Page 118 of Which Witch Is Wicked?
All at once, Moira could feel the deep well of pain they sprang from. Justine had loved her sister. She meant it. She felt it as deeply as anyone can feel anything.
“We knew of the prophecy,” Justine continued. “We thought—Ithought—we could keep you safe. Keep you hidden, until you were strong enough to show the world you were good. You were…good.” Justine’s face contorted into a mask of such grief that Moira’s own vision began to blur with tears.
“But when you were born, and she was dying…” Justine shook her head violently, casting salty drops off her cheeks. “He promised.
Promisedthat if I gave him the babes, he would save your mother’s life.”
“He?” Moira asked, interrupting. “Who’she?”
Justine ignored the question entirely, sobbing openly, hiccupping air like a child. “I would have done anything for my sister.Anything. Do you understand?”
Moira looked into her aunt’s watery eyes and saw there something she had never seen before. Something she thought Justine incapable of entirely.
Love.
Love of the kind Moira felt for Tierra. And Claire. And all right, tell the truth and shame the Devil because Moira hated that bitch anyhow, for Aerin, too.
“Is there anything you wouldn’t do to save your sisters?” Justine asked, desperate now, searching Moira’s face for salvation, for forgiveness.
The woman who had tried to kill her, now turning to her for absolution.
Butter-thick irony clogged Moira’s chest. No matter what animosity she held for the old bat, Moira knew Justine’s question had only one answer. She had known it the second she’d stood awkwardly on their front porch for the first time, ambushed by Tierra’s embrace.
Until that moment, she had never, in her life, been hugged by a woman. Granted acceptance. Been fussed over and cared for by a nurturing female presence. And each new arrival had wrapped her in another layer of warmth that only a sister could give. Her blood. Her family.
Wasthere anything she wouldn’t do to save her sisters?
Moira returned Justine’s soul-rending stare and spoke the only answer that was true.
“No.”
“Then you must understand.” Justine slid out of her chair and clanked to the floor, kneeling as if in prayer. “I would give anything to take it back. To take away the hurt I’ve caused, the damage I’ve done. No one should have to choose between saving the ones they love or saving the world.” Her face fell forward, muffling her continued sobs.
Moiraalmostwished she had a free hand so she could pat her aunt on the shoulder or get her a hanky before her dress turned into one giant snot rag.
Instead, she decided she ought to try for some answers while the layer of ice between them had been melted away by tears. “If family means so much to you, then how come you tried to kill me?”
Justine lifted her face to meet Moira’s questioning gaze. “Because I knew once you four found each other, they would be coming for you.” She cast a meaningful glance at the door Dru had kicked in. “And what they would do to you could be far, far worse than any quick and merciful rite the coven could perform.”
“Well you didn’t have to treat me like a sack of vomit-dipped dog shit from the moment I set foot in the house,” Moira insisted. “If you were planning on offin’ me anyway, the least you could have done is be civil before you turned me into a human pin cushion.”
Aunt Justine’s gaze fell to the floor. “No,” she said. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?” Moira challenged.
“Because if I let myself love you, there’s no way I could have…could have…”
“Stuck a dagger in my guts to save the world?” Moira finished for her.
Justine nodded. “Don’t you see? When Mirelle died, Tierra was the only one of you left. The only one I could save. I fought for her. Bled for her. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her too. But now…”
“Now we’re right smack in the middle of a cluster fuck of Apocalyptic proportions.”
“I would have given my life if it could have saved Mirelle. And if I could trade places with any of you, I would. If my death would suffice to end this, I’d march to the gallows this very second.”
Moira had to look her in the eye again, to anchor herself in the truth she found there.
“But I can’t.” The grief overtook Justine then, little rivulets working down the furrows a lifetime of self-flagellation had dug into her cheeks. “I can’t take back what I’ve done. I can’t bring Mirelle back. And I can’t stop what’s begun.”
