A Circle of Ashes Read online

  “Air is our witness.” Thais took two long incense sticks and held their tips together so that their thin spirals of smoke twined together like vines.

  “Earth is our witness.” Thais took white sand and black sand and rubbed them together in her palms, like salt and pepper. When they were evenly mixed, she dribbled them out of her hand into the rune shape I showed her, goeffe, which looks like an X. It stood for gift, partnership, generosity.

  “Fire is our witness,” I said. Thais picked up two smaller candles and lit them simultaneously from the candle between us. Then she set them into a small silver candleholder that had two joined stems.

  “We join our strength and power,” we said together, and I nodded at two small willow twigs. Thais tied them securely together in the middle with red string.

  “Life is our witness.”

  I took a piece of chalk and drew the rune quenne on the floor “This is for fire, our element,” I said. “It’s our passion, our creativity.”

  I gave Thais the piece of chalk and showed her the rune in the book that I wanted her to draw. She did. “Lage is for knowledge, creativity, psychic power,” I said. “We call on the power of these runes to make our spell complete.”

  Then Thais and I put our hands on each other’s shoulders and closed our eyes.

  “Nous voulons joindre nous tous les deux,” I said. We said it together and then said it a third time. And that was when we got blown across the room.

  I hit the wall headfirst and cried out. After several stunned moments, I slowly sat up, trying not to groan. Clio lay in a heap on the other side of the room, and I got up and ran to her. She was already blinking and trying to sit up.

  “What the hell was that?” she said.

  I knelt and put my arm around her. “Are you okay? You didn’t say that would happen!”

  Her eyes were wide, and she rubbed her head where it had hit a bookcase. “Because I didn’t know!” she said. “We got blown right out of that circle! I’ve never heard of anything like that happening. Holy crap.”

  “Then what went wrong?” I asked.

  “I have no fricking idea.” Clio stood up and brushed off her butt. She rubbed her head again. “Ow. That has never, ever happened to me.” She looked at me, and I felt the usual little spark of surprise that we looked so much alike. Her hair was longer, and our birthmarks were on opposite cheeks, but there was no doubt we were identical. “Maybe it was the twinpower thing,” she said, sounding kind of awed.

  “God. Well, no wonder everyone’s freaked about it.” I realized I was shaking and looked over at the circle. The candles and incense had been snuffed out, and the salt circle wasn’t even there anymore. “So are we joined now?”

  We looked at each other, and I sent out a systems check to see if I felt different.

  “I’m not sure,” said Clio. “I don’t know if the spell had time to work or what.”

  But as I stood there, I realized that I was picking up stuff from Clio—I could feel her next to me, but not physically. It was like I felt a form, a shape, next to me. Not like a ghost. Not even human-looking. But it was Clio, definitely Clio. I felt her puzzlement and excitement. I felt fear in myself, but not from her.

  “Hey. Is that you?” I asked.

  Looking amazed, Clio laughed and nodded. “I feel you too. It’s like—Flubber. Like a Flubber Thais, only I can’t see it. This is way cool.”

  “It’s strange,” I said. “I wonder if it works when we’re farther apart.”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” she said, grinning.

  At dawn I went back to Axelle’s. I still didn’t know how Axelle Gauvin had wrangled custody of me after Dad had died. A spell? Strings pulled? I hoped that Petra would come back soon and that I’d be able to live with her and Clio when she did.

  In the meantime, all my stuff was in Axelle’s apartment, in the French Quarter.

  At dawn, in September, it was about eighty-five degrees. I walked down narrow, almost quiet streets, thinking how pretty the Quarter was with not many people in it. Later today it would be crowded and noisy and smell like beer and sunscreen.

  I was still awed by the spell with Clio. I mean, I had gotten thrown eight feet across a room. By magick. It was hard to believe. Except I had a knot on my head to prove it. Clio said she would try to figure out what had gone wrong, but if she’d never even heard of anything like that happening…

  I used my key and went through the wroughtiron side gate that led to Axelle’s apartment. The narrow carriageway was cool and damp, and I could barely hear my shoes on the ancient flagstones, worn by centuries of use. The small courtyard was a mini-Eden, with birds fluttering around the subtropical plants that lined the tiny swimming pool.

