with music that only Jessica could hear. Sidney watched from her perch on the faded floral couch as a smile spread across her sister’s lips, her joy obvious as she concentrated on making the little toy dance and twirl to a beat only she could hear.
Sidney tried to suppress the jealousy she felt creeping through her veins every time Jessica succeeded at something. She doubted she’d have felt so envious if she herself could manage to do even a fraction of the magic that Jessica seemed to conjure so easily.
From air, to water, to earth, to fire, to spirit, she’d failed at every task sat before her and Jessica had succeeded in spectacular fashion. Especially when it came to air. The girl could conjure a hurricane out of the wind caused by a dragonfly’s wings.
This was exactly the opposite of how things were supposed to go. Sidney was supposed to be the one who did well and Jessica was supposed to be the one who couldn’t even be bothered to try.
Sidney took a deep breath. The room seemed to be stifling her. She doubted Bree allowed dust to exist in the house, but the room felt like it should be dusty. The room they were in seemed to serve as a parlor, library, or meeting room as needed. It was the largest space in the house and seemed to be the designated catch all. Built in shelves lined every wall and though they housed what looked like thousands of books, they also seemed to be filled with, for lack of a better word, junk.
Scraps of paper sat stacked inches high with an antique iron as a paper weight. Strange glass shapes dotted the shelves, a glass bee sitting on a book here, a pile of little glass seashells littering a corner. The ancient hand painted eyes of dolls who had seen better days at the turn of the 20th century stared out, silently judging Sidney’s lack of power or control. No matter where you looked on the shelves, you were libel to find something weird that was old and faded. Like the blankets stacked in a chair in the corner or the upholstery on the chairs themselves.
The couch that Jessica sat on might have been bright red once upon a time, but it would be a kindness to even call it rose now. It was just junk like everything else in the room.
Antiques, Sidney corrected herself, not junk, antiques. She was just in a bad mood because of her lack of skill. When she’d walked in the room the first time she’d thought it felt homey, despite how large it was. The clutter making what could have seemed too open of an expanse, feel comfortable and lived in.
She turned her attention back to Jessica who was now controlling two wooden figures as they bowed and curtsied to each other. Holding out their petite wooden hands to start their dancing anew.
The little male figure had been the one that Sidney was supposed to have used in her lesson. She was supposed to somehow feel the essence of it and then control it. She’d meditated holding that stupid little statue for hours yesterday in preparation for today. And when it had come time to work with it, nothing. Not even a twitch.
But here was Jessica, not only able to control her little wooden figure, but also Sidney’s, without even trying.
“Ahhh,” Jessica cried out, the wooden figures falling lifelessly to the table in front of her.
“What is it?” the man who had been in the corner watching them, stepped forward.
Jessica’s mouth curved in the rictus of pain as she held her hands out in front of her. They were bent like claws, the muscles standing out to attention, “My hands, my hands,” she said, not able to speak more than that through the pain.
The man grabbed her hands and Jessica gasped and let out what might have been a shriek if it’d had more volume. As it was, it came out a pitiful wail.
This last sound seemed to jog Sidney out of her trance. She realized she’d been sitting there staring and doing nothing while her sister cried out in pain.
“Oh my goodness, what’s happening,” Sidney said, springing into action. She took one of her sister’s hands out of Nate’s grasp.
“Oh,” Jessica sighed, “It’s easing off now.” She drug her hands away from Sidney and Nate and began to massage them. “I don’t know what happened, I just got these sudden cramps in my hands, and it hurt really bad.”
Sidney felt the guilt creeping in. Had she done this? Had the hot jealousy she’d been feeling manifested in the cramps in Jessica’s hands.
She looked up and saw an unspoken accusation in Nate’s eyes. Her immediate reaction was to deny it, how could she have done this without knowing it, and then she remembered all the dead bodies outside of the facility where Red had been held prisoner. She hadn’t meant to do that either.
She felt tears of frustration starting to well up in her eyes, she would never hurt her sister on purpose, not even after everything that had happened.
“Maybe you should go rest Jessica, maybe this morning’s lesson was too much for you.”
“Do you think so? I didn’t feel strained or tired at all while I was doing it. I felt… I don’t know, alive? More alive than I normally am? I know that doesn’t make sense, but that’s how it felt, like regular life is just a… a… daydream and when I was controlling those little figures was the only time I’ve ever been real.”
Nate nodded, eyes kind and almost laughing, “I know the feeling, but it might have been too much for you anyway. Go by the kitchen and grab something to eat and then go rest. Meditate if you can’t sleep.”
Jessica nodded back at him and scooted herself off the couch, shooting Sidney a smile as she left the room. Sidney smiled back, the guilt digging in even deeper.
