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“Let me help you.” Gently, I grasped her arm. The flesh was loose, cool to the touch.

  “Thanks.” Ellen gasped. “I was feeling much better and decided to try a spin to the bathroom on my own. I’m thinking now that wasn’t my brightest idea.”

  We helped our aunt to the bed. Her narrow hip banged against the metal frame, and Ellen winced.

  “Sorry,” I said. “My fault. Are you all right?”

  “Wasn’t your fault.” Ellen’s eyelids drooped.

  We maneuvered her onto the bed, tucking her beneath the sheet and blanket. Her hair haloed the pillow in gray mist. Ellen had gone from sixty-five to ninety-five overnight. Or had it come on gradually, and I’d not wanted to see?

  “I had this crazy idea that the doctors were wrong, that I’m improving. But I’m not, am I?”

  A lump swelled my throat. If I spoke, I’d start bawling. And I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop.

  “You don’t have to answer,” Ellen said. “I can try to fool myself as much as I want, but I know the truth.” She met each of our gazes in turn, lingering on me, and she smiled. “Karin. You’ve found love.”

  My stomach fluttered. “What? No.”

  “You have,” Ellen said. “The air around you has changed. Can’t you feel it? Your aura is glowing, gold and pink.” She sighed. “But there’s still darkness around you all.”

  We glanced at each other, and anxiety twisted my insides. Darkness?

  “Ellen, there’s nobody,” I said. “I’m not in love, and nothing’s changed.”

  Jayce bit her lip.

  “My body might be riddled with cancer,” Ellen said, “but like you, Karin, I can still see.”

  “No,” I said, my voice dull. I’d never had Ellen’s talent to see auras. I’d never had much magical talent at all beyond my knot magic, though I was a whiz with knitting magic, knotting glamours into scarves (for Jayce,) and writerly inspiration into fingerless gloves (for me and Lenore), and thick blankets for Lenore’s shamanic journeying. Magic is all about will and intent, and what focuses my will and intent are knots. I’m not sure what that says about me but lately, weaving spells of any sort had held little interest. “They’re pumping you full of drugs, and—”

  “It’s all right.” Ellen bit her lip and turned toward the window. A stellar jay alighted on the sill, thought better of it, and flew off. “Why should you believe me when I’ve spent a lifetime lying?”

  “Lying?” Jayce asked. “What are you talking about?”

  She looked to us and lowered her chin. “A lifetime of omission. You know how curses work. If you believe you’ve been cursed, they’re only that much more powerful. And I raised you girls to practice your protection morning and night. I thought if you didn’t grow up with it over your heads, you’d better be able to fight it when the time came. I’d no idea the time would come so quickly.”

  Lenore’s fair brow creased. “What are you talking about?”

  “A curse,” Ellen said. “The curse.”

  “A curse,” I said slowly. Every inhalation hurt. This was the drugs, exactly what Ellen had feared. She’d said she hadn’t wanted to die confused, and hear she was rambling on about curses, and—

  The air conditioner hummed to life, and we started.

  “Your mother’s death was no accident, and neither was your father’s.”

  “Our mother died in childbirth,” Jayce said, “and our father racing to get to the hospital. He crashed. There was no curse.”

  “Every woman in your line dies in childbirth with their firstborn daughter. And the firstborn are always daughters. Their husbands die shortly before or after the births as well. It’s been happening for centuries.”

  “Preeclampsia,” I said. “You told us it was genetic. We needed to be careful if we got pregnant—”

  “Oh, you may well have a genetic predisposition toward it,” Ellen said. “But every single mother? And the fathers as well? No, it’s the curse.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve read it,” our aunt said. “It’s written in your history.”

  “Our history,” Lenore repeated.

  “There’s no more time.” Ellen shifted beneath the sheets. “You need to know it now. One of your long ago ancestresses did something rather awful, a love curse, and the curse rebounded on her.”

  “A love curse?” Jayce asked. “What’s that?”

  “Your great, great, whatever grandmother fell in love with someone who wasn’t her husband. She got pregnant, and he left her. So she tried a love spell, with the postscript that if it didn’t work, her lover would die. He didn’t return, and he died, and the whole thing rebounded on her. This is real.”

