Omens Bite, page 2
Jax returned Xena’s nod and scooted closer to Hunter as the Maine-coon-turned-legal-guardian spoke to him, Emily, and Mercy. The coffee stain on his shirt had lightened as it dried and now looked more like an unfinished game of hangman than the bold T Hunter had seen before. Tyr hadn’t been sending her a sign. It had been her imagination, her wild hope.
“Hunter? What memory will you share of our Abigail?” Xena had made it back to her place at the head of the circle and was now staring at Hunter. They all were.
Hunter’s breath hitched. Too many eyes, too many expectations. Why couldn’t she mourn her mother in peace? Why did it have to be a show? She didn’t want to play her part. She wanted her mother back.
Mercy let out an annoyed rumble that sent one hand to her hip. “Come on, H. You have to say something.”
Hunter’s toes bit into the earth. She didn’t have to do anything. This whole thing was more for Mercy than it had ever been for their mother. If it was up to Hunter, if anything was ever actually up to Hunter, it would have been different. It would have been real. Not full of virgin white and circle casting and catering.
Mercy tapped the muddy point of her high heel against the grass. “I knew I should have stood on that side of Xena so I could start everything off.”
The familiar heat was back. Rage ate through Hunter’s stomach, her chest, her limbs. It swallowed her heart and left teeth in its place.
“This isn’t for Mom.” Hunter thrust her finger at the hole in the ground and the box nestled in the grave. “She’s already gone. This is for everyone else. But this part, specifically, is for me. I don’t care about the rest. You do.”
Xena clasped her hands together, her white sleeves waving like flags of surrender in the tense space between the sisters. “That’s perfectly understandable, kitten. We can—”
“You’re seriously going to ruin this whole day?” Mercy glared at Hunter the same way she had in the house. If Hunter thought back, Mercy had been glaring at her like that for as long as she could remember. Anytime Mercy felt Hunter slipping, straying from the path, she was there with her narrowed eyes and silent threats so loud they drowned out Hunter’s own desires. But that had been the past, and Hunter wouldn’t go back.
Emily rested her hand on Mercy’s arm, interrupting the spray of venom shooting between the sisters. “No one is ruining—”
But Mercy had sunk her fangs in too far and she wouldn’t let her prey go without a fight. A pebble fell into the grave as she stepped forward. “You’re seriously still mad at me for doing my best to seal the gates and protect Goodeville?”
This was Hunter’s twin. This snake. Not the young woman who’d floated down the stairs like Scarlett O’Hara or who could unite every clique at school under the umbrella of love and togetherness. No, that girl didn’t really exist.
Hunter’s eyes burned and her pulse battered her eardrums. “I betrayed Tyr because you thought it would fix everything. I did it for you!” Spittle flew from Hunter’s mouth and she wiped the back of her hand against her lips. “I do everything for you and you’ve never been worth it!” Hot wax rolled down the side of the candle and waterfalled across Hunter’s fingers. “I’m leaving after this. I’m moving in with Jax.”
Mercy stiffened. The flame of her candle flickered in the wake of her measured exhale. “Why don’t you leave right now? You’re clearly not interested in participating.”
Hunter reached into her pocket and clutched the moonstone owl. She’d keep it hidden, too, along with all her happy memories. “You’re right.” Mercy opened her mouth to speak, but Hunter filled the space before her sister had the chance. “I’m not interested in putting on a show.” Another glob of wax sloshed over the side of the candle and coated her fingers as she blew out the flame and set the pillar next to the picnic basket. “Good-bye, Xena.” Hunter turned and sprinted back to the house.
She burst through the back door and left a fresh trail of muddy footprints through the main floor, up the stairs, and into her bedroom. She threw open her closet door and parted the few remaining clothes and wrestled her heavy suitcase out from between the boxes of books she wanted to donate but could never bring herself to part with. She glanced around her room at the bare spots on the walls where her favorite pictures and posters had been and the empty spaces, like missing teeth, where she’d pulled her most loved books from their places in her alphabetized library.
