Prophecy of the Sisters (22 page)

“Salisbury,” she mumbles. “I was born in Salisbury.”

Four marks, four keys, circle of fire. Birthed in the first breath of Samhain near the mystic stone serpent of Aubur.
The words of the prophecy whisper in my ear, and suddenly, I know. “Sonia? What time were you born?”

She shakes her head. “I have no idea.”

I look to Luisa. “Luisa?”

“A-About midnight, I’m told.”

And now I am certain, as I think they must be as well.

I look up at Sonia and Luisa in wonder. “It is you. You and others who carry your mark. You are the keys.”

We are tired from the journey to Mr. Wigan’s, and the celebratory air of the holiday is all but gone as we pass a tension-filled
dinner with Aunt Virginia, Alice, and Henry. It is with mutual relief, I think, that we retreat to our chambers after dessert.
I have put on my nightdress and am preparing for sleep when a knock makes me look up from the lamp.

When I open the door, Luisa and Sonia stand in dressing gowns and slippers on the threshold to my chamber.

“You’re still awake? I thought you would be well on your way to sleep by now.”

Sonia shakes her head. “I’m afraid sleep is still a long way off, Lia.”

I step back, holding the door open. “Come. Come in.”

Luisa enters the room, leaning against the wall while Sonia perches on the edge of the bed.

I sit next to her, peering at her pale face by the light of the fire. “What is it?”

“Luisa and I have been discussing things. And we are in agreement. If we
are
the keys, the sooner we find an end to the prophecy the better.”

I nod, breathing deeply. “Good. But… are you all right?”

Sonia reaches out and takes my hand. “It was just so… so… surprising. I hardly thought I could breathe for a while. Of course,
I knew we were a part of the prophecy somehow. Why else would Luisa and I have the mark? Even still, it suddenly seems very
frightening, I suppose, to be in such a situation.”

I smile into her eyes. “I understand. But working together is better than going it alone, is it not?” She nods, returning
my smile, and I cross to the fire and turn to face them. “All right, then, it’s time to make our next move. Time to find the
other keys.”

Sonia shakes her head. “But how? There will be four of us, won’t there? Two more in addition to Luisa and me?”

“That’s right, but we won’t have to start from the beginning if we can only find the list.”

Luisa’s confusion is evident on her face. “What list?”

“The list of names my father compiled. Remember? I told you before that Aunt Virginia said he was looking for children, that
he had a list of names and places. It seemed so random before, his finding you, but it makes more sense now. If all of the
keys were born near Avebury around midnight on November first of the same year, it would not be very difficult to find four
girls with the mark. It can only be that you and Sonia were on that list, and if you were on that list, there were probably
others as well. If we can find it before Alice, we can try to locate the other keys.”

Sonia rises, holding her fingertips to her brow in frustration. “Even if we have all the keys, we do not know how to end the
prophecy.”

I meet Luisa’s gaze across the room. We are accustomed to Sonia’s calm demeanor. Neither of us knows what to say in the face
of her unexpected despair.

I speak the only truth I can. “I know this is maddening. Really, I do. But it took my father nearly ten years to come as far
as he did, and right now there might be a way to find the other keys without going back to the beginning. If there is, we
must find the list, and soon, for surely it would be dangerous in Alice’s hands. Perhaps the rest will reveal itself to us,
or perhaps we will have to find a way to unearth it as we have the clues so far.”

Sonia drops back onto the settee, resting her head in her hands without speaking.

“All right, Lia.” Luisa speaks calmly from across the room. I am relieved to see the light has returned to her eyes. “Where
shall we look? Where might the list be hidden?”

“I’ve been thinking of just this thing. There is only one person, one person who knows more about the prophecy than any of
us.…”

Sonia looks up. “Who?”

“My father.”

Luisa speaks from the other side of the room. “But, Lia… your father… what I mean to say is —”

“I know well that my father is dead, Luisa. But it so happens that Sonia can sometimes speak with the dead, can you not, Sonia?”

