Page 32 of Tanglewood Legacy (The Three Sisters 3)
“Isis! Thank the goddess! Can you open the window? I can’t breathe in here,” Medea said.
Isis turned the lever and pushed the window open, enjoying a full breath of night air. A sparrow darted outside over her head.
At least they had managed to get Circe out of her dress and onto the table, where she rested under a thin blanket.
“Sooorry,” Circe said, rubbing her belly. “I can’t control it. It happens every time I—” She screamed and gripped her belly as another contraction consumed her, and a fire ignited in the middle of the room. Isis stomped it out.
“They’re coming closer together,” Medea cried.
Rhys agreed and positioned his wife’s legs so he could take a look. “Coming fast. I can see the head. The next contraction, I need you to push.”
Hurrying to her sister’s side, Isis took Circe’s hand just as another contraction crashed into her, and the floor shook. Shoots sprouted between the planks of the floor, growing from saplings to fully grown trees that tested the ceiling in minutes. Butterflies popped into existence, fluttering around her head, and ferns spread their leaves against her legs.
Circe’s earsplitting scream had Isis gripping her hand even tighter. And then Rhys was pulling the babe out. The child was surrounded by twinkling lights and the sounds of birds who sang with joy from the trees that now monopolized the room.
“Who is it?” Circe asked her husband. “Endora or Percival?”
Isis couldn’t see what Rhys was doing at the end of the table until he stood up with the baby wrapped in a blanket in his arms. He rounded the table and handed the bundle to his wife. “Endora. It’s a girl!”
Squealing with delight, Isis gently kissed the side of Circe’s head. “Congratulations.”
Medea beamed the largest smile Isis had ever seen on her face. Remarkable. Medea could have been jealous or triggered by this birth, but she looked invigorated, as if the arrival of her niece meant everything. Their eyes met over their sister.
“A girl!” Medea repeated, her voice full of wonder.
Isis looked down at the tiny witch. She was no bigger than a large cat, with eyes the color of deep water just like her mother’s and a shock of black hair closer to Rhys’s color. Endora blinked up at her, mouth forming a perfect “O” as her tiny fingers worked along the edge of the blanket. Isis hooked one finger into that tiny hand and was surprised when Endora squeezed. Love sparked in Isis’s chest, for her sisters, the new baby, and the family they’d made here.
“She’s so beautiful, Circe. Perfect,” Isis said.
“I agree,” Medea added.
“Of course, she’s a Tanglewood,” Rhys said, kissing Circe on the lips.
Circe brought the babe to her breast, and a flock of brightly colored birds flapped from the trees, circled the room, and then flew out the window.
“Soooorry,” Circe said, eyeing the trees. Spanish moss had appeared in the branches. Isis could no longer make out any part of the room. It looked like she’d given birth in the middle of the rain forest.
Rhys stroked her hair. “Don’t worry about a thing, Circe. We’ll have this all cleaned up by morning.”
One by one, they gripped one another’s hands, surrounding Circe and Endora, and basking in the magic of family.
* * *
Pierre wokein a room that was not his own to the sound of… parrots. It took him a moment to remember that Isis had brought him here after saving him from—by God, Delphine was a vampire and her sister too! His hand went to his neck, where a bandage covered the two wounds there.
Another squawk came from the corner of the room, and he narrowed his eyes at the two birds that didn’t belong. That genus and species had no business being in Louisiana. He only knew what they were from his studies and the unusual menagerie a colleague housed in Paris. But then, he was in the house of a witch. He supposed anything was possible.
He leaned back against the pillows and took the opportunity to peruse the room, Isis’s room. The furnishings were simple but functional, a four-poster bed, a dresser, a woven rug, and in the corner, a mirror. The silver glinted in the light from the window. Wait, that wasn’t right. It was evening. Nighttime. Outside, the moon shone barely a sliver on the horizon, surrounded by nothing but darkness and stars. Inside, there were candles, but none positioned properly to be the cause of the glimmer.
So what was the mirror reflecting?
He tossed back the covers and carefully lowered his feet over the side of the bed. His head pounded hard enough to rival a drum corps, and as he rose to standing, the room wavered like a boat at sea. Slowly, bracing himself on the bed, he hobbled toward the stretch of silver. But when he gazed into its depths, all he saw was his own reflection.
He looked like the dead. Pale, eyes bloodshot, mud in his hair. He ran his hands through it, righting it as much as possible. Working his fingers beneath the dressing on his neck, he loosened it, then tugged it down to reveal two puncture wounds, exactly the same as the ones he’d seen on the two dead men. Delphine Devereaux was a vampire and so was her sister, and they’d targeted him! If not for Isis, he’d be dead, bloodless, abandoned in the street.
Step by careful step, he made it to the door. As soon as he opened it, the colorful birds he’d seen earlier flew overhead and soared down a set of stairs at the end of a hall. Rubbing his temples, he followed after them.
When Isis had put him to bed, she’d removed his shoes and stockings. Pierre hadn’t thought much of it until he stepped off the bottom step and the wet carpet squelched between his toes like moss after a rain. No, as he peered down at the floor through squinted eyes, he confirmed it was, in fact, moss he was standing on. “What in the bloody hell?”
