Beneath the Black Moon (Root Sisters) (15 page)

 “Perhaps
you should try it,” Cam challenged her right back.

Mary
lowered her gaze immediately. “I certainly won’t.”

“Have
you already seen your future husb—” Cam began, and then broke off when her
grandmother shook her head. Caro glanced up as well, fixing Cam with a warning
glance. Cam hesitated, perplexed. Clearly there was something afoot that she
wasn’t aware of, and that was both unusual and irritating. “What’s that?” She
asked instead, as Caro took something down from one of the highest shelves in
the kitchen.

It
was an ornately carved wooden box, one which was only vaguely familiar to Cam.
She remembered seeing it before, but many years ago as a child. Caro didn’t
answer her. She set the box on the table and reached up on the shelf again,
this time taking down a shallow silver dish. “Try this,” she said to Grandma,
before moving to put the box back.

“What
is that?” Cam asked again.

Caro
sighed and lifted the lid. Whatever was inside all but shivered with conjure,
and Cam took a few steps forward to get a better look. Inside of the box was a
single bone, fragile and bleached with age.

“What’s
it from?” Cam asked.

“Black
cat.” Caro answered and closed the lid sharply.

The
bones of a black cat were said to bestow invisibility upon the one who carried
them— if they were collected a certain way. 

“Haven’t
used those in years,” Grandma said. She sounded as if she were reminiscing. She
and Caro smiled, and Cam wondered what they were remembering.

“What?”
She asked, frowning when they only laughed. “What?”

“Never
you mind,” Grandma said, and Caro put the box back on the shelf.

The
night of Aunt Beth’s dinner party, Cam wandered out to the kitchen. She could already
feel the beginning of a headache pounding between her eyes. Caro and Mary were
busy at the house, so Grandma was alone in the kitchen reading the cards when
Cam entered. She was frowning. “What’s happening at the house?” she asked when
she caught sight of her granddaughter.

“A
dinner party,” Cam said wearily.

“Shouldn’t
you be preparing for it?” Daphne shuffled the playing cards with a practiced
hand and dealt them again.

“I
am,” Cam said. “I’m completely dressed and groomed. I slipped down here to
gather my wits. I will have to be very clever and very cautious tonight.”

“Oh?”
Her grandmother asked with smile, “Are dinners so dangerous these days?” 

“Not
all dinners,” Cam said, holding her skirts as she turned so that they didn’t
sweep through the soot. “But Brent… I mean, Mr. Anderson is coming, and he has
a way of making everything dangerous.”

“So
don’t go,” Grandma said, dealing three cards and slowly turning the first one
over.

“It’s
not that simple,” Cam said. “If I start to snub Brent now people will talk.
They seem to be under the impression that he is particularly fond of me . . . what
a
joke
.” She said, but instead of the flippant tone she had intended,
her voice sounded hoarse and a little pained.

“Indeed.”
Grandma said, but instead of looking at Cam she was staring at the three cards
in front of her, a deep wrinkle forming on her brow. “Strange,” she murmured,
and picked up the middle card to study it more closely.

Cam
cleared her throat and continued. “Poor Aunt Beth must think that she is about
to have one of her dearest wishes come true. She’s probably making wedding
plans even as we speak.”

Grandma
glanced up at the word ‘wedding.’ “Your aunt expects you to marry him?” She
glanced from the card in her hand to Cam’s face. “Do you care for this Mr.
Anderson?” Grandma asked with surprise.

“I
don’t know him well enough to care for him,” Cam said. “We’ve never actually
socialized.”

“But
you’ve conversed with him many times.” Grandma set down her cards and stared up
at Cam.

“We
don’t
converse
.” Cam said. “We tell pretty lies and play word games. We
try to learn each other’s secrets, all the while pretending that we aren’t
terrified, when really, I think we both are.” She stared out of the kitchen
window as she spoke, watching as a raven landed on a fence post, his wings
gleaming under the bleeding orange of the setting sun.

“Well,
whatever you and Mr. Anderson do together, I have never seen you this way over
a man before.” Her grandmother’s tone was weary.

