Still they didn’t speak.
“Fine,” I mumbled. I slumped against the cold leather seat and stared out the window. Occasionally, the vehicle’s headlights would flash against a green sign. Soon I realized we were headed to Vermont, to my grandfather’s home.
Was that really so hard to say?
I tried to endure the silence by thinking of Boaz. At first, I was angry he hadn’t tried to save me, but surely he had a good reason. He’d never let me down before, so why would he start now?
In front of me, the back of the twin’s white-haired heads hadn’t moved for the last two hours. It really annoyed me, their oddness, almost as if they weren’t mentally all there. It was like they each shared half of a brain between them. Despite the silence, I laughed.
Helen and Harriet turned around simultaneously and glared.
I nodded toward the road. “Watch where you’re going. I want to make it alive so I can figure out what this is all about. Someone’s going to pay.”
They turned back around, wordlessly.
Because I hated to be ignored, I decided to goad them, having a pretty good idea what would make them talk.
“You’re mother’s hardly powerful,” I said. “Did you know my father once crushed a giant tree with a single blast of air? All that remained was a circular wood disk, one inch thick. It was one of the most remarkable things I ever saw.”
Helen gripped the steering wheel, but still, neither responded.
I tried again. “Then another time he completely changed his appearance for over three hours while he sat in on a meeting with the governor of New York. The entire time he thought my father was a high-up European diplomat and divulged some very valuable information. It was impressive, for sure.”
The hair on both girls’ heads ruffled while the temperature in the car seemed to rise. They were close to breaking.
“Most importantly,” I continued, “my father married my mother, the most powerful female witch of her time—that is, until they gave birth to me.”
Slamming on the brakes, Helen swerved the car to the side of the road and stopped. The twins turned around.
“You are not powerful,” they said, each of their half brains working together.
I let my eyes burn bright, power coursing through me like a live wire. “How do you know?”
“Our mother said,” Helen said.
“Our grandfather said,” Harriet echoed.
“They lied,” I snapped back. I clapped my hands together suddenly, and with a simple command from my mind, the windows shattered and blew into the night in tiny shards as small as snowflakes. Then, as if time had stopped, the shards of glass suspended in mid-air, floated for a few seconds, and then returned to the car doors, forming windows once again.
“This is our father’s car,” Helen said.
“We must not hurt it.”
“I will tear this car apart piece by piece, unless you tell me what’s going on,” I said.
“It is for grandfather to say.”
“We are forbidden to speak to you.”
I gasped, appalled by their child-like behavior. “How old are you two?”
“Twenty-two,” they said together.
So they weren’t much older than me. “Then how is it you can’t do what you want?”
“We are good daughters,” Helen said.
“Better than you,” Harriet added.
“So you keep saying. And because you think you are better than me, you want Boaz.”
The far-off dreamy look returned to their faces.
“If you’re so much better than me, why aren’t you two with him now?” I asked.
“We haven’t proven ourselves yet.”
“It isn’t the right time.”
“And who do you have to prove yourself to?” I asked.
“Grandfather.”
I leaned forward. “Then do it. What does this have to do with me?”
“Grandfather will tell you,” Helen said. She faced forward and pulled the car onto the road.
“Yes, grandfather will tell you,” repeated Harriet. She joined her sister.
Silence returned. I could’ve pressed the issue, but realized that these two were about as brainless as the humans who allowed themselves to be taken advantage of. They were followers. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the seat. I focused my anger, which still surged through me. I had a feeling I was going to need all the hate I could muster.
Eventually, a light sleep came, but when the car slowed, I forced my eyelids open. It was still dark. In front of the car, an enormous iron gate opened up. We drove down a long lane until we approached a mansion twice the size of Boaz’s. It looked like a castle right out of the Stone Ages, towers and all.
Lampposts lit up a circular driveway, and at its center, two red lights shined up from the ground, lighting two statues of lions fighting each other. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, even after the car stopped. There was power in those two lions, frozen in combat.
“You must get out now, cousin,” Helen said.
“Don’t try to run,” Harriet said.