Sister Quatro (Scenes 9-14)

9

For a moment after Nico had finished in the library, Katherine and Celia stared at Nico with gaping mouths before trading glances and then looking back at Nico. Throughout the story, Celia's hold on Nico's hand had tightened into a sweaty grip across the girl's knuckles, till Nico said, “I’ve already finished, so can you let go?”

Only then did Celia realize it and let go, saying, "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?"

"No, it’s fine," Nico said under her breath.

Her gaze was fixed on the intricate design of the parquet flooring before Katherine's feet next to the solon sofa, but her eyes were still clouded over the contents of her story. Her face was a mask of repressed emotions, with tracks of tears still visible under watery eyes.

Katherine got up from the sofa and placed her hands on Nico's shoulders and crouched down at eye-level with Nico, breaking her introspective gaze and saying, "Are you okay?"

"No," Nico said, then stood up from her chair and extended her arms over her head, stretching her back and shoulders after sitting the whole time. She then took a few deep breaths and seemed a little better for it, till she turned towards the two Hearn sisters with new tears welling in her eyes and trailing down her cheeks. "I feel like hell."

And at her looks and at her words, both sisters got up and hugged Nico, wrapping their arms around her in sisterly commiseration.

"I didn't mean for you to relive that," Katherine said and let out a sigh, wondering how she or either of her younger sisters would have taken it if any of them had been faced with such circumstances. "If I'd have known it was like that, I wouldn't have pressed you to go further." Then she sucked in breath, feeling something horrible lurching in the pit of her stomach, then unclasped her arms from Nico and closed her eyes without pinpointing the source of her unease.

"What's wrong?" Celia said, but her sister didn't reply. "Kathy, what's going on?"

"I can't track Maddy's location."

"WHAT!” Celia said. “I thought you said you had mirrors all over this place!"

"I do, but I can't sense Maddy anywhere," Katherine said, summoning a large mirror in front of her and peering into the reflection for Madison's location and seeing a black haze obscuring her vision. "Shit!" she cursed. "Someone's tapped into the mirrors!"

Celia and Nico traded looks, and Celia grabbed onto Nico's hand, saying, "Do you think it's Rancaster?"

"It has to be," Nico said.

"Then I'm gonna go fetch Maddy," Celia said.

"No, you won't!" Katherine said.

"But Maddy's—"

"No mean no, Celia,” Katherine said. “I can't just have you teleport, willy-nilly, where I can't find you, especially with that Rancaster bastard out there!"

Yet Celia said, "But I can use my blood seal and—"

"I'm not letting you, damn it!" Katherine yelled, grabbing Celia’s hand in an iron grip. "You used it already today. If you use it again, you might die!"

"Geez, then what the hell do you expect me to do?" Celia said. "Let Maddy die?"

"No, just . . . God, let me think!"

"Guys!" Nico said, and both sisters looked back at her. "I can help you out, okay?"

"How?" Katherine said. "I can't even locate her through the mirrors."

"Just let me handle it, okay?" Nico said.

"Are you sure?" Celia said.

So Nico leaned closer to Celia and kissed her lips and then her eyes, then took one of Celia's hands and pressed it on the center of her chest, shocking Katherine into dropping her jaw again into another long gape. At this, a knowing smile pursed Nico's lips as she began to float from the ground and fade away into nothing towards the ceiling, saying, "My eyes are now your eyes, Celia. When I locate your sister, you'll know," and she disappeared through the ceiling, but then her voice resounded through the library as clear as day:

Don't worry. You'll see her when I find her.

10

Madison was dumbfounded when she doubled back along the hallway towards the broken mirror only to find it in pristine condition. Immediately, she took a double take but saw nobody behind her like before at the end of the hallway, so she turned back to the mirror. There were no cracks anywhere on the reflection, nor any dried blood seeping through the cracks, nor even fingerprint smudges after she had run her fingers across one of the larger shards by the mirror’s edge.

She looked at her other hand and still saw blood on her fingers from when she had touched it seeping through a crack in the center of the reflection. So she raised her fingertips to the surface of the mirror and was about to touch it but stopped short of doing it, for something in the back of her mind raised the hairs on her neck.

She backed away from the mirror and gulped, and her red hair began to float and flutter from her shoulders. She then turned one way and then the other way down both ends of the hallway, wondering where the threat was.

The carpet in the hallway to her left showed no signs of foot traffic, but the carpet in the hallway to her right showed only a minuscule amount of wear, as though someone (like Katherine) had walked that way often enough to warrant some interest. Then Katherine's naughty room flashed through Madison's mind, and she turned to go that direction where the naughty toys and dvd's were secreted away, but then she looked back again at the other end of the hallway—

And saw the girl with bobbed hair standing there.

Madison drew in breath and said, "Who are you? How did you—" But the girl turned and walked into the left side of the adjoining hallway ("Hey, get back here!"). So she ran after her, sprinting down the hallway and rounding the corner and expecting to see that strange girl just ahead—

And halted in her tracks.

The strange girl was there, all right, but with her was that man in the white suit with a sardonic grin.

Madison clenched her hands into fists, glaring at the man, and said, "What are you doing here?"

"I tried to find the proper entrance, believe me," Rancaster said, "but it seems there's no front door."

"Get out of here—now!"

"And void my hard-won invitation?" he said, and all at once, the reflections in the hallway mirrors blackened into inky pools. "That wouldn't be very punctual of me now, would it? Bambina," he added to the strange girl, "take care of this red-headed bitch for me."

Quick as a flash, the 'bambina' manifested two semiautomatic pistols in both hands and aimed and—

Madison cursed (“Fuck!”), bolting out of the path of bullets, rounding the corner and sprinting back down the hallway along rows of inky mirrors and locked doors, seeking the next turn at an intersecting hallway and wondering why Katherine wasn't here yet and praying that her sisters would come and aid her anytime now, yet she felt they weren’t coming.

