Chapter 4

Light of eye and soft of touch, speak you little, listen much

– The Wiccan Rede

We owned two cars. One was a 1985 Rolls-Royce Corniche, and the other an ancient Ford pick-up. Both were parked in a garage constructed around the time the Rolls was purchased when the family had a brief influx of money and had built sympathetically to match the main house.

The Corniche spent most of its time under a cover, but the Ford saw regular use. It was the vehicle that took us to the nearest town when we needed household essentials, had an appointment, or was taking the produce of our household to the local fairs to sell. These trips were usually done with Callista, as Fennel preferred to stay at the house, however once a month, Fennel would take extra care with her appearance and ask me to drive her into town.

She would sit next to me in the cab, her purse neatly held on her lap with both hands, her wide-brimmed hat with its black lace veil hiding her face behind swirls and flowers. With makeup taking the red from her skin and the veil preventing a clear view, the burn was invisible to the eye.

I did not ask what she did in town on these trips, I simply drove her to the main street and then went about my own business until she found me again and told me that it was time to return home. I suspected that she visited the graveyard and the bank, but only because occasionally my path meant that I saw her from a distance, and they were the two locations that would be logical from her direction.

I parked along the same strip as I normally did, giving no signal that this trip was any different from any other – although we both knew that today's mail might contain the acceptance and rejection letters that I had been waiting for since the start of the holidays...

"Thank you, dear," she said primly as she reached for the door handle. "Would you mind checking the post box for me?"

"Of course," I agreed immediately. We both knew that was my destination anyway.

The flutter and shadow of wings lifted our eyes skyward as a flock of ravens passed overhead.

"So, mote it be, three by three," I whispered.

"Oh dear," Fennel murmured. Her eyes met mine. "We had best conduct our business swiftly, Nyx, and return home as soon as we can."

"Yes, Aunt Fennel," I agreed for the black wings had sent a shiver across my soul that spoke of shadows beyond our world.

I watched her walk down the road. She drew the eyes of onlookers in her head-to-toe black, the layers of fabric fluttering with her movements, but the fine lace veil secured tightly around her neck so that no stray breeze could reveal what lay beneath. There was something about her that caused the towns' women to stop and whisper behind their hands, and the men to step aside, clearing the way for her with old-fashioned polite nods of their heads. Despite what they said about our family to each other and behind closed doors, at this moment, their instinctive response was to be polite.

A man, an ex-lover, had, in a fit of jealousy, thrown battery acid at her when she had been in her early thirties. Luck had been with her that her sunglasses had protected her eyes and the acid had only caught her cheek glancingly. However, it had been enough to leave its mark upon her forever more, and in more ways than the scars upon her cheek, her shoulder, and her arm.

As I passed the gelato shop, I saw Nova through the window lifting onto her tiptoes to kiss a blonde man, and I paused. Oh no, I thought. It was starting again. Every time that a Vossen woman fell in love, it ended in disaster.

I shook it off. Despite our family's bad luck in love, we continued to fall into it over and over again.

I continued along the way toward the old post office. The building was original and held the formality and details of the old-fashioned building techniques that were beautiful to behold and gave little towns like Mortensby their character and appeal to tourists.

As I crossed the road, I passed the square where one of my ancestors, Charity Vossen, had been burnt at the stake and as I waited for the crosswalk lights to activate, I watched her ghost wander through the playground that had been erected over where she had died. Nothing would grow there, and so they had covered it with bark chips, and a model of a pirate ship so the children played where their ancestors had burnt mine to ash…

I shuddered and turned away.

According to my aunts, Bishop Hargreaves had come to the region to cement adherence to the church in the settlers. No ordinary house would represent his authority over the region, and so the great house on the opposite hill to the lighthouse and the Vossen Homestead was built.

The Bishop's first mission was, of course, to tame the wild Vossen lighthouse keepers. With that goal in mind, he paid a call on them and was immediately enraptured with one of the younger sisters. She did not return his fascination. She was young and beautiful, and he was not, his youth a shadow in his past.

Many times, he sought to seduce her, even offering to pay for the privilege, and had been rebuffed. Eventually, he had taken by force what he sought. When it was rumoured through the town that my ancestor was with child, fearful that she would reveal his crime against her, he had brought in the witch hunters.

What followed was a time of terror and accusations, neighbour turning against neighbour, friend against friend, sister against sister, in desperation to escape the torture of the witch hunters. Nearly every girl and woman in town endured their interrogations, many suffering horrendous injuries in the process.

In unison, the town turned against the Vossen women as the Bishop had intended, and the pregnant ancestor in particular. She was tortured and found guilty, but when they came to burn her, the fire simply would not light. Three times they built the pyre, and three times it would not light.

My ancestor gave birth early, alone in the dank little cell, and managed to smuggle the child out to her sister, who hid it in the Vossen Homestead, without the Bishop having ever learned of its delivery.

The next day, when my ancestor was tied to the stake, the wood caught, and burned with such ferocity that the witch hunters, the Bishop, and the townspeople were denied the satisfaction of her screaming for mercy. This sacrifice was made to hide the evidence of her delivery and save the life of her newborn child.

The Bishop sickened not long after. His death was slow, drawn out, and very, very painful. You do not mess with witches. They will find a way to return the favor, three times three.

My heels clipped along the sidewalk in rhythm with my heart towards the post office. The pedestrian traffic increased the nearer I got to it, with the oldies on their morning out queuing to pay their bills and send their biscuits and best wishes to George and Sandie who never visited but were always held in their thoughts.

