LINDSEY PAQUETTE
There wasn’t a family plan for fleeing the Coven after being exiled, not like the ones you outline for a fire or carbon-monoxide emergency. There wasn’t a plan for how to respond when your daughter was possessed by a malevolent entity either, so to have the two stacked atop one another was its own kind of hell.
Diana Rouzet didn’t let off the gas, knuckles white around the leather of the steering wheel as she careened towards their cottage, something loud and buzzing nestled at the base of her skull. Returning home after fleeing the verdict was probably the worst place Taliesin could go, but Diana wasn’t sure how much of Taliesin was left so she’d checked anyway. The house had been empty, the dregs of Diana’s oatmeal still seizing in the sink basin.
Retreating to the cottage wasn’t much smarter; all of their family and friends knew about it. But there were wards on the property, and the cottage itself was a few hours from the city. She’d have a head start on the Justiciars pursuing Taliesin and whatever now resided in her skin.
The world sped by like a flip book—golden-hour light flashing between scrub pine trunks and half rotted oaks. The Subaru nearly collided with the half-felled limb at the end of the driveway, the one Diana had been needling her husband about taking down for weeks before it accidentally killed someone.
Something cool and slick slid down her spine as she crossed the property line. The ward was intact—but it wasn’t hers any longer. The once feathered drag of the magick now slaked her in oil. Not Taliesin’s magick—her daughter’s signature had always carried a bell-like ring, so much so that Diana used to be able to feel and hear her from every room in the house. Taliesin had loved that when she was small, when Diana could tell in moments if she was having a nightmare or had a particularly good day at school. Taliesin had called it her ‘mood ring’. Diana hadn’t let her live down the pun.
The car slammed to a stop, and Diana felt the shift in the air around the house long before exiting the car. The A-frame stood alone in the clearing, filled bird feeders empty of tiny bodies, leaves of the nearby elm and maple still enough to raise the hair on her nape. Shadows filled the large paneled windows, a storm gathering behind the glass. Diana swallowed, gritting her teeth, and she threw open the driver’s side door, letting the heat coiled in her chest flare and gnaw on the instinctual no, turn around, turn away before she slammed the door shut. The sound didn’t ring.
Diana’s feet scraped against the pavers, the hiss grating like steel wool along her spine. Just before the door, her hand on the polished knob, she paused. Magick bled from beneath the carved oak door, winding like smog around her ankles. Cold, brittle, something from the Grave. And there, just beneath it like the echoes of a bell muted against velvet, a ring. Diana’s magick skittered beneath her skin, Breath hugging the edges of her consciousness like an anxious dog as the animal part of her spine fought for purchase. With another short inhale and longer exhale, Diana thrust the door open.
The house was dark. Sunlight from behind her carved into the dim, slamming to a halt inches beyond her feet as if the world beyond failed to render. Diana squinted, a rabbiting thud in her chest, peering into the dim with a bloodied mess of hope and dread. And there, just past the living space and beyond the low half wall, something moved about the kitchen, opening and closing cabinet after cabinet, searching. She swallowed, letting the motion steel her, and Diana stepped inside, closing the door behind her.
Deep in the kitchen, the shape of her daughter reached into an overhead cabinet and pulled down a bottle of Teeling, setting it on the counter beside two shot glasses and casting an empty bottle of gin to the floor. Something in Diana’s chest recoiled, bile slicking her throat as she watched the silhouette move. Long, waved hair and straight nose, the familiar, stubborn set of a jaw and the birthmark just below the chin—Diana recognized each individual snapshot with the same sinking of her stomach. Green eyes. The scar in the hairline from a particularly bold and ill-advised dive off the pontoon. It was the same face she’d stared into for eighteen years—
But it wasn’t her.
It didn’t look up as she entered, too preoccupied with the bottle of whiskey on the counter. A deft hand splashed amber liquid into two waiting shot glasses, and with a precision Diana’s daughter had never been able to manage, it lifted the glass in her direction before clicking it against the marble countertop and knocking it back. It smiled.
“Hey there, Mama.”
Mama. Diana hadn’t been “Mama” since Taliesin graduated elementary school and decided she’d outgrown it. The shadow spoke with two tones; one rich alto that was unmistakably Taliesin’s, the other a languid, baritone drawl, the words tilted, speaking together in a hum that made Diana’s ears ring. Taliesin’s brow furrowed, smile slipping.
Again, Diana’s spine begged her to run, to fight. She did neither. “Who are you?” Diana asked.
