“Did it work?” Juniper’s voice rings too loud in the hush of nowhere.
Agnes ignores her, still reaching after that secret whisper in the dark, but it’s gone. Vanished. Tears slick her eyes, blurring the gray-green earth before her.
But then: “Gone, all of it gone, after all that work—”
“—disgraceful, what they’ve done to the place—”
Voices, querulous and strange, their accents lilting and lisping. Just on the other side of the tower door.
One of them shushes the others, and then—“In our day eavesdropping could get your ears turned into parsnips and your lips sewn shut. Come in, if you’re coming.”
James Juniper is the wild sister, fearless as a fox and curious as a crow; she goes first into the tower.
Inside she finds a ruin: snowdrifts of ash and char, the skeleton of the staircase still clinging to the walls, greasy soot blackening every stone.
And three women.
There is a strangeness to them, a blurred shine like moonlight on moving water, but it seems to fade even as Juniper watches, until they are as real and solid as the stone beneath their feet.
The first thing Juniper thinks is that none of them look like their storybook illustrations. They’re either uglier or more beautiful, she can’t tell which, riddled with scars and specks and the small imperfections that divide the real from the make-believe. And in the drawings the Three are always a matched set, like a single woman caught and preserved at three different ages. Sometimes they’re sisters; sometimes they’re grandmother and mother and daughter.
Juniper thinks the women standing in the tower are unlikely to share any ancestor besides the first witch herself.
One of them is gnarled and golden, with white-streaked hair and delicate lines of script tattooed across the veined backs of her hands. Her robes are wide-sleeved and monkish, black as ink.
One of them is beautiful and brown, with scars stippling her cheeks and a sword strapped crosswise over one shoulder. Her armor is overlapping scales, shining black as old blood.
One of them is pale and fey, with ivory antlers sprouting from matted dark hair and yellowed teeth strung in a necklace around her throat. Her dress is ragged and torn, black as a moonless night.
She meets Juniper’s eyes and Juniper feels a thrill of recognition.
Juniper always loved maiden-stories best. Maidens are supposed to be sweet, soft creatures who braid daisy-crowns and turn themselves into laurel trees rather than suffer the loss of their innocence, but the Maiden is none of those things. She’s the fierce one, the feral one, the witch who lives free in the wild woods. She’s the siren and the selkie, the virgin and the valkyrie; Artemis and Athena. She’s the little girl in the red cloak who doesn’t run from the wolf but walks arm in arm with him deeper into the woods.
Juniper knows her by the savage green of her eyes, the vicious curve of her smile. An adder drapes over her shoulders like a strip of dark velvet, like the carved-yew snake of Juniper’s staff come to life. Juniper’s smile could be the Maiden’s own, sharp and white, mirrored back across the centuries.
Agnes Amaranth is the strong sister, steady as a stone and twice as hard; she walks second into the tower.
She’s never liked mother-stories much. They make her think of her own mother and wish she’d been someone else, someone who would’ve sent their daddy running for the hills the first time he raised a hand against her. Someone like the Mother herself.
Mothers are supposed to be weak, weepy creatures, women who give birth to their children and drift peacefully into death, but the Mother is none of those things. She’s the brave one, the ruthless one, the witch who traded the birthing-chamber for the battlefield, the kitchen for the knife. She is bloody Boadicea and heartless Hera, the mother who became a monster.
None of the stories mention the oiled brown of her skin or the smooth lines of scars along her cheeks, but Agnes knows her by the iron set of her jaw, the unyielding line of her spine. A black python wraps around one arm, heavy-bodied and red-eyed.
Agnes bows her head and the Mother bows back to her, like two soldiers meeting in battle.
Beatrice Belladonna is the wise sister, quiet and clever as an owl in the rafters; she walks last into the tower.
She never believed in crone-stories, even as a girl. She determined long ago that the Crone was an amalgamation of myths and fables, an expression of collective fear rather than an actual old woman.
Old women are supposed to be doting and addled, absent-minded grandmothers who spoil their sons and keep soup bubbling on the stove-top, but the Crone is none of those things. She’s the canny one, the knowing one, the too-wise witch who knows the words to every curse and the ingredients for every poison. She is Baba Yaga and Black Anna; she is the wicked fairy who hands out curses rather than christening-gifts.
Bella knows her by her fingertips: ink-stained, tattooed with words in a dozen dead languages. A delicate asp coils around one wrist.
“Well met, Misses Eastwood.” Her voice is dust and honey, her accent patchworked together from a hundred languages living and dead.
“Took you long enough.” That’s the antlered woman, with a voice like snake teeth and briars.
“Well.” Juniper shrugs. “We were busy. And you were dead.”
The Maiden makes a hissing sound, as if this complaint is a very foolish one.
The Mother intercedes in a voice like iron. “Why have you woken us? What is it that you need?” She looks at Agnes as she asks, her eyes tracing the milk-stains down her blouse. There’s a darkness in her face that makes Bella think of sharpened blades.
“Help,” breathes Agnes, before she buries her face in both hands and begins to sob.
Maleficae quondam,
maleficaeque futurae
Purpose unknown
James Juniper catches her sister around the shoulders and eases her down to the black-scorched stones. Agnes is trying to explain between gulps and shudders, about Gideon Hill and the election, about Eve and votes for women and the burning of the library, but Juniper isn’t sure how much sense she’s making.
The Three watch her with concern in their mismatched eyes. The Three who shouldn’t have eyes at all, who should be dead but aren’t. Juniper watches the Maiden, all deerskin and white flesh, and resists the urge to touch her, to see if her hand passes through her skin.
Eventually the Mother says, “Hush, child,” and Agnes hiccups to a stop. The Mother stamps her foot once and a sudden wind whips through the tower, scouring away the heaped ashes and the stink of smoke. The Maiden flicks her hand and moss wriggles up between the seams of the flagstone floor, green and soft as spring. The Crone settles herself with a huff that makes Juniper think of Mama Mags.
“Start at the beginning,” she orders, and Juniper wonders which beginning she means. The day they called the tower into St. George’s Square and found one another again? Or seven years before, when she ran down the rutted road after her sisters, begging them not to leave her? Or maybe the beginning of their story is the same as the middle and the end: Once there were three sisters.
Agnes starts with Eve, which Juniper figures is the beginning of a different story. She tells the Three about the fever they couldn’t cure and the mockingbird message she shouldn’t have sent. She tells them about Hill holding the red curl of her daughter’s hair, and Juniper feels the pain of it in the binding between them, an open wound sown with salt.