Page 21 of The Sisters of Crimson House

“It was safer if you stayed here.”

She wasn’t sure she could trust herself not to throw her sister out of the house. Not this vicious party line. Not from her. This had been Celeste’s excuse, her gospel, her response to Charley’s pleas, her cries on the rare occasions when they still spoke on the phone. Celeste didn’t have to fight when she could just send a postcard. It was safer if you stayed behind at Crimson House. Safer for who? It was definitely not going to be safer for Miranda if she spoke those words aloud again.

Miranda sighed and hauled herself off the bed. She pulled on a sweatshirt over some leggings, refreshing the messy bun so it looked even more artfully disheveled.

“I thought…” she said, trailing off as she studied her sister’s face.

“What?” said Charley, defensive.

“You grew up. I missed it.” Miranda looked like her heart might break. Charley thought she’d help it along.

“I did. I had a hell of a run, no thanks to you.” She wasn’t going to give her anything.

Miranda surprised her by taking both wrists and staring at her. “Look. You don’t have to like me, but you need to trust me.” Up close, Charley could see tiny veins that spider-webbed their way underneath her cold blue eyes. “I came home because I dreamed that you needed me to.” Charley was silent, thrown by her genuine concern. “I’m not in the prophecy business, but I thought it better to be wrong than too late.” Miranda searched her face, waiting for an answer, and Charley resisted the powerful urge to pull her hand from her sister’s grasp and wave her palm in front of her face. She needed her to explain this. She needed Miranda to make her feel less alone for the first time in six years. She needed a goddamn break. She needed her sister. But that would require putting trust in a complete stranger.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miranda, but we’ve been managing just fine without you.”

Miranda watched her for a long moment, finally releasing her grasp on Charley’s wrists. Charley had the distinct feeling that she had failed a very important test.

“I see you two have been catching up.” They turned to look at the figure addressing them from the doorway. For the second time in minutes, Charley felt the floor drop out from underneath her. There stood her grandmother, pale, fragile, fairly clinging to the doorframe. Sadie Bryde, a spirit descended from the attic.

“Sadie?” Miranda stared at her like she was seeing a ghost.

“Hey, sugar.”

“Sadie.” Miranda flew from the bed and flung her arms around the tiny woman.

Sadie folded Miranda into her arms, and the girl was sobbing, Sadie soon joining her. Charley sat on the bed, watching without any tears at all.

Eleven

October 31, 1999

“Do I have your permission to tell you what I see?”

The crow sitting on the chair nodded, her black-gloved hands folded primly in her lap. Or maybe she was a plague doctor? The long black beak protruding from a black sequined mask made it challenging to tell. Charley was feeling generous, so she was going with crow, as there was already one plague doctor in the audience.

Nicole smiled at the guest and took a deep breath. The woman opposite her did the same, her body visibly relaxing. This was Charley’s favorite moment of the Spectacular, watching others watch her mother work. Her skills were not flashy like Miranda’s; they didn’t evoke feelings of menace as Sadie’s dark magic often did. Nicole moved into the room like the sun breaking through clouds, a kiss of frost when autumn composted into winter. She was billed as a healer, as someone who could take the temperature of a person, a room, a nation. But Charley knew her as the person who could break her fever with a song, the only person who peered into her bricked-up heart and made flowers bloom there.

Nicole took the woman’s hands in hers. Candlelight reflected off the constellation of stars Nicole wore as a cape, a tiny galaxy reflected above them on the ceiling. She closed her eyes, falling silent for a long moment. The crow watched her, matching her breathing, and Charley felt her breathing slow in kind.

“We carry a forest within us,” Nicole said slowly, smiling. “Our lungs are the mirror images of the trees that have always sheltered us. You’re a crow, so you already know that’s where you make your home.”

So she was a crow. The woman smiled at this, her eyes wet with tears.

“I know you’re scared,” Nicole said softly. “Forests are the wild things inside us. Focus on that wildness. Let it fight this battle for you.”

“I still have time?” the woman managed, crying softly now.

Nicole nodded. “The forest will be calling you home. But not yet. You are so much stronger than you know.” Nicole gently placed one hand on the woman’s face, the other—the one with her healing Star—pressed against her back, and she began to sing. The words did not reach Charley, but the melody found her, filling the room. She felt the song as liquid sunshine flooding into her own lungs.

She didn’t know how she had ever doubted that this woman was a crow. She looked ready to take flight.

***

The sound of the audience applauding followed Charley to the entry that was, for the moment, devoid of guests or caterers or anyone she would have to pretend to be polite to. She took in the entry’s grand stairwell, wondering if the architects had envisioned guests entering the home and walking inside a two-story wedding cake. But the effect was lost on her as she felt the ever-present stares of the Bryde women watching her from the gallery wall above. Her palm itched, and she thought of the old superstition: Left hand itches, fortune’s favoring you. Right hand itches, forever be blue. The women in the portraits glaring down at her were her own old wives’ tale, their judging eyes following her as she made her escape onto the front porch.

She welcomed the humidity into her body, softening the chill from the overcranked air-conditioning inside the mansion. A hairbreadth from November, and the cicadas still rattled their skeletons around the yard, a hypnotic hum that served as the soundtrack for the better part of a year. A bowl of candy sat forlorn on a stool, starkly spotlit by the porch light above. She didn’t blame kids for giving it a wide berth. If she were a witch trying to lure children to their doom, this was exactly what her trap would look like.