The Bitterwine Oath Read online

  “I’m happy to answer your questions.” She clasped her hands, spotted from years of gardening in the sun. “But I can’t let a guest go thirsty. I’ll get you some fresh-squeezed juice and a chocolate chip muffin, and then we’ll talk.”

  I protested, but Maggie had already retreated to the kitchen. I looked out the window and saw Levi mowing grass toward the back of the property. Sweat shone on his lean, broad shoulders. His tank top was tossed over his neck like a sweaty rag and stripes of untouched skin had turned tender pink under the scorching sun. Like a fish taking bait off a line, my heart snagged behind my ribs. I’d been on a warpath and hadn’t registered the sight of his truck parked in the driveway.

  “Here you are, darlin’,” Maggie said, presenting a tray holding homemade muffins and two mason jars of pulpy orange juice. I accepted the drink without planning to take a sip and perched on the beige couch.

  Maggie sat on the opposite love seat and crossed her ankles. “When you were born, your grandmother made the Triad swear a blood oath,” she began. “We could never tell you anything about the Wardens. And she made the oath heritable, which means our offspring were bound to it as well. When Kerry passed on, Lindsey’s grandmother wanted to unmake it.”

  “Is Abuela Sofia part of the Triad?” I asked.

  “Yes. But to unmake it, we needed unanimous consent. I was the lone holdout.”

  “Why?”

  “Kerry was my friend, and she outranked all of us.” Maggie took a sip of her juice, set it on a coaster, and folded her hands primly in her lap. She sat like a cotillion instructor. “I wanted to respect her wishes, however unreasonable.”

  “So, Lindsey’s grandmother can undo the oath, but she needs you to agree?”

  “She’s the ranking Blood Warden so yes, she can undo it. In fact, she already did. Just last night.”

  “But Lindsey said—”

  “Lindsey doesn’t know yet. The Triad privately decided it was time to bring you in, and we unmade the oath. If I had known Kate and the others were going rogue to accomplish the same ends, I would have saved them the trouble.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  She looked me square in the eyes. In hers, I saw a flash of something raw, unfiltered, powerful enough to drill through the punctilious veneer of a Southern matriarch. “With every day that passes, the situation becomes more urgent.”

  “What situation?” I croaked out the question, reluctant to know the answer. “Does it have something to do with the massacre anniversary?”

  “Yes, but not for the reasons you think. We’ve never hurt an innocent soul.”

  Not that you would admit to right off the bat, I thought. You’ll wait until I’m in too deep to swim back to shore.

  “We’re not planning to murder twelve young men on July first, Natalie. We’re planning to protect them.”

  “Protect them from what?”

  “There will be a time to explain that.”

  And of course, now isn’t it. The outside threat isn’t real and never has been. It’s you—you’re the threat.

  Instead of speaking my mind, I decided to ask more questions, questions which hopefully wouldn’t lead to another hedge of secrecy. “You said Lindsey’s abuela is a Blood Warden. Does that mean there are—?”

  “Earth Wardens and Bone Wardens, too,” Maggie finished my thought. “It’s hereditary. Each of the three girls who magically bound to Malachi that night received a gift. As a descendant of Lillian, I’m an Earth Warden.” She gestured at her vibrant garden out back.

  “I didn’t know Lindsey was related to one of them.”

  Maggie took another sip and dabbed at her pink lipstick with a cloth napkin. “She’s related to Johanna. After Johanna was acquitted of the murder charges, she moved to Colorado with her young daughter—fathered by her own uncle, before he died in the 1921 massacre—and changed her name to Jo Ann Newell. Her daughter moved back as an adult, married a young Mexican man, and gave birth to Sofia.”

  “Her uncle? That’s horrible,” I muttered, disgusted by the evils Johanna had been subjected to.

  She must have realized she was pregnant after killing her uncle, and then hidden the pregnancy during the trial.

  I forgot I’d decided not to drink the juice and took a swish to wash the bad taste from my mouth. “The first round of victims really did deserve punishment, didn’t they?”

  “You bet,” Maggie said.

