Blood Brother Cursed (Sexton Blood Brothers #2)

Prologue A Final Farewell

Astrid stood on the side of the lake, the perfect skipping rock gripped tightly in her left hand. Her mind drifted back to the last time she saw her brother.

“No. You hold it like this.” Her brother’s tone had been firm, but his touch had been gentle as he took her hand. Then he laughed as he tried to adjust her grip, moving the stone from the palm of her hand to her fingers. “I don’t know how you manage to do things with the wrong hand. But I should be able to at least help you get the right grip.”

“It’s not wrong, Evan,” she had said and then said the first thing that came to mind. “ You use the wrong hand.” Her defiant scowl at him had the dissatisfying effect of making him laugh.

He reached out and rubbed the top of her head, messing up her brownish-red hair and pulling a few strands out of the braid their father had struggled to fasten about an hour earlier.

“Hey!” She had protested, further messing up her hair by putting her hand on it and trying to flatten it. “Stop messing up my hair!”

“Sorry, little lady. I keep forgetting that you are getting too old for that kind of affection.” He put on a serious face and squatted down next to her. “Ok. Let’s try this again, and I’ll use my left hand too. But you have to promise to go easy on me.”

Six-year-old Astrid had twisted her mouth to the side, debating if she should allow herself to lose this precious chance. If her brother were to throw the rock with his left hand, she knew she had a shot at doing better. She felt confident that she could do it, and the idea of holding back was not something she wanted, not when she saw victory right in front of her.

“No!” she said definitely. Turning to face the water, the young Astrid lobbed the rock at the water. It went into a large arc, and once it reached the peak, the rock plummeted down, hitting the water with a plop . Her brother smiled at her, and she looked down, too upset to hear what he had to say. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Hold on. I’ll get you another shot. That rock was too perfect to just let it rest at the bottom of the water.” He patted her shoulder and stood up. The shadow he cast over her moved forward as Evander walked the short distance to where the rock had hit the water; his pants rolled up to his thighs so they didn’t get wet.

“There are so many rocks here! Why are you getting that one? That rock doesn’t work!”

He reached down and picked up the offending item, then headed back to her, casually tossing the stone in his hand. Her brother was so relaxed and happy as he returned to her. Astrid couldn’t believe he was leaving soon. Once he reached her, Evander crouched beside her again.

“It’s never the rock’s fault, Astrid. It’s the person who threw the rock. See?” He dropped it, and the rock hit the coarse sand, creating an indentation that poorly mimicked what would happen when the rock hit the water.

“You just dropped it.”

“Exactly. I didn’t do anything except stop holding it, so the rock just dropped straight into the ground.”

“Water is better.”

He sighed, but the smile still pulled at the corners of his lips. “Yes, we know that you prefer water. But not all of us can use it like you do.” Evander’s gentle green eyes looked toward the water, and for a moment, he was quiet. Astrid had shifted on her feet, recognizing when her brother was thinking. He always knew what to say after thinking.

“Look at the water out there,” he finally said, pointing to the small body of water slowly rippling away from the stream that fed into it.

His words felt a bit insulting. “What about the water?” She wasn’t really interested in a long talk about adult things – all Astrid wanted to do was to learn how to skip rocks before he returned to the military.

“When you aren’t focused on it, the water just sits there, right?”

“Yeah. I know that .”

“Well, when you want, you can make it dance.”

“But I don’t understand why you can’t make it dance. Shouldn’t you be able to?’” It was a question she had asked many times before that day, but no one ever gave her a good answer.

This time was no different.

Evander looked at her and said, “Because I don’t know how. Just like you don’t know how to skip a rock.”

She looked down at her hands. “Do you want me to teach you?” Her fiery green eyes looked up at him as a gentle breeze moved her hair around her head like an angry reddish halo. In her mind, all her brother needed to do was to try, to focus. After all, that’s all she had to do.

He smiled, “Maybe you can try when I get back. For now, we should focus on teaching you how to skip rocks.” His expression shifted a little, “It’s an important lesson that every kid should learn.”

“Why?”

He grabbed another rock off the ground, stood up, and threw the new rock along the surface of the water. It skipped from the shallow end all the way to the small waterfall on the other side. His eyes looked down at her again. “Because by the time you master it, you’ve learned a lot of important lessons.”

Evander crouched down again, taking her left hand in his, and then he placed the wet rock into her tiny hand. “First, look at the shape of the rock and how smooth it is.”

