Page 79 of The Sisters of Crimson House

“We killed an innocent to save an innocent,” said Celeste.

Charley shook her head in horror. She was the innocent. Her fierce grandmother gone, her brilliant granddaughter forced to be the murder weapon. It was all because of her.

“No,” whispered Charley, the enormity of it taking hold. It was too much.

The prophecy they had not wanted Sadie to know. The one so forbidden that Charley had clipped the article and stashed it in her drawer. Sadie Bryde had been foretold to save many families. She would be responsible for the destruction of her own. Had Sadie known even then the terrible choice she would make?

“Sadie made peace with her fate long ago. I finally came home to face mine,” said Celeste, her voice gruff with pain. “I’m sorry I stayed away so long, Charley,” she said, her smile more of a grimace between tears. “But I’m so glad to leave this world with both of Nicole’s daughters still in it.” Her eyes shone with love as she stared at Charley, a lone tear trailing her cheek before she released Charley’s hand, her head slumping to the ground. She looked like she had just fallen asleep.

Charley sat in a daze, looking at her hand, the Star finally completed on her palm when the familiar pain contained within it flared with intensity. In her mind’s eye, Miranda was behind her, bringing down the knife in an arcing blow. Charley rolled to the side as the butcher knife thudded into the ground, seconds from her body being cleaved in two. She scooted backward on her hands, her back against Sadie’s bookshelf.

Miranda loomed over her, watching her dispassionately as if she were a bug she might squash. Her eyes were black, huge, as if she were a bug herself. Not Miranda. Miranda wasn’t here.

“Margaret?” Charley croaked. No, not Margaret. Charley knew as soon as she said it that this thing staring her down was not the passenger who’d lovingly embraced her son at the Halloween Spectacular, who’d cried while singing their shared song. She knew it by the knife that glinted at her side. She was not Margaret Humphreys. She was the Angel of Death incarnate. She was the thing that had come to claim Charley the moment she was born. What had Celeste said? She was here to reset a cosmic balance, to right all the wrongs perpetrated by her family, starting with Sadie but aided and abetted by anyone using their gifts to victimize. Miranda had swallowed Death, and now Miranda would be its vessel, erasing the one who was never supposed to be here.

Charley did not struggle as Miranda raised the knife. There was no reason to fight anymore, fight destiny. Margaret Humphreys had been murdered so that Charley could live on stolen time, and that time was over. Charley sat with this bitter irony in her precious final moments, thinking of the Star on her hand that she’d ached for her entire life. She had finally been given access to a vault of secrets kept by her family to prevent this very moment from happening.

The Angel of Death held the knife aloft, and they locked eyes. Miranda’s clear blue eyes looked back at her, her arm straining with effort to keep the knife aloft.

“Do it,” Miranda whispered, just as a shot rang out.

Forty

A flock of starlings scattered from the limbs of the giant oak tree, spooked by the sound. From its base, Charley could see it was a regular oak tree, not eighty feet tall. She studied the branches. No snakes, not even the toilet paper that had been wrapped around the tree, a kid’s prank. The few leaves that remained on the branches floated to the ground from the gentle breeze that stirred them.

“It’s really pretty,” Charley said, “without all the toilet paper in the branches.” Miranda, standing next to her at the tree, nodded in agreement. They both watched a squirrel run the length of one of the branches, scattering more leaves in its wake. “You’re leaving me, aren’t you?” said Charley, turning to study her sister’s face.

Miranda nodded again. She wore a cream-colored sundress, her smile seeming to light her pale skin from within. “I’m ready to be with them,” she said, looking at the verdant hill next to the Bryde mausoleum. They were in Elmwood Cemetery. They were in a memory. Not their parents’ funeral or Leo’s or Sadie’s, but a day it had been warm, when they had gathered there to soak up a spring day. The scent of jasmine clung to the air, the grass an emerald green under her feet. Charley thrilled to see them all standing there, her parents, her father’s arm around her mother’s waist. Celeste stood next to her mother, her head resting on Sadie’s shoulders. Sadie offered Charley a final enigmatic smile. Her grandmother the murderer. Her savior. Her family assembled as if posing for a photograph. And now the last one was leaving her.

“I should be going,” Miranda said.

“But I just got you back,” said Charley, desperate.

“And now you know how to find me,” her sister said, taking her hand. She traced her finger along the Seeker’s Star on Charley’s palm. “This brings you here, to this place. You can always meet us here when you need us.” Miranda squeezed her hand before dropping it and turned to walk toward her family.

