Missed Fortunes: Covers 2
Twinned
Book 2: Missed Fortunes
Covers 2
Meeting with Pawel was a nice break from polish weekend, but as soon as Carolyn’s back at the house, she has a paintbrush in hand, and fumes to give her a headache. There isn’t much left to do; they’ve been working since the girls arrived back on Friday night. But it’s a big push to get the paint done in the last of the common rooms, while the girls on duty for this week’s dinner put it together in the kitchen.
“I’m thinking we go with Italian next week,” Soledad muses as she cleans a paint brush.
“We can’t buy from Minnisale’s,” Drea reminds her. “No ordering in to get out of cooking house dinner.”
“We can cook Italian. It’s easy, right? Sauce, pasta,” Soledad protests. “It makes it really easy to feed a crowd.”
“I think that sounds fine.” Carolyn strips off her smock, drops it in the bin Heather offers. She’s somehow become the leader of their small group, and she’s just happy when one of the other girls takes initiative. “I’ll check in with Trish to make sure she’s good for that, Soledad. Heather?”
“Italian’s fine.”
Carolyn’s gaze narrows. Heather stands quietly, the bin loose in her hands as she looks at the wall. “You okay?”
Heather blinks at her, taking a moment to focus. “Of course I’m okay. Everyone’s excited to be back; it’s just overwhelming. You know what it’s like.”
Carolyn doesn’t know exactly what it’s like, since she’s not an Empath. But she has seen Heather falter under strong crowd emotions before; it’s a reasonable explanation. “I know,” she says gently. “Next week we five get to hide in the kitchens instead. But this week, it’s someone else’s problem, and it’s just about time to eat.”
“Speaking of us five, where is my big anyway?” Soledad wipes her hands on a cloth after finishing the final paintbrush. “I haven’t seen Trish all weekend. I thought she was going to get in Friday with the rest of us.”
“She’s not getting in until tonight,” Drea offers. “I talked to Sera earlier, and they got a late start out of Nashville last night and decided to stop at the Falls this morning because they were going through Buffalo anyway, and Sera’s never seen them.”
Soledad’s mouth is slightly open. “Wait. How did Trish get out of polish weekend and why didn’t she tell me this?”
“Music. And she’s your big, so you tell me why the two of you aren’t talking,” Heather says sharply. A soft hiss of breath as soon as the words are out, and she shakes her head. “Sorry, that was really uncalled for. Still. If you’re having trouble with Trish, and you want to talk at all, my door’s open.”
Which means Carolyn’s door is open, but she’s used to that. It’s part of living with the house Empath, who doubles as the house counselor.
She wonders how they missed this, if Trish and Soledad didn’t click. It’s not how things usually work, and normally by now, Heather would have already fixed things.
“Yeah, no trouble, not really. We just don’t hang out all the time, I guess. Not like Carolyn and Drea.” A soft laugh from Soledad, a small shrug. “They’re, like, perfect. Right?”
“We got lucky.” Drea puts her arms around Carolyn, snuggles close and nuzzles her cheek. From anyone else, Carolyn’s skin might itch, but it’s okay with Drea. Easy. Acceptable. “I figure Caro checked her cards and I came up, so she knew I was the right one. Me, I couldn’t have asked for a better big.”
It’s not exactly how it happened, but it’s close enough. Heather gives Carolyn a knowing smile, and Drea hugs her again. “Strength,” Carolyn says, and when Drea looks at her curiously, she explains. “I did a one card cast when I was thinking of asking for a little, and it was the Strength card that made me think of you. The woman and her lion.”
It makes Drea laugh happily, which is good. But when Carolyn glances at Soledad, her expression has gone sour. Carolyn’s no good at smoothing things like that, but she resolves to talk to Trish, see if she can see where this relationship has gone wrong. The big sister/little sister relationship is supposed to be special, and she remembers Trish being excited in the fall. She’s not sure why she would just let it fall by the wayside. Carolyn waited until her junior year before asking, because she knew she wanted just the right person.
