Prophecy of the Sisters (8 page)

“Won’t you answer?”

She sighs, looking over at me as we walk. “Yes, all right? I’ve done it before. I’ve been doing it since I was a child. Some
people do it without realizing it, thinking they are dreaming, for example. Others can do it on command. Many, actually. Many
people in my world anyway.”

She says this as if we are not walking side by side on the very same ground, as if she occupies some strange corner of the
universe, invisible and unreachable to me.

“In your world? Whatever do you mean?”

She laughs a little. “Are we not from different worlds, Lia? You live in a grand house, surrounded by the family and things
you hold dear. I live in a small house governed by Mrs. Mill-burn, with only the company of other spiritualists and those
who pay us to describe the things they cannot see.”

Her words silence my questions. “I… I’m sorry, Sonia. I suppose I didn’t realize it wasn’t your home, that the woman, Mrs.…
uh, Mrs. Millburn was not your… relative.”

Even from her profile, I see the flash of anger in her eyes. “For goodness’ sake! Don’t pity me! I’m quite content with the
way things are.”

But she does not sound content. Not really.

We finally reach the rise, that last invigorating moment when we step onto the top of the hill making me feel, as always,
that I have stepped into the sky. Despite all that has happened on this ridge, it is impossible not to appreciate the majesty
of the view.

“Oh! I didn’t know there was a lake here!” In Sonia’s voice is the awe of a child, and I realize she mustn’t be much older
than I. She takes in the view — the lake, shimmering below us, the trees swaying in a breeze too soft for autumn.

“It’s well hidden. Even I don’t come here much, actually.”
Because my mother fell from this cliff,
I think.
Because her broken body lay on the rocks of the lapping lake below. Because I simply cannot bear it.

I gesture to a large rock set back from the edge. “Shall we sit?”

She nods, still unable to remove her eyes from the call of the water below. We settle side by side on the boulder, the hems
of our skirts touching over the dusty ground. I have questions. But they are unfathomable things, dark shapes that swim just
below the surface of my consciousness.

“I knew you were coming.” She says this simply, as if I should know exactly what she means.

“What? What do you —”

“Yesterday. At the sitting. I knew it would be you.”

I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”

She looks right into my eyes in the way that only Alice ever has. As if she knows me. “Lately, when I try to hold a sitting,
I close my eyes and all I see is your face. Your face and… well, many strange things I don’t usually see.”

“But we have never seen each other before yesterday! How could you possibly see my face in your… in your visions?”

She stares toward the lake. “There is only one reason I can think of.… Only one reason why I would see you, why you would
come.”

She turns her face from the lake, looking down and avoiding my eyes as she removes the glove covering her left hand.

She lays the glove across her lap, pulling the sleeve of her gown up over her wrist.

“It’s because of this, is it not? Because of the mark?”

It is there. The unmistakable circle, the slithering snake.

Just like mine. Just like the one on the medallion.

Every cell in my body, every thought in my mind, the very blood in my veins, seems to go still. When everything begins moving
again, it is in a great rush of shock.

“It cannot be. It… May I?” I reach a hand toward her.

She hesitates before nodding, and I take her small hand in mine. I turn it over, knowing without looking a second longer that
the mark is the same. No, not quite the same. Her mark is not red, but one shade lighter than the rest of her skin. It is
raised, just as mine is, as if it is an old scar.

But that is not all. That is not the only difference.

The circle is there, and the winding snake, but that is the end of Sonia’s mark. The
C
does not appear on her wrist, though it is otherwise an exact replica of mine and the one on the medallion.

I return her hand carefully, as a gift. “What is it?”

She chews her lip, before tipping her head toward my hand. “First let me see.”

I thrust my wrist toward her. She takes it, tracing with her finger the outline of the C in the middle of my circle. “Yours
is different.”

My face burns with shame, though I’ve no idea why. “Yes, a little, though we might just as well say
yours
is different. How long have you had it?”

“Forever. Since I was born, I’ve been told.”

“But what does it mean?”

She breathes deeply, fixing her gaze into the trees. “I don’t know. Not really. The only mention of the mark, the only one
I know of, comes from a little-known legend told in the circles of spiritualists and others interested in the Watchers. And
in the lesser known pieces of their story.”

“The Watchers?”

“Yes, from the Bible?” She says this as if I should know, as if I should have an intimate understanding of the Bible when
our religious upbringing has been haphazard at best. “They were angels, you see, before they fell.”

A tale about angels or… demons,
I think.

Cast from the heavens…

She continues, unaware of the recognition firing through my mind. “The most accepted version is that they were cast from heaven
when they married and had children with the women of Earth. But that isn’t the only version.” She hesitates, bending to pick
up a stone and rubbing it clean with the hem of her skirt before returning her eyes to me. “There is another. One far less
told.”

I fold my hands in my lap, trying to calm the rising unease thrumming through my mind. “Go on.”

“It is said the Watchers were tricked into their defiance by Maari.”

I shake my head. “Who?”

“One of the sisters. One of the twins.”

The sisters. The twins.

“I have never heard of a twin by that name in the Bible. Of course, I’m no scholar, but even so…”

Sonia worries the stone, round and flat, between her fingers. “That is because it isn’t found in the Bible. It’s a legend,
a myth, told and passed down through the generations. I am not saying it’s true. I’m only telling the story as you asked.”

“All right, then. Tell me the rest. Tell me about the sisters.”

She settles farther back on the rock. “It is said that Maari began the betrayal by seducing Samael, God’s most trusted angel.
Samael promised Maari that if she gave birth to an angel-human, she would receive all the knowledge denied to her as a human.
And he was right.