  “What about Grandma Kerry?” I asked, trying to push Johanna’s misfortunes from my mind. “You said she outranked you.”

  “She, like Malachi, was a triad on her own. And so are you, Natalie. You are the O negative of magic: a universal donor. Your magic strengthens every ward and protection spell. You could do spells by yourself that normally take three of us.”

  The lawn mower grew louder, turned, and fell quiet again as I pondered this. “I don’t feel magical, or powerful, or whatever. I’m still convinced this is a load of bullhonky.”

  My declaration didn’t quite have the thrust of truthfulness I’d hoped for, especially since I’d censored my language to accommodate her sensibilities.

  “You haven’t engaged your magic or unlocked your Sight.”

  I nearly laughed at her woo-woo tone. She didn’t crack. Instead, she narrowed her keen eyes. “Have you had more vivid dreams lately? Dreams of being buried alive or choking on dirt? Of dripping with blood? Your bones breaking?”

  My shock must have been plain to see.

  “Mm,” she said, satisfied. “Your three types of magic are suppressed and searching for an outlet. You’ll have more and more as the Claiming draws near.”

  “The Claiming?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve said too much for now. There’s no need to be unceremonious about all this.”

  “But—”

  She raised her hand to stop me, very much the typical church lady gossiping until holy conviction strikes and seals her lips like a vault.

  “Fine, I won’t ask about the Claiming. If it’s hereditary, does that mean my dad is one? A Warden?”

  “No, Kurt didn’t inherit any gifts, and neither did my son. They only go to women.”

  That was a relief. Too many people in my life were already involved in this absurdity.

  “That’s why Kate stayed with me when her parents relocated for work,” she went on. “She was a teenager, but we were close because I could truly understand her.”

  I felt a twinge of sadness remembering Grandma Kerry’s prescient guardianship, her weight on the edge of my bed, her touch that could drive away nightmares.

  The growl of the mower brought me back to the present and shook a realization loose. “Levi and Emmy are descendants of Lillian Pickard, just like you and Kate,” I said. “Is Emmy one of you?”

  Maggie shook her head. “That situation is complicated, even more so than yours. Emmy will never join the Wardens.”

  “What about Avery? She’s your great-granddaughter. Will she have the same power?”

  “Yes, she is an Earth Warden, and we’ll involve her when the time comes.”

  The questions continued to spring up like whack-a-moles. These women weren’t social outcasts lurking in the woods with tangled hair and blood under their fingernails. They were model citizens, people who could commit the worst crime, wash it off their hands, and never invite a lick of suspicion. “Who’s the third Triad member?”

  “Vanessa’s grandmother, Cynthia,” Maggie answered. “She’s the ranking Bone Warden.”

  “Why didn’t Grandma Kerry want you to tell me anything?” I was sure I already knew the answer: she had realized they were dangerous and wanted out. Moreover, she wanted me to have no part in this.

  But I couldn’t leave it alone. Maybe Grandma Kerry hadn’t found the courage to break this thing wide open and bear the cross of public humiliation. But if it could save lives, I would stake my reputation, and hers, on telling the truth.

  “She wanted to protect you,” Maggie answe
red. “It’s not an easy life we lead.”

  “Why not? What’s the point of the Wardens? Is it a religion? Do you worship Malachi? Other than magic, what do you believe in?”

  She plunked her glass on the coffee table. “We’re at war for the soul of this town, Natalie. There’s no time to waste. Your grandmother may have thought she was protecting you by keeping you in the dark, but she left you exposed and vulnerable.”

  “At war against what? Vulnerable to what?”

  She stood up. “The rest will have to wait until our gathering tonight. Since Kate involved you without our permission, she and the other miscreants can swing by and pick you up.”

  “O-okay,” I agreed, rising to leave.

  “Until then…” She bustled over to rummage through her oversized purse hanging on a hook in the entryway. I wondered what sort of spell-related supplies she might extract and hoped it wasn’t a knife or the forgetting powder. But she merely withdrew her wallet, stuffed to bursting with receipts and loose cash. “Would you mind running festival errands? I’ll pay you your babysitting rate.”