Drea’s right, though. They did get lucky.
As soon as cleanup completes, they head into dinner, the long tables set neatly with tablecloths and paper plates and plasticware. Several bowls of salad sit on each table, along with pans of macaroni and cheese, and several different optional meats to have with it. There are pans of steamed broccoli and cauliflower, and Carolyn swears she smells chocolate still in the oven.
“We’re definitely doing Italian,” Soledad whispers as she takes her seat. “And we’re using a little less cheese.”
They eat quietly and quickly, because with dessert comes an informal chapter meeting.
“Welcome back!” Lauranne calls out as they pass trash to one end of the table for the bins, and plates of brownies start being passed from the other end. “We’ve got a busy spring ahead of us—oh, thank you for joining us, Trish.” Her voice is dry enough to crack wood.
Trish slips into the empty chair next to Soledad, her leather jacket still zippered, black gloves on her hands. “Thank you for not locking the door,” she says as she peels the gloves off, one finger at a time.
Lauranne’s smile is tight. “Weather happens. We understand.”
Heather’s back is stiff, and Soledad looks at the table. Trish leans back in her chair, balancing on two legs.
The five of pentacles: consider your relationship closely before joining forces, because it may not be what you’re looking for. A card for the mundane gone wrong, in a moment when everything should be right between two people.
Drea looks over at Trish, nostrils flaring. She frowns, opens her mouth, closing it again quickly when Lauranne speaks.
“As I was saying, we’ve got a busy spring ahead of us,” Lauranne says. “Formal is in April, and the Paint it Red silent auction is in February. We only have two more weeks to finalize all donations for that, girls, so that we can get the programs printed. If you have a donation you’ve been waiting on, get in touch with the donor to get that settled and give the information to Mary. And get those tickets sold! We can’t have an auction without people there to buy. If you haven’t had any nibbles yet, go out and talk to the businesses around campus. There are always people just waiting to help out a good cause, and what’s better than heart health awareness?”
There’s a small shiver of pleasant energy at that, a rising urge to get up, go out, do something positive. Drea wrinkles her nose.
Heather.
Carolyn knocks her knee under the table, and the sensation fades to something less urgent.
“We’re also sponsoring the Saturday movie on February 4th; all proceeds will go to the Paint it Red fund,” Lauranne says. “We’ll need girls at the Madison Center to sell tickets, concessions, and work security and cleanup. Please see Sherry to sign up for a shift. We’ll also have two girls selling tickets for the silent auction and sending flyers home with anyone who might be interested in sending in sealed bids.
“If you want to participate in Outreach this semester, we have four Wednesday events scheduled at the middle school,” she continues. “The themes will be Music & Dance, Art for All Ages, Chemistry in the Kitchen, and Talent. Amber’s in charge, so see her for details. In good news, we have no need for recruitment this spring.” Lauranne’s gaze shifts and Carolyn finds herself meeting her eyes.
“No girls chose to transfer to different schools, or were asked to leave the house,” Lauranne says mildly. Her gaze shifts from Carolyn, slides over the others at the table. “For the moment, our numbers remain the same, so we will not have spring recruitment. The last item is that we will be sponsoring a part of the spring festival. For the freshmen who haven’t been through it before, spring festival is the week in April when elections occur on campus. There are events each night, and a picnic and carnival on Friday afternoon. Saturday there is an open-air concert, with a barbecue and movie in library plaza that night. It’s big, and we are in charge of the barbecue along with OPT. Please be prepared to attend and work hard.”
“I have a schedule of upcoming mixers,” Heather chimes in as Lauranne falls silent. “We’ve gone over the list and any fraternities who were offensive last semester have been struck from the list. We’ve also added one co-ed frat to our list, by request of several sisters.”
“Sign up sheets for the events are on the table,” Lauranne says. “I expect every sister to help out as needed. If you need to take time off for academics, though, we understand. Your education comes first. We are your sisterhood, and we are here to help you.”