Astrid moved it around in her hand and noticed that there was nothing sharp or that stuck out, but there were plenty of mostly smooth rocks around her. “So?”

“This is a nearly perfect skipping rock, and I’ve had it since I was slightly younger than you. Now, I’m giving it to you.”

Her eyes widened. “Do you mean you are giving me a gift before you go?”

He smiled softly at her. “Yes.”

“Then I don’t want to throw it. What if I skip it all the way to the waterfall like you? How can I get it back?”

“Like this,” he took the rock from her hand and stood up in one smooth motion. After he released it, the rock flew from his hand, and even from the other side of the water, Astrid could hear it hit the rocks on the other side of the waterfall. This time, it was more of a hard knock instead of a faint pinging sound.

“Hey!” She started to run after it.

“No, no, no, my impatient little Astrid.” He knelt on the ground and pulled her toward him. Her back was against his broad chest as he extended her arm as far as it would go. “Think about the water around it. Let it move the rock.”

“I can’t move rocks!”

“No, but you can control the water. Focus on that. Find the rock, then bring it back here. I’ll help you.”

She felt warmth run down her arm and knew that he was letting her borrow some of his powers. Not wanting to let him down, she stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth and focused on the rock. Her brother was making it vibrate just a little so that she could find it amongst everything else on the pond’s floor.

Her eyes were wide when she turned to look at him. “I feel it!”

“Very good.” He beamed at her, his eyes sparkling in the early afternoon sunshine. “Now, focus on the water around it. Pull it back.”

Scowling at the water like she was ready to challenge it, Astrid thought about the water. She could feel it unsettled by the moving rock. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t quite get it to move the rock.

After several minutes of focusing, she had only managed to get the rock to flip once. Her lower lip quivered. “I can’t bring it back.”

Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, Evander pulled her close. “It’s ok. That’s something you can work on until I come back.”

He kissed the top of her head, then stretched out his hand. As if thrown, the rock shot out of the water and landed in his hand. “Here you go. Take good care of this and we’ll practice some more then next time I’m on leave. Deal?”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“Believe me, kitten, I don’t want to go, but my job is making me.”

“Can’t you just leave and get a new job?”

“I wish I could, but not yet. My time is up soon enough, and I’ll come back for you and Dad. Until then, you keep being good. And practicing your skills.”

Not wanting him to see her cry, Astrid mumbled out an unenthusiastic, “Ok.”

“Promise you’ll be good for Dad? No more showing off at home?”

“But my friends loved playing in the water. We have a fun game. If I don’t move the water, we can’t play.”

“I know, kitten, but we have to keep our gifts hidden. It’s a special secret that you can only share with a very few people.”

“My friends are special people.” She didn’t like hiding things from her friends, especially since she had always had a hard time making them.

“They are. But your gift is only something you should share with family.”

“But that’s only you and Dad.”

He nodded. “That’s right. Maybe someday you’ll be able to share it with someone else. When you are old enough to think about marriage.” He made a face that she didn’t understand.

“ Blech !” Astrid’s expression was a combination of grossed out and horrified. “I don’t want to get married.”

He laughed. “Not right now. But maybe someday. And if you don’t want to get married, that’s fine, too. But I would really love for you to be happy, whatever you choose.”

“I just want to live with you and Dad. He said we could stay with him as long as we want.”

“Yes, he did.” Evander looked toward their house, even though it was nearly half a mile from where they were. “Let’s not talk serious right now. This is supposed to be our time for having fun.”

“Evander!”

Astrid looked at her brother as he stood up. “Coming, Dad!” He looked down at her, a sadness in his eyes. “Sorry, kitten, looks like we’ll have to do this when I come back.”

She wanted to argue, to force him to stay. The water in the pond began to ripple as her emotions grew.

Evander got back on her level. “None of that now. Dad needs us, and tomorrow, he’s going to need you even more, ok?”

She stuck out her lower lip but gave a curt nod. The last thing she wanted to do was to make her big brother unhappy or, worse, to disappoint him.

“That’s my favorite girl.” He patted her shoulder. “I knew I could count on you. And I promise, when I come back, I’ll make more time to teach you all of the important lessons Dad taught me.”

Fighting the tears, Astrid’s mouth twisted to the side, and she rubbed her nose. Not trusting herself to say anything, she let him take her hand. They hadn’t gone too far when he silently picked her up and put her on his shoulders. Like magic, he was able to get her laughing just a few minutes later. By the time they reached home, she had almost forgotten that he was leaving the next day.

