Omens bite, p.1
Omens Bite, page 1
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Prologue
Hunter’s shriek matched the crack of lightning that lit Goodeville’s night sky. Each flash of white spotlighted her frenzied movements—chopping, shoveling, and screaming and crying—until she threw the ax onto the grass and the final log down beside it. Mud splattered against her face. She tilted her chin toward the sky, closed her eyes, and let the rain wash away the dirt. It was almost finished.
Hunter took a deep breath and wiped her cool, rain-soaked sleeve against her hot cheeks before she bent down and picked up the shovel she’d cast aside when digging had become too much and she’d chosen the ax instead. Chopping the skinny logs had felt good. The way the blade glinted in the flashes of lightning and made that chest-rattling thwack as it split the wood had momentarily dried Hunter’s tears. But then she had remembered the doum palm and how its tall stem had turned to ash under her sister’s touch. Mercy had made Hunter forsake her god in the name of a poem she had called prophecy. Hunter had always followed her twin sister’s lead. She had always wadded up her feelings and stuffed them down her throat so no words could escape. So her truth could not escape.
She’d lost her mother, her god, and soon she’d lose her sister, too. Letting go of Mercy was necessary. Letting go of Mercy would set Hunter free. Never again would she be forced to choke down her feelings. She’d let them loose, and she’d start now.
Hunter’s throat burned as she screamed and flung another shovel of dirt over her shoulder. She didn’t care where the mud went as long as it wasn’t here, in this space she made for her mother. The shovel’s wooden handle bit into the tear in Hunter’s palm. She spat out a curse and threw the shovel to the ground. She jumped into the pit and her bare feet sank into the mud. It squelched as she pulled out each foot and shook off the clumps of wet earth. She dropped to her knees and dug her fingers into the ground. Mud scraped against her bleeding palm and pressed into her nailbeds as she tore at the dirt and threw fistfuls out of the fresh grave. But the pain in her body was nothing compared to that of her broken heart.
Rain pooled around her toes and sloshed against her shins. Every muscle ached. Heat pricked her chest, and her vision swam in unshed tears—for her mother, for herself. Hunter’s fingers hit rock and what was left of her jagged nails bent and snapped against the unforgiving boulders. She reached out and grabbed the grassy lip of the grave and pushed herself to standing.
Hunter leaned forward and shoveled the split oak logs and snapped pine branches into the hole in the earth. She arranged the wood to cover the bottom of the grave as muddy water splashed against her knees and twigs scraped her calves. Pain splintered her body. It was almost too much, but was what she deserved for hiding in her twin sister’s shadow. It would hurt worse tomorrow, but the hurt would be a reminder. That’s always how it went for Hunter. Every scar, a lesson learned.
Hunter crawled out of the pit. She collapsed onto the grass next to the grave she’d dug for her mother, closed her eyes, and let sleep overtake her.
One
Hunter smoothed the hem of her white linen dress against her legs. She’d dug the dress out of the back of her closet and hadn’t bothered to iron it. A fact she knew would drive Mercy insane. Hunter also hadn’t bothered to mop up the dirty footprints she’d left behind as she’d dragged herself from the backyard, through the house, and up the stairs to her bathroom. She’d come in sometime after the rain had stopped and the crickets had swarmed, chirping and hopping as if they’d gotten drunk off the storm. Hunter collected her journal and pen from the kitchen counter and retraced her crusted mud footprints into the living room, parting from them to collapse onto the couch. Her gaze lingered on the muddy footprints. Her sister would hate them, too.
Hunter grinned and unclasped the lock on her journal as she stared out the living room window. The night sky had pierced the rising sun, which bled egg yolk yellow against the clouds. She set her journal on the side table and capped her pen before rubbing her eyes. Hunter had cried so much that her tears had dried up, along with any sense of compassion she’d had for her sister. Perhaps it hadn’t been compassion that she’d felt for Mercy, but pity. Hunter bit down on the tip of her worn fingernail. It didn’t matter now. She’d lost her mother and forsaken her god and Hunter didn’t have anything left to give the one person in her life who did nothing but take.
