Page 101 of The Sister's Curse

I remembered spending time in my psychiatrist’s office, staring at a candle flame in the dark until the darkness swallowed the world behind me and I fell into the labyrinth of my mind. As I focused on the moon, I felt the same. It glowed brighter, and darkness surged around me. Finally, the moon dimmed and winked out, and I was suspended in that familiar hypnotic state.

Night and I were old friends. I didn’t fear the darkness of the woods, and I wouldn’t fear the darkness in Viv’s house, either. Shemight be a witch, but I was the daughter of a serial killer. I had more evil in my pinky finger than she could muster in her whole body.

The darkness rippled. Whether in my mind or in the glass, I couldn’t be sure. It moved like water, undulating. I saw Dana’s body, curled beside the river somewhere, in a nest of burned grasses. The water washed over her, and the nest was empty.

A figure sliced through the water with exhilarating speed, faster than any human could swim. I glimpsed Dana in profile, long dark hair a cloud streaming behind her. She turned, gazing upon me with black eyes, pale lips curled back on sharp teeth.

I felt it then, her desire for revenge, stewed in and nurtured by Viv’s hate and the fear of her coven. A creature had been conjured forth, a curse, a force to be reckoned with in its element, one that would drag a man down and drown him.

An unstoppable force, with clawed hands and rot-speckled skin. She was beyond human law, beyond control. She’d have her revenge, twenty-five years after her death, under the same unblinking moon.

“But the children,” I whispered. “They don’t deserve this. They’re innocent.”

Her musical laugh shivered over me. How could I hope to stop her?

“I was innocent, too, once upon a time,” she whispered, her voice like bells. “Blood calls to blood, and I will have theirs.”

I gazed on her then, in terrible understanding. I had to try to stop her, but I knew, deep in my gut, that she was beyond my power. I was only human. She was…not.

“Please,” I said.

She reached forward to touch my face. “Daughter of darkness, let the dark do its work. Do not interfere.”

I opened my mouth to object, to try to ask her to stand down, but her hand covered my mouth. She dragged me down, into the depths. My lungs filled with that cold dark, burning, then became still as I drowned and hung in the water.

I was at one with the dark, suspended in it. I rubbed my face, and my hand came away greenish and with webbed fingers. I jerked my head back. My tongue scrubbed across sharp teeth. I inhaled, feeling frigid water in my lungs, going in, pressing out…no pain.

“What did you do to me?” I hissed. I cast about for the Rusalka, searching for her. My body cut through the waves, powerful and sinuous. For a moment, I forgot my shock and reveled in that power.

“There have been many Rusalki.” Her voice washed over me. “Dana. And now you.”

And I understood this infinite lineage of women who had been wronged, who sought to continue this lineage of horror, in many times and places.

My webbed hand slid over my mouth. Was this my destiny? To become a vessel of revenge, as they had?

“I don’t want this,” I whispered around my fingers.

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what any of us want.” Her voice was distant, fading…

I was snapped back into my body on the couch in Viv’s house by the sounds of a crash and Gibby barking.

I jerked upright on the couch and sucked in my breath, flinging my arm over my face. The front window was shattered, and fire raced across the floor in a blistering explosion.

I dropped to the floor and cast right and left. Escape through the front door was blocked by fire. Flames licked the aged wallpaper, reaching up for the broken photos of Viv’s family on the piano.

I looked behind me, at the window. I jumped up to it and fumbled with the latch. Smoke rolled across the ceiling and down the wall. Distantly, I smelled something sweet in the smoke, something like the scent of artificial roses.

I forced the window open. I gathered Gibby in my arms and flung him through it. Lastly, I lurched through, landing in a shrub beside the house. My sleeve was on fire, and I rolled in the dirt and thorns, trying to knock the flames out in the dust. The fire spread over my back, and panic set in. I smelled burning hair. Gibby growled beside me.

I forced my mind to still, though my heart jackhammered in my chest. Mom had taught me how to find water. I visualized a silvery serpent of underground water in my mind. It twisted, turned, moving up to the surface…

I heard her voice: “You’re a natural. Try again.”

Operating on pure instinct, I trusted that voice of darkness. I flung my arm out, casting out, searching for those veins of water, my eyes tearing.

Something laughed in the darkness, a surreal cackle.

I followed that sound. I stumbled to the tree line, to the creek beyond, and hurled myself into cool water. I submerged myself in coldness, feeling it close over my head.