Across the room a chair scrapes loudly, pushing back from the table.
“Sorry,” Mac calls out. “I thought that was the final bit.”
Lauranne purses her lips, but she nods sharply. “We’re done. Don’t forget to sign up.”
Mac is at the table before anyone else, bending to put her name to paper. Trish touches Soledad’s shoulder, and they walk over together. Drea stands and moves closer to Carolyn, leans in to whisper, “How did that happen?”
“What?” Carolyn asks, glancing at Heather as if she might have the answer because she has no idea what Drea’s talking about.
Drea gestures at where Trish and Soledad are sifting through papers together at the sign up table. “That. Isn’t there a process for who gets a little sister?” Drea asks quietly. “I mean, I had to give three names that I’d love to have as a big, and honestly, you were my top choice. Not because we’re alike, but because we really get on, and we have a lot of interests in common.”
“I thought it was because I remind you of your brother,” Carolyn says. She’s glad when Drea smiles at the small joke; if she’d had to explain it, she doesn’t think it would’ve come out well. But she sees it, even if no one else does. Drea’s twin is quiet. Reserved. Doesn’t always seem comfortable in a crowd or as if he fully understands the social cues. It’s something Carolyn understands. Alaric has Drea, and Carolyn has Heather and Kit. It makes sense.
“It started off better than it is now,” Heather says. “Soledad was enthusiastic, and she’s an art major. She and Trish were working on a project together in the fall. Then….” She shrugs rather than finish the sentence. “It’s like they just stopped talking all the time. Neither of them wants to talk to me about it.”
“So it’s not that there’s an intrinsic problem,” Drea muses. “But something’s broken. We can work on that.”
That gets Carolyn’s attention. “No,” she says quickly, and Heather bites back a smile. “We’re trying to teach Heather not to interfere with everyone, and you shouldn’t either. They have to figure things out for themselves or come to us for help. Heather offered already.”
“Who’s figuring what out?” Mac asks.
Drea flinches, rolls her eyes. “I hate when you do that.”
“And that’s exactly why I do it,” Mac says easily. “Your brother’s even more fun.” She hooks her arm around Drea’s elbow. “Come on. I was thinking that we could go upstairs and catch up. It’s been a while since we’ve all seen each other.”
“It was only a few weeks.” Heather’s brow furrows. “We all kept in touch. Didn’t we?”
Carolyn texted heavily with Heather over the break, and often with Drea. She only exchanged a few texts with Mac, and she knows that both Mac and Drea were holding back. “Sort of,” she says.
“Mostly,” Drea agrees. She glances at the table again. Trish and Soledad are talking now to another pair of sisters. Soledad explains something with wide hand gestures, and Trish laughs. Both seem more relaxed, and Drea exhales softly. She pats Mac’s hand, where it’s wrapped around her elbow. “You’re right, let’s go upstairs. Your room, or are we invading Caro’s space?”
“My space is a tiny single under the eaves,” Mac reminds her as they lead the way out, Carolyn and Heather trailing behind. “Funniest thing I’ve ever seen is Alaric trying to stand upright there.”
“Imagine if it was Rory.” Drea giggles, and Mac makes a face.
“I don’t think Rory would like it at all. Thorne’s been up there, but he’s short compared to both of them.”
“Thorne, huh?” Drea sways, knocking her hip into Mac’s.
“It’s not like that. No seriously, it’s not like that at all,” Mac protests, as Drea laughs. “Am I the only person on campus who hasn’t slept with him?”
“Drea fits,” Heather murmurs for Carolyn’s ears only. “But you’re still worried about something.”
Carolyn wonders sometimes if she let Heather in because she trusts her, or if Heather simply barreled past her walls. It works for them, though, and Carolyn does know that Heather would do nothing to hurt her. She bites her lip, watches as Drea continues to tease Mac and gets shoved lightly for her trouble. “I’m worried about Drea,” she admits. “And about Mac. And about everything that happened last semester. I know they both had a lot to deal with over break. Me, I just had to try not to kill my family for being idiots around Kit.”
