38. The Malefic Sisters
The Malefic Sisters
Prism Malefic
Our journey was easy, like Vore had promised it would be. Or, maybe, it was my absence of fear that made it go by faster.
“It’s been nice being held in your arms,” I whispered against Vore’s chest as we moved through the trees. “But I miss talking to you. Not being able to speak outside of Nisse… well, that’s not ideal, is it?”
Vore rose a shoulder before kissing my forehead. He was worried—and sad—I could sense it. I may not have been able to taste emotions like a wither could, but I knew when my mate was concerned. What about Willowspire worried them so? It was just like any other dreary, sleepy town, wasn’t it?
We rounded a corner, Cadaver stomping ahead of us and suddenly coming to a halt.
He lifted his fist a moment as he assessed what lay beyond the forest. With a nod toward Vore, we walked past the gray wither, Fable’s mate looking after me with a worried expression.
Vore ascended a hill and gently set me onto my feet.
“Is this it?” I asked with a mix of hope and trepidation. “We’ve made it home—I mean—to Willowspire?” It occurred to me then that home now meant something different. Somewhere different… someone different.
Vore gave a solemn nod, dropping to his knees to be closer to my eye level.
Without thinking, I jumped back into his arms, squeezing his neck in a hug and inhaling his scent.
Vore burrowed his nose in my hair, breathing me in and holding me tight.
I don’t know why, but tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
I’d imagined this moment for so long—making it back to Willowspire.
Now that it was here, I didn’t much want it anymore.
“I’ll be right back,” I assured my monster. “Wait for me?”
Vore’s mouth hardened into a straight line, as if it were taking everything within him to allow me to do this.
This act of selflessness showcased his love in ways I could hardly fathom.
For Vore, sending me into territory alone that he deemed unsafe, went against his every impulse and urge—but he was doing it for me. He did it because he loved me.
As I reluctantly let go of his hand and stepped into the cool sunlight of Willowspire, I left behind me a love I scarcely could have imagined I’d ever find, much less deserve.
I wouldn’t let my monster’s love be in vain.
This journey was for me. He brought me here to say goodbye to my sister, to set her free, and truly begin my new life in Nisse.
The feeling of Vore and Cadaver’s stares at my back haunted me my entire walk through the field. I passed by the great willow stump, the place I was taken. The altar where my god accepted me as his ultimate offering and whisked me away to heaven.
Dawn emerged, shifting the gray-blues into warm orange as I followed a familiar path to my cottage. The sounds of townspeople opening their shops, kids skipping through the streets, and the bubbling water of witches beginning their laundering reached my ears. So familiar, yet so foreign.
The maiden walking back into Willowspire was not the same one who’d been taken.
No, I feared that Prism had died in the claws of a monster—reborn into…
someone else. Someone I was still figuring out.
What an excitement that was? For once, to have the luxury of sorting through who I was.
Not who my mothers thought I was, not who Rumor wanted me to be, not what Birch hoped for—but what I wanted.
Smoke curled from the mossy stoned chimney of my family’s enchanted cottage.
Hope fluttered in my chest. Rumor was here.
The porch step still squeaked when I put my weight on it, and my palm stalled on the iron knob.
Anxiety pressed on my shoulders. The faster I get through this, the faster I can leave , I told myself.
Sucking in a steadying breath, I swung the door open and stepped inside.
A fire crackled in the hearth where a pot of soup bubbled in our old cauldron.
Bundles of squash and zucchini overflowed from a wicker basket on the breakfast table.
Next to the basket sat a thick, black, bound leather book.
Rumor’s reading, no doubt. Firewood perched on its stand, chopped and ready as if the loom had just delivered its supply for the week.
Everything was as it should be. As if I’d stepped back in time, back into an average day of two sisters surviving together.
It was as if on the outside, my monster had never come, my parents had never left, Rumor and Matri were checking the hunting traps and mother was in the garden harvesting supper.
Part of me ached for that reality to be true.
Another part of me mourned, knowing it never would be again.
I stopped by the hearth, thumbing the ribbon left there from when Rumor did my hair for my wedding rite. A moment frozen in time, a girl I could never be?—
The front door creaked open.
Rumor stood, looking up at me with wide eyes, her chest heaving from either exertion or panic.
