Page 10 of The Beginning (Covert Moon, #1)

Marigold

The Human Realm

* * *

I leaned against the wall in the living room, pasting on a smile as I rubbed my necklace, willing it to send a signal to my sister as I tried to ward off my worry.

But no amount of wishing would bring the spell back and reconnect it to my sister’s; it was just a normal piece of jewelry now.

The thought that kept repeating over and over in my head was the one thing I knew for sure: The only way the spell on our necklaces could have been broken was if Calyx had broken the magic herself. On purpose.

“How can you smile at a time like this, Marigold? Really?” Mother hissed the words at me as she passed, barely moving her lips in the way she’d perfected when we were little. God forbid anyone see her true nature in public. She had moved on before I could even open my mouth to reply.

Typical.

I watched her make her way across the formal living room, through the gathered police officers and the media. Not rolling my eyes was a major effort. The smile, no matter how fake, or how out of place, was a far better choice. It didn't show anything that I was thinking.

Watching my mother, you'd think she was holding court. She stood at the head of the room looking like a queen gracing everyone with her presence, and not at all like a desperate parent about to hold a press conference and plead for her kidnapped daughter's safe return.

She had on her pearls today; the long strand that was just thick enough to catch the eye without detracting from the whole ensemble. The matching pearl earrings dipped below her perfectly coiffed shag, with the gold highlights placed exactly among her warm, auburn locks.

Mother's baby blue suit contrasted perfectly with the beige and white of the living room.

She'd had the maids going crazy this morning making sure everything in the room was arranged perfectly, to the point that she might as well have broken out a contractor's level to ensure the pillows were all in alignment.

One would never guess one of her children–her favorite child–was missing.

“The camera sees everything,” Mother had said, scolding one of the maids.

Now, the scene was all set. Mother, at the front of the room.

Father, looking drawn and a little disheveled in a navy suit, stood behind Mother, his tie just the right shade of lighter blue to compliment her outfit.

He scanned the room and our eyes met, a momentary flash of understanding piercing the din and crashing into my heart.

He'd been relegated to the background of Mother’s world, as usual.

He knew his place. We all knew our places.

A tinge of bitterness moved through me. Knowing your place was all well and good, but when had my father stopped being a dad?

Stopped caring about his kids? Stopped caring about me?

Part of me felt like he'd abandoned me to Mother, because no matter what she did, he stood behind her, silent.

But then I saw him as just another victim, just like the rest of us, stuck in the web of the black widow, whose venom is deadly and whose fangs were ever ready.

My father and I had a moment of pathetic understanding before I let my eyes move back to my mother, watching her speak to the crowd of reporters. You'd never know that anything was amiss if you happened upon this room by accident.

There was no disputing the fact that my sister was missing.

She'd obviously left sometime last night. I hadn't heard a thing and I’d been asleep in my sister’s room, completely unaware.

It’s possible that Calyx had used a silencing spell to conceal her departure, and her room was an absolute mess, which was not how it was last night when she and I went to sleep.

So while it looked like something happened in her room, the necklace kind of gave it away, ruining any thought of her being kidnapped.

No, one thing I was sure of, my sister left.

She was gone of her own volition.

Of course, my mother wouldn’t hear me on this.

She said that she must have been kidnapped, since her favorite daughter would have never run away.

She didn't use the word favorite when talking to me and Dad, but the implication was there. Had it been me… I wonder if she would have noticed, much less called a press conference… but then again, the media wasn’t for my sister. It was for Mother, so who knows.

Looking across the room, the festive atmosphere, everyone buzzing around like busy bees and the maid hustling to make sure everybody had cocktails, made it feel like a strange party where no one acknowledged the dead body under the table.

I clenched my fists, helpless anger threatening to make me explode.

Everything about this was wrong. The barrage of party sounds, the distinctive clicks of the cameras, and the murmur of people speaking in hushed tones contrasted with my mother's voice, deep and husky, while she directed the arrangement of each detail with the news crews before she allowed them to go live on the air.

