Page 9 of The Women of Wild Hill
“You can’t be real sisters,” he told them. “You don’t look alike.”
Phoebe, who was five and mild-mannered, paid him no mind. Brigid, at six, was old enough to know fighting words when she heard them. Over the years, she’d also learned that she loved a good fight.
“What do you know?” she sneered. “You’re just a dumb little boy.”
“I know you look like a redheaded ghost,” he said. “And she’s got Afro puffs.”
Brigid got up and brushed the sand off her shins. Phoebe stopped smoothing the walls of a turret. Her eyes danced merrily as they followed her sister.
“Brigid!” They heard their mother calling out from her beach chair. Both girls ignored her.
“So?” Brigid asked the boy.
“So my mom says you must have two different fathers, which means your mom is a—”
Brigid never got to hear the last word. Her hands had made contact with the boy’s chest, and suddenly they were both weightless in the silent world beneath the waves. She watched his body tumble backward, eyes wide and pale arms flailing as the undertow pulled him out to sea. When Brigid tried to surface, she felt hands on her own head and shoulders, holding her down.
“Brigid!” Flora was there, helping the boy to his feet. “I told you, no fighting!”
“She shoved me!” the boy wailed theatrically, wiping perfectly dry eyes.
Brigid stood frozen, unable to mount a defense. She wasn’t sure what she’d just seen. It had looked real—and it had certainly felt real. But what scared her most was the sense that she’d brushed up against something dark and powerful. Something so big she couldn’t tell what it was. Something ancient and hungry.
“Mama, what’s a whore?”
The word brought the scene to a standstill. All eyes turned to the golden little girl still playing peacefully in the sand.
“What?”
Phoebe pointed at the boy. “That kid said his mom called you a whore.”
There was a pause, then Flora burst out laughing. She bent down until she was eye to eye with the boy. “Please tell your mother that she’s got it all wrong. I’m not a whore, sweetheart. I’m a witch.”
THEY ATE ICE CREAM FORdinner. Flora thought they deserved it.Life is full of challenges, she always told her girls.You should always reward yourself whenever you overcome one.
“Why don’t we look alike?” Brigid knew the answer, but she loved to hear her mother explain.
“Because you have two different fathers.” Flora licked her spoon. “Phoebe gets her hair from her dad. And you’re a drama queen just like yours. But the two of you get everything important from the Duncan family.”
“Tell us about the Duncans!” Phoebe gushed.
“Well, first there was Sadie. She came here from Scotland in 1898. She had red hair like Brigid. When she was a girl, she talked toghosts. And when she was grown, she could summon storms. Sadie was mother to—”
“Ivy and Rose.” Brigid filled in the blank.
“We know Aunt Ivy,” Phoebe said. “She’s very old.”
“Absolutely ancient,” Flora agreed. “She just turned ninety-one.”
“She can make anything grow,” Phoebe added.
“That’s right. And Ivy’s twin sister was my grandmother Rose. They say she was sweet like Phoebe and could see the future. She died giving birth to my mother, Lilith.”
“What could Grandma Lilith do?” Phoebe asked. She and her sister had never known Lilith, who’d died before they were born.
“Bore people to death.” Flora laughed. “I’m kidding. My mother was very serious, but I loved her and I miss her terribly. I guess you could say her gift was chemistry.”
“What will our gifts be?” Brigid asked.
