Page 100 of The Women of Wild Hill
Brigid took in the news. “I don’t think I want to go back,” she told them.
“You must,” Flora said. “This is not the end that Bessie showed me.”
“What else do I need to do?” Brigid asked.
“You have done your part. Now your sister will do hers.”
“Afterward,” Sadie said, “it will be up to The Third to turn the tide.”
Turning the Tide
Brigid’s death was confirmed by New York City’s top cardiac surgeon, who held two fingers to her carotid artery and loudly declared her innocent. The joke broke the tension and a cheer went round the crowd watching from the beach. The men who’d administered the test loaded Brigid’s sodden body into a boat tied to the Geddes dock, where it lay spread out on the deck while the victors returned to their party. Now the somber affair turned raucous as bottles were opened and corks were popped. With no one to serve them, they raided their host’s kitchen, confiscating trays heaped with food and passing them around. Nothing fueled their hunger like winning. Nothing made them feel more alive than death. In the midst of the revelry, no one wondered who had made the food—or questioned where the caterers might have gone. Those who had caught a glimpse of Phoebe and Sibyl had already forgotten them. They were just women, after all.
Sibyl watched the men from the shadows outside. “Let’s go,” she told her mother.
The black catering uniforms meant to make servers blend into the background provided perfect camouflage as they slipped unseen through the dark. The men were all indoors, and there were no security guards keeping watch. It was probably bad form to bring a bodyguard to a witch trial, Sibyl thought.
When they reached the boat, they found Brigid, her long red hair slicked back, her arms crossed over her chest, and her beautiful black dress fanned out around her. Brigid’s colorless face wore thepeaceful expression of a graveyard angel. Sibyl let loose a sob while Phoebe dropped to her knees beside her dead sister. The woman who’d been given the darkest of gifts, yet had somehow saved Phoebe’s life twice.
“Start the boat,” Phoebe told her daughter. “We need to get her home.”
Trying to keep out of sight, Sibyl crawled toward the captain’s wheel, where she came face to butt with a man on his knees. Liam Geddes appeared to be frantically searching for something in a storage locker. Sibyl pulled a corkscrew from her pocket and jabbed the sharp point into his thigh.
“What the fuck!” he yelped, twisting around to confront his assailant. “Stop that!” he whispered when he saw Sibyl.
“Why are you here?” Sibyl hissed, pressing the corkscrew into his inner thigh.
“I’m looking for the keys! I always keep a set hidden. I must have hidden them too well this time.”
“Find them and get out before I sever your femoral artery and toss your traitor ass over the side.”
“For fuck’s sake. Do I need to say it again? Bessie sent me!”
“What?” Sibyl demanded, as if the mere suggestion had insulted her intelligence. Liam might have gotten uncorked if Phoebe hadn’t appeared at that moment.
“He’s okay,” she told her daughter. “He needs to live. Apparently, this is his path, too.”
“He let them drown her!” Sibyl cried.
“Shhh!” Liam ordered.
“Are you fucking—” Sibyl started before her mother clamped a hand over her mouth.
A man had emerged from the mansion and walked to the edge of the deck and whipped out his pecker. Then he must have seen movement. “Who’s that down there?” he called. “That you, Geddes? What the hell are you doing?”
Liam stepped out of the captain’s cabin and walked around to the bow. “Who’d you think was going to dispose of the body?” he called back. “Use the fucking toilet, you twat.”
The man giggled and aimed his stream in Liam’s direction. It caught the light from the house and fell to the beach in golden drops.
“Watch the house,” Phoebe ordered her daughter once the man was gone. “Find the keys,” she told Liam. “I will stay with Brigid.”
“Can you fix this?” Sibyl asked.
Phoebe didn’t answer. When she returned to the back of the boat, she lay down beside her sister and closed her eyes. There, just as she’d known they would be, were the ancestors. Sadie, the redheaded matriarch, dressed as the huntress in a short white tunic and sandals. Ivy and Rose, the golden twins, one fair and one feral. Lilith, the dark, in her somber tweeds and red lipstick. And Flora, in a gown of flowers that left an alluring scent in her wake.
“We’ve followed the path,” Phoebe told them. “Is this where it ends? Is it time for us to join you?” The sight of her sister’s corpse had stripped her of whatever hope she’d had left.
Lilith shook her head. “Your duty must still be done,” she told her granddaughter.
