Born Wicked: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One (8 page)

I’M STANDING ON THE RAISED DAIS in the back room of Mrs. Kosmoski’s dress shop, wearing only my chemise and corset, with all of them examining me like livestock on the block.
“Too thin,” Mrs. Kosmoski says, clucking disapprovingly.
“That can be fixed,” Elena insists. “We’ll give the illusion of curves. Padding in the bust and a bustle in back?”
Mrs. Kosmoski nods. “It’ll mean more work. I’ll need to have both my seamstresses up all night.”
“Whatever you need,” Elena promises. “As long as they’re ready by next Wednesday. We can have the girls come in the morning for last-minute alterations. This tea is their equivalent of a coming-out party. They can’t go looking like this.”
Mrs. Kosmoski eyes Maura’s high-necked green sprigged muslin. “Indeed,” she agrees, her voice dry. She’s been arguing with my orders for years now, suggesting brighter colors, busier patterns, more current fashions. I’ve resolutely ignored her advice—until now, when I have no choice.
Elena’s gotten Father to loosen his purse strings; the three of us are to have new wardrobes. She declared all our old things frightfully outdated and frumpy. Tess is pleased at the thought of graduating to longer, grown-up dresses; I’m the only one who isn’t elated.
I’m too preoccupied with wondering if I might be the most powerful witch in centuries.
Elena circles around me. “What a waist, though. Twenty inches, Cate?”
I nod and she lets out a low, unladylike whistle. “Most girls would murder for that.”
Across the room, Maura glowers. Much to her chagrin, she’s never been able to cinch her corset tighter than twenty-four.
“At least I don’t need a padded arse!” she mutters, glaring at me.
Tess hides her giggles behind her hand.
Mrs. Kosmoski’s lips tighten. For someone who works with ladies’ fashions and forms all day, she’s something of a prude.
“Maura!” Elena touches one of the perfect black ringlets that frame her perfect, heart-shaped face. “Please. We do not use such unladylike words.”
Mrs. Kosmoski takes my measurements. She’s a tall woman with a head of thick, dark hair perched on a swanlike neck. Her pearl earbobs swing back and forth as she and Elena talk.
I let her poke and prod me as I watch my sisters whispering on the pink love seat. Tess is paging through a book of patterns, the dimple in her left cheek coming out as she mocks the outlandish fashions from Mexico City.
The dress shop is meant to be a feminine oasis, and perhaps that should make me feel safe here, but everything from the rosebud paper on the walls to the pink velvet love seats sets my teeth on edge. Bouquets of roses litter every available surface, perfuming the air with their sweet scent. It feels gaudy and oppressive to me, but Maura adores it. She’s like a child at the chocolatier’s, giddy with all the choices before her.
Elena encourages it. And Mrs. Kosmoski is taking Elena’s every suggestion as gospel truth, hungry to hear what the ladies are wearing on the streets of New London. Aren’t Sisters meant to forgo sins like vanity and pride? Surely Elena’s love of fashion falls into one of those categories. Today she’s wearing a gorgeous peach silk that Maura keeps reaching out to stroke. It practically glows against her dark skin.
“I’m finished, Miss Cahill,” Mrs. Kosmoski says. Her breath smells like peppermints.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” Gabrielle Dolamore, one of Mrs. Kosmoski’s seamstresses, pokes her dark head into the room. Oh good, another person to see me in my underclothes. “Miss Collier is here for her alterations.”
I pull on my chemise cover and petticoats and my plain brown dress. It used to be a rich chocolate, but now it’s faded from repeated washings and looks more mud colored. Maura does up the buttons in back, her fingers nimble and familiar against my skin. “Stop being such a grump,” she admonishes. “This is meant to be fun.”
“I’ve got a headache.” It’s been present for two days straight, since I read Mother’s diary. I reach up and massage my right temple. I’ve got to share this secret with someone, and soon, before it drives me mad. Mother confided in Marianne Belastra. Dare I do the same?
Those who love knowledge for its own sake—
that describes the bookseller more than anyone else.
“Just think of Paul’s face when he sees you in these dresses. He’ll be mad with lust,” Maura teases, eyes dancing.
