Page 11 of SIN Bone Deep

The Aunts exchanged a look.

“Don’t,” Fennel said in a soft warning to Callista.

Callista made a sound of displeasure at the back of her throat, but she did not get up in pursuit of my sister. We three remained silent as the stairs creaked, and then Nova’s door closed – something I knew was impossible to hear from below.

“You have an echo spell on Nova,” I accused them.

“Why would we do such a thing?” Callista arched one elegant eyebrow.

“Because of the boy.”

“Ah,” Fennel nodded and dropped the locket into her pocket as she turned to put the kettle onto the stove. “The boy,” she said meaningfully to Callista.

“Mhm,” Callista nodded. “You have seen this boy, Nyx?”

“Not really,” I regretted immediately saying as much as I had.

“Hmm,” Fennel and Callista’s expressions made it clear that they did not believe me.

“I am not lying,” I said defensively. “I saw him from a distance, but he was leaning down, and Nova was in the way…”

“Ah,” Fennel poured us tea.

“Surely you don’t believe…” That we can never be happy in love went unsaid but might as well have been spoken.

I had been raised on the stories about how Vossen women were destined to have unhappy love lives. There was a reason, our aunts often said, that the Vossen Homestead had been run by women since it had been built. Men came into our lives and left as swiftly. Whilst the Vossen women might leave Vossen Homestead, eventually we always came back.

Our father had died whilst Nova and I were very young. He was half-remembered and that memory was accentuated by stories and photos. He had been a giant of a man, with a dark full beard and laughing eyes, a playful father, one of warm hugs and gentle hands, who had always captured the spiders rather than killing them, setting them free into the garden.

It had been cancer that had taken him, just before his thirty-fifth birthday.

My mother had tried for several years to raise us alone, but then a new man had entered her life… And she had brought us to Vossen Homestead. It had been time to train us as witches, she had said, but in truth, she knew that the new man would come and go as swiftly as our father had, and she wanted to spend as much time with him as she could.

“Never?” I looked from one aunt to the other.

“There is always a balance in life,” Aunt Fennel gestured for my teacup. I finished the last mouthful, swirled it in my right hand, and surrendered it to her. For a long moment, she stared frowning. “Great power for great sacrifice. A major transformation and symbolic death,” she said gravely. “A reading that makes a great deal of sense for a young woman at your stage of life. The symbolic death would be the death of your childhood, as you transform into a woman with the beginning of the new academic year into higher education.”

“I’m not sure what I will do once I complete the three years at Pinegrove,” I was intrigued as to what the leaves would say. “I’m not sure that I will want to continue my education if it means leaving Mortensby.”

“I cannot see,” Fennel confessed, lifting her eyes to mine. Her hair had fallen back, and the light caught on her scar, the redness cunningly hid beneath layers of makeup, but the base and foundation were unable to disguise the ripples and pits upon her cheekbone near her ear. “I am sorry, Nyx. It is likely that you are at the precipice of such a major change and your future is dependent on so many small decisions that I cannot forecast ahead. In time, I am sure that it will become clearer.”

“Well,” I stood. “I should go to bed, anyway…” I hesitated.

“Yes, dear?” Callista tilted her glasses down her nose.

“I…” I hesitated. It was a half-formed thought, one that I had not explored myself yet, but… “Is it possible for a ghost to be… almost real?”

“A poltergeist?” Fennel suggested. “Capable of moving physical items?”

“Maybe… No,” I blew out a breath. “No. I mean… So almost real so that you’re not actually sure if they’re a ghost or alive?”

“Well, you would know more than most,” Fennel tilted her head to the side as she scrutinized me. “Your vision of the departed is always so astonishingly clear. Why do you ask? Have you seen such a spirit?”

I paused and chewed my bottom lip, fidgeting with my clothing as I considered what to say. “The other night…” When I had snuck out with Nova - but I could not say that. “I met someone in the dark. And I’m not sure… I’m not sure that he’s alive. He appeared out of nowhere, without explanation, and I couldn’t really see him clearly, he seemed part of the shadows… I guess… I guess I wondered if I was seeing a ghost?”

“You met someone?” Callista set down her pen giving me her complete attention.

“Never mind,” I felt my cheeks heat. “Never mind.”

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