Born Wicked: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One (21 page)

Half an hour later, I’m in the process of being bored to death by Rose Collier. She’s inclined to proclaim everything “darling” in the same way Mrs. Ishida employs “lovely”—my gown, Tess’s pumpkin bread, the paper on the sitting room walls. We soon resort to making observations about the weather. It’s a fine day, perfect Indian summer, unusual for October in New England; I’ve never seen such a blue sky; and oh yes, I’m quite glad we thought to serve lemonade as well as tea.

I’m watching a lone housefly buzz against the window when Rose lets out a little hum of disapproval. “Shouldn’t she go to the kitchen with her delivery?”
Marianne Belastra hovers in the doorway, looking as uncomfortable as Sachi predicted. She wears a high-necked, rust-colored gown with an out-of-fashion bustle and straight sleeves. The color and style flatter neither her complexion nor her figure.
“Look, she’s brought her odd little duckling with her. That child’s shooting up like a weed, Mama says. You’d think she’d be ashamed to traipse around in public with her ankles showing. What kind of mama would allow it? But Mrs. Belastra doesn’t care for anything except her books, I suppose.”
Rose’s voice is full of feigned pity. She clearly expects me to respond in kind. But my heart clenches at the sight of Clara, trailing awkwardly after her mother, dressed in a brown pinafore that’s too childish and too short.
I peer into the dining room at Tess. She’s expertly pouring tea, engaging the matrons in effortless conversation, acting as though their gossip is as fascinating to her as Ovid. She’s a pretty girl with none of Clara’s awkward growing pains, but just a few weeks ago she would have been strange and unfashionable, too. Elena’s lessons have given Tess poise; her orders at the dress shop have turned us all from odd ducks into swans. Whatever her faults, Elena has taught us to blend in.
No one rises to greet the Belastras. Teacups pause midair as rattlesnake whispers slither through the room. Clara stares at her feet, her face going a blotchy red beneath her freckles, her dark eyes hooded with misery. It’s plain she’d rather be somewhere else. Anywhere.
And here I thought I was doing them a kindness.
“Mrs. Belastra, thank you so much for coming.” My voice rings out clear as the brass church bells. “We’re delighted to have you both. Would you like some tea? Clara, let me present my sister Tess; she’s just your age.”
The running patter feels stilted on my tongue, but I think I carry it off passably. This is Finn’s sister. I can’t let her stand here, defenseless, while these stupid women snub her and call her names.
I usher the Belastras into the dining room as though they are our special guests, pouring tea for them, urging them to try Tess’s desserts. I want to pull Marianne aside and ask her for advice, but I can’t be seen whispering with her here. And with magic off-limits, I have no idea what to say to Finn’s mother. I feel irrationally terrified that she can read my thoughts and know I’ve been thinking of her son in wanton, lustful ways.
Fortunately, Tess is much less awkward. She sizes the situation up in an instant.
“Do you bake, Miss Belastra? I made the poppy-seed cakes myself.”
Clever Tess. I cast an admiring glance at her. She knows the Belastras can’t afford a housekeeper, and with Mrs. Belastra in the shop all day, it’s likely Clara does most of their cooking. Acknowledging that she spends time in the kitchen too puts them on more equal footing. Clara confesses to a mishap with a crust, and soon they’re giggling and chattering like magpies.
I wish I had some of Tess’s skill. I ask Marianne how business is going, and she tells me about a shipment of Brotherhood-sanctioned morality tales for children that have come in. When I ask what she’s reading herself—a question Tess always adores—she enthuses about a French poet she’s just discovered.
I fiddle with the pink and red roses on the table and glance back into the sitting room. Around the piano, Maura is chatting gaily with Cristina Winfield and a few other girls from town, and Sachi and Rory are whispering together on the settee. All normal enough. But several of the Brothers’ wives and Mrs. Corbett are clustered around the sofa, and I wonder what they’re discussing. Have we made some misstep? Is everything up to standard?