The screen door creaked open and Hunter loosed another smile as Jax balanced four paper cups in his hands and closed the door with his foot. His head-to-toe white was less wrinkled than Hunter’s, but was the same loose, cruise ship style. His crooked teeth poked out from the bottom of his sheepish half grin as he made a beeline for the side table.
Hunter dragged her fingernail along the mounds and bumps of her full pocket. Not wearing the traditional funeral black was understandable—this wasn’t a traditional funeral—but why white? It wasn’t the color of celebration. Heteronormative weddings had taught the entire country that white was the color of purity, virginity. And who wanted to think about sex at a funeral? But the Goode witches had worn white for mourning for ages, and it wasn’t a custom Hunter was interested in breaking.
Jax handed Hunter a cup and plopped down next to her on the couch. Hunter held the cup beneath her lips and blew into the open circle. Air whooshed like a muffled foghorn as Jax draped his arm across Hunter’s shoulders.
“You doing okay, H?” he asked, shaking his inky black hair away from his forehead.
NO. Hunter swallowed the word. It stuck inside her chest like a cocklebur. She took a drink. The tea scorched her mouth and burned all the way down to her belly.
There.
She leaned her head against Jax’s forearm.
That’s better.
The stairs announced Mercy’s arrival with a groan. She walked down two steps, stopped, adjusted the crown of white flowers braided into her hair, and ran her hands along the lacy bodice of her floor-length dress before she continued her descent. The gown pooled against the stairs, and with each step, the fabric slid behind her like a shadow.
A door closed upstairs, and hurried footsteps tapped against the wood floor. Emily stopped at the top of the stairs, clutching a bundle of dried herbs in her hands like a bridal bouquet. “Mag, you forgot this.” She waved the herbs in the air as she clicked down the steps and followed Mercy to the bottom of the staircase.
Jax slid his arm out from behind Hunter and reached for the side table and the two remaining drinks. He stood and walked to Emily and Mercy, his brow pinched as he watched the lids of the cups. “Two oat milk vanilla lattes.” The corners of his lips quirked. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want so I googled most popular coffee drinks.” He handed the girls their beverages and took a drink of his own.
“Thanks, Jax.” Mercy wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes as she squeezed him against her.
Hunter’s grip dented the flimsy cup. If she wasn’t careful, Mercy would steal Jax, too.
Mercy released Hunter’s best friend and looped her arm through Emily’s. “I’m so glad both of you are here.” She took a step. Dirt crunched beneath her feet. She paused and stared at the muddy footprints that trailed through the living room and disappeared into the kitchen. Her temples pulsed as she jerked her head up and narrowed her eyes at Hunter. “The wake. What will everyone think if the floor is so—” Another pulse of her dark temples. “Filthy?”
Hunter bit the tip of her tongue to keep from laughing. Mercy had always been predictable.
Emily’s mouth tightened into a small O. Her gaze went from the footprints, to Mercy, to Hunter and back again. “We need to cleanse ourselves, right? That’s what happens before, you know, everything else.” She let out an awkward bleat of laughter as she shook the bouquet of herbs under Mercy’s chin. “Wave around a smoky bunch of herbs first. Sweep up second.”
Hunter set her cup down and pushed herself off the couch. She fished the lighter out of her pocket and flicked her thumb against the spark wheel. A flame shot up a few inches before settling down and wiggling like a dog’s stumpy tail. “Let’s get started.”
Mercy marched over and jerked the lighter out of Hunter’s hand. “Abigail would want matches!” Coffee sloshed out of her paper cup and splattered against the floor. Her temples pulsed once, twice, three times. Mercy set the cup and the lighter on the side table and fluffed the ends of her curled hair. “Matches are the right way to begin any cleansing ceremony.” She turned on her heels and marched into the kitchen.
