Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen) - By Sierra Dean Page 0,59
watched the red light emerge from the tree line and stop a few feet from us. Then the light died, and in its place stood a small, fragile-looking woman stooped over a wooden cane.
Her hair was the brightest white I’d ever seen and was bundled in a braid, wrapped around the crown of her head. Earrings made of feathers and small bones dangled from her wrinkled lobes, and each of her bone-thin fingers had a silver ring on it.
She stared at us, her eyes shockingly blue and young-looking in contrast to the rest of her.
“La Sorcière,” I whispered.
The woman smiled, giving her the appearance of a sweet old granny. But sweet grannies don’t make a pack of feral wolves piss themselves.
There was more crashing in the woods, and I tensed against Holden. A moment later a slight girl, about eighteen, emerged from the tree line, sputtering so many curses I had no doubt she was my missing sister.
“Hells bells, mémère, did you have to just up and vanish? What was the damned—” She fell silent when she saw us. “What’s going on?”
The old woman pointed one frighteningly thin finger at us, and I winced, expecting some kind of magical assault. None came, but my reaction made her smile widen. She was a twisted old lady. If I wasn’t so damned terrified of her, I might like her. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that some of her blood was running through my veins.
Eugenia, in spite of being my half-sister, couldn’t have looked less like me. She was tall and slim, and her legs were well-muscled, probably from running after the witch. Black hair hung in a long ponytail down to her butt, and she had a fantastic tan.
La Sorcière crooked her finger at Eugenia, and my sister bent down to let the woman whisper in her ear. I don’t know what the old lady said, but when Eugenia’s eyes went wide and she started staring at me, I had a pretty good idea what the gist of it was.
Eugenia bounded past the old witch and came up to Holden and me. “Let’s get you two out of here before Carn sends reinforcements. There will be time to talk later.” Her hand rested on my arm, and she squeezed gently. “I’m glad she found you in time.”
“So am I.”
La Sorcière was already toddling back into the trees, looking about as dangerous and unassuming as Yoda.
Judge her by her size, I will not, I thought.
Holden and I followed Eugenia and my great-grandmother into the darkness, this time without the showy display of lights. When we came to a huge sycamore, La Sorcière stopped. Eugenia looked over her shoulder at us and smiled with poorly concealed pride. “This is the best part.”
The witch touched the tree with a bare hand, and it groaned like a dog receiving a belly rub. The trunk shuddered once, and the whole base of the tree ripped open, exposing a doorway. Eugenia waited for the witch to go in then stepped back for us to enter ahead of her. “Totally safe, I promise.”
At this point I would have walked face first into a normal tree if someone told me it would give me an alternative to Carn and his ferals. And, as a considerate follow-up gift from the Fates, we’d also been rescued by the very people I’d been sent to find. Sometimes a girl gets lucky.
And sometimes luck has nothing to do with it.
On the other side of the tree door we entered a space I was at a loss to comprehend. It was a house, but it was also still the forest. Sycamores had grown together in a tight circle so fused by age and the forces of nature, all the trees had begun to form as one. The canopy had sealed in on itself, Spanish moss dangling over our heads like a green chandelier. The space was lit, but I couldn’t say how because there was no electricity. The roots of the trees had warped to form wide ledges that were laid out with blankets, and a black cauldron sat on top of a smoldering fire next to the door.
“Wow,” I said.
“Amazing,” Holden agreed.
“You live here? You’re like Luke Skywalker after he crashed into—”
Holden squeezed my hand and shook his head.
Eugenia, to her credit, laughed. “She does kind of look a bit like Yoda, doesn’t she?”
I’m not sure if the witch did it to be funny, but she reached out then and