“I
don’t feel anything,” Cam said firmly, “except fear. He is too clever and too
determined, and his brother’s wife is dying. He will do whatever is necessary
for his brother’s sake, and we must do whatever is necessary for our own
sakes.”

“That’s
all?” Grandma asked hesitantly. “Those are the extent of your feelings towards
Mr. Anderson?”

“That’s
all,” Cam said resolutely. Somewhere under all of her determination every lie
was burrowing into her heart and making it weep blood, but she ignored the
pain. “It is his duty to protect John and Hattie, just as it is my duty to
protect you and Caro.”

She
turned to face her grandmother, and was startled by the despair in her
grandmother’s eyes. “Don’t talk that way, Cam. It frightens me. I am so afraid
that I have been selfish with you.”

“Selfish?”
Cam knelt by her grandmother’s side. “When have you ever been selfish?”

“I
wanted a companion,” her grandmother said. “After your mother...” she
swallowed. “After the fire. I had Caro, but I missed my little girl. And then
that Elizabeth came barging in and decided to raise you girls herself. Helen
was just a baby and Elizabeth took such good care of her that I hardly saw the
child. Diana was older, but she was so devoted to your father that she barely
left his side. I thought that you girls were going to grow up strangers to me.
Then you came out to the kitchens. You looked so lost, and I so desperately
needed someone to care for.”

“And
I needed someone to care for me,” Cam said, covering her grandmother’s wrinkled
hand with her own palm, “so it’s a good thing that I did come looking for you,
isn’t it?” The tears that she had held back when they discussed Brent had been
freed and she could feel them gathering in her eyes.

“I
worry sometimes that you would have been better off if I had left you to be
raised by your aunt.”

“Oh,
Grandmother, no,” Cam was shocked by her grandmother’s confession. Grandma had
never shown anything but disdain for Elizabeth. “Elizabeth and I...” she licked
her lips. “We are not very compatible. We do not see eye to eye on anything,
and I know that she is often as frustrated with me as I am with her.”

“But,”
Grandma said, and to Cam’s horror she saw that her grandmother’s eyes were also
full of tears. “I have made you that way. Perhaps if you had spent most of your
time with her, as Helen did, you would be happier. Lighter. There is a shadow
in your eyes that never goes away. I put it there.”

“No,”
Cam said, and her voice was like steel but a few tears spilled down her cheeks.
“No you did not, Grandmamma. If there are any shadows in my life Kat Varennes
but them there. She is responsible for my demons, not you.”

“But
you are different, even from your sisters.” Grandma said. “You should have more
friends. You should be able to enjoy parties.”

“I
have friends, Grandmamma, and I don’t like big gatherings.” High society was
treacherous and unforgiving. Cam had no desire to be its next victim.

“But
you should. You should. . ."

"What?"
Cam interrupted, painfully aware of the bitterness in her own voice.
"Accept suitors so that I can be ruined like Diana? Marry so that I can
have children and die before they are old enough to remember my face?"

Her
grandmother flinched. “You should live, Cam. Just live. I love you dearly, but
we are both dwelling in a dream. Your visits to the kitchen, your life out here
. . . we both know it can’t last.”

“And
why not? Because Aunt Beth says it can’t?” Cam wasn’t sure whether to feel
sorry for her grandmother or betrayed by her.

“Because
it shouldn’t, Cam. Because you shouldn’t spend the rest of your life paying for
the sins of your ancestors.”

Cam
opened her mouth to say that she wasn’t doing anything of the sort, and what
sins
,
when there was a knock at the kitchen door. Cam stiffened immediately, and she
and her grandmother shared a wide-eyed glance. No one who belonged in the
kitchen knocked. Mary didn’t knock. Caro wouldn’t dream of knocking.

“Hello?”
Cam’s grandmother called out tentatively as Cam slowly stood, brushing off her
skirt. She had promised herself that she would be careful with her dress in the
kitchen, and then she’d gone and kneeled in it. “Come in,” Cam’s grandmother
called when Cam was presentable.

