A Feather of Stone #3 (7 page)

“Are you still worried that she’s a dark twin?”

It was Ouida. Once again Clio and I stopped dead. She turned to me, her finger to her lips.
Dark twin?
I thought.
What are they talking about?

“I’m thinking—” Petra began, but then she stopped. “Are the girls home?”

My eyes widened, and Clio pushed me back down the alley, fast and silently.

“She felt us,” she whispered.

“What the heck is a dark twin?” I whispered back.

Clio shrugged, looking clueless. “Your guess is as good as mine.” Turning around again, she strode toward the backyard, making sure her feet made noise on the pavement. I followed, still keeping a wary eye out for the snake.

“Yeah, and so I’ve got to reread that whole section in chemistry,” Clio said, pitching her voice just a shade louder than normal. “And I’m so bummed because I already answered all those questions.”

I wasn’t nearly as good at subterfuge as Clio was. “Yeah,” I said, my mind spinning. “Um, I’ve got lots of homework too. So did they finish painting back here or what?”

Now we were entering the backyard. We walked past the little laundry shed and then “saw” that the back door was open. Inside, Petra was looking out the screen door.

“Hey,” I said, waving, hoping my face wasn’t too transparent. We hadn’t been deliberately eavesdropping, but clearly Petra hadn’t wanted us to hear about the dark twin thing. My life was one circle of secrets within another—I was losing count of who knew what and who thought what and who I could maybe trust.

“Hi, girls,” said Petra. “Why didn’t you come in the front?”

“We wanted to see if they’d finished painting,” said Clio. “And it looks like they did.”

“Yes, the workmen left a couple of hours ago,” said Petra, opening the door. “How was your day? Did you feel safe?”

“Yeah,” I said, mounting the steps to the back door. “Until the snake welcoming party when we got home.”

“Snake?” Petra looked more amused than alarmed. I dumped my backpack and purse on the kitchen floor. Ouida was sitting at the table, and she smiled and waved a muffin in greeting.

“A copperhead, in the alley.” Clio motioned outside with her head, already taking a bite of muffin.

“They’re everywhere,” said Ouida. “You always hear about people finding them on their car engines or under the fridges.”

“What?” I asked in alarm. I looked at our fridge, humming away in the corner.

Petra smiled again. “They like warm places. So they coil up on top of your car engine or under your refrigerator, where the motor is. To be warm.”

I didn’t know whether to feel relieved that Petra obviously wasn’t worried the snake had been another attack on me and Clio or freaked out about the idea that meeting up with snakes was an everyday thing around here. “So, you definitely don’t think this was someone trying to go after us again?” I asked, just to be sure.

Petra pursed her lips, thinking. “It’s possible, of course, but very unlikely. Since nothing else has happened lately, I would say this was regular old luck that you met that snake.”

“Well, either way, can we put an anti-snake charm around the house?” Clio asked. “I hated running into that thing.”

“Snakes can be useful,” Petra said. “Keeping down the mice and rats.”

I sank weakly into a chair. “We have mice and rats now?”

Ouida and Petra both laughed.

“Welcome to New Orleans,” Clio said. She looked at me. “Come on, we might as well do our homework upstairs.”

I realized she wanted to talk to me alone, so I nodded and grabbed my stuff. My mind was reeling. I had done a spell, without thinking, out in the alley. It had almost worked. Now I wanted to know what a dark twin was. Plus, we had snakes and rats and mice, apparently. Ugh.

In Clio’s room, she got out of her sundress and put on high-cut jean shorts and a tight red T-shirt with a silhouette of Bob Marley on it.

“Okay, so what the heck is a ‘dark twin’?” I stretched out across her bed.

“I don’t know. Ordinarily I’d ask Ouida or Melysa, but I think Nan doesn’t want us to know about it.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and suddenly looked more like me—simpler, less like glamorous Clio. “We should go to the library and check it out or use a computer at Botanika or Café de la Rue.”

“Why can’t anything be simple?” I groaned. “It seems like I just get used to one thing, and then nine other weird things take its place.”

Clio smiled. “Believe it or not,
my
life was much simpler before all this too.” She looked up. “Someone’s coming.”