It pulled Taliesin’s mouth into a smile, trying again. “Mom, are you feeling alright? It’s me. I know you’re probably mad, but...” It laughed, arranging her daughter’s features into something sheepish. “It’s been a hard day. I just needed a little—”
“I know you’re not my daughter, so cut the shit,” Diana snapped.
It blinked.
A chill ran up her spine as Diana stared it down, face blank. Something distinctly not Taliesin back at her A shadow flickered on the far wall, something sickly and long, a marionette with addled strings. Then it was gone.
Taliesin’s body slumped slightly forward, an irritated huff fleeing her chest. A hand lifted the other shot glass to its mouth. “Mummy’s got edges,” it said, a bladed grin stretching across Taliesin’s face. A dark lilt tainted the speech, and Taliesin’s alto leeched from the sound until only the baritone remained, an English accent stark in the middle of Boston. “It was a disappointing attempt at deception, I’ll admit.” It shook its head with a sigh. “Dear Taliesin is absolute rubbish at glamour magicks. A gap in her education, I suppose.”
Diana swallowed around the fist in her throat. “Where is my daughter?”
“She’s alive and well, don’t you worry,” it replied, tapping Talisein’s temple as it poured more whiskey. “Hell of a tenacious thing, your daughter. I’d been rattling about up here for the better half of a day. I only won our little battle of wills because your coven excised her from the hearth and caused her system a hell of a shock.” Taliesin’s shoulders heaved with a sigh. “Given her circumstances, the punishment was a bit harsh.”
It knocked back another shot. “A strange comfort, knowing Coven arrogance persists no matter the century.”
The attempt at camaraderie made Diana sick. “What do you want?”
It bared Taliesin’s teeth in a wince. “Right now? I’d take alcohol that doesn’t taste like it’s meant to strip varnish.”
“What do you want with my daughter?”
The thing scoffed, poured another shot and slammed it back, the glass clacking against the counter. “Some peace and fucking quiet would be a wonderful start,” it replied. “The running of her mouth is constant—she’s rather colorful in her use of language, your daughter. It’s difficult to hear myself think over her incessant whining and condemnation.” A thumb drew across Taliesin’s brow. “I would think someone saved from Ruination would show a bit more gratitude..”
Diana went still, ears catching ‘Ruination’ with the grace of a rock through a window pane. That couldn’t be right. Taliesin would have said something if her magick was fading. She would’ve—
“I mean truly, I was doing the girl a favor,” it drawled. “I know most witches hate it, but undeath is actually fun once you get the hang of it. I would’ve been perfectly content to watch Man’s descent for another century or two but no—I had to be charitable.” Taliesin’s eyes rolled. “Old dogs, I suppose. Or perhaps the one about cats? I’ve never been much for idioms.”
Diana didn’t budge. “Let me talk to her.”
It cocked its head. “Hmm, she’s busy wrestling with her moral panic. It’s a bit of a mess over there, I’m afraid. The reunion will have to wait.” Another pulled-string smile. “I’d be happy to answer any questions on her behalf.”
A trick or an offer. Did it matter? Diana couldn't reach Taliesin, she was flying blind, and it was only a matter of time before they were found. Diana hesitated anyway. Because the first question that shoved its way to the front of her tongue wasn’t if Taliesin was okay, no. The question she wanted danced across the tender skin of belief with bladed feet, the same one she’d been worrying over, circling like a carrion since that verdict came down.
She told herself she knew the answer. A mother’s instinct, the same one that had told her when Taliesin was fighting with the girls at her elementary school, when Diana had to stomp down to the guidance counselor and tell them Taliesin hadn’t been the first one to put a horrid note in that girl’s locker. Diana had raised hell until the brat came clean. She knew Taliesin was innocent. She knew.
Diana vomited it anyway. “Who summoned you?”
Taleisin’s face twisted like Diana was dumb. “Taliesin. You were at the trial, yes? The same one I was?”
“They had one day to build a case,” Diana replied. “One. There were no residuals, nothing to trace it back to her. Anyone could have done the rite and forced you into her head.”
“With what aim?” it asked. “You can’t seriously think someone would risk performing a rite so dangerous just to hand the power of a patron to some eighteen-year-old girl.” It scoffed. “Fucking ludicrous.”
It gestured to Taliesin’s shoulder, the light shirt patched with a dark ooze. “They don’t give these out to just anyone, you know. You raised quite the little heretic.”
Diana’s hackles raised. She raised a witch, a competent, careful, sane witch. “My daughter wouldn’t—”
“Witches have summoned worse for less,” it replied. “The Coven would have turned its back on Taliesin either way, unless the elders have suddenly changed their mind about Ruined witches.” It shrugged, then winced. “She simply picked an exile where she’d still have access to magick than exile without.”