“Hush!” But now I can’t avoid thinking of it. Paul must be used to city girls and city fashions. It strikes me, all of a sudden, that I
do
want him to think I’m pretty. I want him struck dumb with it.
I lean down and button my boots, wretched all over again. Perhaps I
should
marry him and move away—the farther the better. If this prophecy is true, I’m putting my sisters at risk every moment of every day.
“Hello,” Rose Collier says, passing us on her way to the inner sanctum.
Tess practically skips to the counter to examine the bright spools of ribbon.
“Oh,” Maura breathes, running her hand over a bolt of luxurious sapphire silk.
I slouch on a settee in the corner. It’s impossible to care about new dresses with so much to fret about. But that’s my conundrum, isn’t it? I’ve still got to find a husband, still got to look pretty and proper, no matter what terrible thoughts lurk inside my head. I cringe as Rose’s giggles swoop through the air and attack my eardrums.
“This violet would be divine on you, Cate,” Elena says, handing me a color sample. “It would make your eyes look lavender.”
I examine the swatch and shudder. “But it’s so—bright!”
“Exactly,” Elena agrees. “You’re a pretty girl. Why hide away in those dark dresses? What do you think, pink for the sash? All your dresses should have sashes to show off your waist.”
She’s determined to involve me in this. “
Not
pink.” Pink is for empty-headed girls like Sachi Ishida. Like—I wince as her laugh pierces my skull again—Rose Collier.
“Blue then. Peacock blue,” Elena presses, undeterred.
The bells above the shop door chime, and we all look up. It’s Brothers Ishida and Winfield, flanked by two enormous guards. My heart drops like a stone.
At the counter, my sisters inch toward one another. Behind them, Gabrielle Dolamore drops a skein of pink ribbon. It unspools slowly across the floor, coming to rest right at the Brothers’ feet.
“Good morning.” Elena curtsies, her face smooth and unconcerned. I suppose that’s the security of being a Sister; she knows they’ll never come for
her
. “Mrs. Kosmoski is in the back with a customer. Shall I fetch her for you?”
“No.” Brother Ishida’s pause seems to stretch out for eternity, a leaden weight in my lungs. “Gabrielle Dolamore, you are under arrest for crimes of witchery.”
Thank the Lord.
It’s my first, uncharitable thought, even as Gabrielle lets out a strangled scream. The Brothers’ guards approach her from either side, and she shrinks back against the rack of ribbons. It’s no use. They turn her roughly and grab her wrists, binding them with coarse rope—as though that would keep her if she had magic to stop them! But it makes her seem very small, helpless against the two hulking men dressed all in black. One of them has a hooked nose and a jagged scar over his chin, and he smiles as though arresting wicked girls is a good day’s work.
“Don’t. Please don’t. I haven’t done anything!” Gabrielle gasps.
“We’ll determine that,” Brother Ishida snaps, folding his arms over his chest.
“Wh-what have I been accused of?” Gabrielle asks. “By who?”
“Whom,” Brother Winfield corrects odiously—as though grammar matters at a time like this. It feels as though they’ve sucked all the oxygen from the room. From the whole town. My breath comes in shallow gasps.
“There’s been a mistake. I haven’t done anything!” Gabrielle cries.
Maura and Tess shrink together, grabbing each other’s hands. Mrs. Kosmoski stands slumped in the doorway to the inner room, her perfect posture abandoned. She presses both fists against her mouth as if the barrier is all that keeps her from protesting. But she doesn’t make a move to help Gabrielle. I wonder if she’s suspected this would happen ever since Marguerite was arrested.
“Please, let me go home to my family tonight. I’ll come tomorrow for the trial. I haven’t got anything to hide. I’m innocent,” Gabrielle insists, her brown eyes shining with tears. She looks around the room, searching our faces for reassurance, but we have none to give. Her innocence is irrelevant—only the Brothers’ perception of it matters.
“We do not trust the word of witches,” Brother Ishida growls. “Liars and deceivers, all of you.”
“I’m not a witch!” Gabrielle is hysterical now, tears weaving wet trails down her cheeks. She struggles against the guards, her boots scuffing the wooden floor as they drag her forward. One man holds the door open while the other pulls Gabrielle through it. She trips over the flowered rug and the guard kicks it aside.