When the door clicked, Nate’s eyes found hers and they were anything but kind and laughing.
“What was that?” he demanded.
“What?” Sidney went from feeling guilty to defensive in a moment, she didn’t know that she had caused the cramps and neither did he.
“You know what,” he said, coming closer to her, almost menacing, “You should know the rules Sidney, we don’t harm each other, ever. Not even a little bit, not even if we’re angry, not even our sisters.”
Sidney flopped down on the abandoned sofa and picked up her little wooden figure. The one that had remained dead and lifeless for her but had danced for Jessica.
“Look, even if I did do it, I didn’t do it intentionally. It seems like I can’t control anything, not even myself.”
Nate snatched the figure from her and slammed it on the coffee table hard enough that one of the arms flew off narrowly missing hitting Sidney. She jumped. “Well, you’re going to have to learn.”
“Do you think I don’t want to?” She yelled back at him. “Every day I get up and I work and mediate and I give it everything I’ve got and nothing. Nothing! Meanwhile Jessica just strolls through everything like she’s doing a cake walk and she wins the prize every time. It’s not fair!”
Sidney realized she sounded like a petulant child, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t fair. Just like in school when she’d worked her ass off for her grades and Jessica and Jessica had just sat back coasting on Daddy’s name and money. Now Sidney was still working her ass off, but this time she wasn’t getting any results, meanwhile Jessica was still coasting but instead of failing, she was surpassing every goal the witches at the Grove had set for her. It wasn’t right, hard work was supposed to equal success and the exact opposite was happening.
“It’s not fair?” Nate said, incredulous. “I heard what happened with you and those shifters. What you did. Do you know what kind of power that took? More power than I’ll ever have and I was born into this, I’ve been training my whole life. Is that fair?” He didn’t wait for an answer, “No, but do you see me trying to hurt you, intentionally or unintentionally?”
“I didn’t try to hurt her, I was just sitting here, watching her,” Sidney said exasperated, with Nate, the situation, and most of all, herself.
“Watching her and letting yourself wallow in your jealousy, letting the emotions build up until they had to be released somewhere.”
She looked down, “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”
“I don’t need or want your apology, and I won’t accept your excuses. Get yourself together.” His voice dripped with contempt, a contempt she felt for herself as well, and he slammed out of the room. Leaving her there to come to terms with the awful person she was.
She picked the broken wooden figure back up, and ran a finger over the jagged pieces left behind by his broken arm.
Jessica had made him dance, made his stiff wooden body flow through the movements like he was alive and made out of flesh and blood. As she’d watched she could have sworn she’d almost seen him breathing.
That was talent, a talent Sidney just did not possess and she was letting it eat her up.
She was letting everything eat her alive. The loss of Red and Morgan, the fact that she didn’t even know what she felt for Demon, but that didn’t matter because he was gone too. Not to mention that everything about her life was different that it had been just a few short months ago. Everything. Even down to who she was as a person had changed. And she didn’t seem to be coping too well.
She leaned back against the sofa cushions and let the tears run in tracks down her face. She wasn’t handling herself well at all.
****
Sidney tapped on the door of the bedroom she shared with Jessica. It had been decided that she and Jessica would stay at the Grovestead for a while. Bree had said that with all the upheaval and with them needing to be taught anyway, staying there would be the best solution. Sidney, numb on various levels, hadn’t put up much of a fight.
She might have put up more of one if she’d realized that she was going to have to share a room with Jessica. That was a torture she’d been spared in her youth.
“Come in,” Jessica called from the other side of the door. Sidney walked in hesitantly. “Why are you knocking to come into your own room?” Jessica didn’t even spare Sidney much of a glance, her gaze stuck on her ever present phone, “Hey, did you hear about this?” She flipped the phone around to show Sidney the screen. A picture of a young Hollywood star shielding himself from the camera while dragging a blur of a girl behind him, emblazoned with the heading, “Geoff London Illuminatti Member? Suspicions Confirmed!”
“I don’t even know who that is,” Sidney said after only trying to place the name for a moment.
“Oh my God Sidney, do you live under a rock? Anyway, if witches and werewolves and faeries are real do you think the Illuminati is real? I mean if we are part of an underground species that everyone thought was just a fairy tale what if all the underground conspiracy stuff is real?”
Sidney just stared at her, she wasn’t sure where to jump on this train of thought, “The Illuminati isn’t a species though…”
“Are you sure? What if they’re like a secret magical species, like witches, but they don’t really care about nature and all this stuff we’re learning about but instead they control people and… and… money and politics!”
“That would be something,” Sidney didn’t want to call her sister crazy right before she had to apologize to her but Jessica could really benefit from laying off the National Enquirer.
