The focus left the twins and started to dart and swerve around the station, finally settling on another pair of figures, whom Molly instantly recognized as Parker and Samantha.
Samantha was clutching her big floral bag. Parker was swaying from foot to foot in his Brooklyn-inspired faux work boots. They were biding their time, waiting for a late-nigh6rain, craning their necks to look down the dark tunnel in search of the first glimmer of oncoming headlights. Molly hadn’t taken many subways in her life, but from her few experiences, she recognized their gestures of vague impatience.
The camera image started to weave back and forth between the human couple on the edge of the tracks and the pair of dazed witches on the bench.
“You’ll have to excuse the handheld look.” Bret laughed. “I shot this on my phone.”
Slowly, a deep rumble became audible beneath the images. Molly’s heart started going wild. Then Bret’s voice sounded, crackling through time. “Girls, this is your cue. Get to it!”
What was he talking about? What was he commanding them to do? Molly had a suspicion, but it was too awful to contemplate.
The phone camera zoomed shakily onto Molly and Mardi, who were slowly standing and starting to walk, zombie-like—in the direction of the doomed couple.
Molly’s eyes widened in horror as she watched her former self, shot from the back. She was advancing in her high heels toward the unsuspecting mortal pair. Beside her, Mardi strutted, but not with her natural sultry gait. It was a stylized walk, like that of a robotic chorus girl.
Were they really about to push Parker and Samantha to their deaths? What had the poor kids done to deserve such a brutal end to their short lives? Crashed the wrong party? Been in the wrong place at the wrong time? How could she and her sister have forgotten everything about this night?
The answer to these questions flashed suddenly before Molly in the form of the ring, which Bret now held up right in front of the phone camera. It was in such close-up that the diamond pattern looked enormous. For the first time, this pattern struck Molly for what it really was: the motif on the back of a rattlesnake. She couldn’t believe that she and her sister had been sharing it for so long. What did that mean, then—that they were evil in nature? Molly was ashamed of herself, ashamed of the two of them.
“The power is mine now!” the on-screen Bret howled with delight.
Even if they had been hypnotized, she and Mardi were guilty. And she was about to witness their crime.
As the sound of the oncoming subway train grew louder, Molly wished she could close her eyes to spare herself the sight of what she was about to do. However, not only was she now fully paralyzed on the bed, but her eyes were stuck wide open. With no control or dignity left, she was forced to be a spectator to her own horrific actions.
On-screen, Molly and Mardi approached the unsuspecting couple while Bret whispered triumphantly into his phone. “That’s it, girls. A little bit closer, and then you can shove. Make sure you time it right. I think we have about thirty seconds to go.” Then he started counting down. “Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight . . .”
When he reached twenty-seven, an incredible thing happened. Molly and Mardi stopped in their tracks. Trembling with an otherworldly resolve, they turned toward Bret, grasped each other’s hands, and cried out in unison, “No!”
“No? You cannot defy me! Obey the ring!” Bret’s triumphant tone devolved into one of desperate fury.
But the twins were somehow standing firm.
Their eyes blazed as they held hands.
They were the twin goddesses of rage and strength. Thor’s daughters, Magdi and Mooi, daughters of thunder, children of lightning, and together they embodied the spirit of their father’s powerful hammer.
A hammer that was falling on the pathetic creature.
The image on the screen began to shake. Bret was getting angry and desperate. As the train lights came into view on the tracks, he suddenly screeched. “You! You, over there! Do it!” And seemingly out of nowhere, an older man with a briefcase appeared, sailing across the platform, barely touching the ground with his wing-tip shoes. He must have been a banker or a lawyer waiting for a late-night train home from some lonely weekend work at the office, but he had been of no interest to Bret and so had not appeared in his video until now.
