonged with us. She nevertriedto belong.”
“You can’t force a person to believe in something. Better for her to be the way she is than for her to pretend to be a Christian when in her heart she doesn’t believe.”
“She took everything for granted that our parents gave her.” Kelly picked up a plum and tossed it hard, so it splattered open against the grass. “And they just kept on giving and giving and giving. She got everything, and because I was the real child and the good Christian, I got nothing.”
Right then. We’d hit on the crux of the issue – good old fashioned sibling rivalry. To Maeve, Kelly would always be the treasured one because she shared something with her parents Maeve never could – their blood, and their faith. But to Kelly, Maeve was the special one because she was the miracle baby with the super smarts. She was the one who was going to escape their small town and have an amazing life. And now, she was the one with the magical powers and the castle in her name, and the parent who’d come back from the dead.
I understood. Bloody hell how I understood. Keegan got all my parents’ attention, between the doctors and the specialists and one fancy tutors. And then, when he died, all his sins were forgotten. He became the perfect son because he was the one who lost his chance to redeem himself. It was just this belief thing again – They believed he’d turn into the perfect son, and so he became the perfect son. I missed Keegan, and I loved him, and I hated him all at once.
I thought about saying all that, but this wasn’t about me. It was about Kelly.
“You’re eighteen soon,” I tried, instead. “You’re practically adult. You don’t have to define yourself by your parents’ standards, or Maeve’s standards. You get to decide what you believe and how you want your life to turn out. I think you know that already – that’s why you came here with the world’s most insane rucksack.”
Kelly laughed.
“I know what the Bible says about witchcraft. Revelations was pretty specific with the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile,the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all people who talk at the cinema will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. But I figured if you’re still here after everything you heard today, you’re choosing to make a more liberal interpretation.”
Kelly tossed another plum. “I’m freaked out. I mean,witches. The bible is full of people like Saul who died because he consulted mediums instead of trusting the Lord. Messing with the occult is a bad idea. Demons are real, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” I picked up a plum and tossed it, loving the satisfying splat as it exploded across the grass. “I’m a witch, too.”