Gabrielle casts one last desperate, pleading glance at us over her shoulder. No one moves. Then she’s gone. The Brothers sweep out after her like ghosts, and the door bangs shut behind them. We’re left in a great gaping silence.
“I apologize for the interruption, ladies,” Mrs. Kosmoski says finally. She crosses the room and straightens the rug, but her brisk movements don’t hide the tears in her eyes. “I daresay I could use a good bracing cup of tea. Angeline, could you fetch the ladies some tea?”
I barely hear her; it sounds as though she’s speaking from very far away. My hands are clenched together in my lap, my breath coming fast.
If the Brothers are this cruel to an innocent girl, what would they do to us?
Visions of my sisters sinking, struggling, arms and legs shackled, or screaming as their hair catches fire—
“Cate.” Elena puts a concerned hand on my shoulder. “Are you faint? You look a little pale.”
I
feel
pale. Pale and cowardly and powerless. We all just stood here. We let them take Gabrielle and we didn’t lift a finger to help her!
What could we have done? Nothing, I know—not without looking as though we were sympathizing with a witch. But it still rankles. She’s just a frightened little girl, only fourteen years old—
If it were us, no one would come forward to help either.
Fury slides through me, more bracing than smelling salts. I will
not
let the Brothers make me into some scared, swooning creature.
“I did feel a little faint for a minute. All the excitement. I’m fine now,” I lie. I summon up a smile, sitting up straight and running a hand over my chignon.
Mrs. Kosmoski sits in the chair beside us while her daughter scurries up to their flat to put on some tea. For once, the seamstress looks at me kindly. “I don’t blame you, dear. No matter how often you see it, it never gets any easier.”
“Has she worked for you very long?” Elena asks, pausing over a watered blue silk.
“Almost a year. She and my Angeline are the same age. Gabby’s always been a good girl. A hard worker. Not that I’m defending her, mind—” Mrs. Kosmoski flushes, as though she’s suddenly remembered that pretty, fashionable Elena is still
Sister
Elena. “It’s the Brotherhood’s job to determine the righteous from the wicked. But their poor mother, losing two girls. Marguerite was arrested last month. It was a very strange case— no trial, and the family hasn’t gotten any answers about where they took her.”
“Are there other children?” Elena asks.
“Another girl,” Mrs. Kosmoski says, tracing the pineapples and berries carved on the arm of her chair. “Julia’s only eleven.”
Three sisters. Is it a coincidence, or something more sinister? I think back over all the recent arrests. Last spring, there was a trio of sisters arrested in Vermont. Will little Julia Dolamore be dragged away next?
Tess picks up the spool of ribbon that Gabrielle dropped and begins to slowly, methodically rewind it. “Thank you, dear, you don’t have to do that,” Mrs. Kosmoski insists.
“I don’t mind,” Tess says. She organizes things when she’s upset. Maura’s moved back to the counter, ostensibly looking through the dress patterns, but I can tell by the rapid way she flips the pages that she’s not any calmer than Tess.
“Well, I daresay the Brothers know best, but it is distressing.” Mrs. Kosmoski stands up and brushes her hands together, as though wiping away the whole unpleasant scene. “Did you decide on fabrics?”
And that’s it. Mrs. Kosmoski, Elena, and Maura go back to debating the merits of heart-shaped necklines versus square, buckled belts versus silk cummerbunds. I can’t believe they can carry on as though the question of pink taffeta or blue brocade actually matters.
Gabrielle is innocent. I am not. I have been wicked and deceitful; I have used mind-magic against my own father. The Brothers’ words drum through my head. I am a witch. It should have been me, not her.
But I thank the Lord it wasn’t. What kind of girl does that make me?

A half hour later, our business mercifully concluded, we step into the cool September sunshine. Across the street, the chocolatier’s door stands open, and the wonderful, bittersweet smell of dark chocolate wafts toward us. Now we’re off to the stationer’s to choose calling cards. Tess and I lag behind. “Are you all right?” she asks, gray eyes searching mine.
I nod. It’s hard to hide anything from my little sister; she’s entirely too perceptive. She and Maura would be furious with me for keeping secrets from them, no matter what Mother’s instructions were. At least now I can blame my distress on the ugly scene we’ve just witnessed. “As well as I can be after that display. You?”