It was only in the last seconds, since Mardi and Molly had somehow found it within themselves to resist, that this unwitting bystander was pulled in to commit murder so that the twins could be framed. With supernatural speed, he rushed at the doomed couple. Before they even had time to yell, they were shoved onto the tracks. The man turned to leave the station, oblivious to what he had just done.
Then the most extraordinary thing happened.
Molly’s memory kicked back in full force. With every fiber of her being, she felt what happened next as it unfolded before her on the television screen.
Still holding hands, she and Mardi had flown into the air and onto the tracks after Parker and Sam.
Witches to the rescue!
Molly saw Mardi grab an astonished and uncomprehending Parker. She herself held Sam in her arms. The girl’s face was frozen in a silent scream. And just before anyone hit the rails, the four of them began to soar upward out of harm’s way.
Only they were a fraction of a second too late.
Before they were high enough to clear it, the train, its horn blaring wildly, barreled into them.
The last thing Molly saw was the golden ring sailing down after them, flashing into the void. Bret had hurled it at them.
The four of them were killed instantly.
As the screen went dark, Molly’s memory went blank again along with it.
“Such useless valiance, such senseless courage,” Bret lectured, caressing her motionless thigh. “You and your sister made a pathetic, ridiculous attempt to save those expendable mortals. You had the brazen stupidity to try to combat the power of my ring, but you were obviously no match for it. You will soon learn to obey.”
No match for it? But how had they gotten from the horrifying moment under the 6 train to the following day, when she and Mardi had awoken a few minutes past noon, both of them in their beds, feeling a little hungover but not especially worse for wear?
“As you can imagine,” Bret droned on, “you goddesses have a connection or two in the Underworld. That’s how it always is with you people. You take care of your own. The rest of us, of course, aren’t so blessed. Someone called in a favor for you, and you two beauties were returned to the present in the blink of an eye. You never even knew what hit you. Those mortals, not so much. They’re not summering on the East End right now, are they? More like being devoured by worms.”
Molly’s first thought was that Daddy must have gone into overdrive to fix everything, and fast, that very night, to rescue his girls from the jaws of Hell. Then she realized it couldn’t have been him, because he didn’t know what had happened. If he had had this kind of proof, he would have taken it to the White Council long ago.
So, if not Daddy, then who?
And there was another unanswered question. Why, Molly burned to know, had Bret cast off the ring he was so obsessed with, so that it reappeared the next day on Mardi’s right middle finger, as though nothing had happened?
With frightening insight, Bret answered her silent query. “The reason I threw the ring back to you bitches is this: I didn’t want you—or anyone else—to link the ring to what had just happened. Now that I had learned how to use it, I wanted to bide my time until I was ready to harness its power to establish a pure world order, with women in their place. I knew I could get it back from you again quite easily when the time was right. Thanks to your vanity, you’ve been an easy target all along. Like all women, you live to manipulate and are blinded by your childish pride. You’ve proven quite susceptible to my charms, Molly Overbrook. You’ve fallen for me behind three d
ifferent masks now. I’ve gotta hand it to myself, and you have to admit, you find me irresistible.”
She realized now just when he had stolen the ring from her. He hadn’t taken it when they’d hooked up at the Fair Haven library, when she assumed it had fallen off in the heat of passion. Instead, he’d taken it at the Cheesemonger, after she had fainted. He had probably caused her to her faint so that he could come to her rescue, so that he could charm her and rob her blind in one fell swoop. Even though she despised him, she couldn’t help but recall how tenderly she had felt toward him in that moment. She glared at him now from among the pillows. If she could have moved, she would have scratched his eyes out.
“So, Molly, what you’ve just seen in my little homespun video was my test run, so to speak.” He dangled the ring in her face. “Now we are on to bigger and better things. Too bad you won’t be joining me in my glory. You would have made a stunning, if spoiled, queen. But the paralysis you are feeling right now is only going to get worse. By nightfall, your heart will stop. It’s a potent spider venom. I distilled it myself and sprinkled it into your rosé. I’ve always been able to count on your appreciation of the finer things, haven’t I? And, besides, I have a great fondness for spiders, in case you haven’t noticed. In fact, I adore them. Maman, my glorious bronze tarantula, whom I believe your sister admired greatly in my penthouse, is my favorite object on Earth.”
