Spells Trouble (Sisters of Salem #1) - P. C. Cast Page 0,34
across her face, which felt numb again. Actually her life felt numb, wrong—so drastically altered that it was unrecognizable. She tilted her head and looked at her sister. “H, I don’t think I can do this.”
Hunter lifted her head and wiped almost violently at her damp cheeks. Then she took her sister’s hand and squeezed it—hard. “I know, but you have to—we have to.”
“Do we?”
“Of course we do. We have to make sure the trees are okay and the gates are closed. It’s what Mom wanted. It’s what she’d want if she were still here. That’s important, Mag. More important than how sad we are.”
“Okay. I know you’re right. Sorry. I’ll try harder to get it together.” Hunter squeezed her hand again before she let it loose. It flopped down on the console that separated the front bucket seats before Mercy put it lifelessly back in her lap. She blinked fast. First, to try to keep more tears from spilling out and, second, because if she closed her eyes for even a moment more she might never open them. The truth was all Mercy wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep and sleep and sleep—and hope when she woke, if she woke, everything that had happened since the creature had broken through the Norse gate would be a nightmare from which she’d finally awakened.
Hunter backed the car out of the garage, but instead of turning left to take Main Street through the heart of Goodeville, she turned right, heading for the one-lane country roads that snaked around the fields that surrounded the town—roads the twins knew as well as they knew their own names.
They drove in silence. Mercy stared out the open window. It was one of those spring days in Illinois where the sun seemed to highlight every tree’s bright emerald leaves like they were dressed in jewels. Everything looked normal, just as it had yesterday before her life had stopped, but today everything felt wrong. The trees that used to call to her were mute. She couldn’t even hear them breathe, something she’d been able to sense since she was in kindergarten. As Hunter followed the curvy blacktop from town and snaked through the verdant fields that made up the country surrounding Goodeville, Mercy realized she also couldn’t hear the whispers the corn made as the breeze rustled through it, or the chattering of the soy plants, their pods heavy with growing beans. She heard nothing. She felt nothing—nothing at all except exhaustion and grief—not even when her sister slowed as they neared the section of brilliant green fields that framed the mighty olive tree. So, Mercy stared and let her mind be completely empty like her heart and the unimaginable future.
“Oh, crap. Is that a cop car?”
Mercy forced her gaze to focus. “It looks like the sheriff’s car and a cop car. And I think I see yellow caution tape, too.”
“Roll your window up! I can’t turn around. It’d be too obvious. If someone recognizes Mom’s car, let’s hope they think Xena’s driving.”
Mercy kept her face pointed forward as they drove past, but glanced to the side. “Yeah, there’s that yellow crime scene tape and I think I saw the outline of a body.”
Hunter shivered. “No way we can check out the tree with the sheriff here. We’ll have to come back.” At the next stop sign Hunter turned to her sister. “I can cut across town super fast and swing by the Hindu tree. It’s on the way home. Want to go there?”
Mercy lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, okay.”
Hunter sighed, but didn’t comment. Instead she took a right, crossed Main Street, and wove through a quiet neighborhood and past the high school as they silently made their way to the tree that guarded the gate to the Hindu Underworld.
“I’m gonna pull into the easement so the car can’t be seen from the road,” Hunter said as she braked and turned off the road and onto a grassy area that was flanked by a wall of willows on one side and a bean field on the other. Mercy jumped and rubbed a hand over her face as she realized she’d almost fallen asleep. Hunter put the car in park and touched her sister’s arm. “Hey, are you okay?”
It was difficult to summon enough energy to turn her head to look at her twin, but slowly Mercy did. “No,” she made herself speak. “I am not okay.”
“I know, Mag. Me, either. But let’s get this done—for Mom.