“Once the fallen angels, or Watchers, took the humans as wives, they imparted all manner of sorcery to their new partners.
In fact, some of the more… enthusiastic members of our society believe that is where the gifts of the spiritualists originate.”

“So then what? What happened after the Watchers took their human wives and shared their knowledge?”

Sonia shrugs. “They were banished, forced to wander the eight Otherworlds for all eternity until the Doom of Gods, or as Christians
call it, the Apocalypse. Oh yes, and after that they were not called the Watchers.”

“What were they called?”

“The Lost Souls.” Her voice drops, as if she is afraid to be heard uttering the words aloud. “It is said there is a way for
them to return to the physical world. Through the sisters, one the Guardian and one the Gate.”

My head snaps up. “What did you say?”

She shakes her head. “Just that there is a way —”

“No. After that. About the sisters.”

But I know. Of course I do.

A small line forms on the bridge of her nose as she remembers. “Well, the way I’ve heard it told, sisters of a certain line
continue the struggle, even today. One remains the Guardian of peace in the physical world, and the other the Gate through
which the Souls can pass. If the Souls ever make their way to our world, the Doom of Gods will begin. And the Souls will fight
the battle with as many lost souls as they can bring back from the Otherworlds. Only… I’ve heard there is a catch of sorts.”

“What sort of catch?”

Her brow furrows. “Well, it is said the Souls’ Army cannot commence the battle without Samael, their leader. And Samael can
only make his way through the Gate if he is summoned by the sister destined to call him forth. It is said the Army accumulates,
passing into our world in great numbers through the Gates, waiting…”

“Waiting for what?”

“For Samael. For the Beast, known to some as Satan himself.”

She says it simply, and I realize I am not even surprised.

The world goes still. There is no room in my mind for the wind in the trees or the lake lapping the shore below. No room for
anything, really, except the tendrils of the prophecy twisting itself into something that is only a seed of reason.

But Sonia isn’t privy to my thoughts, and she continues as if my world is not, at this very moment, turning in on itself.
“The only reason I’m telling you the story at all is because of the mark. It is said, you see, that the Souls are symbolized
by the Jorgumand.”

I try to keep my face impassive. If I let my resistance fall, if I let her see the depth of my panic, the little reason I
have left will surely desert me. “All right, then. We both have the mark. I still don’t understand what part we could play
in such a bizarre tale.”

She sighs in resignation, standing and pacing in front of me. “I don’t, either. But I’m tired of fearing it alone.
I
don’t have a sister. I hoped…” Her voice softens as she stops to look at me. “Well, I suppose I hoped I was right; I hoped
that you
did
have the mark and that we might find the answer together.”

“All right.” I tip my head, challenging her with my eyes. “Then let’s go back to last night. You can start by telling me what
I was doing falling through the sky.”

She closes the small distance between us, stopping and grasping my hand with something like a smile. “You were only traveling
the Plane, Lia. Wandering. Have you really never done it before?”

I shake my head. “Not that I remember. And whatever is the Plane?”

“It is an amazing place,” she breathes. “A sort of… gateway to the Otherworlds. A place where anything is possible.”

I remember my exhilaration as the earth passed beneath me, the sky as deep and endless as the sea. And then I remember something
else. “But what of the… the thing? The dark thing.”

She grows serious, the light leaving her eyes. “The walls are thin between the physical world and the Otherworlds, Lia. It
is the very thing that makes it possible to do such wondrous things and the very thing that makes it so dangerous. What was
following you last night… Its strength was like nothing I’ve ever encountered, and I have chanced upon many beings in my travels,
both good and evil.”

“Do you think it has something to do with the mark? With the prophecy?”

She chews her lip again. “I don’t know, but the ways of the Otherworlds are complicated. You must learn its nature to safely
explore its terrain.”

My anger resurfaces. “And how am I to do that? How am I to learn such an odd thing? Surely Miss Gray and the instructors at
Wycliffe would think me mad were I to ask!”

She giggles behind the glove of her hand. “No, it would be ill advised to seek such instruction at Wycliffe. But your strength
will grow as you become accustomed to travel, and you already have some form of authority, whether or not you realize it.”

“What do you mean?”

“That… thing. That… being. I think it wanted your soul.”

I cover my alarm with a brittle laugh. “My soul?”

But she isn’t laughing. “Listen, Lia. There
is
something you should know about traveling the Plane. The soul can be free of the body for only so long before the astral
cord, the thread connecting body and soul, is severed. Once that happens, the soul can never return.”

“Do you… do you mean that one’s body would be left empty, as if it were dead?” My voice is shrill as a rising tide of hysteria
fills my throat.

She holds up a hand, trying to calm me. “It doesn’t happen often, all right? There are not many in the Otherworlds with strength
enough to separate a soul from its living body. But it
can
happen.” She swallows, and though she tries to hide it, I see her fear. “I… I have heard of a place, an awful place, called
the Void. A place where displaced souls are banished. A place between life and death. I think that is where the dark thing
meant to take you. To the Void.”

“Do you mean to say that one’s soul would be stranded there forever?” My voice is a squeak.

“Those who are banished to the Void are lost for eternity.” Her eyes are haunted. “Listen, Lia. I don’t know all the ways
of the Otherworlds, all right? But the dark thing wanted you, and I have never seen something so powerful fall short of its
mark. Yet…

“For some reason, it couldn’t reach you. I’ve no idea what it was that protected you from the full measure of its force, but
it would be wise to avoid travel until we find out — or until you can be certain you will have the same protection next time.”