“But I don’t want these gifts. I want to come with you!” Charley cried.

“Not yet,” Miranda said. “You have to come back the way you came.” Charley turned to look at where Miranda was pointing. The bridge that led to the exit from Elmwood looked impossibly far away, like they’d been hiking for miles. When she turned back, Miranda was wrapping her in her arms, hugging her fiercely. “Go live the life you’ve been given. Live it for all of us, Chuck,” she said. Miranda kissed her on the cheek, then let her go.

Charley’s heart broke as her sister turned and walked away from her, toward her destiny and toward the family she missed so very much. This had been her fate? Miranda Bryde had finally come home only to die? That didn’t feel like fate. It felt like fury, the kind currently flooding throughout Charley’s body. No one else needed to die so that she could live. Her entire life had been spent being protected, shielded from the truth. But what was the point of this life if she couldn’t share it with the ones who mattered the most to her?

Her sister made her way across the lawn, a red stain blooming across her back, watercolor spreading across canvas. Blood. Her sister’s blood. A memory shook her. An explosion of sound. Her sister crumpling to the ground like she was casting off old skin. Smoke curling from the weapon Sy had brought into her house. Sy shooting a monster. Sy shooting her sister.

Charley watched in panic as Miranda reached for her parents, who smiled and beckoned to her, ignorant of the stain migrating across their daughter’s back. She stumbled, falling to her knees. Charley gasped across time and space. She could see the fear on her mother’s and father’s faces. Her father was shouting something she couldn’t hear. Nicole reached out to her daughter as Miranda fell forward. She wasn’t moving. Nor was her family; they looked terrified but unable to move, unable to cross those final few feet and help Miranda across some invisible boundary. Charley looked up at her parents, at Sadie and Celeste, who all looked back at her, helpless to intervene. She locked eyes with her father, her namesake, the one with the most beautiful gifts of all. The one who had always made her feel like maybe it was okay to just be her, Star on her palm or not. He nodded, knowing the plan that was taking shape in her heart.

“Go!” he said. And this time she heard him.

Charley ran to her sister, helping her up into a seated position. Miranda didn’t protest, didn’t even moan. She looked so pale, Charley thought. So close to death. She didn’t know how she knew that if her sister was not able to cross into the shadowlands where her family could receive her, something terrible would befall her in this in-between space. Charley couldn’t let that happen. Not when Miranda had sacrificed so much to let Charley live. She felt her sister in her arms, the blood soaking through her hands as she held her sister close. She could hear Father yelling his encouragement, Nicole screaming for her. Charley lifted her sister, struggling to position her so she could stand. With a last look at her family, Charley turned and began the infinite walk toward the exit of Elwood Cemetery.

Even in a magical, liminal space, Charley felt all of Miranda’s weight against her. She staggered forward, straining the muscles in her arms, in her back to carry her. But she would not fail her. She would not fail her family. She ignored the wetness on her hands, on her chest, Miranda’s blood slick against her own skin as it continued to spread. Charley was going to reach the bridge. Her arms screamed at her to put her sister down, but it was just one more step. One more step.

And then she stopped. Someone was blocking the exit. The Queen of Swords stood sentry, blocking their path forward. Long black hair framed a white mass that should have been a face, a long black dress whose ends snagged against the earth. Scaly claws gripped a massive steel sword that she held blade down, the tip resting on the ground.

Charley froze, taking in the massive entity. The Angel of Death, borrowing the shape of her childhood nightmare for a final twist of the knife. How had her sister kept this monster inside her for so long without it tearing her apart? Or had it slowly and surely chipped away at her sister’s defenses, no clear line marking where Miranda ended and this grim reaper began? Charley would fight, defend herself. She had no other choice. But Miranda would die before she had the chance.

The Queen stepped forward, raising the sword aloft when a hand gently rested on the blade.

“Enough,” said Margaret Humphreys as she looked up at the creature for a long time, her brown curls shifting in a gentle breeze. She had Sy’s arrestingly blue eyes, but hers were calm, certain as she nodded. The Queen nodded in kind and lowered her sword. Charley looked at Margaret with awe. She was an unremarkable woman radiating impossible forgiveness with a soft, earnest smile. Margaret looked at Miranda bleeding in Charley’s arms, finally meeting Charley’s stare. The Queen stepped to the side, clearing the path to the bridge.