Chapter 5

Evie

Barataria Preserve, Marrero, Louisiana

“ W HEN DID YOU GET HOME?”

Evie jerked awake at the screech that filled her usually peaceful home. She cracked her eyes open just a smidge to peer at the feral gnome currently shrieking at her. Namely, one of her younger sisters, Sandrine, a beautiful, elfin girl with ebony skin and beautiful braids. Without moving, she threw the first thing to hand—one of the Chanterelle mushrooms as it so happened—at her sister blindly and tugged the blanket over her face. She wanted to go back to sleep and not just because she was still exhausted. For the first time in her life, she had dreamed of the man that went with the voice, had even seen blurry details of the face surrounding the stunning eyes that watched over her. “No,” she groaned. “Civilized witches are sleeping!”

“Don’t be silly! You’re not asleep, otherwise you wouldn’t be talking!” The blanket covering her shifted wildly as Sandrine jumped onto the bed, lunging at her older sister. “But that doesn’t matter because you’re back! When did you get home?!” Sandrine demanded, wrapping her arms around Evie’s neck. “I missed you so much! It was so dull around here with just the coven mothers to boss me around!”

Evie hugged her sister back, her arms crooked at an awkward angle around Sandrine’s small shoulders. “I missed you too, little sparrow, but you had the entire coven here to keep you company.” She struggled to a seated position. “And I’m sure you had much more fun here then you would have had with me trying to avoid the 'gators.” Pinching Sandrine’s upper arm, she disentangled herself from the embrace, pushing her tangled hair out of her face and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Wait.” She tilted her head. “How did you get up here?” Her home’s height didn’t lend itself to spontaneous visits, particularly from young witches new to their power.

Sandrine bounced a bit. “I wanted to surprise you! I’ve been working with Elder Hesteia while you’ve been gone. I can fly now!” At Evie’s raised eyebrows, she corrected herself quickly. “Well, I can summon smoke from the fires to carry me. But that’s pretty much flying! The smoke doesn’t even dissipate anymore, so I’m not even falling that often.”

Evie couldn’t help herself; she burst into laughter at Sandrine’s earnest defense of her soaring into the skies on a cloud of smoke. “Of course it’s flying, Sandrine. You’re able to rise into the sky with nothing holding you but smoke. Flying doesn’t have to be with wings. Technically, I could fly by asking the trees to gather me in their branches and tossing me as hard as they could.” Wincing, she chuckled before acknowledging, “But that would then become a very uncontrolled fall.”

Sandrine threw herself from the bed, grabbing Evie’s hand and dragging her forward. “I can even summon fire now!” She started to snap her fingers, presumably to show Evie her newly developed pyromancy, but Evie lunged forward to grab her wrist, nodding at the extremely flammable leaves now quivering in fear around them. “I’m sorry, Evie,” Sandrine said, looking chastened. She knelt and petted the leaves at her feet gently, chanting softly, “I’m sorry, trees. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine.” Evie got out of bed, urging the branches above them to clear so she could see where the sun fell in the sky. “They know you didn’t mean anything by it. You were just excited.” It appeared to be midday, the sun sitting high in the sky. “If you want to show me anything Hesteia taught you, we should probably do that near one of the swamps or the trees might think you have it out for them.”

“I did want to go exploring,” Sandrine admitted in a low tone.

“Ah, I see.” Hiding a smile behind her hand, Evie fixed her with a level gaze. “So today’s visit wasn’t entirely without a secret objective, then?”

Sandrine pouted guiltily. “But I did want to see you!”

Evie dropped her hand, allowing her smile to blossom in plain view. “You’re fine, little sparrow. I’ve barely been home for a day, and I’m already getting restless. Some exploring may be just what I need.” A memory tickled at the edges of her consciousness, something as she had fallen asleep. That voice saying something about… an angel? Was the voice the reason for her restlessness?

Pausing as she ushered Sandrine out the entryway, she considered. Ever since she was young, she had heard a male voice in the air around her, speaking randomly. It was never directly to her, more around her than anything else, and always the same voice. Deep and sensual with a rolling, melodic accent that never failed to send shivers through her body. Even with all the love she had for her coven and her sisters, the voice made her feel like she wanted more from her life than what she had right now.

So it definitely wouldn’t be the first time that low, intense voice had caused her to go adventuring. No one in her coven could hear it; she had asked many times. So, although her coven believed the voice may be a spiritual guide or one of the many pantheonic gods speaking to her, she still saw the looks they exchanged when she asked about a voice no one else could hear. As if she needed another reason to be isolated from the coven, something she had experienced all too often during her life. With her distinct powers, including the darker source that no one understood and everyone was scared to explore, and the annual spell casting she had to take part in, she knew all too well what it was like to feel like she was both a beloved part of the coven and not quite a part of it. The voice that no one could hear—not to mention the emerald eyes that no one could see—was just another thing to ostracize her.