Scratches trickled blood down her arms, and her black dress was ripped to shreds…
With a gasp, I took her in. Her pronounced dark winter complexion was sharper than I’d remembered—but her hair…
half white now, the other half her usual, blue-tinted black.
“Rumor?” I breathed.
“Prism?” she answered.
My heart splintered as she stumbled forward. Her arms wrapped around me tightly, and I buried my face in her long hair. A sob choked through me, and her shoulders shook, too, because she was crying.
My sister? Crying ? She hadn’t even cried when Mother and Matri were taken. All night she’d rubbed my back as I wailed through that long and horrific night, and never once did I see a tear fall from my stoic sister.
“I’ve got you.” She caressed the back of my head. “I’ll never let anything happen to you ever again.”
“I’m okay,” I assured her, pulling back and drying my cheeks with my wrist. “You don’t look okay… you’re bleeding… and your hair .” I ran my fingers through the strands of white.
Rumor shook her head, sniffling. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are both here now.”
Pulling back, I took my sister’s bloodied palms. “Let’s get you cleaned up. What ever happened to you?” I led her to the chair at the breakfast table and fetched a washing basin and rag.
Rumor’s dark gaze fixated on me as I readied my supplies, finally dropping to my knees to remove her boots. Thick dirt coated the soles. Unlacing them, I tossed them aside and began gently dripping water down her scraped and bruised legs.
“Forget me , what’s happened to you ?” she asked softly.
“Your cheeks are full and healthy, your clothing clean and new, and are those… new freckles on your nose? You’ve been fed, bathed, and allowed sunlight, at least.” Her mouth narrowed as I avoided her judgmental gaze.
“Did the monsters… did they hurt you? The one who took you… did he force you to do anything you didn’t want to do?—“
“Rumor,” I snapped, sucking in a deep breath. I dipped the rag into the basin and held Rumor’s hand, working the clean water around her bleeding arms. “I’m quite alright— better than alright— I’m… I’m great, actually.”
My sister’s thinly veiled scrutiny was worse than any vexed stare I’d received from a wither in Nisse.
Her discerning assessment of my every move made my skin crawl.
Rumor let out a snort, taking the rag from my grip and tossing it aside.
She was looking for something wrong and coming up short…
and she was angry about that? “Am I disappointing you, sister?” I asked with barely concealed contempt as I moved to take my seat on the rocking chair by the fire. My usual knitting and crocheting spot.
I didn’t miss it.
Silence answered me as Rumor’s long fingernails thrummed a rhythmic beat against the breakfast table. Suddenly, the pattering ceased. “Where did this come from?” she asked on a hoarse whisper. “Where did you find this?”
At first, I thought she was referring to the basket of vegetables on the table, then I noticed the leather-bound, nameless book. She regarded it as if it were a ghost. “The book? I don’t know. It was here when I got here. I assumed it was yours.”
My sister pried her eyes from the item and stood, moving to our closet and rifling through her clothing.
I twiddled my thumbs and gazed into the fire as she changed, giving her privacy.
Although something scarier than my sister’s outbursts was her silence.
Rumor was never quiet, unlike me. I always knew what she was thinking because the moment a thought sprang into her mind, it catapulted out her mouth.
Not now, however. Who was this reserved, introspective person?
Once the rustle of fabric halted, Rumor moved on to brushing her hair. She rejoined me in the living room, wearing a billowing slate dress and black leather corset. Wordlessly, she laced her boots back on.
“Looking rather dark…” I mused, unable to find anything else to say. Something was odd about her… it was as if faint shadows protectively surrounded her form… or maybe it was a trick of the light.
“Feeling rather dark,” she replied.
Fields of questions and words spanned between us with no clear starting point to meet in the middle.
My sister seemed unnerved and a bit harsher around the edges than she had been when I’d last saw her at my wedding rite.
My gaze drifted to the sea glass and six leaf clover necklace below her collar.
A reminder my sister, and our parents, were still with me, despite how our time apart may have altered us both.
“How’s Birch?” I asked to break the ice.
Rumor settled into her rocking chair and glared into the flames. “I turned him into a horse.”
My mouth dropped open… before a flurry of giggles invaded my body. I doubled over, clutching my ribs to contain my laughter. “I’d ask if you’re joking, but I know you’re not,” I said between breaths.