“How is Kit?” Heather’s tone is light, and Carolyn doesn’t feel like getting into details. She’s not sure which details are most important right now.
She sticks with the high level. “He’s fine. We’re doing an independent study with Pawel this semester, and I think that’ll go a long way to figuring out how to be twins and Talented.” It goes deeper than that, but Carolyn doesn’t want to talk about Kit’s issues with their Lineage. Heather knows just enough, and anything else is Kit’s to discuss.
When they get to their room, Mac’s sprawled on Heather’s bed, and Drea sits on the floor, her back against Carolyn’s bed. Mac raises a hand, points at the door, and Carolyn pulls it closed behind them.
Heather settles on her bed, nudging Mac to give her some room. Carolyn isn’t sure she feels like sitting, so instead she grabs her bag and pulls it up to the bed, digging through it for her Tarot deck.
“I have good news and surprising news,” Drea announces.
Carolyn pauses, one hand on her deck, and looks down. “Is the surprising news good?”
“Surprisingly, yes.” Drea grins, stretches back to look up at her. “Alaric’s really settling into his whole heir thing. He talked to people during the Conclave, and when they voted a few weeks ago, the decision was that we won’t go to war.”
“Which is good.” Carolyn sinks down, to sit next to Drea. She pulls her knees up, props the deck there as she unwraps it carefully from the black fabric. It feels good to let the cards fall into her hands, shuffling them idly.
“Very good. He told you about it, Mac, right?”
Mac makes a noise, holds up one thumb. “The highlights I heard were that Dax visited, and then Alaric went to kick a tree. Chris visited, and somehow Alaric ended up making an alliance with some girl. The vote happened, and no war, which is good. Alaric went looking for a shadow and failed to find it, Chris left, and Alaric kicked a tree. Oh, and every time he overheard you and Corbin, he went and kicked trees. Or punched them. I should go apologize to your forest.”
“The forest is still standing, so we’re fine.” Drea picks at the hem of her jeans. “Corbin and I tried to spend a lot of time outside of the house over break. It’s funny. I mean, we all hear things better than humans. Ric and I smell things, but Corbin just notices things. Like a bird does. And growing up, we all knew that people had sex. We knew what it sounded like and smelled like and we didn’t care, but now? Now I do not want to know anything about it.”
Carolyn cringes inwardly. Her body curls, elbow moving to give Drea space. “I can’t even imagine.”
“I am betting Corbin thinks this is funny,” Mac says.
“He’s somewhere between finding it hysterical and horrifying,” Drea agrees. “He had fun annoying Ric right up until the moment that Chris got there. Then he finally quit.”
“Yeah, nope, not something I want to think about,” Carolyn mutters. “Moving on. Because there are some details left out of all that. What happened to that shadow? Is everything okay at home, is your dad okay? Did anything happen when Dax was there?”
“Your brother made an alliance?” Heather leans forward, and Drea’s nostrils flare. Heather winces. “Sorry. I’m trying not to. I’m just curious. I know Alaric has trouble making connections.”
“You don’t need to fix him.” Drea’s voice is soft but curt. “He’s growing into it. We met other people our age—some leaders, some heirs who will be leaders someday. And he found people who think like we do, and we made an alliance. Dayton is the ringleader of that other group, and she adopted Ric. He told her that—” She stalls out, stops dead on a breath, and exhales rather than finishing.
Mac sits up, moves to the edge of the bed and looks down at Drea, eyebrows up. Drea nods slowly.
Carolyn flips the card currently on the top of her deck. The wheel of fortune. “Change,” she says. “Things are flexible. Mutable, and we have to be able to roll with it because that change is coming quickly.”
Drea’s mouth snaps shut.
