Prophecy of the Sisters (32 page)

“H-h-henry.” I am so cold I can no longer feel the branch beneath my palm, though I see it still enclosed inside my fist.

“We shall get a search party for Henry, Lia. But you must come out of the water now before the branch gives way.”

I am still thinking. Still thinking. Trying to think of a way to save Henry.

“Lia!” Alice is shouting at me through her tears, and I notice for the first time that she is sobbing, sobbing so hard she
can hardly speak. “You will come out of the water
this instant.
Do you hear me?
Do you?
Because you will be no good to Henry dead at the bottom of this river.”

There is no time to question her offer of help. Something in her voice, in her tears, in the stark fear on her face, makes
me nod. She is right. Only too right. I must get out of the water to help Henry properly, and right now, there is only one
way out.

One of Alice’s hands holds onto the branch. The other reaches for me.

It takes me a moment to muster my courage, for I am so cold and the river so fast that I fear falling back into the current.
I will not survive it again.

I wrap one hand tighter around the branch. And with the other I reach for Alice.

She grips my hand so tightly with hers that I do not doubt for an instant that she will come into the river with me before
letting me go. She pulls with a strength I didn’t know she had until she falls backward into the mud and I am lying half in
and half out of the water.

She scrambles to her feet, slipping in the mud, and turns me onto my back.

“Lia? Lia? Are you all right?” Her face is pale and wet. I don’t know if it is the rain or her tears that fall to my face
as I sink into darkness.

The room is warm, but I feel it only as the absence of the cold that seemed to sink deeper into my bones in the hours since
Alice pulled me from the water. I am still numb. Whether from cold or fear I don’t know. Ivy and Aunt Virginia have been bustling
about, piling extra blankets on my bed, forcing me to drink tea so hot it scalds my tongue.

“There, now. Are you warm enough, dear? Is there anything else I can get you?” I feel Aunt Virginia’s gaze on my face, but
I cannot meet her eyes.

I shake my head, studying the fine needlework strewn across the coverlet on my bed. The search party is still out looking
for Henry. Sonia and Luisa are downstairs, somewhere in the silent house. I know these things, but cannot harness the energy
to think about any of them.

A knock at the door forces Aunt Virginia’s eyes to slide toward Ivy, standing near the washstand over a bowl of steaming water.
Ivy makes her way to the door, opening it a crack before closing it and crossing to Aunt Virginia.

When she leans in to whisper in Aunt Virginia’s ear, I know they think me so close to madness that they fear sending me around
the bend completely when, in fact, I feel nothing at all.

“I shall be right back, Lia.” Aunt Virginia smoothes the hair at the top of my head before leaning in to kiss my forehead.
Her lips are cool on my hot skin.

I steal a glance at the doorway out of the corner of my eye, registering a roughly dressed gentleman standing with his hat
in his hands in the hallway. It takes only a second to lower my eyes back to the safety and predictability of the coverlet.

It is impossible to say how long Aunt Virginia is gone, for time seems to have no measure in the warmth and security of my
room. I am half disappointed when she returns to sit gently on the side of my bed. I should like to stay in the quiet of my
room without anyone speaking to me for a very long time.

“Lia.” Her voice is at first gentle, but when I do not answer it becomes only slightly more insistent. “Lia. I must speak
to you. About Henry. Will you look at me?”

But I cannot. I cannot break the spell of the quiet room. This room where I have lain since Alice and I were moved from the
nursery so long ago. This room where I have wrapped gifts for Henry at Christmastime. This room where I have dreamed of James’s
lips on mine. Surely nothing too terrible will happen here.

“Lia.” Her voice cracks, and the sadness there is so unbearable that I almost obey. I almost meet her eyes.

But I cannot. I turn my face to the wall, lifting my chin in a stubborn refusal to hear the thing I know she will say. The
thing that will make it impossible to go on.

I listen for a moment before closing the door quietly behind me and stepping out into the cold night. I want to hear the silence
of my home, the only home I have ever known, before I commit this last treacherous act. I have been wise enough to put my
boots on before leaving. They look odd, visible in the light of the full moon and peeking out from the bottom of my delicate
white nightgown.

My senses are heightened as I climb the hill to the cliff overlooking the lake. The air is crisp and clean, the smell of winter’s
imminence obvious to me in a way that it was not even a few days ago.

I try not to think. I do not want to think of my mother. I do not want to think of Alice, of the terrible combination of greed
and love at the bank of the river.

Most of all I do not want to think of Henry.

I have to stop to catch my breath when I reach the top of the hill. My legs are still weak from my time spent in the river.
When I am finally able to breathe without the spread of searing pain through my chest, I continue to the edge of the cliff.
Even now, it is hard not to marvel at the lake’s beauty. Who can deny the lovely shimmer of its water? It is not such an awful
place to die, and in a morbid moment of clarity I have some small understanding of why my mother chose it.

