Page 25 of Kissed the Mark
“Clearly,” Griselda said bitterly.
“I told her that,” Francesca said, noddingto Beatrice. “I asked her if there was something specifically Icould help her with—I couldn’t make a portal for her to visit thepast, but I could bring her something from the past—a missingfamily heirloom or something, I assumed.” She swallowed. “Somethingsmall, that wouldn’t really change anything.”
“And?” I asked, impatient.
“And she asked me to pull her past self tothe present. So of course, I had to ask her what she intended to doif I actually went through with it. She insisted it wasn’tanything…nefarious.” Francesca set the cup of tea down. She shooktoo hard to hold it well. At her side, Griselda rubbed her armassuringly.
“So the Leandra that we just poofed into acloud of feathers was a past version of her?” Beatrice wondered.“Is there something we need to do to get her back? Where is thepresent Leandra? Did you send the present Leandra to the past? Orwere there two of them running around town? Ah, what a mess.”
“Let her finish,” I said.
“I couldn’t think of a good reason why shewould need someone to do that for her. I contacted another vampireabout it—I don’t think that was the right thing to do now, but atthe time I thought he could help me—and he heavily insinuated shewould try to kill the past version of herself,” Francesca said.
“To what purpose?” Beatrice asked.
“That, I’m still not sure. Would there besome kind of paradox that would make our reality implode? A timeripple that would make her a god or undo everything she’d everdone?” Francesca shrugged her broad shoulders. “I said no.”
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on myknees. There was nothing I wanted more than for Francesca to hurryup with the story, though I’d finally calmed down from my rage.There would be a perfectly rational explanation at the end of this,and I didn’t want to push an already sensitive Francesca past herbreaking point.
“We think she went to Chicago,” Griseldachimed in. “She said something about all the witches here beingstuck up and thinking we’re too good for her. We’re too bound bythe rules. She said she was going to go somewhere they didn’tfollow the rules as much, which I took to mean a city. And, well,St. Louis is nearby, but it isn’t that big. There’s a big witchcommunity in Chicago.”
“But she came back,” Francesca said. “Wewere panicked that she had gotten what she wanted, but also scaredof going to someone after how—how that one vampire responded to myquestion. I approached her and said I thought I had figuredsomething out. Gris and I put our heads together and came up with away to fake it. So…”
“…So, the Leandra I’ve been around since Ithought she lost her memories was not actually Leandra at all, noteven her from the past,” I said. “Where is real Leandra?”
“Why the feathers?” Beatrice asked.
“We made a golem out of down feathers from apillowcase,” Griselda said. “We put a glamour on it and gave it afew basic traits and some background. Surely you noticed howtwo-dimensional the personality was?”
I flushed at the implication that I was toostupid to pick up on that. I had not, in fact, noticed.
“We made her bloodthirsty with a strongfight-or-flight response, a bit stupid because she always struck methat way, and also a sexpot, because she never stopped hitting onme every time she saw me,” Griselda said. “She ‘really likesblondes’ and all that. We coached the golem on everything we couldthink of and read it a couple Wikipedia pages. Francesca’s Britishaccent was awful though.”
“Hey!” Francesca said. “It was better thanyours.”
The accent of the golem Leandrahadbeen a little off, not quite American or British. I filed away thatthe real Leandra did, in fact, like blondes. “Where is Leandranow?”
“When the golem crossed the threshold of ourtruth spell, it turned into what it really was—which was downfeathers. And earlier, when Olympia had fed the golem thatlookedlike Leandra a memory potion,” Beatrice said,interrupting whatever response I very eagerly awaited from theGallos, “the down feathers remembered they were once part of agoose?”
“Oh my God. I need a drink,” I said.
“We don’t know where Leandra is,” Francescasaid. Unlike before, I believed her. “Last we checked with ourvampire contact, she was still missing.”
“Who is your vampire contact? This is thesame guy you asked about the time travel thing?” I asked.
“Yes. Um, I’d rather not say. I don’t wantany more attention because of this, really.”
“Did the golem kill the werewolf?” I askedsuddenly.
Tears flowed down Francesca’s face. She puther head in her hands. “I don’t know. I think it could have. Am I amurderer?”
“We did what we had to,” Griselda said toher. “You’re not a murderer.”
“I have someone’s death on my hands.”Francesca sobbed now.
“That’s not your fault, dear,” Beatricesaid.
My mind was wandering everywhere,reevaluating conversations I’d had with the golem over the last fewdays. How had I not noticed something was off beyond memory loss?Was Leandra even from England? How many lies had the real Leandratold me? The gaudy citrus print lining the room was too loud for menow, searing my eyes. I had been in the little bubble of ourconversation and not noticed the tacky decor of the house, in starkcontrast with the refined aesthetic of their shop. Curtains thesame shade of Beatrice Newell’s ugly green Chevy Spark violated thefaded-orange cover scheme established by the hideous wallpaper.Beatrice and the Gallos continued to chat in the background,working out specifics, but I was having an out-of-body experience,not understanding what had happened to me or why I’d been thetarget of all this andhad golem-Leandra killed thewerewolf? Could it really be as simple as that?