“This is a coming-out of sorts for you, isn’t it?” Marianne asks, startling me from my reverie. “You ought to get back to your true guests.”
I look up in surprise, ashamed to have been caught woolgathering. “You and Clara are as much our guests as anyone.”
“It was sweet of you to invite us, Cate, but you’re a sensible girl. Associating with my family has no advantages for you. You must realize that.”
I do, but somehow all my good sense flies out the window when I think of her son.
Has Finn told her about us? I wince at the thought. She and my mother were friends, but that doesn’t mean she’d want her son to marry a witch.
Her no-nonsense tone is just like his.
I’m not too proud to say it.
The difference in our stations does matter. Not to me, perhaps, but in the eyes of everyone else. We Cahill girls may have our secrets, but money helps us hide them. We don’t have to live right in town; we don’t depend on our neighbors’ custom for our livelihood. Father may not approve of the Brothers’ censorship, but he keeps on their good side, and they don’t come searching the house for banned books. It’s not perfect, but it’s easier for us than it is for Clara Belastra.
“I’ll be fine,” Marianne assures me, misunderstanding my silence. “I’ve long since made peace with my place in this town. Go. Enjoy your tea.”
Shame rises in my stomach, but I go.

MY CANDLE SHUDDERS. I CUP A hand around it, willing the harsh wind to stop. It bites through the cloak wrapped around my shoulders. Around me, the flowers are asleep, heads bowed to the waxing moon. My hem whispers across the flagstones, adding to the cacophony of night noises. The candle pitches long shadows that turn paths I’ve known forever unfamiliar and eerie.

Something brushes my hair. I jump back, hand flying to my face. It’s only a crumpled leaf twirling to the ground. I laugh, small and shaky, and taste smoke in the back of my throat. The fires are banked for the night, but gray plumes drift like ghosts above the chimneys. Wind knifes in at my wrists and ankles. I pull my cloak tighter and walk faster.

The gazebo looms monstrously at the top of the hill. This is the most dangerous part, when I’ll be visible from the servants’ quarters. I pray that Mrs. O’Hare and John have no cause to be up and looking out windows.
I take a deep breath and dash forward. It’s only a few yards before the candle snuffs out. Lord, but it’s dark.
Up ahead, I hear the lapping of pond water against the bank and smell dank, earthy mud. It’s soothing, a familiar sound amid the strange hooting of night birds. I listen harder and make out feminine voices drifting across the water. In the cemetery, shades dance among the headstones.
They’re there, gathered behind Mother’s tomb.
I hate the thought of her lying inside, her body slowly decomposing, surrounded by insects and earth. When he’s home, Father leaves flowers on her grave. I don’t see the point. Everything that made her Mother is gone.
Laughter—Rory’s distinct bark—echoes in the night.
“Hello?” My voice comes out hoarse.
Sachi steps out from behind the tomb. “Cate?” Her lantern throws strange shadows, turning her pretty features monstrous.
“Spooky, isn’t it? Would you like some sherry?” Rory asks, holding out a bottle.
A tall, thin figure peers around the tomb, her hood obscuring her face. There’s only one other person they might bring on such a mad, macabre adventure.
“Brenna?”
Brenna twirls around the graveyard like a child, sidestepping the little tombs next to Mother’s. She’s singing to herself:
“Days we spend planting flowers,
Nights spent warm in our beds,
Lives of sunshine and showers,
We’re all food for worms in the end.”
Appropriate for the setting, I suppose, but hardly comforting.
“Rory wanted to bring her.” Sachi does not sound pleased. “And she knows about us.”
I whirl on her, angry. “You told her?”
“I
didn’t tell her anything.” Sachi’s voice is tight.
“Nor did I! She just knows things,” Rory explains, tugging Brenna back to us. “That’s why they took her away.”
“She’s mad,” Sachi argues, crossing her arms over her chest. “They took her away because she told your stepfather he was going to die.”