  “But that’s not how curses work,” I said. “So she cursed herself. It wouldn’t come down to us. It would have ended with her.”

  “You don’t believe me.” Ellen twisted beneath the sheets, her lips whitening. “It’s all right. I understand. I didn’t want to believe it either when your parents told me about the curse. I was skeptical then, even if I was a practitioner. I always believed that you had to approach the paranormal with a discerning eye, to test, to know rather than simply believe.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” Lenore asked, her voice strained. She set her notebook on the table beside the bed.

  “I should have told you earlier.” Our aunt’s gnarled fingers tangled in the blanket. “I thought things would be different. There are three of you — the first sisters in, well, as far as I’ve been able to trace. And I was here to help, a practitioner outside the curse. But Karin, it’s you I owe the real apology to.”

  “No,” I said faintly. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “But the curse is there,” Ellen said, “a dark mass in your auras. I saw it from the beginning. Three little girls with such blackness around them. I prayed it wouldn’t warp you. It hasn’t. You, Jayce, with your connection to growing things and so full of life. But Lenore, I feared the danger was greatest for you, with your links to the other side. So much fear and darkness, especially for a small child. But here you are, as good as you ever were.”

  “And me?” My laugh was harsh, disbelieving. Ellen was dying, disoriented, and we were humoring her, that was all.

  “And you.” Ellen’s chin quivered. “And you.” Her voice cracked, and she coughed. Spittle dripped from the corner of her mouth, and Lenore hurried to blot it with a tissue from the bedside table.

  Ellen nodded her thanks. “Now tell me what’s happened. The truth.”

  “Nothing’s happened,” Jayce said.

  “Don’t lie,” our aunt said. “I raised you. I can tell when you’re not being honest. If you’re afraid the news will kill me, you’re too late. The cancer is doing that, thank you very much. Now tell me.”

  Ellen’s declaration stabbed at my core. All right then, the truth. “A woman’s body was found in Jayce’s shop.” My aunt might believe we suffered under a curse, but Ellen had always been matter-of-fact, facing problems straight on. If she wanted the truth, she deserved it. “Alicia Duarte. She was murdered.”

  My sisters shot me accusing looks.

  “Murdered,” our aunt said. “That explains it.”

  “Explains what?” None of this made sense. It felt as if my brain had slipped a gear.

  “The darkness is growing, but there’s chaos as well.” She clenched the sheet, her voice a rasp. “It’s all there, in your auras. And I can’t see… I can’t see what’s coming. But something has changed. Don’t you feel it?”

  Numb, I shuffled backward. I had felt something, and so had Jayce. Could what Ellen was saying be true? “If you see darkness, it must be the murder. There’s no curse involved. A human killed Alicia and left her in the café.”

  “If she was found in the café,” her aunt said, “then of course a human killed her.”

  “Besides, the curse is about death in childbirth,” Jayce said.

  “Yes,” Ellen said. “But my brother’s so-called accident before
you were born was part of it.”

  “So-called?” I asked. “He died in a car crash, racing to get to the hospital. You told us he was driving too fast.”

  “On a straight road in broad daylight. There was no reason for him to hit that tree.”

  “Maybe an animal ran in front of his car,” I reasoned. My heart beat erratically. “You said—”

  “I said a lot of things.” Ellen coughed, pressing the tissue to her mouth. “He knew he was marked too.”

  “But how can you know?” I asked. This couldn’t be true. “So women in our family tend to die in childbirth. You say you try to approach things as a skeptic. Well, a skeptic would say that’s an old story built to explain a genetic condition.”

  “Perhaps,” Ellen said. “But I can see it as clearly as the dark coiling around you three, as clearly as you…” She coughed, her gaze shifting. Ellen’s breathing grew labored. “Your parents knew about the curse when they married. But my brother had magic in him too. He thought together, they could beat it. And then he died in that car accident, and your mother knew she was dying as well. But she also knew she was bearing triplets — the first time there would be more than one cursed descendent in the world. In the hospital, she told me she’d been mistaken. She was convinced the curse would break with you. There’s power in three.”

