Page 3 of The Women of Wild Hill
She felt eyes on her and looked up to find one of the ravens standing on the table beside her. This time, it held a piece of metal in its beak.
“You again?”
The bird opened its beak and the metal object fell with a clang on the concrete. She picked it up and twirled it between her fingers. It was a cast-iron skeleton key.
“What is this?” Nothing on her property was anywhere as old as the key.
The bird flapped its wings. Then it hopped off the table and marched away. At the edge of the patio, it stopped and looked back at her. It was waiting for Brigid to follow.
“Guess we’re going for a walk,” Brigid muttered. She stuck the key, an unlit joint, and a lighter into her bra and polished off her drink.
THE MOON OVERHEAD, LOOKING FULLto bursting, cast a silvery light over the landscape. No cinematographer could compete with nature. Brigid admired the moon’s beauty, but she didn’t need the illumination. She had always been able to see in the dark. She made her way across the bone dry landscape and effortlessly wove around the brittle skeletons of lavender bushes that hadn’t survived the long drought. A snake hiding beneath a pile of rocks shook its rattle at Brigid as she passed. Up ahead, the raven stood, still and stoic, ona low-hanging tree branch, waiting for her to catch up. As soon as she arrived, it flapped its wings and glided to a boulder on the top of a hill. Brigid climbed up to meet it. This time, it stayed put. Brigid had reached her destination.
“Okay, bird. What is it I’m supposed to see?” She turned around to gauge just how far she’d come. Below sat her beautiful white stucco house, with its red Spanish tiles and turquoise pool surrounded by the pale skeletons of dying orange trees. “What do you want from me?”
And then, as if the Old One had been waiting for Brigid to ask, she saw an ocean on the opposite side of the continent. Her sister was standing beside her in a black dress. She remembered the day well. It had been her last on the Island. In thirty years, she’d never once gone back. The Old One was announcing the time had come for a family reunion.
“You can show me anything you want. You know I’m not the one you’ve got to convince.” She felt it only fair to point that out. “All I ever did was tell that bitch the truth. She’s the one who cut me off.”
Brigid stopped. Movement had caught her eye. There was a figure down below. She watched him dart from one hiding spot to the next, moving ever closer toward her house. There was no doubt it was a man. At first, she thought it might be the intruder from that afternoon. Could they have released him so quickly? She dug in her robe’s pockets for her phone before she remembered tossing it into the pool. She looked around for the bird that had guided her to safety, but the raven had left her to her own devices. “I don’t give a fuck what he steals. I’m not going to kill him,” she informed the Old One. She’d just have to wait it out.
Then a light flared in the darkness. Just a spot of orange on black, like the flame of a cigarette lighter. A dry bush near the house went up like a pile of kindling. She saw the man take a step back and put his hands in his pockets as he watched the inferno build. It wasn’tthe intruder from earlier. It was the police officer who’d asked if she lived alone.
The fire climbed the back wall of the house. The home Brigid and her sister had grown up in. Her final connection to the mother who’d abandoned her. The place where three decades of designer gowns were stored. She wondered if, somewhere, Flora was sticking another orange pin in her map.
Brigid knew she was too far away to save her home. But unless she could place a call, the fire could take the entire neighborhood with it. There was only one way to get back to the house fast enough to do any good—the same way she’d come. That meant going right past the arsonist. She’d have to kill him. Even as she thought it, she was moving.
She didn’t go out of her way to be quiet, but he never heard her. As she drew closer, she could see him in profile as he watched the flames scale the wall and overtake the bedrooms. From the ecstatic look on his face, she could tell that it wasn’t the first fire he’d set. Far from it. And she already knew what she needed to do.
When she heard the rattle coming from the same bush she’d passed earlier, Brigid reached inside and snatched the snake. It writhed in her hand and whipped at her legs, but she knew it wouldn’t bite. The ravens had decreed that someone would die that day, but it wasn’t going to be her.
“Hey there,” she said when she was on him.
If an actor in one of her films had ever shrieked the way he did, she’d have demanded another take.Too over-the-top, she’d have told them.
“Ms. Laguerre! I’m so glad you’re not in there. I came back to check in on you and found the house on fire. I’ve called it in, and the fire department should be here shortly.” His eyes were drawn to the furious rattlesnake baring its fangs. “Are you okay?” The cop took a step back as he tried to make sense of it all.
“No,” Brigid told him. “I’m very upset. You’re the first motherfucker I’ve killed in thirty years.”
“I don’t get—”
He got it when Brigid pulled back the waistband of his jogging pants and dropped the snake inside. She didn’t stick around to see what happened next. There was no need to watch his death twice. Instead, Brigid walked into her beloved childhood home for the very last time and dialed 911.
THE FIRE CREWS SAVED THEcanyon, but the house wasn’t spared. They found the arsonist’s corpse with his pants down around his thighs and a nasty snakebite to the scrotum.
Brigid was taken to the hospital and treated for shock. At eight a.m. the next morning, she was released into the care of her personal assistant. Within hours, she was spotted boarding a plane all alone, looking somber and chic in her trademark head-to-toe black. Tucked inside her breast pocket was a cast-iron key.
Mistress of Beasts
Phoebe Duncan left the mayor of Endswell lying in bed and got up to pick herbs. As early as it was, she could feel the heat rising. The dew would be drying on the leaves and the petals. The day was set to be a scorcher, and she needed to get to the garden before the Texas sun robbed her plants of their precious oils.
She slipped a white sundress over her naked form, wrangled her curly black hair into a thick snake of a braid, and pulled on her boots. Outside, the full moon looked down from above as the sun stretched its first lazy rays across the land. Phoebe grabbed her wicker basket from its hook by the front door and put a hat on her head. Then she stepped out onto the old homestead’s grand front porch and found herself staring straight at a raven.
“What do you want?” Phoebe demanded.
The raven did not reply. In the morning light, it seemed to lack features. It appeared two-dimensional, like a silhouette cut out of velvet or a stencil filled in with the blackest ink. It stood there for a moment, as though making sure Phoebe had taken it in. Then it turned and flew off toward the moon, issuing a call that was more cackle than cry.
Phoebe knew what it meant. Aunt Ivy had taught her. The raven had just announced that a message was coming.