As I dodged the tail of their queue a child's toy landed at my feet, dropped over the shoulder of her father. I stooped to pick it up, and as the child took it, the exchange caught the attention of her father. Our eyes met, and I recognized him as the man who had been waiting for Kristine Sawyer.

"Oh, thank you," his wife said as she joined him, holding the hand of their other child. "Kimberly is forever dropping Boo-Boo."

"Yeah," the man said with more reserve. "Thanks."

"It's fine," I smiled tightly and hurried on, feeling his eyes following me.

"Jason, how rude!" His wife chastised him under her breath.

"She's one of them Vossens," he replied in explanation.

I blew out a breath, used to the response, and did not let it break my stride as I crossed the marble-paved hall to the bronze mailboxes, using the family key to open our box, setting my weight against its reluctance to turn until it clicked over, and I could swing open the door to reveal its contents.

There was a pile of disordered crisp envelopes within the little pigeonhole, and I pulled them out, shuffling them in my grip. The hallway around me echoed hollowly off the marble. I slipped into the shadow of the nearest decorative column and sat on the edge of its square base to flick through the envelopes, holding them out to catch the light that spilled into the dark hallway from the main door.

My heart leaped at the first thick envelope from a familiar university. I opened it and took a moment to read the contents. It was an acceptance, but not a scholarship. Going there would be difficult as we did not have the money to pay the fees. I had to think about whether it was something that I could do, were I able to find a job. But an acceptance was still an acceptance. It was a positive start, and my heart stuttered in excitement as my future unfolded before me.

The next envelope took the wind out of my sails as it was a decline. My grades were not quite enough for their entry requirements considering the high competition of entries that year.

The next envelope held the seal of Pinegrove Academy, and my hands shook as I broke it. I unfolded the thick wad of paper and almost dropped it as I read the first line. "Congratulations on being the successful recipient of our Bishop Hargreave Scholarship Fund…" I could barely focus my eyes filling with tears as I realized the import of what I held.

"Oh god," I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, sobbing in a breath around it.

"Good news?" Ender asked me, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper as he stepped out of the deeper shadow and perched at my side, his shoulder on my shoulder and his thigh against mine. His long, elegant fingers were bone-white where they rested against the dark of his trousers, seeming to glow in contrast.

"What are you doing here?" I exclaimed in surprise.

"Waiting for you to join me," his smile was slow and sultry.

"You're joking," I said, although I was not entirely certain of that. Had he followed me from the street? I felt my cheeks heat. In the dark shadows of the pillars, despite the echoes of voices and the movements of the post office patrons, we might as well be alone. It was intensely intimate in the way that he sat so close that the outside edge of his little finger where it rested on his thigh could almost be on mine…

"What have you there?" He asked me.

"I have been offered a full ride to Pinegrove," I held the letter out in shaking hands and he took it from me, his eyes skimming the content.

"Congratulations," he said softly. "That is quite an achievement."

"It means I can study near my family," I told him. "I don't need to leave Mortensby."

"Is not leaving important?" He wondered.

"Well… yes," I looked up at him. The shadows of the pillar were no more helpful than those of night, casting his face into darkness so that I could only make out the line of nose, the curve of cheek, and the pout of lip... "I love my family, and this is my home… I want to live my life here, and be buried in its graveyard, as is traditional for Vossen wit-" I caught myself. "Women."

"I am glad that this news pleases you." He offered the letter back to me.

"Being with those who love you is important," I folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. "Being with people who understand and know you."

"I understand you," his eyes were on my face, and for the first time, fully turned towards the light. He was handsome. It was not a surprise to me - I had known he would be. Still, he was not just handsome he was… arrestingly beautiful. His eyes were dark and the expression in them gentle, his lashes long and his brows straight. His cheekbones were high, his jaw strong and slightly stubbled, and his skin pale.

He let me look at him, his expression initially patient, but his eyes gradually shifting from warmth to a fire that cast embers alight within me. The smoke of my need stole my breath as the fire caught, the heat rising from the very core of me. My clit throbbed and my cunt ached. My body knew precisely what it wanted from him, and it knew that, at that moment, we shared intention and need.

He leaned towards me, and I lifted my face to his, my eyes already sifting closed in anticipation of the meeting of our lips, a sigh escaping me as I leaned in towards him, irresistibly drawn even within the dark of my closed eyes as if he were the flame to my moth.

"Nyx!" Fennel called out. "Elenyx!"

I jerked back, alarmed, my eyes shooting open. "Shit."

I twisted around towards the light of the main door and could see Fennel silhouetted against it, the shape of her hat, veil, and dress distinct.

"Will I see you again?" I whispered. "Soon?"

"If you wish it…"

"I do," I said immediately. "I do."

"Nyx!" Fennel had come closer, and her tone was sharper.

I turned back to Ender… And he was gone, lost into the shadows as if he had never been there.

"Here," I stepped out into the light.

"What were you doing hiding back there?" Fennel's frown was visible even through the veil.

"I… I… ah…" I could offer no excuse other than that which I held, and I offered them to her.

"Oh!" Fennel's hands closed around mine, and through the mesh of the veil, her eyes lit as she divined the content of the letters. "Wonderful. Congratulations! Well done! We need to show Callista and Nova!" She declared and released me, turning towards the door.

I glanced over my shoulder at the shadows, seeking Ender within them sensing his eyes on me, before following Fennel out into the daylight.