Diana stared, forcing her lungs to fill and empty. There had been no signs of Ruination. Not a single indication Taliesin’s magick had been slipping away at the hands of a dismal shake of luck. Diana would have known, would have seen—
It tugged the collar of Taliesin’s shirt down over her newly branded shoulder, eyeing the scorched skin. “In truth, the practice of patrons has existed far longer than the Coven’s paranoia,” it said. The brand had begun to weep, a cloudy ichor bubbling up through the charred swirls of the sigil. “Power that coalesces like that usually detests any sort of challenger, patronage is only one avenue. In Taliesin’s case, it was the only avenue.” Its tone was flat, pragmatic in a way that scraped Diana raw. “Once she lost her Breath, the Coven would have abandoned her anyway. Yet they punish her for abandoning them before they had the chance, for refusing to abandon herself.”
Diana swallowed, magick itching. Because that wasn’t true. Because if the patron was telling the truth, Taliesin had abandoned herself. She’d given her loyalty to a patron, spat on the honor of her Coven, her friends and family. She was a betrayer. She’d earned that mark, the weeping ichor, the bone-rotting ache.
Even so, Diana tugged at her magick, coaxing her Breath forward. It refused, hissing and spitting and turning away from the daughter it had always, always, reached for. A wry smile bent Taliesin’s mouth. “Healing is a fickle thing,” it said. “Less of a concern when you’re dead.”
It poured another shot, took a deep breath, and tossed it on the wound. The brand crackled like doused embers. A hiss barreled out of its mouth and its eyes squeezed shut, but that knife of a grin remained. Taliesin’s lids half-lifted. “Burns as much on the outside as it does going down,” it joked.
Diana yanked the bottle away, slamming the whiskey down beyond its reach. Taliesin didn’t drink. At least, not that Diana knew. She wasn’t sure now. “You’re going to make her sick,” she snapped.
It rolled Taliesin’s eyes, reaching for the bottle once more. Diana’s magick flared, a flash of brightness snapping towards her daughter’s reaching and connecting with a crack. Her stomach dropped to her feet.
Taliesin’s green eyes narrowed, the hairs on Diana’s body rising. Taliesin’s fingers flexed, as if it would respond. Instead, the patron gave a heaving sigh. “I can appreciate your ire, truly. I’d prefer not to be stuck in your daughter’s head myself, but I’m here until the pact is finalized. And since fate has decided to fuck me royally and without remorse, I’ll endure such suffering with a salve of my own choosing,” it said, tossing a curtain of dark hair over its shoulder, fingers coaxing. “If you’d be so kind.”
Diana’s knuckles whitened around the bottle neck. “Answer my questions, and we’ll talk.”
It scoffed. “I’ve already acquiesced to your questioning—”
“And you’re lying,” Diana snapped, voice cracking at the edges.
“I’m not.” It blinked. “Your inability to believe your daughter is capable of disgracing you is not my doing,” it said. “Taliesin summoned me to retain access to magick. She was desperate, so she made a decision. She feels absolutely dreadful about it, if that’s of any comfort.”
Something in Diana’s chest crumpled, caving, and she backed from the counter, the bottle still clenched in her fist.
Comfort. The girl who’d got teary over time-out and instinctively apologized when bumping into furniture had broken their most sacred law, and Diana was supposed to be comforted that Taliesin understood how far she’d fallen.
The patron sighed, stepping away from the granite counter and Diana watched as Taliesin’s body swayed before it grabbed the edge of the island, humming a disapproving note. “Already? That’s disappointing,” it muttered. “You weren’t kidding when you said she didn’t drink.”
“So return to your domain and get the hell out of my kid,” Diana snapped.
“No domain to return to,” it replied. Taliesin’s body leaned over the counter, reaching for an overhead cabinet. “Whatever version of the rite your daughter procured seems to have omitted the step that created the domain.” Taliesin’s hand pulled a painted mug from the shelf, face twisting in distaste at the haphazard vibrance of the glaze, and something in Diana’s chest went stupidly defensive.. Taliesin had painted that cup when she was nine and shoved it into Diana’s hands with earnest pride.
The patron continued, realizing it wouldn’t find anything more suitable before swatting the cabinet door closed. “And even if there was a little pocket I could duck into and escape the flagellation Daughter Dearest is heaping on herself at the moment, you wouldn’t want me in it. A domain means the pact is finalized. Permanent. As of now, this is more a possession than a patronage.”