Everything that was important to her had ended up in the suitcase she’d packed days ago. Hunter knew then that she had to get away from her sister and into a space where she was allowed to be herself, think for herself. She’d only stuck around because she held a sliver of hope that Mercy would apologize and fix what she had broken. But each day that had passed while Hunter and Mercy stayed tucked away in their separate rooms, had chipped away at that small piece in Hunter that believed her sister would change.
The dried flower crowns Mercy had made along with clothes Hunter had borrowed were in a pile on the bed like the sloughed skin of a snake. The things in this house no longer served Hunter. She was an orphan. She belonged nowhere. The sooner she accepted that and got on with her life, the better.
Hunter checked the contents of the suitcase one last time. Her writing journal was tucked inside, along with her favorite pens. She would be without a permanent home, living out of a suitcase like so many famous writers had before her. She zipped up the bag and tossed it into the hall. She didn’t pick it up as she approached the stairs. Instead, she dragged the duffle down each wooden step.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Hunter’s lips curled. No more padding through life on soft footsteps with a soft voice trying not to be seen. She would be remembered—by this house, by her sister, by all the people she would no longer let use her as their punching bag. She would be seen.
And Hunter Goode would be missed.
Two
“I cannot believe she did that!” Mercy slammed the back door and fisted her hands at her waist as she stared at the muddy footprints Hunter had tracked into the house.
Beside her Emily brushed her dark curls back from her face and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “It is a lot of mud.”
“Mud?” Mercy shook herself like a cat coming in out of the rain. “It’s not just the mud, although that’s pretty damn annoying. She ruined Mom’s funeral—her funeral, Em! How the bloody hell could she be so selfish?” Mercy barreled on without waiting for her bestie to respond. “I hope Xena is telling her off. And where’s Jax?” She stepped delicately over the mud prints as she headed into the living room to look through the front picture window. “I mean, seriously! She couldn’t even pretend to act right? Instead she stomps off leaving me to be the adult—as usual.”
At her shoulder Em peeked through the lacy sheers. “Uh, Mag, his car isn’t out there.”
Xena’s bare feet padded down the stairs.
Mercy whirled around to face the cat person. “What? Is she feeling too ashamed to come down? Too damn bad. She needs to clean up the muddy mess she left.” Mercy sucked in a breath and shouted, “Hunter Jayne Goode! Get your ass down here!”
“Kitten, she’s gone.” Xena sat on the corner of the couch and pulled the chenille throw up around her bowed shoulders.
Mercy’s mouth closed, then opened. Then closed again. She cleared her throat. “So she ran away with Jax and left us to clean up her mess.” Mercy snorted. “That’s ironic since she’s so good at whining about how she’s always cleaning up my messes.” Mercy plopped down on the couch and Emily sat in one of the comfy chairs close by. “What does that mean, anyway? Sometimes I just don’t get her at all. Well, I’m not touching that!” She pointed at the mud her twin had tracked through the house and up the stairs. “And when our guests for Abigail’s wake give the mud WTF looks I’ll tell them it’s Hunter’s mess—not mine. It’ll be here when she’s done pouting and slinks home tonight.”
Xena licked the back of her hands and smoothed her hair with short, frantic strokes. “I do not believe Hunter will come home. Not tonight. Perhaps not for many nights.”
Emily leaned forward in her chair. “What do you mean?”
Xena sighed and stilled her hands by clutching them together. “Her things are gone. Her favorite things.”
“Wait, what?” Mercy felt like she’d been gut punched. “You mean she’s gone gone?”
Xena nodded sadly. “Yes, kitten.”
“Holy shit,” said Emily.
Heat lifted from Mercy’s heart to flush her face. Her stomach felt twisted and for a second she thought she was going to be sick. “H-how could she leave me?”
“People grieve in different ways,” said Xena.
“You mean like some choose to be a bitch?” Mercy shot back.
“Mercy, perhaps our Hunter just needs time to herself. Perhaps that is how she will work through her grief and then—”
“That’s not grieving.” Mercy stood and paced. “Actually, maybe that is grieving. How the bloody hell would I know? Hunter took my grief from me before I could work through it.”
Xena frowned. “That’s not fair, kitten.”