Although her nerves were filled with poison, Molly had not entirely lost hope of escape and victory. She might be stuck here on this bed right now, but her twin wasn’t.
Although it was irrational for her to expect Mardi to burst into her hotel room at the Crow’s Nest Hotel in the wilds of Montauk, when it happened, Molly was not at all surprised.
What took you so long?
39
SISTERS ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES
Mardi was standing in the open doorway, her mouth agape.
She, Trent, and Freya had found the yellow pickup truck parked outside the Crow’s Nest and had asked about the young couple, casting a spell on the receptionist to learn where Molly and Marshall were staying. Marshall’s room had been empty, so when they found Molly’s door, Mardi kicked it down even though it wasn’t locked.
The three of them found Molly lying on the bed while that vile boy lay next to her. His features morphed back into Trent’s handsome ones, and she recoiled.
“Molly!” Mardi yelled. “You beast, get off her!”
What was wrong with Molly? She was just staring at them speechless. No matter—she, Trent, and Freya tackled Alberich and wrestled him to the ground. She grabbed the ring from his fingers.
Fury jumped out of Freya’s bag and started to bark angrily and nip at Alberich’s ankles.
Alberich was no match for the four of them. Without the ring in hand, his shrieking threats were empty.
Freya and Trent tied him up with the curtain sashes.
“Give it your best shot,” he sneered. “You’re just as weak as your sister.”
“Freya, may I?” Mardi asked.
“Do it,” Freya urged.
Mardi punched him unconscious with her bare fists, and then, for good measure, hit him with a catatonic spell. Then she turned to her sister, whom Trent had covered with a blanket.
Her stomach twisted in jealousy a little at that, but she tried to push it aside. “Molly, what’s wrong?”
Her sister was utterly still and stone-faced. Fury was nuzzling her neck to no avail.
“There’s something wrong with her!” Mardi yelled, taking her sister’s hand in hers and noting her dwindling pulse. “I think she’s paralyzed!”
“Poisoned, more like it,” said Freya, who was an expert. She found a sewing kit in the hotel bathroom, took out a needle, pricked Molly’s left index finger, squeezed out three drops of blood onto her own thumb, licked them thoughtfully, and pronounced, “It’s a neurotoxic spider venom. He must have transformed it so that it could be given orally. I know the antidote by heart. But I don’t have the herbs here that I need to prepare it. We’re going to have to get her home, and I’m going to have to rush to the greenhouse for my ingredients. We have to act fast. Mardi, gather her stuff.”
“What about Alberich?” Mardi asked, looking at him bound and unconscious on the floor. “Even if we kill him, there’s no guarantee he won’t claw his way back somehow.”
“You all go ahead and take care of Molly,” said Trent. “I’ll stay here. I’ve got him covered.”
“But what are you going to do with him? I don’t understand. How are we going to contain him?” Mardi asked, throwing Molly’s clothes haphazardly into her Hermès tote, not even bothering to fold them. She knew Molly would be screaming at her now about being such a slob—if she could. She’d never thought she would want Molly to be able to scream. But she did. More than anything.
“I was thinking about calling the North Hampton police to take him back to town and arrest him,” said Trent. “But I’ve changed my mind. Matt’s strong, but I don’t imagine he’s any match for Alberich’s evil charms. And I’m afraid that Matt doesn’t know the way to Limbo, which is where he belongs. So I’ve called upon the Valkyries. They know the way. And they owe me many a favor. The Valkyries and I, we go way back. They’ll be here soon, and we’ll be rid of Alberich for the foreseeable future. Sound like a plan?”
“Valkyries, huh?” Mardi said, raising an eyebrow. “Those sorority girls?”
