Wren and I froze at the sound of her voice. We stood in the driveway, practically toe to toe, both of us battered and bloody.
Nan came down the steps toward us. She looked pissed. “Look at the two of you! Fighting like a couple of cats. What’s wrong with you? You’re sisters, not enemies!”
She could see both of us perfectly, I realized. And we could certainly see her.
“You’re both grounded,” she announced. “I’m not going to put up with this foolishness. You fight the bad things in this world, not each other. You talk things out with your hearts and your heads, not your fists. Am I understood? Now get in that house and stay there until you can be civil to one another.”
“I have school,” I said.
Nan’s brow arched. “Not today, you don’t.” Then to Ben and the others: “You three had better be on your way or you’ll be late.”
Ben—who luckily didn’t have a scratch on him—nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Noble.” Then he looked at me, and I knew he’d call later.
As the three of them got into the car, Nan turned back to us. Wren actually smirked at her. What the hell had Noah done to my sister? “You can’t ground me,” she said, her tone dripping mockery.
Oh, the look on our grandmother’s face! She was a good and kind woman, and I loved her to death, but at that moment I’d rather go a hundred more rounds with Wren than be the recipient of that look.
“Wrenleigh Noble, as a child of my blood I bind you—” Nan put her finger to Wren’s forehead and drew a crimson line on it. Blood? “—to this house until I give you release.” She drew a line through the other to make a crude cross.
My sister gasped and disappeared. I jumped back. “What the hell?”
“Language,” Nan warned, pointing a finger at me.
“Where’d she go?”
“Your room, I expect. I don’t know. I’m new to this stuff. I’m surprised it even worked.” She stuck the tip of her finger—the one that had drawn the cross—in her mouth.
“When did you learn to bind a ghost?”
“I found it in an old book of my father’s. I suppose it had belonged to Emily—she mentioned it in her diary, and I thought it sounded familiar. I assumed a binding incantation might be a good thing to know, given our family history and the fact that I’m living with two teenage girls.” She smiled. There was a little blood on her teeth.
I stared at her. “What else did you learn?”
The smile faded. “That Emily felt responsible for a young man’s death because of what she’d done to the ghost of his sister, and that the young man vowed revenge upon her and her line.”
Two guesses as to who the young man was.
“Now you go in there and settle things with your sister. I don’t care what you have to do, but it’s obvious she’s not right. I’ll be home after my yoga class, and if anything’s broken, both of you are going to be sorry. Is that clear?”
I nodded. Dumbfounded. Maybe it was weak of me, but I spent so much of my time trying to figure out what to do that it was nice to have it decided for me.
My grandmother kissed me on the forehead. “Good girl. I’ll see you in an hour.”
As she went to get into her VW, I picked up my bag from the driveway and started for the house.
“Oh, Lark?” Nan called.
I turned. She stood with the driver’s door open, smiling at me. “Clean up that glass and put a new bulb in, will you, dear?”
Right. The lightbulb. “You know, technically, that was Wren’s fault.”
She gave me the look.
“Sure, I’ll do it now.”
She smiled again, got into her car and pulled out of the drive. I got the broom and swept up the glass, and then dumped that in the garbage before getting another bulb. I had to use a ladder to remove what was left of the old one and install the new. My ribs—battered by my sister—protested almost every move I made, even descending the ladder.
Hopefully Wren had cooled down some in the time it took me to complete my task. I had, but Wren had more of a temper than I did.
I was cautious as I entered the house, every sense on alert, waiting for my sister’s attack.
None came.
When I opened the door to my room, Wren stood in the middle of the carpet. She wasn’t dressed in shadows anymore, but wore a boho dress that was more her style, and her hair hung smoothly around her shoulders. She turned to face me—there were still dark smudges around her eyes and mouth. She held out her bare arms—ivory pale except for gray-and-black veins just beneath the surface. Those veins climbed up her neck and framed her face, as well.
Her gaze was horrified as it met mine. “Lark, what’s wrong with me?”
WREN
Lark grabbed my arms, holding them so she could look at the dark spiderwebs that hadn’t been there an hour ago.
“Why do these things always happen to you?” she demanded. “Why can’t these douche bags come after me for once?”
She wasn’t mad at me anymore. Not like she had been. I wasn’t mad at her, either. Well, maybe a little, but my fear won out over it for the moment.