Her face, smooth as alabaster in the light of the fire, betrays no emotion. “Well, yes. Sometimes.” She comes over to me,
looking into my eyes. “But not always. I cannot control who will come and who will not. I cannot control the messages that
are passed from one world to the next. It is not for show that I tell my customers that I work at the will of the spirits.
It’s quite true.”

“Yes, but you could try, couldn’t you? To… to summon him? To bring about his presence?”

Her answer comes more slowly and with less enthusiasm than I expect. “I suppose so. But what about Virginia? You said she
was once the Guardian. Can’t we simply ask her?”

“My father kept everything a secret. She knew there was a list, but not where it was hidden, and she only knows a portion
of the prophecy. Only her part in it and the part of my mother. And surely Alice will not share anything with us.” I shake
my head. “No. We must speak to my father. It’s the only way.”

“But even if I managed to locate your father, the spirits cannot intervene in the world they have left behind, not really.
They can speak to us of the Otherworlds and of things as they were before they passed, but they cannot see anything in our
world beyond the moment when they departed it.”

She pauses, pressing her lips together as she tries to find the words she needs. “Once a soul moves on to the next world,
it’s as if… as if a curtain drops between that soul and us. Sometimes it thins so that we may speak to the soul, but your
father won’t be able to tell you anything that has happened since his death.”

It would be a lie to say that I am not disappointed. I had hoped for a quick and easy answer to the location of the list.
Even still, that does not mean Father cannot be of any help at all. “So… he could tell us where he hid it
before
his death?”

She nods. “I think so.”

A feather of hope drifts into my heart. “Perhaps it is still there… It is worth a try, isn’t it? A place to begin?”

Sonia nods, meeting my eyes. “All right, then. Let us try.”

We move to the floor without speaking further, settling into a small circle in front of the fire. Once there, we quickly join
hands, as if this alone might offer protection against whatever waits on the other side of this world. I remember that first
encounter in the sitting room at Mrs. Millburn’s. How long ago it seems, and how impossible that we should find ourselves
together at Birchwood, forming yet another circle, this time without Alice, and for something far more dangerous than a lark.

Sonia closes her eyes. I look to Luisa, her impossibly long, dark lashes casting a shadow on the fine upsweep of her cheek.
There is nothing to do but join them. I close my eyes, waiting, listening to the soft sound of Sonia’s breath. When nothing
happens, I open my eyes to find Sonia looking at me.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

She swallows so hard that her delicate throat ripples. “It is only… well,” she laughs nervously. “I find I’m suddenly afraid.
Will you keep watch over me? If something should happen, something that does not seem right, you must break the circle and
force me out of the spirit trance.”

I know of what she speaks. I have felt the dark thing. I have heard the throbbing of the Souls, felt their fiery breath on
my back. “We’ll keep watch, Sonia. You have my word.”

She nods, closing her eyes against her fear.

For a time, nothing happens. I slip into a state that is almost hypnotic, aided by the crackling of the fire and the silence
in the room. I have stopped expecting something to happen when I smell him, as I did before. It is the faint reminder of Father’s
pipe, the wool of his favorite jacket smelling of cedar from the wardrobe.

Sonia’s voice breaks the heavy silence in the room. “Is that Thomas Milthorpe? Father of Lia and Alice and Henry?” There is
a pause before she continues, this time speaking more softly. “Yes, yes. We shall be quiet.”

Her eyes open, an unusual sharpness burning within them. The blue of her eyes is brighter, the black circle on the outer edge
of her pupil more clearly defined. A strange pulsing energy, almost heard, has filled the room. It makes me feel warm and
overwhelmed at the same time, and I fight the urge to cover my ears as if this will somehow block out the presence that seems
to spill into the room from some unseen place.

“Before Lia will speak to you, Spirit, you must tell her something only she will know. Something that will prove your identity.”

I wonder at this question, at her reason for asking it, waiting for Sonia to pass my father’s reply back into the room. A
prickly tingling begins where my palm meets Sonia’s, one that spreads to include my fingers so that my whole hand feels alive
with fire. And then I hear the voice, hoarse and coming from what seems a very long distance.

“Lia? Lia? Do you hear me, Daughter?”