It's the only promise you ever failed to uphold.

Her eyes were just as fierce nearly 20 years later, but her spirit was not the same. Looking out of the water, she held the rock in her hand, letting the weight settle for a second. Then, just as she had seen him do so many times before, she tossed the rock carefully in her hand. The rhythmic movement was somehow relaxing. It had been years since she had mastered skipping rocks, but she had learned on her own. Evander had been right about one thing though – she had learned a lot of important lessons long before she had become as adept at skipping rocks as her brother had been. A lot of those lessons she learned while trying to skip the rock, like patience, planning, and assessing.

The hardest lesson she learned was that life was unpredictable in more ways than she had considered. It had happened less than half a year after he had left. Evander had come home in a box, and she couldn’t quite understand why her father was letting them put her brother in the ground. Astrid started screaming and ran toward the casket as it was lowered. Her father stood by, his eyes glazed over as if he couldn’t hear or see anything.

After a minute of Astrid trying to stop the process, a distant relative in attendance had dragged her away from the funeral. Her younger self had screamed and shouted, her emotions going wild. Despite Astrid having only met the woman a couple of times, the distant relative was comfortable slapping the poor kid to silence her. It was the first time that an adult had dared to put their hands on Astrid, and the woman still wasn’t done.

Even 20 years later, Astrid remembered looking up into those cold blue eyes as the woman shouted at her, berating the poor girl for not understanding the situation and for ruining her brother’s peace. The water fountain behind her had reached toward the sky.

That’s when Astrid’s confusion turned to rage. Her brother would never have treated her like that – he would have taken her aside and explained things to her. But he wasn’t there, even though he was.

As sprinklers started springing up around the cemetery, jets of water furiously soaking everyone around them, including the funeralgoers, Astrid twisted the water in the fountain. A lasso appeared, then it slid over the woman’s head. The young girl tightened it, watching as the woman’s angry eyes turned fearful. The redness in her face started to turn blue as Astrid changed the lasso to a hand. The woman’s mouth was opening and closing as her feet were lifted off the ground.

“Astrid!”

The young girl lost her focus, her face whipping around to see her father wobbling on the wet grass and leaning on his cane. The shock and fear in his eyes still haunted her. The water splashed all over the ground, dropping the woman hard on her knees. It was as if the world had gone silent as she and her father simply looked at each other. His mouth was moving as he was holding out a hand to her, waving his finger to indicate she should come to him.

Afraid of what he would say and how much trouble she would be in, Astrid did the one thing she had promised her brother she would never do. She shifted in public.

Then she ran back to the pond where she had last seen her brother.

Astrid felt the coolness of the rock in her hand as she thought back over that day. The woman had no idea what had happened, and since no one had seen it, everyone thought some random stranger had tried to kill her at the funeral. The sprinklers were explained as a problem that had long needed to be fixed.

When her father had found her crying at the pond, he had sat down next to her on a rock. Awkwardly patting her back, he had told her that no one saw what she had done, so things might be ok. Or as ok as they could be without Evander sending money to them. Her father’s disability checks weren’t enough to cover more than the bare minimum.

And now even her father was dead. Cancer had finally finished the process that it had started nearly 25 years earlier.

Astrid closed her eyes. There was no reason to stay in the small southern town anymore. She had never fit in, anyway, especially since all of the friends she had when she was a teen and through her two years in college were now married and having children. That had never been something she had considered.

Her mind had always been focused on her brother. First, she tried to understand his death. When she was older, Astrid began to look into what had happened to him. The more she learned, the more sure she was that his death wasn’t an accident.

And now that nothing was holding her to the little town, Astrid was going to find answers.

With a smile, she finally wound up and skipped the rock across the water. Once she heard the thunk of rock against rock, she motioned it back toward herself. The rock came skipping back to her, this time the water rippling out before the rock hit it, creating a path for it to return to the shore. She walked forward and picked it up once it reached the shore. While she could move the water, the rock was too heavy to launch in the air the way her brother had. He had controlled the rock – she controlled the water.

In her mind, Astrid heard her brother saying that she was cheating.

With a smile, she replied, “So was the way you did it.”

In her mind, she heard the robust laugh from her childhood as she turned toward home. The air was already starting to feel oppressive despite it only being May. It seemed like the best indicator that it was time for her to leave the place where she had lived for most of her life.