I shuffle slowly to the edge — closer, closer — until my toes are nearly hanging over the rocky face. The wind whips my hair
back from my face and rustles the leaves in the trees behind me. I feel my mother here more than anywhere, I think. I wonder
if she stood in the same place I am standing now, if she saw the same ripples on the same water. For the first time in my
life, I know with certainty that I am connected to her, that she and I are one, with each other and all the other sisters.

But I have failed those sisters. My father spent over a decade compiling the list that would set us free, and even with such
help, more help than was offered any sister before me, I have failed. The list is gone, and with it any hope of finding the
keys, of ending the prophecy. Starting again would take years — years in which Sonia’s and Luisa’s lives would be in danger.
Years in which I would be subject to the constant torment of the Souls. Years in which I would not even be permitted to fall
into the peace of sleep without fear of letting in the Beast that would destroy the world.

And then there is Henry. If I were born with the desire to fulfill my role in the prophecy, Alice would not have trapped Henry
at the river to gain possession of the list. In another life, another world, perhaps Alice and I could have shared the prophecy
with one purpose. Instead, Henry was made a pawn in its cruel game.

Watch out for Henry, Lia.
My mother’s words bounce off the walls of my mind until tears track down my face, slowly at first and then fast enough to
wet the collar of my nightdress. I sob into the wind, wanting to let go, to open my arms and fall. But then she speaks to
me again.

There are no mistakes, Lia.

I cry harder. “I don’t want it to be me,” I scream at the water below. “Why does it have to be me?”

The water does not answer, but the wind does. It kicks up in a forceful burst, sending me reeling backward from the cliff
until I scramble the ground some distance from the edge.

The wind dies, not a little at a time, but all at once. The leaves in the trees fall quiet, the only sound the gasp of my
own labored breathing. I sit there for a time, not feeling the cold, though my breath makes white smoke each time I exhale.

There will be no quick and easy end to my part in the prophecy set in motion so many ages ago. Wiping the tears from my face,
I stand and turn from the lake without a backward glance.

I will not look over that precipice again.

The blue sky mocks me, a cruel joke played by God on this of all days.

Henry’s funeral is not the wet, gray occasion of Father’s burial. Instead the sun is warm on our shoulders, and the birds
sing as if they, at least, are happy Henry is with Mother and Father. And I have no doubt that is where he is. No doubt at
all that he walks with them, laughing under that velvet sky. But it does not make it easier to bear.

I feel Alice’s stare from across Henry’s grave as the minister recites the Twenty-Third Psalm, but I do not meet her eyes.
I have not met her eyes since the moment after she pulled me from the river. In fact, I do not think I have looked at anyone
since, though Luisa and Sonia and, of course, James have all come to call several times. I feel badly about sending them away,
but I can hardly stand my own pain at the loss of Henry. I could not bear seeing it reflected and multiplied in the eyes of
those around me.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the reverend says.

Aunt Virginia steps forward, opening her fist over the hole in the ground and letting the dirt fall from it onto Henry’s grave.
Her face is drawn and pale. If there is one person who knows my pain, it is Aunt Virginia.

I have begun several times to tell her about those last moments at the river with Alice and Henry, but something prevents
me from saying the words aloud. It is reason, in part, for without proof or witness the story would be told differently by
Alice and me, of that there can be no doubt. But it is something else, as well; the vacant expression in Aunt Virginia’s eyes.
The realization that even she can bear only so much. And if I am completely honest, even with only myself, it is a fierce
and violent fury burning me up from the inside out. A fury that desires retribution in my own time.

My own way.

I look away as Alice walks toward the grave, lifting her hand and letting the dirt fall onto Henry’s small coffin with a dull
thud.

Aunt Virginia looks at me but I shake my head. I will not be responsible for one particle of the dirt that covers Henry in
the ground next to Mother and Father. I already bear my share of the blame.

That is more than enough.

My aunt nods, looking to the reverend in a silent gesture he seems to understand. He closes his Bible and says a few words
to her before nodding and muttering something unintelligible to Alice and me. I can hardly stand his black-suited presence,
so full of death and despair. I nod and turn my head, grateful when he moves quickly along.

“Come, Lia. Let us go back to the house.” Aunt Virginia is at my shoulder, her hand on my arm. I feel her worry but cannot
bring myself to look at her.

A shake of my head is all I can offer.

“You cannot stay here all day, Lia.”

I have to swallow hard in order to use the voice I have not used in so long. “I’ll be along in a bit.”

She hesitates before nodding beside me. “All right, then. But not too long, Lia.”

She moves away, Alice trailing behind. It is only Edmund and I now. Edmund stands silently by, his hat in hand, tears streaking
down his rough, lined face as if he is no more than a child. I find comfort in his presence and feel no need to speak.

I stare into the emptiness where my brother’s body will spend eternity. It frightens and saddens me, his boyish smile and
bright eyes being left in this ground. This ground that will grow colder and harder as winter progresses before bursting forth
with the wildflowers I will not be here to see.

I try to imagine it, to fix a vision of Henry’s grave covered in violet flowers. To commit it to memory so that I can call
it up when I am far away. And then I say goodbye.