Old news. "You're new on the job, cat. Dixie would have seen it coming. She'd been through it all before. I think every one of us has run away. Aunt Jean told me she did. She woke up in the middle of the night and felt the place choking her like a noose. Packed an old carpetbag from the attic, left a note on the kitchen table, and hitched a ride to the train station. Didn't come back for three years. Me, I stayed away for five. And that doesn't count the years in college."
The cat just slitted her eyes above the chin rub she'd deigned to accept. No comment to offer. The House probably felt the same way. It had outlasted centuries of Haskell women trying to run away from their duty. Damn near every one of them had finally come back. Like Alice.
But Alice hadn't been called away in the middle of a crisis. Aunt Jean hadn't needed her. Hadn't faced someone dumping ritual sacrifices all over Sunrise County. And Aunt Jean had been healthy, hadn't started the long slow painful dive into her grave until after Alice gave in to the inevitable.
Let's get a little truth in advertising here. The second time, you stayed away until you finally admitted that Raye wasn't enough. You couldn't face Kate's marriage, Kate's pregnancy, Kate's accident, Kate's baby. Jealous bitch, had to beat it out of your system. Finally understood that just seeing Kate every few days meant more to you than having Raye in your bed every night.
Alice switched hands on the cat's cheekbones and jerked loose another runner of the demon witch-grass. Damned name was a back-handed compliment, really. The weed was a royal pest, hardy and spread like lightning on any disturbed soil. Yankee kudzu. Turn your back on it for a week and it was all over town. And you couldn't kill it off. The best you could do was a watchful draw.
Just like a good witch.
Atropos cocked one ear back toward the village. She lay there for a minute, still purring, then stretched slowly, flowing off Alice's lap one paw at a time, turned, and padded across the lawn, tail up. Finally, Alice heard it too, over the soft chanting from the stereo — the unique throaty bellow of Kate's old truck downshifted for a hill. Whatever engine lurked under that mismatched hood, there wasn't a twin to it still running in the whole county. The cat knew it from miles away. She never guessed wrong.
The cat froze in mid-stride, one paw up like a pointer dog. Then her tail dropped and she slunk off into the roses by the front picket fence. What the hell?
Atropos liked Kate. The big moose had a magic touch, knew exactly which muscles to knead and how hard to press. The calico melted under her hands. Damn sure Alice benefited from Kate's talented fingers, as well. Why would the cat hide?
The truck rumbled around the corner and crunched to a stop on the gravel driveway. Kate sat for a minute, glaring at the House, and then noticed Alice by the kitchen garden. The glare moved to her.
Kate was mad. After thirty-forty years of practice, Alice knew that look. And you didn't mess with a mad Kate.
Kate opened the cab door, climbed down, and slammed the door so hard the truck rocked on its springs. She'd left the engine running, habit from when she couldn't be sure of starting it up again. She stalked across the gravel and grass to loom over Alice.
"Fucking Highlands Trust. How long have you known about that?"
Alice blinked. "Huh?"
"That land up on the ridge. The stone circle. It's a court day, I had time to kill, so I went over to the Registry of Deeds. The land is owned by something called The Highlands Trust, administered by a bunch of lawyers parked right across the street from the courthouse. The firm dates back damn near to the Pilgrims."
"Huh?" Brilliant response, as well as repetitive, but Alice couldn't figure out how this tied in to her. Kate looked like she had a personal bitch to file.
"Every case I had was uncontested. Traffic stuff and unlicensed dogs. Fucking wasted morning. So I went over and poked at the lawyers to kill some time. Guess what I found?"
"Kate, I don't have a clue. I know you're mad. I think you're mad at me, and I don't know why."
Kate glared down and shook her head. "Goddamn Haskells. Fingers in every pie. 'Don't faint if you find your family name attached to it,' the lady says. 'Bet your truck already knew that road before you ever drove it,' she says. Now she doesn't have a clue." Kate growled deep in her throat and limped to the far end of the garden.
She spun around and pointed one of those huge fingers like a gun. "Turns out Highlands Trust is me. Sole beneficiary, set up by Grannie Rowley. About two thousand acres up on that ridge, a trust fund to pay the taxes, and the excess reinvested over the last thirty years. About fifty grand in excess, goddammit! You got any idea what I would have done for fifty thousand dollars?" She spat into the pile of evicted weeds. "Nah. Fifty grand is pocket change to you Haskells."
"Kate, I . . ."
Kate held up a hand, cutting off the words in Alice's mouth. "Yeah. You don't know a damn thing about it. Bullshit. When Glooscap screwed the river's daughter, some ancestral Haskell sat behind a bush and watched, counting every grunt and naming all the children. Ten thousand years ago, you still remember it. I've heard you do the chants, goddammit! So don't claim you don't remember something that happened thirty fucking years ago."
Alice felt her own temper rising, felt the
