The Stargazers (4 page)

Aster glanced at Nanny Lily, who was staring into the candle flame with a sad but thoughtful expression. “I’m so sorry, Nanny.”

The old woman never took her eyes from her two daughters. “You and your familiar go on upstairs now, Aster. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

She went, but couldn’t resist one look back at Oleander. Congealed clumps of green gelatin slid from her face and hit the table with wet splats. It looked like a giant with a nasty cold had sneezed on her. “This isn’t finished, Princess,” said Oleander through gritted teeth. “You might think it is, but it isn’t. I should have drowned you the minute you popped out of your mother’s wretched womb.”

Aster fled up the stairs. As soon as she slammed her door shut, she leaned against it and began to sob.

-
3
-

Oleander dragged Holly out the front door and along the path to her living quarters above the barn. The useless little mutt of a sister came willingly enough, and she kept her mouth shut, which was smart of her. Rose-scented green gelatin was drying on Oleander's face a
nd filling her nose with enough of the floral
perfume
to make her stomach churn, which only made her angrier. How dare that whore Dahlia use magic against her! Not in all their years, no matter how heated their arguments go
t
, had they ever come to such blows.

Not that Ole
ander hadn't been tempted. Oh yes
, there had been many cups of morning tea that had just escaped a drop of Oleander's finest belladonna tonic. It was as if some tattered vestige of her better
half
was capable enough to make a feeble plea to have mercy.

But there was none of that now
,
n
o pathetic mewling to show grace and fortitude, to spare them. She could have killed them all as they gaped at the green goo dripping off her face.
Even Holly had been holding back laughter.
Dahlia had see
med almost surprised by what
happened, but no matter. If the bitch couldn't control herself, she should be put down like any rabid animal.

However, it wasn't mercy that had s
taid her hand this time.
There was a much larger plan at work, one that would yield a much more satisfactory long
-
term result. Provided she could avoid snapping all of their pathetic necks before tomorrow.

The important thing was to make sure the insolent young bitch made it through the Door
tomorrow night
. Once t
hat happened, all of Oleander’s
options would spread open before her, like legs of a virgin whose pink pearl was ripe for the plucking.

Oleander stormed into the barn, startling a few moos out of the dairy cows tha
t had been casually chewing grass
. She dragged Holly up the stairs to the loft.

“You're hurting my arm, Oly.”

Ole
ander rolled her eyes and yanked
harder. Her heart warmed at the sound of the wretch's moaning. “Shut your trap. You don't know what real hurt is, but I
'll be happy to show you if you keep dawdling
.” They reached the top of the stairs, and Oleander flung her burden toward the battered armchair in the corner. “Sit. And don't you even think of moving. As you can see, I've some cleaning up to do.”

She stalked over to the wash basin in the corner of the room and began splashing water on her face. The gelatin came off easily enough, but the cloying rose perfume remained.
She gritted her teeth against it and set about making some coffee. They would both need it tonight, but Holly especially. There was work to be done. When Oleander brought her a mug of the strong brew, Holly took it and wrinkled her nose. “What’s this for?”

“To help you sober up.”

“What for?”

“Because I need to dig into your brain. You have some information I want, and I intend to get it.”

Fear flickered in Holly’s dark eyes. It warmed Oleander
more
than any hearth possibly could. “W-what kind of information, Oly?”

“That’s of no concern to you. You don’t know you know it. Now drink your coffee.”

Holly took a timid sip of her drink and grimaced. “How do you know I don’t know?”

Oleander sighed and stilled her fists at her sides so that they wouldn’t fly out and begin punching the stupid waif. “Just shut up and drink!”

The younger sister shrank back against her chair and said no more as she gulped down the hot drink, and this was a good thing. Oleander got up and began preparing her instruments. It wouldn’t take much. Just a simple procedure really, and she’d practiced it on several pigs, all of whom were still enjoying their daily slop down below. Well, all but one. Oleander had dug a little too deeply on
that one, but at least they’d had good pork to eat for two weeks afterward.

Oleander looked over her shoulder at Holly, who had just set the mug down on the table beside her. It sounded empty. “All finished?”

Holly nodded. Her eyes looked a little less cloudy. This was good. Holly’s brain would never be right again, but it might do well enough for Oleander’s purposes now. She picked up her tray of instruments and bottle
s and placed them on the table next to Holly’s empty cup. Holly looked at them and then up at Oleander with a mask of panic on her face. “What are those things for?”

Oleander picked up
the long, silver
needle with the pointed end. It was
quite thin and
hollow through the center, and had taken her some time to procure from Dennigan Hambry, the local blacksmith. He wasn’
t used to doing such delicate craft work
, but he owed it to Oleander to get it right. She had cured him of a quite embarrassing venereal disease from fraternizing in the village brothels
behind his wife’s back, and he wasn’t interested in the possibility of it coming back
.

“I told you I needed something from your memory
, dear sister
. This is how I pla
n to get it.”

“But… but I don’t understand.” Holly had begun to quiver inside her too-baggy dress, but she made no move to escape. She knew better.

Oleander straddled her sister’s legs and leaned forward, pointing the tip of the needle toward Holly’s eye. “Now it isn’t going to hurt
…
m
uch. I’ve laced your coffee with a tincture of mandrake. And you won’t feel any pain once the needle passes through into your brain. I just need a tiny sample. Now hold still.”