Emily mouthed the words I’m sorry and scampered after her bestie. She should be sorry. There were clearly sides, factions, warring clans. Unfortunately f or Emily, she had chosen poorly.
With a sigh, Jax slung his arm back around Hunter’s shoulders. “So, there’s no chance of any olive branching anytime soon?” He blew into the lid of his cup before he took a drink. “I mean,” he said with a smack of his lips, “it is your mom’s funeral. Wouldn’t she want you and Mag to stay together?”
Again, Hunter bit her tongue. This time, to keep from screaming. “You and I are together. That’s all that matters.”
“Always and forever, H.” He took another drink. “Always and forever.”
Hunter stared into the kitchen as Mercy took the homegrown herbs from Emily. She’d cut a piece of twine and busied herself wrapping it around the bouquet until she was satisfied with the tightly bound bundle. She motioned for Emily to pick up the box of matches off the kitchen island. Together, the friends lit the match and held the flame under the dehydrated plants. Mercy hadn’t bothered to wait for Hunter, hadn’t even looked back to see if her sister was coming. She’d just gone on as if Hunter didn’t exist. And soon, she wouldn’t. At least, not to Mercy.
Jax jerked his arm from Hunter’s shoulders and swiped at the brown droplets that rolled down the front of his white shirt. “Shit!” He hissed as he tried unsuccessfully to rid himself of the stain.
The woody, earthy scent of burning herbs reached Hunter as she turned to inspect Jax’s shirt. Her mouth went dry as she traced her fingers along the damp streaks. It was a T. A perfect T. It was Tyr. It had to be. Hunter’s former god was trying to reach her.
Jax frowned at his shirt. “Should I change?”
Hunter pressed her wet fingertips against her lips and shook her head.
“You two coming?” Mercy’s voice held the same shrill tightness as a substitute teacher on the brink of a meltdown.
Hunter wiped her fingers on her arm and strolled into the kitchen. Mercy held out the cleansing bundle. Smoke coiled and twisted between the sisters. Hunter reached for it and Mercy jerked away at the last second.
“This has all been planned, Hunter.” Mercy’s green eyes narrowed in warning. “We all have our parts to play. It’s going to be beautiful.”
For Hunter, looking at her twin had never been like looking in a mirror. Sure, they had the same corn-silk white skin that dusted with freckles at the first sign of summer; long, coal-black hair that spilled in natural waves against their shoulders; and full round cheeks that burned cherry red at the slightest hint of embarrassment. Yes, most people couldn’t tell the Goode twins apart, but most people didn’t pay close enough attention.
A perfectly curled lock of hair slid from Mercy’s shoulder. Hunter cocked her head, shocked that Mercy hadn’t admonished it for slipping out of place. That was the huge difference between the Goode sisters. Not that Mercy’s hair was always down and Hunter’s always secured in a ponytail, but the fact that Mercy tried so hard. She wrangled life, strangled it. Mercy Anne Goode controlled everything.
Until now.
Hunter took the burning herb stick and brushed past Mercy, who frowned the moment she noticed Jax’s shirt. Hunter waved the bundle in front of herself, letting the twisting smoke brush against her skin before she passed the burning herbs in front of Jax. She paused near his chest and squinted through the haze at the T stained into the fabric.
Tyr …
The back door opened and Xena sneezed as she stepped into the smoke-filled kitchen. The fragrant white fog lapped against Xena’s wild black, brown, and white mane and twirled around the wicker picnic basket that hung from her arm. “Mercy, Hunter, if you have your items for our dear Abigail, we may begin.” She ran her fingers through her hair. The bell sleeves of the flowing white robe she’d taken from Abigail’s closet slid back past her elbow. Her pale skin was not unlike the soft peachy tan that striped her fur when she was in her true Maine coon form.
Hunter swept her palm against the chunky outline in her pocket and nodded.