I shake my head, disbelieving. It is my father’s voice, of this I’m certain, but I do not know how I have come to hear it,
to make contact with my dead father simply by holding Sonia’s hand. My eyes drift to Luisa, whose hand has become hot in mine.
Her eyes are open and startled as she stares in wonder at Sonia’s face. She hears it as well.

The voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once, forces me to attention. “Lia… Listen. There is much to discuss…”
The voice is crackly, breaking in the middle of some of the words. “I shall offer you the proof the Spirit Talker demands,
but we must be quick. They will soon come.…”

His voice fades for a moment before returning. “Lia… Daughter… Do you remember when you tried to build the raft? Henry dropped…
into the river and… remember? You were so small, but… sure you could catch up to it if… paddled swiftly enough. You were never
very good… building things, Lia. Remember? But you tried anyway. You worked and worked, though surely… it could not be done.…”

Tears sting my eyelids as I remember working to build a makeshift raft to find Henry’s toy boat, certain I could catch it
though it traveled purposefully downstream. Alice stood by, saying over and over again it could not be done. I think even
poor Henry knew that we would never catch the toy, though the river’s current was gentle after a long season without rain.
But I hammered wood together anyway, all the while in my best pinafore, using tools and scrap that father’s workmen had left
lying about when they broke for lunch. I worked feverishly, though with no real skill. When I finally launched my haphazard
rescue raft, it sank before I could get in as much as a toe. I think I was more distraught over my inability to save the toy
boat than Henry was with losing it.

“I remember.” My voice is a whisper.

For a moment all is silent, and I fear we have lost the fragile connection to the Otherworlds. But the voice returns, though
quite a bit fainter.

“Good, Lia. Good. You must find the… keys. I tried… I tried to… over. I located… but only two… You must… list… to complete
the circle. I left it in… behind the… It is the only way… an end to the prophecy. You are the… It is your… once and for all,
but not without the four.”

I feel him fading as much as I hear it in his broken voice. The energy that filled the room ever fuller now fades, growing
slightly stronger for a few seconds before diminishing even further.

Sonia steps in, more authoritative in the spirit trance than in the real world. “Mr. Milthorpe, we must find the list of keys.
Your presence is fading.… We didn’t understand all that you said. Can you repeat it? Can you stay with us, Mr. Milthorpe?”

We wait in silence for his answer, at last hearing a whisper more urgent than before. “Shhh… He is coming. I… go. Lia… You
must find the list… they are the keys. Look… Henry is all that is left of the veil. We are… you, Daughter. We… you.”

And then he is gone. I feel it in the absence of his presence. The room that before felt as normal as any other, now feels
empty without the heat of my father’s spirit. Sonia’s head falls forward against her chest as if she has fallen fast asleep.

“Sonia? It is over, Sonia. You can —”

But I do not get any further. Her head suddenly snaps up, her blue eyes open, looking directly at me, the strange vibrancy
even more clear. The voice that emerges is not hers, nor is it my father’s.

“You play a dangerous game, Mistress.”

A shiver drips like a drop of rain from the back of my neck all the way down my spine. Sonia’s eyes are glassy, and I know
that this is not really her.

I sit straighter, frantically considering our options while trying to maintain a look of calm. “You must go. You do not belong
here.”

“You are mistaken. Why do you not allow me passage? Why must you seek the keys when it is I who can provide all you desire?
Summon me, Mistress, and let chaos reign.”

I am entranced by the eyes, Sonia’s eyes and
not
Sonia’s eyes. It is both morbid and fascinating to hear the eerie voice coming from Sonia’s delicate face.

“Be gone, Spirit. You are not welcome.” I try to keep my voice steady, but the presence of evil, the knowledge that I am far
too close to something I don’t understand, causes me to shake.

“There will be no peace until you open the Gate.”
It is a chant, the call of a thousand voices, soft and insidious.
“Open the Gate… Open the Gate… Open the —”

I scoot back, breaking the circle as Luisa lunges across its center, grabbing Sonia by the shoulders and shaking… shaking
“Sonia! Wake up, Sonia! You must come back!”

Her pleas become more panicked and insistent, and the words of the spirit being warp and garble as Luisa shakes and shakes.
“It is time… Time for chaos to reign.”