“Our brother Freddie knew a few of them quite well,” Freya said, her lips curling into a smile.
But as they were lifting Molly to go, she seemed to be trying to tell them something. Her eyes were darting frantically around the room.
“What is it? What do you want to tell us?” Mardi asked, a little crazed. “We don’t have time! If we don’t get you back to Fair Haven, you’re going to die!”
She wished she could understand what Molly was trying to tell them, but she had no idea. What did Molly want? Her tote? She had it packed.
“It’s under control, I’ve packed all your stuff,” Mardi said.
Molly emitted a low moan.
“Poor thing,” said Freya. “She must be in pain. Don’t worry. We’ll have you back to yourself in a couple of hours. Stop trying to talk now. You’ll only strain yourself.”
They picked her up and walked out the door.
But at the very last second, Fury jumped onto the dresser, knocking what looked like a phone to the floor. Fury batted it with her paws so that it skidded across the wooden floor planks straight to Mardi’s feet.
She looked down. Of course. This is what Molly had been trying to tell her. “Alberich’s phone! Of course! It probably holds all kinds of clues.” Mardi leaned down to grab the phone and give the dog a stroke. “Fury, you’re a genius.” She winked up at her immobile sister. “Who knew you’re as smart as my cat?”
40
BLURRED LINES
It might have been the calming ocean breezes or the general air of forgetfulness that infused North Hampton. Some force, either natural or supernatural, was causing Killer and Fury to forget their differences as August drew to a close. In fact, along with Jo’s cat, Midnight, they formed a rather merry band around Ingrid and Matt’s house, frolicking on the beach, chasing squirrels, and generally making the resident kids, big and small, feel that all was going to be right with the world.
Mardi was relieved to see that Molly recovered quickly from the spider venom, although she secretly thought that it would have been nice to keep her sister quiet for a day or two longer.
Mardi had helped Freya gather the herbs she needed for the antidote: feverfew, catnip, and angelica root. Then they had gone into the woods, scavenging for very specific toadstools and for the skeletons of snakes and the skulls of small birds. Observing Freya at her craft, Mardi was mesmerized. Maybe she could learn to do the same thing one day.
But she was
with Trent now. He had asked her to meet him on the Dragon.
“Took you long enough,” he said when she arrived.
“I drove here as fast as I could.”
Then he was kissing her, and it felt so perfect and sweet and right, and Mardi wondered why she had fought it for so long.
Mardi soon lost her desire to get back to her old life in New York. Her endless nights of underground clubbing were fading to a blurry smudge in her memory. They seemed empty, weightless. She had succumbed to the charms of life on the East End. Could it be, she teased Trent one evening, she actually might want to return to North Hampton next summer?
“Of your own free will?” he asked, gently kissing her eyelids.
“Of my own free will.”
Mardi felt almost sorry for Molly, who was not nearly so fulfilled right now as she was.
But Molly was adjusting to her new circumstances without too much drama. She was spending a lot of time helping Ingrid and Matt with the kids and tending to the menagerie of familiar animals now inhabiting the house. Fury, the pricy Löwchen, was, of course, by far the highest maintenance of the family pets. And since there were no options in town for outsourcing the dog’s walking, feeding, or ridiculously elaborate grooming, Molly was doing it all herself—with Jo and Henry’s enthusiastic help. It was a brave new world of responsibility for Molly. And Mardi couldn’t help but hint that it was good for her twin to get down and dirty. Well, relatively down and dirty at least. When she shaved Fury’s hindquarters, leaving the hair long at the front and around the ankles, Molly donned a navy-blue Gucci coverall to protect her clothes. And she never failed to wear Ingrid’s gardening gloves for any kind of manual labor. Before putting the gloves on, she would slather her hands in lotion, “just like at the salon.” She didn’t care if her sister teased her. These days, Mardi’s teasing only made her smile.