“I have mine!” Mercy said. Because Mercy always had to say something.
The contents of the picnic basket clanked as Xena clapped her slender hands together and smiled. “Come with me, kittens.”
Hunter didn’t bother to slip on her shoes as she led Jax out of the house. Mud squished between her toes. A reminder that everything died and returned to the earth.
Jax leaned into Hunter as they trailed the others. “I didn’t know I was supposed to bring something for your mom.”
“You weren’t.” Hunter grinned as the heels of Mercy’s pointed shoes sank into the ground with each wobbly step. “Just those closest to her.”
Xena opened the wrought-iron gate to the Goode family cemetery and waved the group into the headstone-dotted plot of land. “Form a circle around Abigail’s grave, kittens.”
The muddy rectangle was a toothless gap against the spring grass that carpeted the rest of the cemetery. Hunter stared down at her feet, the mud between her toes, the scrapes and scratches on her shins. Her mother’s ashes were in that hole. The one Hunter had dug with her bare hands and filled with split logs and broken branches. Last night, she’d emptied herself into that pit. The pieces of herself she’d left in there were far more precious than any ceremony.
Mercy took a deep breath and clasped her hands in front of her. “Wow, Xena, it looks beautiful. Abigail would love it.”
Hunter’s gaze slid along the grass in front of her feet and finally fell into the grave. Xena had placed a box, the box, in the center of the hole atop a pine branch. Its needles encircled the box like a crown.
I did it. But Hunter couldn’t get the words past the lump in her throat.
Xena set the basket on the grass next to Hunter and squatted down to flip open the lid. She took out four white pillar candles and handed them to Hunter one by one, motioning for Hunter to pass them to the rest of the circle. “As we begin this Rite for the Dead, I would like each of you think of a memory of our Abigail. One that makes you smile.” She paused before handing Hunter the final candle. A grin plumped her cheeks. “Soon, you’ll share the memory with the circle.” She turned her attention back to the picnic basket and removed a long box of wooden matches, a small bottle of red wine, and five ritual chalices, which she set on the grass next to the basket.
Hunter clutched the candle against her chest and dug the craggy tips of her nails into the wax. She had tons of happy memories of her mother, but she didn’t want to share any of them. She wanted to keep them inside, like birthday wishes that would spoil if spoken aloud.
The matchsticks rattled as Xena opened the box. “And now we begin.” She drew out one long, slender match. “O elements of air, fire, water, and earth, we call you to us today to aid us in our farewell of our beloved Abigail Goode—mother, friend, and most excellent witch.” She struck the match against the side of the box and continued. “O Athena, lovely Goddess of Wisdom and War, we do call on thee. Be with us here at this time of great loss. We of the Olde Ways know that when a person dies, it is only their body that is lost. Their immortal soul shall return to life again and again.”
Hunter held out her candle as Xena stepped in front of her. Fire chewed down the long stick as the cat person spoke. “Air, grant us release from pain. Flow through those of us who remain in this lonelier world and carry our sadness away.” Xena touched the flame to the wick of Hunter’s white candle. Tree branches creaked and swayed, and Hunter’s ponytail lifted as air entered their circle. Xena nodded and moved to Jax, her silk sleeves billowing in the gusts.
Hunter studied her best friend as Xena called upon fire to warm them with memories and release them from pain. Jax’s dark eyes widened as invisible flames warmed the circle and the steady crackles and pops of a campfire magically surrounded them. Through everything, he’d been absolutely perfect. Even now as Xena moved on to Emily and the sounds of the campfire morphed into a trickling brook and briny waves swept away the mystical heat, Jax was poised and calm. So was Emily. And, of course, so was Mercy. No one else had marred their cloud-white candle or dug their toes so deep into the grass their toenails were brown with mud or bit down on their bottom lip so hard imprints flashed against the flesh. They were perfect. Every one of them. Everyone except for Hunter.
