“Yeah, and took herself out in the process,” the only teenager in the group says. When everyone gawks at her, she tries to clarify.“I mean, she did kill herself. She basically did our job for us. That counts for something, right?”
Myrtle’s eyes slide to mine surreptitiously. I’m not supposed to know these things. Not yet. This conclave is revealing as much about the venery to me as it is about me to the venery.
I see Rose scowl at the teenager and the resemblance is suddenly undeniable—same long nose and small chin, same murky green eyes. This girl must be her daughter as well. “What Olea means to say is that Lily’s betrayaldidcost us. It cost usher,a powerful witch with a gift that might have strengthened our line, that might have ended dozens of marked lives and saved countless others. And here we are, still trying to clean up her mess after all these years.”
She looks me in the eye then. Defiant, I hold her gaze, refusing to be cowed by these women discussing my mother’s suicide like a political debate. Her lips curl on one side as she regards me before finally looking away.
“Lily was weak,” Great-Grandaunt Bella finally interjects, Rowena nestled at her feet, quiet and still except for the occasional head bob. “Like her mother. A reality that confounded my sister all the way to her grave. In many ways, we can lay the blame for Lily’s poor choices at Angel’s feet. But with both dead, it hardly seems a fruitful road to tread.”
Aunt Myrtle cocks a haughtyI told you sobrow at everyone. But Bella quickly checks her.
“Still, it cannot be overlooked that Piers is Lily’s child, who was Angel’s—a line that has proven itself to be tainted with malignant idealistic and romantic tendencies and an unchecked power that has demonstrated it is more blight than boon.” She reaches down to stroke Rowena’s feathered head. “If I were to take a vote now, where do you stand?”
Already?A quiver of concern lances through me.
She rises stiffly and settles her pouchy eyes over the room. “Those in favor of the last kiss for Lily’s line?”
Hands clot the air. Rose’s fingers jut out like iron railheads beside Barbie’s, glossy under the lights. Their faces are cinched as I take them in, tight around their suspicions. Nearly everyone has voted for me to die. My chest caves like a sinkhole, the bloated mass of Don flattening the grass beside his own sick imprinted on my mind, and the smell of the man in the café, tables crashing, the fear streaking their eyes in their final moments. The man from my childhood, his weight on my shoulder and his leering smile, the drop of his body like a tree falling. Is this how it will be for me? A flurry of bodily fluids and flapping limbs, my face contorted in disbelief, as my body gives way to the poison? Have they fed already? Will they do it now?
My eyes go to the door, calculating. I’m outnumbered, but some of them are old. Maybe I could smash through them like a wall. But even if I make it out, they’ll hunt me. And I’ve seen the way Myrtle’s eyes shape themselves to the dark. How long would I last before they found me? Would I even see morning?
“Those in favor of mercy?”
Myrtle’s hand is swift to rise and singular. Her eyes ring the room. “Oh, come on.”
Olea, blessed rebel, asks Bella, “Do I get a vote?”
“Of course,” the matriarch confirms.
Her hand barely lifts above her shoulder, a cheeky tilt to her head as she finds my eye. It is met with a whap to the back of her skull from her mother. She quickly lowers it.
“Azalea,” Bella creaks out like an old door in the rain. “You didn’t raise your hand.”
“I’m undecided,” she declares, as if she can’t be bothered to form an opinion one way or another. “Besides, it’s not a real vote.”
Not arealvote? I feel the air punch out of me, leaving my body loose and rubbery. Will I live then? Who decides?
Bella points at a woman in midlife with a streak of gray coursing through her ebony curls who we had yet to hear from. “Ivy, when did you take your first mark?”
Ivy looks surprised. She points at her color-blocked sweater. “Me?”
Bella’s eyes do not waver. “Did I stutter?”
“I was seventeen,” she quickly replies.
The old woman nods once. “And you, Azalea? You were younger than your mother, weren’t you?”
Azalea’s eyes sparkle with pride. “Fifteen,” she boasts.
Bella turns to Rose. “How about you, then? How old were you when you killed your first man?”
Rose doesn’t hesitate. “I was sixteen, Grandma Bella. So was Barbie.”
Bella smiles at her. Her eyes find Lattie next. “How old was Tina when she took her first?”
“Fifteen,” she says proudly.
“Yes,” Bella agrees. “I remember. You were sixteen, just like Rose and Barbie. And your sister, Donna, was fifteen. Isn’t that right, Donna?”