My first thought was Luc, but it would be crazy for him to come here. He was lying low lately—I hadn’t seen or heard about him since Récolte.

The doorbell rang, and Clio went to stand at her open door, listening. We heard Petra walk to the front door and open it.

“Marcel!” she exclaimed, and Clio looked at me with raised eyebrows.

“That’s one of the Treize,” she whispered. “One that Daedalus got here with his spell of forceful summoning.”

“Which one was Marcel?” I came to stand by her. Downstairs we heard murmuring and voices. Petra and Ouida both sounded glad.

Clio frowned, thinking. “Uh—which ones aren’t accounted for? He wasn’t another slave, was he?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Wait. No.” Clio’s face cleared as she remembered. “Oh—Marcel was Cerise’s lover, the father of her baby. Cerise wouldn’t marry him.” She looked solemn.

“Hm. Well, let’s go meet him.”

We went downstairs—everyone was still in the front room. A young, strawberry blond guy was standing between Petra and Ouida. He was taller than Richard but not as tall as Luc. He had fair skin and blue eyes and looked more Irish than French. He was wearing a brown monk’s robe.

When we walked in, he glanced up, then drew in breath with an audible gasp. He actually stepped back and put his hand up, his eyes wide. I wheeled to see if something was behind us.

Oh. It was just us, the miracle twins.

Petra gave a sad smile and took his arm. “Marcel, this is Clio and Thais—Clémence’s daughters. Girls, this is Marcel Theroux, one of the Treize.”

I stepped forward and held out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

The seconds ticked by awkwardly, until Marcel seemed to force himself to touch my hand briefly. “Hello,” he murmured, looking down.

“Hi,” said Clio, not offering to shake hands. Marcel looked relieved.

“Clio, could you please see if any mint survived in the backyard?” Petra asked her. “I’ll make us something soothing to drink. Let’s go back into the kitchen.”

“We have to get you some new clothes,” Ouida said, taking Marcel’s arm, almost like he was an invalid, I thought. “Where are you staying?”

“Nowhere,” Marcel said faintly. He had a bit of an English? Irish? accent, and I wondered where he’d been and what he’d been doing. Something monkish, I gathered. They were walking in front of me, and I happened to glance up as he blocked out the sunlight in the doorway.

This time
I
gasped, stopping in my tracks. His silhouette, the outline of his head and shoulders—he was the man who’d leaned over the dark-haired woman in the vision Clio and I had shared, the day we’d set fire to the house. He had killed someone in the swamp.

They turned to look at me, and I shook my head, looking down. My face flushed. “Saw a spider,” I said awkwardly.

“Spiders, snakes—I guess you haven’t seen snakes in a while, have you,
cher
?” Petra asked Marcel.

“No,” he said.

“Can you come stay with me?” Ouida asked as they sat down at the kitchen table. Clio came in the back door, the strong scent of spearmint preceding her into the room.

“Yes,” Marcel murmured, not looking at either me or Clio. “I would appreciate it.”

“Have a drink, and then we’ll get you settled,” Ouida said. “You must be exhausted.”

“It was a . . . long journey.” His voice sounded tense and sad, as if he were in physical pain. He was very different from the other men in the Treize: pompous Daedalus, quiet but kind Jules, weirdly dark Richard, and then Luc. Marcel seemed even more otherworldly.

And he had killed someone; I’d seen it myself. But Ouida and Petra both seemed to trust him and care about him. I couldn’t imagine them feeling that way about someone capable of murder. Yeah, Petra had lied to Clio about huge stuff, and I didn’t fully trust
her
to be completely straight with us. But I did believe that the lies she’d told had been to protect Clio and me. She and Ouida were good people at heart. And if they trusted Marcel . . .

Maybe he hadn’t really killed that woman in our vision?

I thought about what I had seen. The woman had been facedown in the mud of the swamp. We’d seen someone chasing her—she’d had dark hair and dark eyes, but she’d looked nothing like anyone else we’d met in the Treize.
Think, think.

Oh my God. Melita, the dark one who had worked the spell—it had been
her
. Marcel had killed
her
. Or had
not
killed her. Everyone in the Treize assumed Melita was gone since she’d never surfaced after that crazy rite so long ago.

