Murder is looking more appealing by the second.
And yet, because I’m so magnanimous, I pick up their trash without comment—well, other than a pointed glare—and allow them to live another day.
“Original sources only,” I remind them, dusting their filth from my hands. “No microfiche, no cassette tapes. New technology makes me unwell.”
“New technology. Um… right,” says Warren, and Oliver laughs as if I’ve said something wildly humorous, and off they go to root around in file storage while I’m to collect all the resources I can find on training (and non-coercively, non-threateningly, ever-so-kind-and-gently misleading) three baby witches, surviving a trip topside without causing another international incident, and—most impossible task of all, despite my many qualifications and decades of practice—maintaining mybleedingsanity.
three
LIZZY
If I thought Madame Bespectacled and Be-scarved was a weirdo before, the detonation of the witch-bomb is hardly normalizing the situation.
Witches?Are youkiddingme?
My sisters and I settle in around the table, shooting each other wide-eyed, fish-gaping looks. It’s likely the first time in history the Sisters Bonnivarde are all on the same page. That page being from the book,What The Fuck Is Happening, Chapter One: You Picked A Fine Time To Forget The Drugs, Dipshit.
Once again it’s Kate who recovers the power of speech first. In the soft, calming voice she’s honed from years of refereeing fights between me and Rachel, she says, “This is… well… It’s a lot to process, Helena. Let’s just hit the rewind button, take a few deep breaths, and?—”
“Deep breaths? Deepbreaths?” Rachel breaks into an unhinged laugh. “This is ridiculous. All of you are missing the point.”
“What point would that be, Rach?” I blink at her and grin. Innocent, yet antagonizing—my special sauce.
“That outside a freaking Disney movie, a sentient, food-serving dining room doesn’t exist! A house simply can’t do this! There must be a rational?—”
The lights go out.
Someone emits a little squeak. Someone also emits a little pee. We won’t embarrass that someone by naming names, but their initials are M.E.
“Well,Ibelieve you,” I say out loud. Call me old-fashioned, but it seems to me that if a house can prepare a feast, randomly open doors, and mess with the lights, it can also drop a wall on your face or shove you down the stairs when no one’s looking. Best to get on its good side.
“The house,” Helena says, “along with everything in it, is tied to your ancestral magic.”
The light returns. A very hallelujah moment all around.
“Ancestral magic,” Rachel repeats with a skeptical huff. “As if that explains anything.”
“Can’t you feel it, girls?” Helena asks.
I really don’t want to disappoint my new adoptive mother so early in the relationship, but the only thing I feel right now is a bit moist in the nether regions, and not in the fun way. Also, I despise the words moist and nether regions, especially when used in the same sentence, which just goes to show you my current state of mind, and further proves how inadvisable it is to attend Bonnivarde family gatherings without copious amounts of mind-altering substances.
But… wait. Maybe there’s…something? Yes! There it is again. That warm-bath sensation I felt when I first arrived. A tingling, of sorts. Not in the nether regions, unfortunately, but between my shoulder blades.
Is that what she’s talking about?
I close my eyes and focus on it. Everything around me fades to a dull hum as a scattering of bright, pretty sparkles appears in my mind, like lavender-colored lightning bugs. The more I relax, the deeper the feeling draws me in, warming me until?—
“Enough.” Rachel shoves her chair out, shattering my magical fucking moment. “We have more important things to deal with right now. Reality-based things. We certainly don’t need someswindlercoming in here and?—”
“What my sister is trying to say,” Kate says, casting a pleading glare at Rachel, “is that we’ve just come back to Graves Hollow after two decades away. It’s a major adjustment. Our mother has only been dead a day, and?—”
“Your mother has been dead over a week,” says Helena. “Ten days, to be exact. We have only until the next new moon to?—”
“Ten days?” Rachel shakes her head. “That can’t be right. The lawyer said?—”
“Lawyer?” Helena’s face goes ashen. “You’ve been in touch with a lawyer?”
“Nathan Killroy,” Rachel says, as if Helena should know the name. “Apparently my mother directed him to get in touch with me in the event of her death.”
