Page 46 of The Sisters of Crimson House

“Sadie! Don’t go!” Charley yelled after her.

Charley knew she was not supposed to follow, that crossing the threshold onto the grass was a rule she shouldn’t break, but she wasn’t letting her get away.

“Sadie?” Charley rushed up to the streamers, searching for her grandmother, her mother, anyone so she would not be alone in this terrible place.

“Sadie! Mom! Please don’t go!” She was crying again, desperate to find them. She plunged her arms into the streamers when she felt hands reaching back, seizing hers with ferocious strength. They were not her grandmother’s hands. Not her mother’s. Dread turned her blood to ice as the hands—claws—dug into her skin. Charley wrenched backward to get away, and Miranda came with her, her face purple, her eyes bulging, plucked from the tree like rotten fruit. Whispers rising, the buzz of flies swarming something dead.

Always sleeping, always sleeping, always sleeping, always dreaming.

Charley screamed, and her sister was dissolving. She was water, filling her mouth, sliding down her throat. Charley was choking. The world was black. She was no more. She was obliterated, the whispers now a shout.

Always sleeping, always sleeping, always sleeping, always dreaming, dreaming a dream where no one wakes, sleeping, sleeping. I can’t—

The voice was everywhere, a high-pitched whine of pain. It was a child’s cry. It was agony.

Always sleeping, always sleeping, always sleeping, always dreaming, dreaming a dream where no one wakes, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.

Water down her throat. She was choking. The sound of screaming.

Always sleeping, always sleeping.

I can’t wake—

“Wake up, Charley!”

The command forced her eyes open. Charley fell to the floor, thrashing and unable to stop screaming. Astrid and Zavier each scrambled to take hold of a shoulder while Charley fought them harder.

“We have you, Charley,” Miranda repeated calmly. “You are with me. You are okay. You are safe. Do you hear me?”

It was a long moment before her body stopped shaking. Before she could form words. “You…” was all Charley could manage as she sobbed in earnest.

“Sadie?” asked Astrid. She squeezed Charley’s hand, tethering her to the world.

She couldn’t breathe, but she shook her head. Sadie was gone. So was her mom. All that she’d brought back was the horror of her dead sister.

“You were dead,” Charley whispered.

Miranda’s eyes went wide with understanding as they locked onto Charley’s. “She doesn’t have you anymore,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “She tried to get inside your head, but you kicked her out. You did that all on your own.”

But Charley didn’t want praise. She couldn’t stop shaking. “So much pain. It couldn’t stop screaming,” she said.

“It’s over now. You’re safe,” repeated Miranda, trying to reach her.

Charley struggled to sit up, and Zavier carefully helped her to a sitting position. He and Astrid stepped back to give her some breathing room.

“I saw her,” she managed finally.

“Sadie?” asked Miranda. “What did she say?”

“Not just Sadie,” said Charley. “Mom. I saw Mom.” Charley felt Miranda go very still.

“What did she say?”

Tears streamed down Charley’s face. “Nothing.”

Twenty-Five

The Star reversed. Things were out of balance. No shit, Charley thought, grabbing the card off her bedroom desk and shuffling it back into the tarot deck with manic energy. Tell me something I don’t know. But her better angels knew that the questions she was asking weren’t the tarot’s job to answer. Miranda set down a cup of tea next to her, which Charley ignored.