Diana’s heart tripped. If that was true, if there wasn’t a pact in place, the rite was left unfinished. Diana’s magick surged beneath her skin, the hair on her arms standing on end. If it was a possession, she could exorcise it. If it was possession, Diana could fix it.
Taliesin’s eyes rolled. “It should worry you to be so easily read,” it drawled, toying with the faucet handle. On, off. On, off. “Yes, you could eject me from this body. But do so and your daughter is exiled for nothing and you end up losing her anyway.”
Diana’s voice was steel. “Tearing you out of her body brings her back,” she returned.
The patron didn’t answer, finally thrusting the mug beneath the running water, eyes shifting from cup to faucet, tracking the flow, learning. When it spoke again, the cadence was slow, the more flippant bent of its tone left somewhere unneeded. “You witches identify one another with your dogmas, your creed. Breath, Grave, Evocation, Transmutation, huddled beneath the lofts of your steeple, the beginning and end of all you are.” The faucet turned off, the cup lifted to Taliesin’s mouth. One swallow. Two. Three. “Who do you bring back, I wonder, if your daughter no longer has a seat in the pews?”
Taliesin. She brings back Taliesin, the girl who called the color purple pretentious before she had a hope of spelling it, who trailed Diana through art museums not because she loved the work, but because Diana did. She brings back her daughter. “Plenty of witches survive without magick,” she replied. “Taliesin can learn. She’s smart. She’s—”
“Desperate enough to preserve her magick that she’d break your oldest and most fearsome law,” it finished. “Fervent enough that she’d accept alienation and unrelenting pain to keep her connection to her power.” Taliesin’s head cocked, a brow raising. “Does that sound like someone who survives life without magick?”
Diana’s chest was tight with refusal. “She would,” Diana insisted. “She would be just fine. The Coven wouldn’t have to know—we can hide it, pretend she’s whole until we found a solution—”
“I’ve been dead a long time,” the patron replied. “Most witches left in undeath beside me remain there because they didn’t survive the pretending.” Taliesin’s shoulders shrugged. “She drew a misfortunate hand at birth. The cure you’re searching for doesn’t exist.”
“We don’t know that,” Diana spat.
The patron’s glance tilted upwards in faux thought. “Centuries of settled magick disagree.” Green eyes pinned Diana in place. “But for the sake of your delusion, we can pretend you’re correct. Say somewhere out there, flying flagrantly in the face of centuries of Ruined witches and desperate research, there is a solution.” It cocked Talieisn’s head. “How long does it take to find it? How long would she pretend? How long does the daughter you love so dearly walk around hollowed out pretending she’s ‘whole’ before she decides the waiting isn’t worth the effort?”
“Do not speak to me,” Diana seethed, something desperate closing around her throat, “as if you have any care for my daughter beyond your selfish desire to inhabit her skin.”
Dark brows furrowed, confusion and annoyance fighting for purchase. “I’m beginning to think everything I’ve said thus far has been spoken in a foreign tongue. What is the point of this endless needling if you are incapable of listening?” The mug clicked against the granite as the patron left the mug by the sink, a bit more surefooted as it moved to the wall, idle, bored. “Should you decide to evict me, I’ll simply return to whiling time away in undeath. I answered Taliesin’s petition because I was bored, not desperate, so if you’re searching for a suitable punishment for me, I assure you—there is none. I’m only relaying to you what I see rattling about inside her head.”
Taliesin’s hand found a light switch, ill-idle fingers toying with the lever. On, off. On, off. “You could do it,” it continued. “You could make the choice and choose a half-life for her in blatant disregard to the risk she took, ignorant of the ardence with which she believed inviting a patron was necessary. I would slip back beyond the veil, and you’ll have the husk of a daughter you seem so set on, for however long she can bear it.”
Diana went still, refusing the very notion from the deepest well in her chest.
It stepped away from the light switch, hands clasping at the small of Taliesin’s back as it continued. “Or, you could make the decision to believe in the depth of her fervor, assisting me in the creation of a domain I would reside in, returning Taliesin to the throne of her mind with her magick intact. In so doing, you fashion yourself into a pariah, relinquish the daughter you thought you knew and are cast from your Coven.”
Taliesin’s shoulders shrugged. “The real question is which death you’re willing to endure.”
Lindsey Paquette graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire with an English degree and an emphasis in creative writing. During her tenure, she earned a publishing credit in the university’s literary journal, NOTA, and has served as a reader. Now she works along the coast of Lake Superior as a member of Northwood Technical College.
Author Index: Lindsey Paquette
Twisted River Review ~ Issue 0: Editor’s Release