Page 141 of The Sister's Curse

She was dangerous, so I took my sidearm with me, hidden under my jacket. She had a lot to lose by talking to me. She could lose everything—the life and family she’d built.

And so could I.

I waited at the Hag Stone at dusk, staring at the spot in the river where there had once been an island, now drowned and swept away down the river. There were only a few snags of cedar stumps there now. The geese had fled, and the place was barren.

I heard footsteps approaching. My mother was not like my father; she couldn’t move soundlessly in the woods. I thought about ambushing her here, hunting her. But I didn’t. I just waited.

She picked her way through the leaf debris to stand beside me. She was much older than in my dreams, but her posture was still straight. She folded her arms in front of her and stared out at the river with me.

“What did you want?” she asked curtly.

I swallowed. “I remembered some things about my past.”

Her eye twitched. “What things?”

My heart hammered, but I forced myself to spit it out. “I remembered that summer when the water was poisoned. When you and I…when we were together. It was like we were mother and daughter.”

She nodded, her fingers tight as talons on her elbows. “I remember.”

“What changed?” I asked. “Why were we so far apart?”

Her shoulder hitched. “Your father and I…we were at war. I tried to keep it from you, at first. I saw how you were becoming his daughter, in all ways. He called you his heir, the heir to his forest.” She shook her head.

“But…the first time…when a man died, I was with you.”

She stared out, over the water, at the island that didn’t exist anymore. “Are you going to arrest me?”

I wasn’t sure. I just knew that guilt lay cold beneath my ribs. “His name was Darrell Castner. He was a maintenance man at Copperhead Valley Solvents.”

Her mouth hardened. “It doesn’t matter. He killed my child. Your sister.”

I exhaled. “Why take me along for that?”

“Because…I wanted you to be able to defend yourself. And I wanted you to know who you really were.”

“Who am I?”

“You’re your father’s daughter. And you’re also my daughter.” She looked at me for the first time then, and her eyes glittered like flint.

“But why take that away from me? Why have my memory taken away?” My voice quavered. This was the question I’d always wanted to ask her.

I realized I was looking down at her. At some point, she’d shrunk and become a couple inches smaller than me, and that startled me. “Because I wanted you to be who you wanted to be, independent of the both of us.”

She turned and began to walk away, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t waste that life, Elena.”

I let her go, standing there until it got dark and the fireflies rose. Arresting her would expose both of us, and I had no desire to do that. Justice mattered, maybe. But maybe I should just let thedead lie. Not be like Fred Jasper, who lived only a twilight life, in search of justice.

I wasn’t sure who I was: the hunter’s daughter or the witch’s daughter or someone else entirely.

But, freed from both their shadows, I had the freedom to find out.

—

The wound on my calf faded afterward, turning the normal color of a bruise before finally receding to a white, frost-shaped pattern that looked a bit like lightning. I was glad the Rusalka’s touch had faded, but I was disturbed to have a permanent reminder of her on my body. I guess it was a reminder that she’d worn my skin, and I shouldn’t forget.

I sat in the garden, feeling the ground solid below me as I harvested tomatoes and peppers and pulled weeds from the soil. The woods teemed around me. Fish had even begun to cluster prolifically in the creek, and I had hope that the river would recover from Sumner’s pollution.

Sometimes I felt eyes on me in the woods. Sometimes I’d glimpse an antler, and my heart would clot in my throat. Sometimes the eyes were those of a stag, moving serenely on deer trails. Other times they were Sinoe’s, spying on me through the Virginia creeper. She’d approach when I offered her food, and she’d take it delicately from my hand, but always refuse to come inside. Still, she enjoyed sleeping on my porch.