When she felt overwhelmed, she often found herself leaving for days on end, running deep into the forest. Whether she was running to the voice or away from it or just seeking an escape from the constant feeling of other-ness she had when she was with her sisters, she couldn’t say with any certainty. All she knew was that the voice and those eyes, regardless of whether they belonged to a real person or not, were as much a part of her as her auburn hair. And after her dream last night…

Evie was jerked from her reveries by a quick screech and a thud. Looking to her left, she saw… no Sandrine. Racing to the entrance, she peered over the edge; at the foot of the tree, Sandrine lay in an uninjured pile.

“I’m okay,” she shouted up to Evie, waving happily from where she was sprawled on the ground.

Evie snorted before summoning the trees to her aid, descending quickly to the forest floor. “I hear patience can be a good thing,” she snarked at her sister, extending a hand to help Sandrine to her feet. Sandrine rolled her eyes but took her extended hand. “Where did you want to explore?” Evie asked. She scanned the grounds quickly. Apparently, no one saw Sandrine fall, and no one saw Evie, so it was now or never. If they waited much longer, they would be surrounded by their coven, and they would never escape then. “We could go look at the new Chanterelle gathering that I established while I was gone?”

Sandrine wrinkled her nose. “Eww, no, I don’t want to go look at your fungus .” She sneered the word “fungus” as if it had personally offended her. “I want to go see the birds! The loud ones that shout at the alligators.”

There weren’t many areas of the forest where they could find “the loud birds that shouted at the gators,” but Evie knew of one such place not too far from the clearing. “Fine,” she permitted, lightly pushing Sandrine in the direction beyond the tree housing her home. “We need to go that way. Stay close to me. Can’t have you getting snatched as a bayou beastie’s dinner.”

As they left the clearing and passed through the wards that protected the boundaries from intruders, Evie felt able to breathe again. Her little sister yanking at her hand, pulling her in the wrong direction. The January winds whistling through the trees… her world felt almost perfect.

After a few hours’ worth of traipsing through the forest, made longer by Sandrine’s short legs and uncanny ability to get distracted by everything, they were closing in on the area in the forest where the grackles usually swarmed. For the first time, though, the forest was quiet, empty of the bird’s undignified shrieking. In its place, Evie heard discordant noises that she had never heard before. Clanging metal, loud voices bellowing, a roaring sound she couldn’t quite place. Through the tree line, she saw yellow blobs moving and… emptiness. Pure barrenness where the birds usually gathered. The hair along the back of Evie’s neck prickled and not from the perspiration caused by the natural Louisiana humidity. Something was wrong.

I need to get Sandrine away from here. Now.

Sandrine started towards the trees, face crinkled in confusion, but Evie grabbed her hand, drawing her back. No way in the realms was she letting her young sister near that. “You know what? This isn’t even the best place to see the birds.” She tried to mask her unease but, based on Sandrine’s skeptical expression, failed miserably. “I’ve got an even better place where we can see the grackles and get some dinner.”

“What’s the matter with here?” Sandrine asked, her little brow furrowed in confusion. “This is the best place to see them.” She pulled at Evie’s hand, managing to move them just a little bit towards the area beyond the tree line. “C’mon, Evie!”

Evie’s gaze remained locked on the blurry yellow shape. “Sandrine,” she said quietly.

From behind them, a shout sounded, and Sandrine froze. They were too far away to know what the voice said but close enough to know that it was male. All coven members identified as women, but they did have a few members who were transitioning with the assistance of the coven elders and support of their sisters, so both Evie and Sandrine knew what a masculine voice sounded like. But they had never heard one so unhappy, and it made them both aggressively uncomfortable.

Evie’s skin crawled as she heard more voices join in before loud whistles echoed back to them, and her hand tightened on Sandrine’s. We need to go. “Sandrine,” she repeated, a bit more loudly this time.

Sandrine turned towards Evie, her eyes wide, concern crossing her face as the sounds grew louder, though they were still distant. They could even hear what Evie suspected was a horn, having only read of them.

A loud screeching started, the sound grating and scraping. “Evie, I want to go home,” Sandrine whispered.

Evie nodded gratefully. “That’s fine, little sparrow. We can see the grackles another day. Let’s go home.” Resting her hands on her sister’s small shoulders, she turned her back in the direction of the coven's clearing, casting one last look over her shoulder before setting a quick pace home.