The Odd Sisters (Villains 6)

Manea got up slowly. She felt as if she were treading water. This must be a nightmare. It couldn’t really be happening. But there they were, all three of them, perfect, beautiful, and unharmed.

“They will be the most powerful witches this land has ever seen! Mark my words, Manea. Your daughters will be the ruin of all our enemies!”

“What have you done? What will my daughters become?”

Nestis laughed in a way Manea had never heard her mother laugh before; it sounded wicked and cruel, and full of madness and contempt. “They will bring darkness to the world, my sweet. Their murder ballads will be heard in every kingdom!”

Manea looked at her daughters and couldn’t tell one from the others. The three were identical, mirror images of each other. “Which one is mine?” she asked, but her mother just laughed harder.

“They are all your daughters, Manea.”

“But which of them is Lucinda?” she screamed, making all the babies but one cry. And then she knew. Something within her told her this one was Lucinda. Her true daughter. The first.

“They are all Lucinda. They will always be Lucinda. They are one,” said Manea’s mother. “But give them their own names. Give them their own power. Give them your love and guidance. They are yours. All of them.”

Nestis left Manea alone in the nursery with her daughters. Manea picked up Lucinda, looking down on the other two.

“Ruby,” she christened one. “And Martha,” she said, looking down on the innocent babies in their nest. “Lucinda, Ruby, and Martha.

“But always, always Lucinda.”

The crows circled the dead woods, obscuring the sunlight like ominous, lurid clouds. Their caws and screeches were otherworldly, and terrifying.

Snow White and the witches put down

the pages from the fairy tale book and ran to the large morning room windows, pressing themselves against them, watching the creatures circling closer and closer. Snow gasped. “Who sent them?”

Circe didn’t know. They seemed somehow familiar to her, but she could feel nothing from them. It was the strangest thing, feeling nothing from these creatures. There was no life force within them. None at all.

“They are not alive, Circe. They’re dead things, sent by your mothers.”

Circe’s heart skipped a beat. “Hazel, are you sure? I didn’t know my mothers employed crows or could command the dead!”

Primrose squinted at the striking birds, as if she was trying to take their measure, to feel something perhaps Circe was unable to detect. “They’re Maleficent’s birds, but they were sent by the odd sisters.”

Something about that terrified Circe. “Are my mothers dead, then? Or have they sent Maleficent here to destroy us?”

“No, they are not dead, but they command the dead—like their mother and her mother before them. And they are coming here to take what they think is their rightful place among them,” said Hazel.

“What does she mean, Circe? Your mothers are coming here?” Snow White panicked.

Circe didn’t understand how the witches knew so much, but she trusted them. She didn’t know why, but she did. “I have to get Snow out of here,” she said, looking at the witches. “I’m sorry. But my mothers have a vendetta against Snow White, and she’s in danger if she stays here. We have to go!” Circe had taken Snow by the hand and was ready to flee. She hated the idea of leaving Jacob, Primrose, and Hazel to contend with the odd sisters alone, but she felt she had made a mistake in bringing Snow White here, and she wanted to get her out of the dead woods at once. “I will come back. I promise I won’t leave you here alone for too long. I just want to get Snow safely away,” said Circe, feeling conflicted. And feeling trapped.

“Your mothers move among the ravens, they float upon the breeze, they move among shadows, they walk across the sea, they move among the candles, they float among the smoke, and they move something deep inside of me,” said Hazel, her gray eyes somber.

“What are you saying, Hazel?” asked Circe, still panicking at the thought of her mothers swooping down on Snow White.

“My sister is saying your mothers are everywhere. You can’t escape them, so you might as well face them here,” Primrose said. Her wide, friendly smile hadn’t wavered, not once since they had arrived.

“But what of Snow?”

“This is Snow’s story, too, dear Circe. All our fates are connected. Haven’t you guessed this yet?” asked Hazel.

“Snow White is not a witch!”

“True, but her mother is, and though they may not be related by blood, there is a bond between them so pure and so deep she has become entangled in this fairy tale nevertheless.”

“How soon before they get here?” asked Circe, looking out the window and watching the crows.