“National Enquirer isn’t really the thing anymore. It’s all about the TMZ and Perez Hilton now.” Cord popped his head into the room, and inserted himself into the conversation.
“Yeah, this was posted on TMZ’s twitter,” Jessica said, using her finger to scroll through some more juicy gossip, taking in stride that Cord had just butted into their conversation and that he’d casually read Sidney’s mind in the process.
No matter how often he did it, Sidney didn’t think she’d ever get used to being an open book to Cord.
“So, how about we get out of the house tonight?”
“Hey, I asked you to go out last night and you said we had to stay and work!” Jessica complained.
“Yeah, well, Liam isn’t going to be home tonight and I don’t feel like staying in.”
“I wanted to talk to Jessica first…”
Cord sighed. “Look, Jessica, Sidney is really, really sorry about hurting you earlier, she didn’t even mean to and you know she’s too goody, goody to ever intentionally try to hurt you.” He turned from Jessica to Sidney. “Sidney, Jessica knew it was you who was doing it from the time the pain started in her hands and she’s already forgiven you. Even if you had meant it, she somehow feels like she deserves it because she was such a bitch to you when you both were younger and she also slept with your kinda sorta boyfriend.” Cord looked shocked as he said this last, “Really Jessica?”
“I didn’t know! Jesus, Cord that’s not an invasion of privacy or anything?”
“Hey, just trying to speed things up. And really I’m doing it for you. Happy hour ends at eight and if we sit around here waiting for you two to mend all your broken fence posts we’ll be stuck paying full price all night and then where will we be?”
“At the bar?” Jessica offered.
“Yes, aren’t you the star student, but we’ll be there sober, now get dressed and meet me downstairs. I’m timing you!” He slammed the door behind him.
“I’m never going to get used to him doing that,” Sidney shook her head.
Jessica jumped up and began riffling through her dresser drawer, “What, the mind reading or the barging into our conversation and bedroom.”
“I’ll take all of the above. Are you really going to go out with him tonight?”
Jessica paused in her search and turned to look at her, “Well yeah, aren’t you? We’ve been here being all studious for days without a break. I’m trying to make better choices, but I’m dying here.”
“It’s only been four days.”
“Oh man, four days! In this boring little country farmhouse post card! They don’t even keep any real alcohol here, just that ceremonial wine that tastes like someone made it in a rain barrel.”
“They probably did make it in a rain barrel.”
“See! I need to get out if nothing more than to have a decent drink. And you do too! Get dressed.”
Sidney looked down at the jogging pants and faded ‘NSYNC concert tee she had on and couldn’t imagine wanting to ever wear anything else, “No thanks, I’ll just hang around here, I need to practice some more anyway.”
Jessica had moved from the chest of drawers and was pulling clothes out of the closet and throwing them on the bed. “No you don’t, you need to relax, chill out and stop stressing over the fact that you’re having a hard time learning this stuff.”
Sidney winced. It hurt to be labeled a slow learner, especially when she’d been ahead of the class all of her life. But the truth was the truth.
“Oh don’t get all butt hurt about it. It’s probably got something to do with the block that was put on us. For whatever reason it must be taking longer to wear off of you than it did me.”
Sidney had thought of that, but it didn’t make any sense, if anything it should have worn off of her first since she was the oldest.
“Could be, but I doubt it. Hey, what was that woman’s name, your psychologist? Maybe if I called her she could tell me something.”
“Yeah, maybe. It’s Karen Bailey. I probably should have asked her some more questions but I was kind of freaking out, ya know.”
“Yeah,” Sidney could only imagine the shock her sister had been in, not only discovering she was a witch, but having killed someone with her powers without even knowing she had them. “You didn’t ask about our birth parents at all though?”
“No, like I said, I was seriously freaking out. I thought about asking about them later, but I never made the time to call her or go see her. I kept making excuses. I guess I really didn’t want to find out that bad, huh?” Jessica held up a black shimmering dress to her chest that was short enough it could almost be considered indecent, “What do you think about this?”
“I think it’s insane that you even brought a dress like that with you to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, where you came to learn magic from a bunch of witches.”
Jessica laughed, ducking out of her shirt, “You never know when you’re going to need a party dress and see I was right!”
“I guess you were,” Sidney conceded.
She watched Jessica as she finished getting ready. It only took a few minutes and left her a little in awe of the speed and skill displayed at putting on makeup and turning hair from a tangled mess to an elegant, yet slightly sultry arrangement. All those years Sidney had spent in her room studying, Jessica had clearly been honing the skill of looking perfect at a moment’s notice.
Cord and Jessica left, giggling and making jokes, and she was left alone with her thoughts and questions. Neither of which proved to be very good company.