That was the card that came up for Drea’s birthday a few weeks back, when Carolyn offered a one card draw. Just one card to say what be a part of the year to come. For Carolyn, it’s significant that it shows again now. She bets Drea doesn’t remember it at all, so that can’t be why the sudden silence.
Mac grabs for her phone, fingers flying quickly across the keyboard while Heather sits bolt upright, hands in her lap, obviously not leaning to look. The phone chimes a moment later.
“He says go ahead,” Mac says.
“Ric told Dayton that he has a new form,” Drea says slowly. “You know how he thinks he’s broken? Well, he can change into a dragon now.”
“Dragons aren’t real.” Heather’s voice is high-pitched, tight. “What if he does that on the field?”
“You can’t both say it’s not possible and worry about it happening,” Mac points out, nudging Heather. “And it’s very real. I was there the first time it happened. More importantly, the shadows know that he can turn into a dragon, and it was a part of how we captured one.”
Carolyn had never heard the details of that afterward; things had happened quickly at the end of semester, and she wasn’t sure exactly how much Drea knew, either. She turns another card, and the handsome, severe face of the prince of cups stares back at her. “Same advice: roll with the punches and don’t hold anything back. Only he’s weary and war-torn and exhausted by all the arguments. He’s ready to move on.”
“Sounds like Ric to me.” Mac pats the edge of the bed, and Drea switches her seat, leaning back against the bed next to Mac’s knee. Mac slides her fingers through Drea’s hair, and Drea tilts, leaning against her thigh with a soft sigh. “What happened with Dax anyway? Alaric wasn’t exactly detailed on that, just pissed off.”
“Nothing.” Drea makes a face. “Dax went out to talk to Orson and came back saying that Orson’s not happy yet. I don’t think it’s about the war, I think it’s about the shadows themselves. But we don’t know how to chase them. Maybe Rory and Pawel could do another ritual to summon one, but until we know why or what to do, I don’t think there’s a point.” She’s quiet for a moment, her eyes closed and a low rumble rising from her throat. “Corbin and I went to the place where she was held. At home.”
“Mm?” Heather leans forward, and Drea puts up a hand to keep her from getting too close.
“We went in the house, and it reeks. It smells rotten there, like something horrible has happened. There wasn’t any sign of the shadow and we couldn’t stay long.” Drea licks her lips, shakes her head. “Not didn’t. Couldn’t. We both felt like we had to run, so we did. We ended up in the river, even though it was cold. We needed to get clean.”
“So that’s a dead end.” Mac’s fingers trail away from Drea as she falls back on the bed.
Carolyn carefully gathers up her cards, rewraps them. She’d like to keep shuffling, but with those two cards as the first drawn, she’s certain that any further advice will be down a similar path. Just keep going, it’s the right way, be ready for change. It’s good advice, she supposes, but not necessarily immediately helpful.
“How about your trip home?” Heather asks.
Mac laughs dryly. “Awkward. My dad came for Christmas, so it was him along with my mom and my stepdad. Everyone knew that I’d managed to expose myself as the incredible teleporting Emergent girl. Dad’s uncomfortable, and my stepdad thinks I shouldn’t be telling people.” Mac shrugs. “I’m looking forward to practice on Wednesday night. There’s a tournament in February and another one in March, so we’re going to need to push hard to get everyone ready who can compete.”
Carolyn translates that as Mac wants to hit things as much as Alaric was hitting trees over break.
“It’s all going to turn out okay in the end,” Heather says quietly. “Like Carolyn says, we need to be open to the changes that are coming. Roll with them and accept them.”
“It’d be nice if we could see them coming,” Drea mutters. “It’s all shadows and darkness, and this is one time we can’t see in the dark.”
Carolyn itches to reach for her deck again, to draw one more card. Just in case it’s something different.
Just in case it has the answer.
The problem is, she’s pretty sure that won’t happen anyway. So she lets the deck lie, and when the conversation drifts from the end of the world to Drea talking about Corbin’s antics, she lets that go, too.