  And here was Axelle’s front door. Despite feeling shaken by last night’s spell, a new strength had solidified in me, and I felt complete and sure of myself. I opened the door and went in. As usual, the scent of cigarette smoke made my nostrils twitch. It was cool and dark inside, and as I shut the door, Minou, Axelle’s cat, ran past my legs into the apartment.

  “Thais.”

  My eyes were adjusting to the dim light, and I saw Axelle lying on her black leather couch. Putting aside the newspaper she was reading, she stood and came over to me.

  “You’re up early. Catching up on current events?” I said evenly, moving into the kitchen.

  “Up all night. Reading the comics.” Her dark shiny pageboy swung right at her chin, every hair in place. She might have been awake for the previous twenty-four hours, but you’d never be able to tell. “So you stayed out all night. Another wasp attack?”

  “More like shock and horror over my family’s history.” Not looking at her, I poured myself some orange juice and put two slices of bread into the toaster.

  “Shock? Okay, I’ll give you that. You had a lot dumped on you yesterday. But horror?” Her red lips formed a smile. She poured herself a glass of juice, then got a bottle of vodka from the top of the fridge. She splashed some into her orange juice and took an appreciative sip. It was barely 7 a.m.

  “Thais,” she said, with a warm, almost seductive note in her voice, “you’ve been handed the opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to become immortal—it’s what fantasies are made of.”

  “Or nightmares,” I said. “You guys, the ones I’ve met so far—the Treize—you’re not exactly the poster kids for health and happiness.”

  Axelle stretched, her lithe, catlike body arching. “You might be surprised at how much pleasure one can experience with an endless lifetime to pursue it.”

  “News flash,” I said. “Pleasure isn’t the same thing as happiness.” I felt bitter and angry that my life was entwined with the Treize at all. It wasn’t that I hated Axelle—I didn’t. But I didn’t trust her, and we had nothing in common.

  “Ooh,” said Axelle, finishing her orange juice and vodka. “Such wisdom from one so young. But Thais, tell me you aren’t happy to know you have a family, a background, a history. You know who you are and where you’re from. Isn’t that better than being a little boat adrift at sea?”

  I didn’t answer as I ate my toast. She had me. My whole life, it had been just me and my dad. When he’d died, I’d had no one—just a family friend, a neighbor who cared about me. But no family. It was true—I’d felt lost. Then Axelle had brought me to New Orleans, and Clio and I had found each other. Discovering that I had a sister and a grandmother was like winning the lottery. I belonged to someone. I wasn’t alone.

  Then I’d found out they were witches. I’d never taken witchcraft or Wicca or any of that stuff seriously—I’d thought it was all a joke. The disappointment that they were involved in it had been sharp and immediate. Now… I was more used to the idea. I accepted that it ran in my blood too. But it hadn’t been what I wanted. And after last night’s explosive spell, my doubts seemed justified.

  I’d found my family, and they were witches.

  I’d found my soul mate, my true love, and he had betrayed me. />
  And all of this was woven into the unbelievable, movie-plot background that Petra, Axelle, Luc, and a bunch of other people were in fact still experiencing a spell that had been set into motion in 1763, more than 240 years ago. They were immortal.

  Now they wanted to make me and Clio immortal too. And we had to decide.

  I felt Axelle’s eyes on me and hoped my feelings weren’t transparent. Immortality. Luc was immortal—he would never age. If we had stayed together, I would get old and die someday, and he wouldn’t, ever. But if I were immortal…

  It wouldn’t even matter, because we wouldn’t be together, because he was a lying, cheating bastard.

  I heard footsteps on the wooden stairs that led to Axelle’s attic workroom. Great. Now I had to deal with Daedalus or Jules, who practically lived here.

  “Is she back yet?”

  The voice came to me in the kitchen and sent chills down my spine.