“But I
do
know things.” Brenna’s voice is mournful. “If only I could remember them.”
“What don’t you remember?” I ask. It’s a foolish question—how can she know?—but Brenna takes it seriously.
“Holes in my head,” she explains, tapping her temple. “The crows put them there.”
“Crows?” I ask. Sachi shrugs.
Brenna shudders back against the marble tomb. She squeezes her eyes shut, like a child trying to shut out a nightmare, and wraps her arms around herself. “They came to my trial,” she whispers. “The Brothers left me alone with them. I was so frightened. I thought they would peck out my eyes, but they only took my memories.”
“When she came home from Harwood, she didn’t remember any of us at first. She’d only talk to Jake,” Rory says. Jacob is Brenna’s brother, a gentle tower of a boy.
“M-mustn’t ask questions,” Brenna stutters. “You’ll be punished!”
Another shiver presses along my spine, but this one has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with Brenna’s creepy chatter.
“That’s enough. Keep her quiet,” Sachi orders. “We didn’t come all the way out here to listen to her nonsense. Cate has something to tell us.”
“Hush,” Rory says, putting an arm around Brenna. Brenna is several inches taller, but she bends like a reed, all the energy draining out of her. “Sit.”
They all crouch on the cold marble dais around Mother’s tomb. Brenna stares into the darkness, her eyes unfocused. Sachi draws her knees into her chest and buries her face in her cloak. Only Rory seems unaffected by the cold, bouncing in her seat like a child.
Now that the moment’s here, I feel awkward.
What happened in the secret room—and then again at the gazebo—it’s private. What should I say? That now I’ve seen how brave and loyal and handsome Finn is, I can’t un-see it? That his kisses make me reckless? That I can’t bear the idea of giving him up, even if marrying Paul would protect our reputations? I need to know how to keep control of the magic, even when I don’t feel entirely in control of my own heart.
I only wanted to ask Sachi, not an audience of three. But I need answers.
I kneel on the cold grass, the dew soaking through my cloak. “Twice now, I’ve cast without intending to. On Monday it was powerful—much more so than usual. I couldn’t reverse the spell by myself.”
“What were you doing right before?” Sachi asks. One long black braid falls over her shoulder. “When I first started manifesting, strong emotions made my magic go awry. There were some very close calls around my father.”
“Ah. Well. I—actually, I was—” How does a lady admit to lustfulness?
Brenna laughs softly, and I want to crawl behind the tombstone with mortification.
“Stop it,” Sachi says, swatting her on the shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” Brenna hisses, leaping up. She scales the tomb behind us, perching at the top like an eerie gargoyle.
“Oh, good Lord,” Sachi says. “Brenna, come down from there. It’s disrespectful.”
“I can hear very well now,” Brenna calls. “Go on! Tell us more about the kissing!”
“How—?” I turn to Rory, amazed.
“I told you, she knows things. Besides, you said it had to do with a man.” Rory gives me her rabbity smile. “He looks as though he’d be quite good at it.”
“He does?” Of course I find Finn handsome—devastatingly, distractingly so. But somehow I didn’t imagine that he’d be the sort Rory would—
“Oh yes. I’ve never kissed anyone with a mustache,” Rory admits, her face perplexed. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever have the chance now. Does it tickle?”
A mustache? But Finn doesn’t have a mustache.
It wallops me over the head. Paul did. She thinks I’m talking about Paul. They’ve seen him flirt with me and ferry me home from services. They’ve heard the gossip. He’s hardly been subtle.
It’s easy enough to let them think it. I’m not ashamed of Finn. I don’t care whether Sachi approves of the Belastras or not. But I don’t see any point in correcting their assumption.
“Rory! Don’t jump to conclusions,” Sachi scolds. “Not everyone is as shameless as you.”
Above us, Brenna sings tunelessly, kicking her legs.
“No, it’s true. That’s what prompted it. Both times,” I admit.
“More than once, was it?” Rory crows.