Holly shrank back against the chair to avoid Oleander’s grip, but it was useless “I don’t want it. Don’
t do this, Oly! I can remember whatever you need me to remember!”

Oleander brayed harsh laughter in her sister’s face. “You’ve rendered your brain useless with so much weed, you can’t even remember to wipe your own arse half the time. I’ll be lucky if I extract something more useful than oatmeal. Now be quiet and let me do this. If you move or fuss, it will only be worse for you.”

Holly whimpered for a moment and then stilled herself. Oleander placed her hand on the woman’s forehead, which was still smooth and free of blemishes, for she had been too feeble to mother a child of her own. Just as Oleander was about to pierce the delicate flesh in the corner of her sister’s eye, Holly screamed out. “No!”

Holly thrust her hands into Oleander’s gut, and Oleander fell backward, landing squarely on her rump with an audible “
Oof
!” Holly scrambled out of the chair and shambled toward the stairs, but even while stunned and nearly blind with fury—the
nerve
of the
bitch!—Oleander was faster.
She reached out and snagged the barest corner of Holly’s dress as she passed, but it was all that was necessary to trip her up. Holly pitched forward and landed with a thud on the splintery plank floor. Oleander leapt onto her sister’s back
before the hag could attempt another escape.

Holly writhed and
screamed, but years of salvia smoke had rendered her voice too hoarse to carry very far.
It squeaked like a rusty hinge. Oleander grabbed a handful of Holly’s coarse hair, pulled her head back, and slammed it into the floor. Her struggles ceased almost instantly.

Oleander checked the pulse on Holly’s neck just to be sure she didn’t do more than knock the daft cunt out. “Isn’t this just a merry fuck?” she muttered under her breath as she turned Holly onto her back. The woman was already snoring. It wasn’t ideal to do this while the person was
unconscious, but then Oleander realized there wasn’t much difference between when Holly was awake or asleep. This potion probably
wouldn’t
work
worth a damn
, but it would have to do. Holly was the only sister who knew many of Nanny Lily’s secrets, including how to open the wooded path to the Tree of Doors.

Lily had thought it was good insurance to share her most protected thoughts with the family moron and then access them via hypnosis later. Oleander had never been much for hypnotizing people. She lacked the patience, and frankly it didn’t involve enough manual work for her tastes. But this… this was definitely more her style.

Oleander sat on her sister’s chest and opened one of her closed eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Just a quick swipe and out.” Not that she needed to steel herself. Her hands were as steady as ever, and even if she’d slipped a bit too much with the needle and rendered her sister into a permanent state of catatonia, the world wouldn’t really be losing all that much, now would it?

The tip of the needle slid into the corner of Holly’s eye, meeting little resistance. Holly moaned but remained asleep. Once the steel was about four inches deep and angled slightly upward, Oleander gave it a short flick back and forth before removing it. The whole procedure, from start to finish, had taken less than ten seconds. The dumb cow could have been well on her way back to her
weed-filled shack in the Western Hills if she’d just cooperated. “Didn’t hurt a bit, did it Horsey?” It was an old nickname that Oleander had given her sister when they were kids, because of Holly’s naturally sad and elongated face.

Oleander got up and carried the needle gingerly over to her small brewing station, where a pre-mixed potion in a glass bottle awaited its final key in
gredient. She dipped the needle
into the murky green fluid and stirred vigorously, releasing the bits of brain matter from the hollow steel tube. A brief blue light flared as the ingredients came together, and that’s how Oleander knew the serum was just right.

She glanced back at her unconscious sister lying in a heap on the other side of the room and raised a sardonic toast. “What’s yours is mine, dear sister.” The potion wasn’t as vile as many of the others she had drank, but she braced herself against the countertop anyway as the liquid burned a fiery path down her throat, courtesy of the capsaicin extract mixed into it.

Stepping unceremoniously over Holly’s sleeping form, Oleander retired to the chair she’d originally cornered her sister in and closed her eyes. Hopefully, come morning, everything Nan
ny Lily held dear would be hers.

-4-

The evening following the disastrous going away feast
, Aster placed her last stuffed rabbit on the pile of dried kindling, along with pages from her old journals, baby trinkets, and her favorite childhood quilt knitted by
her mother. There must have been thousands of daytime naps with that quilt, not to mention Nanny Lily’s bedtime stories with it
draped over her lap. It was worn to sheer translucence in several spots.

Oleander and Holly w
ere nowhere to be found this
morning, and the
others
wo
uldn’t tell her what had happened after dinner
. She’d lain awake into the wee hours, finding it difficult to sleep even with Larkspur nestled beside her and purring. Every time she’d tried to close her eyes, the rogue thought that this was last night she’d be spending in her bed would assert itself and she’d be wide awake again. The sky was streaked pink with the coming sunrise by the time her brain finally gave up its chatter. When she finally awoke to begin pre
-breakfast chores, the
women
insisted she
take off her apron and
spend the day in quiet reflection
. Didn’t they understand that she needed the distraction? Even her favorite tree seemed off-limits after yesterday’s paper ripping outburst.

Her misgivings about Oleander haunted her throughout the day. At one point in the afternoon, she cornered
Papa Quercus in the
garden
as the old man picked beans for a supper she would be a universe too far away to eat.
“What happened last night after I went to bed? Papa, is Oleander up to something? Why are the others so quiet?”
It was useless, of course. The old man simply looked at her, patted her face, and turned back to his harvesting.