  Stunned, I sat against the window seat. This wasn’t a drug haze. Ellen was too coherent.

  A curse. How could I have not known this?

  “When your mother went into labor, things went wrong so quickly. It was a miracle they were able to save you, Lenore, the youngest of you girls. The nurse pulled you out of your mother’s dead body, though the doctor said you wouldn’t be normal, and it would be a mercy not to try and save you. Thank heavens the nurse didn’t listen. And you, Karin. The cord was knotted so tightly around your neck, we thought you were dead. Your skin was blue. But as soon as they cut the cord, you began screaming.”

  I rubbed my neck and its tiny scar, a knick from a surgeon’s knife. This, we’d heard before.

  “The magic in you three runs deep,” Ellen said. “You, Jayce, born when your mother was in full health, with your connection to life and growing things. You, Lenore, afraid of the dark, born when your mother was dead, with your connection to the other side. And you, Karin, in between, with those magic knots.” Our aunt smiled. “All of that wearable magic you knit. And those contracts of yours certainly tie folks up in knots.”

  Earth, death, and knots. Our magic had been written in our birth. But a curse… “Yes, but…”

  “The curse is not a fable,” Ellen grated. “Not a fantasy. Real. Since I came to Doyle to raise you three, I’ve spent my life trying to break the damned thing, for the sake of your parents and for you girls. It’s real.”

  “But that’s not how curses work,” I said weakly, grasping for an escape hatch. “How could it come down to us from a hundred and fifty years ago?”

  “Someone’s keeping that curse alive,” Ellen said. “Someone in Doyle.”

  Someone rapped on the door frame, and Doctor Toeller pushed the curtain aside. “Hi, there.” The doctor smiled and brushed a stray wisp of gold and silver hair over her ear. “I hear the hospital doesn’t want to release you from its clutches?” She drew the stethoscope from the collar of her doctor’s coat.

  Ellen’s mouth twisted. “They say I have a fever.”

  “Cabin fever, most likely.” The doctor laid the back of her hand on Ellen’s brow. “The fever’s pretty low. I’ll see what I can do to spring you tomorrow, by the next day for sure.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” Ellen whispered.

  The doctor cocked her head. “And you girls, how are you three managing?”

  “We’re fine,” I said.

  “I heard about…” the doctor trailed off, glancing at Ellen.

  “She knows about Alicia’s murder,” I said.

  The doctor frowned. “I helped bring Alicia into this world. It’s hard to believe someone would take that beautiful life. Have you spoken to her husband?” She looked at Jayce.

  Jayce blinked. “No. No, not since Alicia’s death.”

  “I forgot to mention,” I said, “I took a casserole to Brayden yesterday. He’ll probably have a kitchen full of them by the end of the week. Sunny Peel, the realtor, stopped by with a lasagna when I was leaving.”

  Jayce’s face darkened with annoyance, but I chattered on, changing the subject. Was there anyone in Doyle who didn’t assume there was something between Jayce and Brayden Duarte?

  The doctor finally interrupted my babble. “Have you considered hospice services when Ellen gets home? They can be a tremendous help. Oh, and I have some instructions for the medication.” She patted the pockets of her white coat. “I seem to have left my notepad at the nurse’s station. Would one of you come with me, and I’ll write them out?”

  The doctor left the room, and I followed.

  Doctor Toeller handed me a business card. “Call hospice. They can provide someone to be there with you at the end, explain how everything works.”

  “Everything?” I ran my fingers along the edges of the white card.

  “The mortuary, the death certificate. I’m afraid there’s quite a lot of bureaucracy involved in dying. You’re lucky you’ve got your sisters to help. It can be overwhelming.” She pulled a notepad from her pocket.

  “So you didn’t leave that at the nurse’s desk.”

  “No, I didn’t want to talk about mortuaries in front of your aunt. She’s got enough on her plate.” The doctor pressed my hand. “Let me know what you need. I’ll help however I can. I’ve known your family since…” Her lips crimped. “It seems like forever. I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to do more for your aunt. She was a remarkable woman.”