My face flushes, but I plow on. “Both times, I felt—well, I felt—”
“Lustful,” Rory says. “Wanton. Shameless!”
I flush hotter. “My feelings were—quite intense. I imagine that’s why the magic went wrong. But I can’t risk that happening again. How do you control it?”
Rory takes another long sip of sherry. “I don’t,” she says.
I throw my dignity to the wind. “Tell me, Rory, please.”
Rory scowls, her dark eyes defiant. “I don’t know how to control it and I don’t particularly care to learn.”
“What do you mean? Doesn’t Nils notice? He could tell his father and have you arrested!”
“Nils is generally more focused on other things.” Rory smirks. “Sometimes I cast without meaning to, like you said. But more often my magic goes dormant, and I can’t cast for hours after we lie together.”
I didn’t expect that Rory’s courtship with Nils was entirely chaste—after all, that’s why I sought out her advice—but I’m still shocked that they lie together. I’ve heard of girls who’ve gotten with child and been forced to stand before the Brothers in their shame. I pluck a blade of grass and twirl it through my fingers. What would it be like to lie with a man? I think of the freckles spread over the muscles of Finn’s forearms, over his calves, on the back of his neck, and wonder what it would be like to see more of him. All of him.
“Love-drunk,” Sachi says scornfully, eyeing the bottle in Rory’s hand. “Except, of course, you don’t actually love Nils.”
Rory glares and tilts the bottle to her mouth. She holds it there, her throat working until it’s empty, then tosses it aside. It knocks against one of the small gravestones next to Mother’s. “Do you hear the frogs, Brenna? I’m going to go look for them.”
Brenna leaps down to follow her cousin. As she passes us, she gives Sachi a fearsome look. “You’ll be the one to ruin Rory.”
Sachi jumps to her feet, furious. “What do you know? You’re mad as a March hare!”
“I know too much,” Brenna says, her throaty voice sad. “They’ll kill me for it.”
The hair rises on the back of my neck. Sachi and I exchange wide-eyed glances. I summon up my courage. “Wait,” I say, and Brenna stops trudging toward the gate. “Did you see my godmother? Zara. Was she in Harwood with you?”
Brenna nods, her hands tugging at her hair in distress.
“Can you truly see the future?” I ask. “Do you know what I should do?”
“Yes—and no. I’m broken.” Brenna heaves a great, mournful sigh. But she paces back to me, standing very close—so close I can smell the sherry on her breath. My palms tingle. Am I really asking advice from a mad, drunk oracle? She peers down at me with her strange eyes. “You’re lucky. He loves you. But the crows—oh, the crows don’t care for love. No. It’s always duty with them, isn’t it?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sachi mutters.
Brenna reaches out and grabs the front of my cloak in both hands. Her voice is urgent. “You can stop it. But not without a sacrifice.”
I trip away from her, sprawling on one of the baby headstones.
Brenna runs off, and Sachi pulls me back to my feet. “There are not many things in life that frighten me, but she’s one of them. I wish Rory would stay away from her.”
I lean down and pick up the discarded bottle. I don’t believe that Mother’s spirit lingers here, but leaving trash is disrespectful to the dead.
“Will Rory be all right?” I ask, concerned. Between the liquor and Nils and her magic, she’s taking far too many chances.
“At the pond or in general?” Sachi sighs. “She’d never do anything to hurt any of us, if that’s what worries you. Only herself.”
“Why?” I sit next to Sachi on the tomb. The marble is cold under my thighs.
“She hates the magic. Nothing I say seems to make any difference. She’s so blasted careless,” Sachi swears. “It’s almost as though she wants to get arrested. Father looks the other way where she’s concerned, but for how long? Even his nepotism can stretch only so far.”
I wish I were more like Tess. I don’t know the right thing to do, to say. I never imagined I’d be sitting in a graveyard at midnight, listening to Sachi Ishida pour her heart out. I know that mix of love and worry well. It’s just how I sound when—
My eyes pop.