“Yeah, hey, I’m on your side,” Em spoke up, “but you gotta remember that you were seriously not functioning. I’m not a witch, but I did just lose a parent, too. So I understand, believe me. You needed that spell, Mag.”
Mercy wiped her hands down her face. “I’m sorry, Em. You do understand.”
“As do I,” Xena said. “And, kitten, you need to understand as well. Your sister took nothing from you. She only washed the worst of your grief away so that you could move forward.”
Mercy knew they were right, but being pissed at Hunter made her absence bearable. “Whatever. Hunter made up the sodding spell. We don’t know what it was she actually did.”
“But, Mag, she’s Hunter.” Emily rubbed her arms as if she was cold. “You know her better than anyone. She’d never do anything to hurt you.”
Mercy met her best friend’s gaze. “Bullshit. She hurt me today. She hurt Xena today. If Abigail had been here she would’ve hurt her, too.”
“Your sister has also been wounded.” Xena’s voice was soft, but her words felt like sledgehammers battering Mercy’s wounded heart. “She forsook her beloved god.”
Mercy wanted to close in on herself and let tears of heartbreak drown her feelings. She hated that her sister had betrayed her god for nothing. I just don’t get it. Everything had pointed to Tyr being the cause of the sickness killing the trees and weakening the gates to the Underworlds—the fact that no Goode witch had ever chosen to follow a god before, as well as the prophetic-like poem I found in Sarah Goode’s grimoire—everything pointed to Tyr. Mercy swallowed the guilt that flooded her mouth like bile. “It was the right thing to do. We all agreed.”
“Kitten, Hunter didn’t agree. She did it for you, and when—”
Mercy’s raised hand stopped her words. “No. I don’t want to hear it. I didn’t force her to forsake Tyr.”
Emily’s phone bleeped and she pulled it from the deep pocket of her white lacy peasant skirt and frowned. “That’s Mom. She and my grandparents are on their way here for the wake.”
Mercy pressed her fingers to her temples as the sound of a car crunching up their driveway signaled the beginning of the people who would come by to show their respect to their mother’s memory. I wish I could run away, too! But Mercy couldn’t—wouldn’t—run. Instead she stood and straightened her shoulders. “Xena and Em, if you get the door I’ll put out the lemonade and be sure there’s coffee.” Mercy ignored her shaking hands and the fact that her sister’s absence was a wound so deep it felt as if misery pumped throughout her body with each beat of her battered heart and went to handle things.
* * *
“That is the last of them.” Xena closed the thick front door and clicked the lock before she collapsed onto the couch. “How do people bear so many other people? There is so very much talking.”
“Tell me about it.” Mercy emerged from the kitchen. She carried a wicker basket in the crook of one arm. Over her other shoulder she’d slung her big boho bag. It bounced against her hip as she walked to Xena. “As soon as Em left with her mom and grandparents I was ready to shoo everyone out.” She handed the cat person a cup of hot cocoa with a truffled cannabis treat balanced on the saucer under it. “Here. This’ll help you relax while I’m gone.”
Xena took the cup and saucer and sat up straighter. “Gone? You’re going out?”
Mercy nodded grimly and patted the wicker basket. “I’m going to practice some green witchery. Alone. At one of the trees. Hunter gave up and left us, so it’s up to me to heal the trees and fix the gates.”
Xena studied Mercy as she blew across the top of her cocoa. “Did you think of something new?”
Mercy moved her shoulders. “Yes and no. I mean, we’ve only tried a couple different spells on the trees.” She hurried on when Xena opened her mouth to speak. “Yeah, I know one was a powerful major ritual that shoulda worked. But it didn’t. So I’m gonna keep trying.” Mercy paused and chewed at her lip before she blew out a long breath and continued. “I’ve chosen a simple heal-and-protect spell. One I’ve done over and over. It’s always worked. Every time. Maybe uncomplicated is best.”
Xena nodded and her mane of hair bounced around her shoulders. “That is a valid idea.”
“And maybe I will focus better alone—stay truer to my intent. Today Hunter freaked out and ran away. How long has she been feeling like running?” How long has she hated me? The question echoed through her mind. “It seemed like the trees were sick because Hunter chose a god and not a goddess to follow, but what if that was only one part of what’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean maybe it’s Hunter and not Hunter’s god who’s the problem!”