Tess bites her lip. “Poor Gabby. I just wish we could have done something to—” She stops midstride, her hand flying to her mouth. “Goodness, what’s wrong with her?”
Brenna Elliott stands outside her grandfather’s gate. She turns in and then, apparently thinking better of it, retreats back to the safety of the street. She repeats the motion again and again, as if unable to make up her broken mind, muttering to herself all the while.
Her hood has fallen off, and her long chestnut-colored hair is a mass of knots. Maura and Elena give her a wide berth as they pass. Tess lets out a disgruntled little huff under her breath.
“Miss Elliott?” she asks, approaching Brenna gingerly. “Are you unwell?”
“Tess,” I hiss warningly. We shouldn’t be seen talking to a madwoman.
Tess is too kind to care. It’s one of the many ways in which she’s a better person than I am.
Brenna turns her wasted face to us. Her blue eyes are haunted as a graveyard. The sleeves of her dress hug her wrists, hiding her scars, but they show in the hunch of her shoulders and the pallor of her face. “My grandfather is dying,” she says. Her voice is threadbare, as though it doesn’t get much use.
“I didn’t know he was ill. I’m so sorry,” Tess says, looking up at Brother Elliott’s house. There’s no sign of Dr. Allen’s carriage out front, no activity to suggest the bustle of a sickroom or relatives coming to pay their final respects.
“He’s quite well today. He’ll die next week,” Brenna continues. Tess and I glance at each other, shocked. I thought Harwood had cured her—or at least taught her not to go around prognosticating on the street. She clutches suddenly at her hair, yanking on it in anguish. “Oh, this is bad. Very bad. Not good at all.”
“Is there anything we can do? Can we fetch someone to help you?” Tess asks.
“I think she needs more help than we can give her,” I whisper. Brenna has always seemed to live inside her own head, in a world of her own imagination. But this—this is downright spooky.
“You.” Brenna grabs my arm. She was always tall and willowy and pretty—so pretty that people forgave some of her eccentricities. Now she looks emaciated, as though a single strong gust could knock her down. “Did you get the note? I was very careful with it. Clever, she is.”
My heart leaps into my mouth. I fight the urge to yank away, but I don’t want to make matters worse. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Brenna’s blue eyes aren’t dead now; they’re frantic. “Good girl. No questions. Mustn’t ask questions! They’ll come for you.”
Her hands are ungloved; her nails dig into my arm. “It’s all right,” I soothe her, as I would Tess after a nightmare. “It’ll be all right.”
“Your godmother, she asked too many. The crows came for her.” I freeze. The note. Did Brenna deliver the note from Zara? “That’s what they do with bad girls. Lock them up and throw away the key.”
“Harwood, you mean?” Is that what happened to Zara? Did Brenna see her there?
Brenna nods, tapping her temple. “Lucky one. Not mad. Not yet.”
Does she mean herself or Zara? I look around, spooked, as though my godmother might be lurking behind the bushes.
“Everything all right?” Maura calls. She and Elena have stopped a few yards ahead.
“Yes!” I call back, trying to escape Brenna’s grip. “We’re coming!”
“Don’t go! You mustn’t let them take you.” Brenna looks down at Tess, then back at me. Her eyes are sad blue pools. “Powerful. So powerful. You could fix it all. But you must be careful.”
“Yes. We’ll be very careful,” I promise, but something inside me wilts. First the prophecy, now Brenna. What if she’s not mad—what if she can genuinely sense the future? I don’t want to be powerful. I want to be normal.
“You should be careful, too,” Tess suggests, looking worried. If anyone else hears Brenna talk like this, they’ll have her shipped right back to Harwood.
“It’s too late for me.” Brenna falls against the gate, her ratted hair covering her face. “Go away now. I’m very tired, and I need to visit my grandfather.”
Tess slips her hand into mine, and we turn and walk down the street, where Maura and Elena are waiting for us outside the stationer’s.
“What on earth was all that about?” Maura asks.
I shrug, ignoring Tess’s eyes. “Lord knows. She’s mad, isn’t she?”