Nepotism
. Vocabulary has never been my strong suit, but if it means what I believe it means—
“Oh. She’s your sister? Your father—”
Sachi curls into herself, a small dark figure against the white marble tomb. “You mustn’t tell.”
I think of Mrs. Clay, the woman from the registry who accused Brother Ishida of adultery. “Of course not.”
Sachi grips my knee. “No one can know. No one. Rory doesn’t know it herself.”
I look at her solemnly. “No one. I swear it.”
“I’ve never told anyone else. I’ve wanted to—I almost did tell her once. After they took Brenna away. The notion of her being sent to Harwood—I couldn’t bear it.”
That, I understand. “What made you decide against it?”
“I was afraid she’d do something rash. She drinks too much. Usually she just gets sleepy, you know, and a bit silly. But I was afraid she might confront Father.”
“How long have you known?” I trace the letters carved on Mother’s tomb:
beloved wife and devoted mother.
“Since we were ten.” Sachi passes her hand over her face. Six years. Lord, how exhausting it must have been, keeping a secret like this for so long. “Her mother came to the door and insisted on seeing Father. She was drunk, but not so drunk she didn’t make sense. She wanted money, and she laid out very plainly why he ought to give it to her.”
“Why didn’t he arrest her?”
Sachi squints, trying to make out Rory and Brenna crouched on the bank of the pond. “Because of Rory, I suppose. Father’s a hypocrite and a coward, but he wouldn’t want his bastard raised in an orphanage. And there was a scandal before. Another woman. He had her tried and sent away. I don’t think he could risk it again. It wouldn’t serve his standing in the community,” she mocks.
I reach out and squeeze Sachi’s gloved hand.
“I’ve always wanted a sister,” she says. “I didn’t know she’d be so broken.”
There have certainly been days when I’ve wished Maura were easier to manage. But then she wouldn’t be Maura, would she? Who else would act out the plots of romance novels I’ll never read? Who else would sing bawdy songs, push the furniture to the walls, and dance across the sitting room with me?
I look over at the five small headstones, my gaze lingering on the last one. Danielle. She would be three now: a toddler running pell-mell through the house. What would it have been like if she’d survived? If Father had had a baby to care for, would he have stayed home more, or would he have remarried and foisted us off onto someone else?
“We don’t get to choose who we love. Or stop loving them when they’re difficult.”
“No.” Sachi sighs, swiveling toward me. “I knew you would understand.”
She stares at me expectantly. A cloud passes over the moon, shrouding us in darkness, and I watch the warm orange flicker of the lantern. I don’t know what she wants me to say. Just because she confided in me, am I obliged to return the favor? I don’t know how female friendships work. The trading of confidences—is that expected?
“It’s not Paul I’ve been kissing,” I say finally. “It should be. He asked me to marry him. It’s Finn Belastra.”
Sachi laughs. “The bookseller? Isn’t he a bit—”
“If you say he’s beneath me, I’ll slap you.”
“I was going to say serious. He looks quite serious!” she protests. “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this all to yourself. What are you going to do?”
I lean back against the tombstone, groaning. “I don’t know. It’s down to nine weeks now. Five before your father would give me to Brother Anders.”
Sachi shudders. “That’s revolting.”
“I know. But I can’t marry Paul when I’m in love with someone else.”
Sachi grabs me by the shoulder. “Yes, you can. To save yourself, you can. Do you think I love Renjiro?” She laughs, and it’s Rory’s laugh, bitter and humorless. “I do not. He’s an idiot. But we do what we have to do, and it could be worse.”
We could be in Harwood. We sit together in glum silence. “I suppose so.”
“You have a lot of secrets, Cate Cahill. That wasn’t what I expected you to tell me,” Sachi says.
I bite my lip. “What do you mean?”
“Your sisters. One of them is a witch,” Sachi prompts me.
“No.” I pull my cape more tightly around me. “What makes you think that?”