  “Seriously?” I asked through a laugh. “You’re not going to make me take another blood oath or wipe my memory? You’re just sending me to…run errands?”

  “Life doesn’t grind to a halt when you’re fighting to protect your town. It’s vital to keep up appearances.”

  She held out a credit card and a shopping list written in neat, loopy cursive. Too overwhelmed to argue, I accepted.

  “I can’t make you trust me, Natalie.” She squeezed my arm, her raised veins dark beneath her pale flesh. “But I hope I can help you understand that telling outsiders about us will only make it more difficult to keep the young men and boys in this town alive.”

  Repressing every urge to look at Levi in her backyard, I accepted the card and the list. “I won’t tell anyone. But I want to know one more thing.”

  “What’s that, hon?” she asked, opening the door for me.

  I stepped onto her doormat and turned to face her. “What’s out there in the woods near the cabin?”

  The evergreen of her eyes seemed especially opaque as she said, “That’s a conversation better suited for the dark.”

  EXCERPT:

  PAGANS OF THE PINES: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MALACHI RIVERS

  Lillian Pickard, 1968

  Blood from Malachi’s fingertip dribbled over the white cotton eyelet tea dress I’d given her to keep. It had gone out of fashion, and I had outgrown it. Even if Malachi had had the money for silk georgette dresses and cloche hats, she wouldn’t have worn them.

  She’d run away from home months ago. Her father had finally given up and let her be. She had become as wild as the woods around us, surviving on foraged food and whatever I could bring her. She rarely so much as brushed the blond hair that hung to her elbows, which had once been silky and full of luster. If the boys who had fancied her at school could see her now, they would fear her.

  She was untamable and transcendent.

  The candle flames danced across Dorothy’s and Johanna’s determined faces. Fear trapped my spirit in its hold. Everything I’d enjoyed about Malachi’s magic until now had been child’s play. They, on the other hand, had been patiently waiting for this.

  It would be the most powerful conjuration she had set out to perform.

  Malachi began. “I conjure and confirm upon you, spirits, who have instilled your power within me, to accomplish our revenge by the powers of earth, bone, and blood.” A howling wind ripped through the cabin to tease our hair and ruffle our collars. “Project for me an angelic form, in which my spirit will temporarily dwell. Give her an amiable and pleasant countenance and make her gentle of speech. Create her of color white and gold, like a clear star. Give her a laurel crown adorned with flowers and long raiment. She will allure men of evil to the cursed wine and devour them as if by lions.”

  Malachi’s blue eyes rolled back, revealing their milky whites. The blood we had shed across the herbs and bones glowed gold and bright. Light flowed beneath Malachi’s fair skin. When she shuddered, I felt the same shudder pass through my bones.

  Like a soul leaving its earthly vessel, a towering celestial figure stepped out from her body. The projection appeared just as Malachi described, so blinding and beautiful that we could hardly bear to look upon it, and were afraid to. Next to me, Malachi slumped over, unconscious, while the celestial projection departed to do her work. She would visit each of the twelve men like a holy vision, lead them to the sanctuary, and persuade them to partake of the cursed Communion. The evil inside their hearts would live on the outside for all to see. San Solano couldn’t turn a blind eye, and the evildoers would be forced to live with their shame or succumb to it.

  We held the sacred circle in her absence.

  ELEVEN

  Natalie Colter

  Nerves set my knees bouncing as I sat at the breakfast nook that night, Lillian’s book on the table before me. My parents had gone to bed. I’d changed into black clothes per Lindsey’s texted instructions and decided to reread Pagans of the Pines to kill time. Three cups of coffee later, I’d finished the book, buzzing with anxious energy, and added more questions to my ever-lengthening list.

  According to Lillian, the Pagans of the Pines had used dark magic in the cabin that night. The magic had gone off the rails and killed their victims. Lillian wrote that she believed their deaths were not the only consequence of dabbling in darkness. She could feel supernatural reverberations of the curse.

  I wondered whether whatever prowled in the woods had something to do with that night, that curse—with the cost of using magic to seek revenge. Maggie had assured me that the Wardens weren’t murderers, and maybe that was true. Maybe they really were protecting San Solano from something more fearsome than a sadistic cult.