“Excuse
me?” It was Brent, looking handsome enough to break hearts in his evening wear.
She’d never seen a man who filled out a coat quite like Brent. He smiled and
she felt like melting. “Hello Cam,”

He
held out his hand and she flushed and went to him. It wasn’t until she had
taken his hand that she remembered that her grandmother was watching. She
glanced back at Grandma, who was staring at their clasped hands with her
eyebrows raised all of the way to her hairline.

Cam
tried to surreptitiously tug her hand away but Brent gripped it all the
tighter. “I’m Brent Anderson,” he said politely to Grandma.

Cam’s
grandmother introduced herself warily, but all of the while Brent was shrewdly
scanning the kitchen. Cam shifted nervously as he studied the playing cards,
the roots on the table and the basket of charm bags at the hearth.

When
he opened his mouth Cam fully expected to be assaulted with questions, but
Brent just smiled. “So this is Cam’s kitchen,” he mused.

“And
you’re Cam’s Mr. Anderson,” Grandma responded.

“Yes,
I suppose I am.”

Cam’s
face heated still further. “They’re probably waiting for us up at the house.
Please excuse us Grandmamma.”

“Of
course,” Grandma said with unusually stiff courtesy. “Goodbye Mr. Anderson.”

“We’ll
meet again,” Brent said with great certainty.

Caro
and Mary were on their way in as Cam and Brent left, and they both openly
stared at Brent as Cam led him back to the house. Brent eyed them as well. “I
suppose that was Caro?” He said as they neared the house.

Cam
was surprised that Brent remembered. She had only mentioned Caro to him once.
“Yes.”

“Sam’s
mother. What about the young woman with her?”

“Her
niece, Mary.”

“I
see.”

Cam
hoped fervently that he didn’t see too much.

***

The
dinner was agony. Cam was tormented by the longing that raged in her blood
whenever Brent was around. She had never before looked at a man and wanted him
so badly, but Brent seemed to be the exception to every rule. In the
candlelight the combination of his perfect smile and his piercing green eyes
was almost demonic, and the way that the light gleamed over his skin made Cam
lick her lips.

As
the evening drew on Cam began to see the same suffering in his eyes that welled
beneath her breast. He watched her like she was the only person in the room,
and Cam longed for a few minutes alone with him just to see what he would do. 
But Aunt Beth watched them with the eyes of hawk, taking care not to leave them
unchaperoned for even a second. Cam knew that her aunt was hearing wedding bells
already and was determined that nothing spoil the match.

If
I had known that the walk from the kitchen to the house would be our only time
alone together, I would have taken advantage of it
—
then Cam blushed, startled by her own thoughts. Brent was turning her into a
person that she barely recognized.

After
he bid them farewell and departed that evening, Cam was left restless and
discontented. Aunt Beth was thrilled by how ‘splendidly’ the evening had gone,
but Cam was so frustrated she wanted to jump out of her window.

Instead,
she waited until dusk. She stood by her window and traced patterns on the glass
until everyone, Caro and Grandma included, had retired to bed. She opened her
window without a trace of hesitation or guilt, and when the fresh night air hit
her face she felt better than she had all evening.

She
climbed down from the balcony without any definite destination in mind, but as
soon as her feet touched the earth some unknown impulse drew her toward the
kitchen. Cam wasn’t sure what she was looking for until she climbed the creaky
steps and opened the door. Then it was as though the conjure that lingered in
the kitchen was calling her name. Cam was strangely calm as she crossed the
kitchen in total darkness. She should have felt guilty, she should have felt
afraid.

She
didn’t.

She
climbed onto a chair to reach the top shelf, and was struck by a memory that
she had forgotten long ago. She remembered herself as a small child, climbing
onto a stool so that she could look into her mother’s jewelry box. She had been
entranced by all of the sparkling stones that gleamed from within. Her mother
had caught her admiring the jewelry, and instead of punishing her she had
allowed Cam to try every piece on. Even the enormous brooch that made the front
of Cam’s dress sag it was so heavy. Cam smiled at the memory, even as she
lifted the old, ornately carved wooden box from the top shelf.