The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

Author:Alix E. Harrow [Harrow, Alix E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780356512488
Google: xHjDDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0316422045
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2020-10-12T16:00:00+00:00

Agnes is not dead, and neither is her daughter.

She kneels in the place that was St. George’s Square. But now the street-lamps glimmer weakly through a forest of twisted trees, impossibly far away. Stars wheel in wild patterns above her, nearer and brighter than Agnes has ever seen them in New Salem. The sky is broken by an immense blackness, a stone tower overgrown with ivy and climbing roses, its door marked with three winding circles.

Agnes is looking up at the tower, touching her belly and thinking dreamily, Happy birthday, baby girl, when two women appear in the place that was once St. George’s Square. If Agnes had not recently seen an entire tower appear from thin air, sliding into reality like a fish reeled from sea to air, she might have found this quite shocking.

“Bella!” She is standing beside Cleopatra Quinn at the tower door, their palms pressed to the woven circles. “How did you—is that an owl?” A tall shadow perches on her oldest sister’s shoulder, regarding Agnes with hot-ember eyes.

“Yes, I think so,” Bella burbles. Her own eyes are feverish and over-bright, spinning in a manner that causes Agnes some concern. “Strix varia, I suspect, though with the coloring it’s difficult to be sure. Ovid thought them vampires and ill omens, the silly man—just look how handsome he is!” Bella pauses in this delirium to draw a finger down her owl’s breast. A thought seems to strike her. She wheels, looking up at the vastness of the tower, then back to Quinn and Agnes. “Do you feel anything? Any particular power awakening?”

A small, uncertain silence falls as the three of them wait for some mysterious and ancient magic to flood their veins, filling them with the lost majesty of their fore-mothers.

“I don’t think so,” says Agnes.

“No,” says Cleo.

“Neither do I. Well, perhaps there’s some ritual or key inside—a series of clues which reveal a secret chamber, like one of Miss Doyle’s mysteries! Or perhaps if we read the inscription aloud—” Bella bends closer to the door, where words are written in foreign-looking script. “Maleficae quondam, maleficaeque futurae.”

Nothing happens.

Before Bella can try anything else, a fourth woman appears at the tower door. Her shift hangs in ash-streaked tatters, clinging to damp flesh, revealing the dark blooms of bruises. Her head is bowed, face hidden by a black tangle of hair. Her breath is a wet rattle.

The woman straightens. As she turns, Agnes sees the red ruin of her throat, a mess of bloody pink and dead white that she can’t look at very long.

Juniper is beaming at them, lips cracked, teeth bloody. Her eyes are a deep gray-green, like the shadows of summer leaves, softer and sweeter than Agnes has ever seen them—until they land on the creature perched on Bella’s shoulder.

“Oh, horseshit.” Juniper’s voice is somehow both wet and scorched, terrible to hear. “How come you get one before me?”

Then, with a strange, boneless grace, she collapses.

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