“Oh, kitten, you don’t really believe that.”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore. But I do know that for generations—hundreds of years—solitary Goode witches have guarded the gates and kept the trees healthy. I’m a solitary Goode witch. I’m going to do my job. Period.”
Xena put the cup and saucer on the coffee table, stood, and enfolded Mercy in her arms. “Do not ever forget that you are not alone. I am here and I will always be here for you.”
Unshed tears made the back of Mercy’s throat burn. She clung to Xena and whispered, “I’ll remember.”
Xena finally sat back on the couch and smiled up at Mercy through watery eyes. “Blessed be, my kitten.”
“Blessed be, Xena.” Mercy responded as she headed for the front door. Xena’s voice made her pause with her hand on the knob.
“Abigail would have been proud of you today.”
Mercy couldn’t turn and look at Xena. If she did she’d dissolve into tears and never make it out of the house. Instead, she spoke over her shoulder. “That’s the nicest thing you could’ve said to me.”
In the car she put her basket and purse on the passenger’s seat where she usually sat because Hunter always drove. Mercy couldn’t remember exactly why Hunter always drove. It wasn’t like either of them had their licenses yet. Mercy had been meaning to schedule a driving test for weeks, but, well, a lot could happen in a few weeks. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I don’t know how to drive. Sheesh.” She turned the key and backed out—and then took a right. It wasn’t the fastest way to the weeping cherry tree she’d chosen to begin with, but it was midafternoon on a bright, beautiful spring day, and Goodeville’s version of heavy traffic would be meandering up and down Main Street, visiting the cute boutiques, cafés, and coffee shops. Like Xena, Mercy had had her fill of people for the day, which is why she chose the cherry tree. It was the most secluded of the five guardians.
It was also the tree she and Hunter used to pretend was a curtained stage. They’d put on more plays and concerts for their stuffed toys and dolls than she could count. Mag and H—we’re gonna be stars! Is what they used to tell each other as they skipped to the tree, hand in hand, to perform their version of The Sound of Music or Moana or whichever pop star’s current hit they loved the most.
Mercy clenched her teeth. No. She wouldn’t think about that. She’d only think about the fact that the cherry tree represented happiness and love and not the shattered and battered remains of what used to be. And anyway, she shouldn’t think about the past when she had to set her intention. Mercy relaxed her grip on the steering wheel and let the tension in her neck and shoulders loosen.
My intention is simple—with Freya’s help and the power of the ley lines that run deep within the earth I will heal the cherry tree.
Mercy cleared her mind of all else and repeated her intention over and over as she crossed the railroad tracks and turned onto the easement that stretched green and grassy between the raised track on her right and the verdant bean field that reached to the horizon on her left. The silver Camry bumped along to the weeping cherry tree, guardian of the gate to the Japanese Underworld, which Abigail said long ago was formally called the World of Darkness.
She parked on the familiar tire tracks made just a couple days ago by the Camry. Had it only been two days? It felt like a century ago. Focus! Mercy mentally shook herself and deepened her breathing as she slowly approached the tree.
A warm breeze rustled through the soybeans on either side of the railroad tracks, making them sway gracefully. Still several yards from the tree Mercy stopped and breathed in the scent of growing things and the Illinois spring. The undulating crops made a sea of green and Mercy was suddenly reminded of her eighth-grade field trip to a big horse ranch a couple hours south of Goodeville. The ranch owner had asked if any of the students would like to ride a horse. Mercy had been the first to volunteer. She was trotting the mare sedately in the pasture when a yellow jacket stung the horse on the butt—and the mare had taken off. Mercy remembered clearly that as she’d clung to the panicked mare’s back the long pasture grass had rippled past and looked exactly like a green sea. So, she’d jumped off—expecting to be caught gently by the grass ocean. Instead, she’d been shocked when the wind was knocked out of her and her arm broken. The memory was so vivid that Mercy’s right forearm momentarily throbbed. She clutched it to her chest and rubbed it as a cotton-ball cloud covered the sun and the day temporarily darkened. Mercy shivered.