The detectives took statements, moving in and out of the room, pulling people into the study one by one. I tried to imagine my father as he gave his statement, which probably consisted of a shrug and blinking eyes because—let's be honest—he never knew what was going on with his daughters.

My mother's cousin, the governor, was present, with his yes-man lingering at his side, their faces full of concern. Everyone made sure that everyone else was doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing.

The podium had been arranged so when the camera took in the scene, my mother would be framed between the window with the lilac bushes outside and the fireplace, with its portrait of Mother in her younger days over her other shoulder.

Anyone watching would be sure to notice how well she had aged; how kind the years have been.

It all looked so normal, so human ... nobody–not the people filming, nor the people watching–would ever realize she was a witch.

A witch who loathed them for all their weak and human ways. A witch who hated her oldest daughter with unbridled, inexplicable heat. A witch with plans to use everyone around her until they were dried up husks with nothing left to offer.

The ferocity of my own thoughts made me blink a little.

The world felt off kilter for a moment, and I took a deep breath to steady myself.

It was not a good idea to go off-script at the best of times, but with the cameras rolling…

Now all I needed to do was play my part, and then I could get out of here so I could start looking for Calyx.

I would have been gone already had my mother not insisted on my presence.

For the press conference, of course.

Across the room, Mother nodded and then the cameraman clapped his hands. “Okay everyone!” He motioned to my mother and counted down with his fingers in the air as he looked through the camera.

Three, two, one.

The police chief approached the podium as the room stood at attention. No stranger to the camera himself, he didn't look nervous as the microphones pushed forward. Instead, he seemed resigned to the inevitable theatrics that came when a VIP made the news.

He cleared his throat. “I'm here this afternoon at the home of Victoria and Sebastian Blaine, to report to you what we know about the disappearance of their daughter, Calyx Blaine.” He paused for a moment and looked into the camera.

“Calyx, aged seventeen, was last seen yesterday at the Blaine's home on Holly Street. She'd been doing homework and preparing for school. It is believed she was abducted sometime in the night. The assailant broke into her second-story bedroom window…”

It was all I could do not to scream as I tuned out the story that had been concocted.

Calyx had not been doing homework. She hadn't been alone.

I was with her all night, in her bedroom, eating Chinese and watching Charmed .

I don't know if she cast a sleeping spell on me before she'd trashed her room, or if she'd put something in my food when I wasn't paying attention, but something about her disappearance wasn't right.

And there was only one person who could have done it. I didn't know how she did it, but each time I ran through it in my head, there was one thing that was absolutely, crystal clear: Calyx had not been abducted.

When we realized this morning she was gone, I tried to explain to Mother that nobody had broken in. I tried to suggest that Calyx could have left on her own, that maybe things had gotten serious with her new boyfriend… the one none of us had met, the one that we'd only heard about.

The one that Calyx, for all her talk about him, kept secret.

I mean, at the very least we should try and find him, talk to him, right?

Mother glared at me, her chin set and the lines around her mouth showing strain.

“No. Not my daughter.” She sniffed. “And I resent the implication, Marigold, that your sister was unhappy in any way.

Just because you feel that you don't fit in with this family does not mean that you should make Calyx out to be deviant as well.”

Deviant. I pictured myself flipping my mother the bird with both hands. But all it did was make me angry that I couldn't do it in real life. I rolled my shoulders, trying to release some of the tension. I realized I was clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth.

But I knew. I knew .

The fact that my sister had killed the spell on our necklaces gave Calyx away.

With the spell intact, I would be able to sense her.

It wasn’t a spell anyone else would know about, so there was no reason for anyone else to sever the tie to hide my sister.

No. The fact that the spell was broken spoke volumes, and the story it told was that my sister, for all her immature and dramatic leanings, left of her own free will.