  My view of the overcast night through the bay windows started to creep me out. Now that I knew what was possible, I could no longer pretend the world was a logical place with unbendable rules. It felt lawless and shrouded in mystery.

  Eager for another distraction, I glanced at the text from Levi again. Was that you at Maggie’s earlier? he’d asked around noon.

  Yeah! I’m helping with festival stuff today, I’d replied promptly.

  This wasn’t my first rodeo. I knew he was using our passing encounter as an excuse to initiate conversation. If he liked me, he wouldn’t need much material to work with to keep the exchange going.

  I waited for a response along the lines of “You should have said hi” or something similarly bold that would accelerate our…whatever this was…at a healthy pace. But nothing came. Either I’d misinterpreted the overture, or he’d changed his mind.

  Disenchanted and insufficiently distracted, I slipped the folded flier from the volunteer meeting out of my back pocket. Beneath the general information, the final paragraph read:

  The Treasures of Texas Heritage Festival is a day of FAMILY-FRIENDLY FUN. Out of respect for the deceased victims and their families, please do not encourage fascination with the massacres. There will be NO TRESPASSING ALLOWED at Calvary Baptist Church outside of allotted hours, and it is the responsibility of our volunteers to assist the sheriff’s department by reporting suspicious persons.

  Maggie had written this. When I considered the hard work she put into to this event every year, I used to think sacrificial. But now I thought control. Running errands for her had been more like running a marathon. I’d picked up an order of shirts for staff and volunteers, dropped off fliers at every business in town, and finalized the rider with the headlining band before delivering a barbecue dinner to the meeting. But maybe the bustle was a small price for Maggie to pay in order to make sure the biggest crowds of the year didn’t poke their noses where they didn’t belong.

  “Hey,” Lindsey said, and I nearly fell out my chair. I turned to find her leaning against the kitchen counter in heavy-duty black combat boots, black jeans, and a leather chest guard. Twin daggers hung in sheaths from a belt aroun
d her waist, much bigger than the knife she’d used to seal my blood oath.

  “What are those for?” I asked.

  “Hunting the bad guys.” She sauntered over to take a swig of my room-temperature coffee. “Let’s go.”

  I started to get up but paused with my fingertips resting on Lillian’s book. “By going with you, I’m not agreeing to anything, right? I just want to know what happened when Malachi cast her curse. I want to know what’s out there. Beyond that, I don’t know what I want.”

  “No one will make you do anything,” she promised. Under the kitchen lights, her eyes were a warm, firewood brown that I felt I hadn’t seen in ages. She seemed like Lindsey again, my Lindsey. There was a spring in her step as she led me outside. She didn’t seem worried about my parents waking up and asking questions. I wondered if she had spoken a spell before entering the house.

  Outside, I didn’t see Kate’s black SUV until I bumped into it—more magic, I guessed. Lindsey and I climbed into the back seat. Kate was driving and Vanessa sat shotgun.

  “Welcome to your initiation,” Vanessa said, gesturing grandly.

  Kate turned on the overhead light and twisted in her seat to look at me, her green eyes swimming with emotion. “Nat, I’m so proud of you for how you’ve handled this so far.”

  “Um…thanks.” I buckled my seatbelt. “I mean, I was freaked out last night at the cabin. I thought Lindsey and Vanessa—”

  “Wait. What?” Kate flung a startled look back and forth between them. I felt Lindsey wince beside me. “You took her to the cabin?”

  “Everyone was going,” Lindsey said. “We couldn’t let them go alone—”

  “The Woodwalkers could have drained Nat of her magic. And killed her!” Kate interrupted, flicking off the light and jerking us down the rough driveway. “Letting her go anywhere near their territory was the most asinine thing possible.”

  “Woodwalkers?” I repeated. I thought we would turn east, out toward deeper woods and fewer people, but instead we drove to downtown, past quiet houses and shuttered shops. The eerie fluorescent lights of a corner convenience store flickered. Were we going back to Maggie’s house?