  “She still is,” I said sadly.

  “Of course. I’m sorry. I misspoke.”

  “It’s all right.” I shook my head. “I understand what you meant.”

  Mortuaries, hospice, death certificates. Suddenly it was real. My aunt, the only mother I’d known, was going to die. “Excuse me.” I ran into a bathroom, locking the door behind me, and cried.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “So, who is he?” Jayce sipped her tea, ice rattling in the tall glass. Her dark hair spilled across the back of Lenore’s white couch.

  I returned a paperback to its place on top of the pile. “Who’s who?” After lunch, Ellen had ordered us from the hospital, telling us she wanted to be alone. It didn’t feel right leaving her, and I left with a nagging sense that something had been left unsaid. Though after the family curse bombshell, I couldn’t imagine what that might be.

  “Aunt Ellen said you’d fallen in love with someone.” Lenore sat, cross-legged, on a white ottoman with a brown stripe down the middle. In her white t-shirt and pale, linen slacks, she faded into the background of her apartment. She pulled the beaded chopstick from her bun and shook out her hair.

  “Aunt Ellen was wrong,” I said. “Unfortunately.” My chest tightened. With everything that was happening, they wanted to gossip about my non-existent love life? I blew out a breath. Or maybe that was why — light gossip was easier to face than Ellen’s death.

  “You mean fortunately, you’re not in love, if what Ellen said about the curse is true.” Jayce’s phone buzzed, and she checked it, tossed it to the cushion beside her.

  I slumped on the couch. “If you need to take that…”

  “Just some guy from the bar the other night.” Jayce shrugged.

  “He could be an alibi,” I said.

  Jayce cocked a brow. “He’d like to be more than that, but don’t change the subject. If we do find someone, we don’t have to have children. Maybe that’s how we break the curse. We could all adopt.”

  “I’ll have children,” I said.

  “Oh, really?” Jayce said. “Have you got a boyfriend and haven’t introduced us?”

  “No. I mean…” I trailed off, flustered. Where had that come from? “Never mind.
”

  “If what Ellen said was true?” Lenore asked. “I thought you believed in the curse, Jayce.”

  “I do,” she said. “But I wonder if any of us have the whole story. Karin, you’re the logical sister. What do you think?”

  I jerked down the hem of my shirt and opened my mouth to say if we bought into the curse, we’d make it true. But I couldn’t. Real or not, a dark part of me already believed. More importantly, our aunt believed.

  “When I was in Boston,” I said, “I spent a lot of time in Salem and in the university library, reading about witchcraft and curses.” The witchcraft research was a no-brainer. Our aunt had told us we were hedge witches, practicing traditional craft. Though Salem’s history was rooted in witch hysteria rather than actual witchcraft, the town today was steeped in magic.

  Jayce straightened on the over-stuffed couch. A pale throw cascaded off the back, puddling by her hips. “What? You didn’t tell us that.”

  “Our craft may be more traditional English, but there’s so much in Salem. I was curious, and I was working on that manuscript — you know, that paranormal romance.” Uneasy, I rubbed my nose.

  “And you found something,” Lenore said. “Didn’t you?”

  “Scientists believe curses are a sort of reverse placebo effect,” I said. “If you believe you’re cursed, you can manifest the effects of the curse. It’s all in your head, but it can feel real.”

  “But if it’s true that every single one of our ancestresses in the last hundred and fifty years has died in childbirth…” Lenore trailed off. “Do you really think that was all in their heads?”

  I clutched a throw pillow to my chest. “Lots of women died in childbirth. Modern medicine has changed things. And if the condition is genetic—”

  Jayce blew out her breath. “You didn’t have to go to Salem to find out how curses work. What did you really learn?”

  “Ellen’s story about the love affair and the death wish, it’s not unique,” I said. “I found a similar story in the history books.”

  “From the Salem witch trials?” Jayce asked.

  “No,” I said, “from ancient Rome. A poem by Theocritus that describes a desperate woman and her spells to get her lover back. And if he doesn’t fall for the spell, she wishes her lover dead. But the poem implies that she’ll poison the man if her spell fails, not use magic.”