Page 84 of The Women of Wild Hill
“Now, I did not say that,” he added emphatically. “God decides who will suffer, not me. But I’m happy to do my part to usher in the new age.”
“And your children? Will they continue your work when you’re gone?”
“The company’s gone public. I love my children, but there’s not a one of them the board would approve as CEO. I got to get it all done before I bid the mortal world a fond farewell.”
THEY’D WALKED TO THE EDGEof the gathering, in full view of the other black-clad guests. For the first time, she knew how Brigid felt before she killed. Here was a man whose death was necessary.
“Well, would you look at that?” said Wallace. Phoebe followed his gaze to the three black birds sailing wing to wing across the lawn toward them. “My mother always said that if you saw three ravens in a row, they were pulling the Grim Reaper’s chariot. She was a bit of a heathen, my mother. There’s no telling how I might have turned out if she hadn’t died in a fire when I was young.”
“A fire, you say?” Phoebe replied.
The three birds landed a few feet in front of them. The biggest, in the middle, croaked out an order. Phoebe looked up. High above, on the dead limb of an old oak, two other ravens gazed down at her. Four more fluttered to the rotten limb as she watched. The healthy branches above were black with birds waiting to join the ones below. The rotten limb wouldn’t be able to hold many more.
They’d come for a single reason, but they were waiting for Phoebe to make the call. An hour earlier, it might have seemed like an impossible decision. Now she didn’t hesitate.
“Pardon me,” she told the Meat Man. “It was a pleasure chatting with you, but I think I see my sister waving me over.”
Phoebe headed off across the lawn. Seconds later, when the deafening crack rang out, everyone at the gathering turned in the direction she’d come from. Even when people began to scream and the crowd rushed forward, Phoebe never looked back.
Imaginary Friend
Sibyl had a secret. She’d only recently realized that’s what it was. For most of her life, it hadn’t seemed like something anyone else would find interesting. It involved her lifelong best friend, Lily.
Sibyl knew what other people’s dreams were like. She’d listened to tales of nightmares and fantasies and all sorts of sexcapades. If she’d ever experienced such nocturnal adventures, she couldn’t remember them. The only dreams Sibyl ever seemed to remember all featured the same person.
Even as a young girl, Lily had always been prim and proper and perfectly dressed. She wore her hair in a sleek black bob. To someone who’d grown up in Nowhere, Texas, the girl seemed incredibly sophisticated and her perfectly knotted scarves indicated she might be French. But she spoke English with a crisp mid-Atlantic accent, and though she seemed like someone who might be stuck up, she was often incredibly funny.
Lily first appeared in Sibyl’s dreams after she accidentally overheard her mother say she was normal. “Nothing more, nothing less,” as Phoebe had put it. That night, Sibyl dreamed she and a dark-haired girl were hiding under a staircase, listening to a conversation between two unseen women in a nearby room.
“It’s such a disappointment,” said a woman who spoke with a Scottish accent. “She’s almost reached menarche, and I’ve seen no evidence of any gifts. By the time you were her age, you were already creating complex elixirs.”
“She’s highly intelligent,” responded the other. “Not to mention extremely disciplined and determined.”
“Utterly commonplace,” the Scottish woman pronounced. “She might as well be a good cook or an excellent laundress. We’ll just have to wait for the next generation. Hopefully she’ll find a suitable husband.”
“They’re talking about me,” the dark-haired girl told Sibyl. She pulled a little package out of her skirt pocket and unwrapped a scone. She split it in two and shared one half with Sibyl. “Does your family say the same things about you?”
“Yes,” Sibyl had confessed. “My mother thinks I’m normal.” Phoebe’s latest bullshit had been weighing heavily on her all day.
“Well, we shouldn’t hold it against them, I suppose,” the girl told her. “They’ll all find out eventually.”
It was a sweet thing to say, but Sibyl wasn’t going to pretend that her mother was wrong. “It’s true. I really can’t do anything.”
The girl found that amusing. Her laugh was a series of little snorts. “What are you talking about? You can speak to me,” she told Sibyl. “But let’s keep that our secret for now, shall we?”
“Who are you?” Sibyl asked.
The girl swallowed a dainty bite of scone. “You may call me Lily,” she told her.
AS SIBYL APPROACHED HER TEENAGEyears, Lily began to make appearances during daylight hours. Whenever Sibyl let her imagination roam—during classes, on dull, rainy days—it would always lead her right to Lily. Generally, they got along fabulously. Lily led a fascinating secret life. She spent a great deal of time talking to a very pretty ghost no one else could see. She had a scrapbook at home she called “the rogue’s gallery” full of men the world would be better without. And she experimented with explosives and poisons and invisible inks.
When they were alone, Lily began to step out of Sibyl’s daydreams. She was wonderful company. She loved taking walks through wilderness, though she never dressed appropriately, and she once said she’d never seen a snake up close before, which was odd considering they were in Texas. And she was absolutely delighted the day they spotted a wild hog the size of a hippo. Most kids would have run away screaming, but Lily insisted they pet it. She called the pig Petunia. “Like the cartoon!” she explained. She thought Sibyl must be crazy when she didn’t get the joke.
Lily wasn’t like the other girls. She knew unusual things and was always keen to share her knowledge. She could also be incredibly bossy.
“Why would you want to waste your time straightening that glorious hair?” Lily asked one day when she popped into Sibyl’s room uninvited.
“There’s someone I like at school,” Sibyl told her. “They like girls with straight hair.”
