Peyton returned with a half dozen boxes for us, and then dropped by her mother's side. "Let me rub your feet, you've been on them too long today."
Sighing with relief, Anadey sat back. "So, tell me," she said after a moment. "Tell me about Heather."
Rhiannon put down the book she'd been looking at. "Not much to tell. I came home from work and she was gone." She crossed over to Anadey and held out the necklace. "This was all we found. Well, this and some blood."
"We think whatever's . . . in the woods . . . got her," I said.
Anadey looked at us, holding each of our gazes in turn. When she came to me, she smiled softly. "I don't think Marta expected everything to snowball so soon. Tell me, Cicely, whatever happened to your mother? I knew her when we were teenagers, before she got pregnant. We drifted apart after that."
I swallowed. "She couldn't handle her powers and ran, taking me with her. She died a couple years ago, killed by a vampire."
Rhiannon jerked her head up, and she turned to me. "You didn't tell me that. All you said was that your mother was dead."
"Not much to be proud of in her death, is there? Krystal was strung out. A crack addict. That's how she got the money for her drugs--she was a bloodwhore. Her last trick went apeshit on her and drained her. I found her bathed in her own blood and urine." I shrugged. "I don't have a whole lot of love for vampires. Or pushers."
Rhiannon glanced at me. "Does it bother you that Leo's a day runner?"
I shrugged. "I haven't really had time to even think about it. I don't know how I feel about his job. But I do like him."
Anadey interrupted. "I'm sorry to hear that. Krystal had so much promise. Let's focus on Heather. Tell me everything. Maybe I can help."
Rhiannon looked at me and I nodded. We couldn't keep our secret any longer. We were no longer children, but women, long past our childhood.
I took a deep breath. "Everything started when Rhiannon and I were barely six . . . and first stumbled into the spiders' wood . . ."
Rhiannon followed me into the wood, glancing over her shoulder to make sure we weren't followed. The path was shady. It was always shady regardless of how much sunlight beamed through the branches. Aunt Heather had warned us time and again to stay out of the copse, but my own mother didn't care--she was always off at a party or away on some trip. And so I had persuaded Rhiannon to join me in my explorations. And now, we had a precious secret.
At six years old, the trees towered so high they were growing into the heavens. Maybe if we climbed them, we'd find Valhalla. Heather called it the home of the gods. My mother said it didn't exist. But either way, I wasn't afraid, and after a few times of sneaking into the wood, neither was Rhiannon. We were magic-born, the daughters of witches, and nothing could hurt us.
Even though my mother isn't happy about being a witch, I thought. I'd heard the arguments late at night, when I was supposed to be asleep.
"Krystal, you keep denying your birthright and the power's going to destroy you. You can't repress it forever. Not to mention, you have an obligation to the family. To the Thirteen Moons Society. And most of all, you have a responsibility to your daughter to see she gets the training she needs." Heather's accusations echoed up the stairs.
"Fuck you and fuck the Society," my mother would counter. "I don't give a crap about family tradition or magical powers. I never asked to be born with this fucking ability, and I wish somebody would just rip it out of my head. Do you know what it's like, being able to hear voices all the time? The voices of people who laugh at you? Who think you're a slut just because you want to have a little fun? Do you?"
A murmured whisper from Heather.
Then, Krystal's voice again. "Well, that's what I hear every day when I go out. The only things that help drown them out are booze and pills, and let me tell you, I'll bow down in front of a jug of Gallo faster than I'll ever kneel at the feet of that sorry-assed Society or that priggish, self-righteous old biddy."
"Marta's just worried about you--"
"Tell her not to bother!"
And Krystal would stomp out of the house--the door slamming behind her--and my aunt would cry. Sometimes Heather didn't cry, though. Sometimes she just remained silent but I could hear her grumbling, all the way up in my room. Her words filtered in on the breeze.
"Hurry up," I urged Rhiannon as she lagged behind. "Grieve and Chatter are waiting for us."
"How do you know?" she asked, but she quickened her pace. I could run faster and play rougher than she could, but Rhiannon was the graceful one. She could be a dancer, I thought. When she grew up, she could be a ballerina, she was so tall and lithe.
"They're waiting. I can hear them. Now come on."
I started to run and she followed me. We came to a skidding halt in front of one of the huge old cedars and I bit my lip. Every time we came out here, a little voice whispered that this was a dangerous thing to do, that we could get hurt. But overriding my aunt's orders and common sense was the absolute need to visit with our odd friends.
I reached out and knocked on the tree trunk three times. The third time, there was a noise to the left of the path and we turned to see Grieve and Chatter slipping out from behind a bush. They were older--grown-up, but they'd always been polite and nice and never did anything to make us uncomfortable.
I never thought of them as boys. Boys were loud and obnoxious and only wanted to follow their girlfriends around. Grieve and Chatter never said anything about girls, and they were . . . well . . . different. They weren't human, we knew that, or magic-born. They were Fae and seemed so very exotic and dangerously strange. We knew all about other Supes in the area, but mostly met others like us.
Grieve motioned for us to follow them and held the bushes aside as we slipped off the path and into the woods, avoiding the ravine as he led us into a clearing to the left.