But . . . if Melita hadn’t died, if she was in fact still alive, then Daedalus wouldn’t need both me and Clio for the rite to make a full Treize. I stood frozen in thought, my mind whirling.

What if someone knew that Melita was alive, knew where she was now? They would know that they needed only
one
of us for the rite. Would they be trying to get rid of one of us, then? Maybe they wanted Melita to come back and thought that killing one of us would do it? Which would explain the attacks.

Then again, if Melita was out there, why wouldn’t the person who knew it have come forward a long time ago, back when our mom was born, or her mom, or her mom before her. . . . Why wait until twins came along and just get rid of one twin? It seemed pretty far-fetched. Then again, we were talking about a rite that could make people immortal, so I guessed the term
far-fetched
was kind of relative.

All I knew was I had to tell Clio about all of this as soon as I could.

Would That Kill Him?

T
he taxi glided to a stop. Lying on the backseat, her eyes closed, Claire groaned. She was too tired to get out and deal with this. How much would it cost to just sleep here in the taxi for a while?

“Yo, ma’am, we’re here.”

The door opened and Claire felt warm air on her legs. With great difficulty she opened her eyes, wincing at the glare. Her driver stood impassively on the sidewalk, no doubt wondering if she would have to haul Claire out herself.

“Okay,” Claire managed, struggling upright. She coughed and got out of the cab. Her driver, satisfied that Claire was conscious, popped the trunk and got out Claire’s lone, battered suitcase.

On the sidewalk, Claire stretched, breathing in. Noticing the driver looking at her, she rummaged in her purse for American money, which, amazingly, she’d remembered to get at the JFK airport.

She paid the driver, remembering to tip her much more than she’d had to tip anyone in Thailand.

“Thanks, ma’am.” The driver got back in the cab and drove off.

Claire stretched again, her short wrinkled skirt riding up, then lit a cigarette, getting her bearings. She looked around. This block of the Quarter hadn’t changed much. Some things would be different, she knew, but it had been only about five years since she’d been here. So not too shocking.

She inhaled deeply. At least she didn’t feel like she was detoxing anymore, now that she was physically in New Orleans. She had to see Daedalus soon, though, to get rid of the last of the twitching. Bastard. Whatever he’d called her for better be damn important. Yeah, she would go see him. First, though, she needed a bath and a drink and, in the best possible world, both at the same time.

Had anyone ever tried cutting Daedalus’s heart out and throwing it into a fire or something? Would that do it? Would that kill him? Because maybe the time had come for someone to try.

Heaving a sigh, Claire put out her cigarette and grasped the handle of her suitcase. One wheel had broken off, and now the suitcase lurched unevenly behind her. She bypassed the big pink house, heading down the crushed-oyster-shell driveway on one side. In the back was a small, long row house, cut into three tiny apartments. Two hundred and fifty years ago, slaves had lived here. Claire shook her head and sighed. You’d think Jules would get over it.

The air was still, as if there were a storm coming. Claire still hated lightning but didn’t mind rainstorms too much now. For years after Melita’s rite, she’d cringed every time it thundered. But that had been a long time ago.

Pausing for a moment, Claire concentrated, knowing her nerves were jangled. She was desperate for a drink, she was exhausted, her powers were frayed and shot. Yet she was still able to pick up his energy, right here in the first apartment. She climbed the three small steps and rang the doorbell, then pounded on the wooden door. She felt sticky and couldn’t wait to get into the bath.

The door opened, and Jules looked out at her without expression.

Claire gave him a big smile and pulled open the screen door. He didn’t step aside, so she pushed past him into the dim, cool interior.

“Oh God, that’s better,” she said, letting her suitcase drop noisily. “It’s bright out there.” Finally she turned to face him. He was still standing by the door, though he had closed it. She gave him a big smile. “Hi, honey. I’m home!”

Clio

Marcel and Ouida stayed for dinner. He seemed shy and nervous, not big with the smiling. Now Claire was the only member of the Treize we hadn’t met. It was so weird, thinking about these people living in a tiny, old-world village together, knowing each other for hundreds of years. Really hard to wrap my mind around.

They stayed up late with Nan, talking, while Thais and I went upstairs.