  “Can’t you call Petra?” Luc went on, crossing the dimly lit room.

  Axelle waited till he was in sight, then wordlessly pointed to me, a small cat’s smile on her face.

  Luc stopped short when he saw me.

  I glanced at him for a second, just long enough to stop my heart and sear his image into my brain. Luc. Unlike Axelle, he did look like he’d been up all night. He was in the same clothes as yesterday. His face was darkened by a day’s worth of beard. His eyes, the color of the sky at twilight, were upset, shadowed.

  Good.

  “Thais.” He took a step closer and I saw him run a hand through his disheveled, too-long dark hair. I turned and put my plate in the sink, unable to swallow.

  “I was worried,” he said, and it sounded like getting those words out cost him. I was all too aware of Axelle’s black, interested eyes following this exchange like a tennis match.

  I tried to wipe any expression from my face and turned back to him.

  “And this matters because… ?” I said coolly.

  He frowned. “Are you okay, then?”

  “I’m fine. I mean, my heart hasn’t been ripped out and stomped on today.” I was surprising myself—it was like I could channel my inner bitch all of a sudden. I’d never spoken so coldly to anyone in my life.

  Luc flushed, which of course increased his gorgeousness level to about a forty-seven on a scale from one to ten. “That isn’t fair,” he said in a low voice, and I saw his hands clench at his sides.

  “Unfair? You’re talking to me about unfair?” I felt my cheeks heat with anger. “Are you nuts? Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Suddenly I felt like I was going to lose it in a huge, humiliating way. I spun and stalked to my room, which was a little addition past the kitchen. I slammed the door behind me, but it hit Luc’s shoulder with a thud and he shoved it open so hard it crashed against the wall, rattling the pictures.

  I’d never seen him look so angry, not even on that horrible night when Clio and I had found out he’d been two-timing us—with each other. I still felt sick when I thought of it.

  “I think I’m yours,” he said furiously. I backed away from him until I reached my bed, but I wasn’t scared. I was furious too, my anger and pain rising in me like a tidal wave.

  “I think I was made for you and you for me,” he went on, his jaw clenched and his body rigid with tension. “I think I found you just when I wanted to die. I think I found someone to live for. At last.”

  I was in hell. This was what hell was.

  “But I screwed up,” he said. “I made a huge mistake because I was stupid and scared—” He stopped suddenly, as if startled that word had left his lips. “I screwed up,” he said more calmly. “I’m sorrier than I can say. I regret it more than anything.” He looked into my eyes, and he was so familiar to me, so much who I loved, that I wanted to scream. “Out of 260 years’ worth of regrets, this is the biggest one.”

  I couldn’t breathe. My heart was pounding so hard it was a physical pain in my chest. Here’s the really humiliating part: I wanted to buy it, to say, I forgive you. I wanted to reach out and grab him and hold his head in my hands so I could kiss him hard, hard. I wanted to pull him down onto my bed with me and feel him pressed all against me, like I had before, on the levee by the river. I wanted it so much I could taste it, feel it.

  “Thais,” he said, moving closer, his voice much softer. “Hit me if you want. Throw things at me. Yell and scream and curse my name until your voice is gone. But come back to me. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you.” He paused. “Which is saying something.” The rest of his life would be quite a long time. Unless he used the Treize’s spell to die.

  Still I couldn’t speak. My eyes felt wide and huge, staring at him with a longing so deep it felt like thirst.

  He reached out one hand and slowly, slowly stroked one finger up my bare arm. His hands, his knowing hands, had been all over my body, and the memory of it choked me.

  My brain was shorting out. My world was telescoping inward till it contained only me and Luc. I swallowed hard.

  “No,” I said, in a barely audible whisper. I pulled my arm away from his touch and drew in a shuddering breath. “No.”

  He took a step back, searching my face. I saw new pain in his eyes, as if I could see hope actually dying, and I looked away.

  “I could make you love me,” he said, his voice low and tense again.

  Cold reason dumped into my brain. I met his eyes again.

  “You think? Like with a spell?”

  His jaw tightened. Then he looked down, and I saw both shame and despair on his face. “Thais, I—” He started to raise a hand, then dropped it. He looked at me for a long time, then finally turned and left my room. As soon as he was through the door, I shut it behind him and locked it.

  Then I sat on my bed, shaking, and waited for the tears to come.

  St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

  The tombstones were speckled with lichen and moss, the result of hundreds of years of heat and humidity. Ouida thought they looked beautiful, and she focused her camera at a barely readable inscription. With the grainy black-and-white film she was using, this image would be striking, melancholy, like the cemetery itself. She checked the light meter and decided to underexpose the film so that the inscription would show up darker. Angling her camera on its tripod, she carefully clicked the shutter, then stood back, pleased. That would come out well.

  Cemeteries fascinated her. Maybe it was like looking through the window of an exclusive club to which she’d never belong. A quiet laugh escaped her, and she covered her mouth, not wanting to be overheard.

  Once her tripod was stowed, Ouida looked around, feeling a light gray sense of—not dread, it wasn’t that bad; maybe just sadness?—descend on her. There was another reason she was in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 besides just a photo op.

  Head down, she started walking to the far southeast corner, one of the first areas to have been filled in, back in the 1790s. God, that had been a long time ago. Yet the memories of it were still sharply engraved in her mind, not softened or weathered by time.

  A few minutes’ walking brought her to a place she visited every time she was in New Orleans. There was a small bench opposite the family crypt, and she sat on it, putting down her camera equipment bag. The sun was hot, reflecting off the white marble everywhere, the cement-sealed tombs. People had learned long ago to clear a graveyard of trees unless they wanted thick roots to start popping coffins out of the ground ten years down the road.

  Ouida thought of all the winters she’d spent freezing up in Massachusetts. She was a southerner, all right. The cold had gone right through her bones to her marrow. Here the heat seemed to melt through her skin, softening her inside, relaxing layers of tension. She was more at home here, more herself. But the burden of memories was so much easier to bear in Massachusetts. She knew she’d return.

  After several minutes, Ouida frowned. Someone was coming. Someone she knew. She let her mind expand into the space around her, let slim t
endrils of awareness pick up information in a growing circle.

  Daedalus.

  A minute later he appeared, looking incongruous in a black polo shirt and tan linen pants.

  “Ouida,” he said. “I thought I felt you over here.” He regarded her, then looked around. Seeing the name on the tomb opposite her, he smiled thinly. “‘La Famille Martin,”’ he read. “‘Armand. Gregoire. Antonine.’ Still rehashing the past, eh, Ouida?”

  It was not something she was going to discuss with him. “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged and, uninvited, sat next to her on the bench. “Collecting useful things.” He gestured to the canvas shopping bag he held. “There are always broken graves in a cemetery this old. Sometimes one can find the occasional bone for one’s supply cabinet. Also, Spanish moss, other mosses, any number of useful things.”

  Ouida looked at him with distaste, and he laughed. “What, you get your bones from a mailorder catalog? Please.”

  “I don’t seem to do many spells that call for human bones, Daedalus.”

  “Don’t give me that superior attitude, Ouida,” he said, not angrily. “We’ve always known that our interests are different.” He waved a hand around the cemetery. “Plus, you know, I always check for Melita.”

  Ouida was truly surprised. “Check for her? As if she might be buried somewhere? You’re kidding. How could she possibly be dead?”

  Daedalus shrugged. “Most likely she isn’t. But I’ve come to believe there’s a slim chance the rite may have affected her differently somehow—maybe because of all the magick she’d done before or for some other reason. After all, it killed Cerise. So maybe it did something different to Melita. There’s always hope, however far-fetched. The important thing would be to find her, dead or alive, before she found any of us.”

  Ouida scoffed. “She’s had two hundred years to find us if she wanted. None of us has been in hiding.”

  “Yes, but now we’re trying to do the rite,” Daedalus reminded her.

  “Or at least you are,” Ouida returned.

  Daedalus frowned. “We all are. Everyone is.”