So when Madison reached the other end of the hallway, she halted at the three-way intersection of hallways and faced the other end of the hallway and crouched down, placing her palm flat on the carpet and sending out dozens of seals along the hallway before her like land mines over the carpeting and booby traps on the walls and mirrors.

Soon after, the 'bambina' bolted around the corner at the opposite end of the hallway ("Careful now,” Rancaster said. “She's a tricky one.") but stopped short of crossing into the first of Madison's traps, so she raised her guns in Madison’s direction.

One realizing she had underestimated the range between herself and the 'bambina,' Madison yelled out, saying, "Kathy, Celia, where the hell are you?"

Shots fired as the ‘bambina’ emptied both clips, and a stream of bullets whizzed towards Madison at mach two, cutting through the air before she could hear the gun blasts, just moments from carving through her flesh, when a circle of pink roses appeared below Madison's feet, and Celia appeared a nanosecond later and blinked her sister out of harm’s way—

11

And into the library one floor below amidst the muffled echo of gunfire, both girls shaken and breathing hard in front of Nico and Katherine. Then Katherine ran up to her younger sisters and hugged them close to her, thanking every god in the sky that their crazy plan worked without a hitch, hugging them so tight that both sisters struggled beneath her momma-bear hug and had her let go.

“Oh, sorry,” Katherine said.

Both sisters gasped, but both sisters were alive.

"Christ," Madison breathed. "Why'd you have to cut it so damn close? Any closer, and I'd be a goner!"

"At least you're here, Maddy," Katherine said.

"Yeah," she said, "but how come it took you so long?"

"I wasn't able to locate you through any of my mirrors," Katherine said.

"We had Nico help us find you," Celia added.

At the mention of Nico Cairns, Madison turned and faced the girl, placing her hands on the girl's shoulders and saying, "You? You found me?"

"It took longer than I thought," Nico said. "I had to look through most of the hallways, but I don't think they found me out. At least, I hope not."

Silence followed Nico's words, as each girl deliberated on the next action to take, especially Katherine. She separated herself from the girls and stood apart, rolling the pros and cons of her next actions through her head, her face stern and her eyes steely and her breathing calm and controlled. Yet something within her swarmed and raged like a sea in a tempest, flooding the library with an awful chill, shuddering the space from the ceiling to the floor and shaking the furniture and the books on the shelves, and giving her companions goosebumps.

At this, Madison walked up to her on tenuous feet and said, "What are you thinking?"

Katherine made up her mind and said, "Celia, take Nico and Mara out of here. Maddy and I will handle it."

"But you just said—"

"This is my dream world," she said. "That bastard can control my mirrors, but he doesn't control me. I'll make sure he knows who he's messing with, that fucker! Nobody fucks with my family and gets away with it!"

Both sisters flinched at her use of f-bombs.

Celia complied and took Nico's hand, summoning another seal beneath her feet before saying, "I hope you know what you're doing, Kathy. Be careful," and she blinked Nico and herself out of the library—

12

And into Katherine's boudoir, where she summoned a huge seal below their feet, encompassing herself and Nico and even Mara on the bed, and blinked out of sight again.

But the spell couldn't complete its circuit and dropped them back inside the boudoir, back inside the danger zone. Celia was cursing under her breath (“No fucking way!”), as she released another spell encompassing all three girls and blinking them out of sight, only to have them reappear back in the boudoir. Then she tried a third time, releasing another spell encompassing herself and her companions and blinking them out of sight, but they reappeared in the boudoir, and that's when Celia cursed yet again, saying, "Shit!"

"What's wrong?" Nico said.

"I can't get you out of here,” Celia said, her mind racing for more options, one of which impressed itself on her more and more despite what Katherine said. "Fuck, I have no choice! Stay here and watch over Mara for me," she told Nico. "I need to let my sisters know about this."

And with that, Celia threw another seal below her feet and blinked out of sight.

Silence lingered for a time.

Then Nico sat on Mara’s bedside, looking at her sister still lying asleep, then said, “I hope you wake up soon,” and she reached out and held her hand and waited for Celia’s return and occupied herself with looking at the contents of the room again, until she noticed the reflection of the one-way mirror next to the vanity blackening into a swirling mass of energy. Nico got up and pressed her hand against the reflection and jerked her hand away as fragments of Rancaster’s sardonic smile flashed through her mind.

With no other options, Nico looked back at Mara’s clothes and had an idea.

13

Meanwhile, Celia appeared back in the library just as Katherine and Madison were walking through the doorway and heading towards the stairs.

"Wait!" she yelled.

Both sisters doubled back and spotted her, and Katherine said, "Why are you back here? Didn't I tell you to get out of here?"

"I can't get out," Celia said. "Something's blocking me!"

Katherine cursed (“God, damn it!”), summoned another large mirror in front of her and peered into the murky one-way reflection inside her boudoir and cursed yet again. "Damn it, I can't believe this! The bastard tapped this one, too." She then placed her hand against the reflection and sensed the mirrors in the house contaminated with Rancaster's influence and said, "He's got this whole place covered already, and he's got to every mirror except mine." She then sighed, knowing what she had to do next was going to be a painful act for her, but she sucked it up and just said, "Maddy, place your hand over mine on this mirror."

And Madison did so, saying, "What are you planning?"

"To blow up every mirror in this house."

"Are you crazy?"

"Every mirror except for mine," she said. "Mine stays whole. Can you do that for me?"

"I'll try, but . . ." she said. "Are you sure you wanna do this?"

"I'm sure," she said.

So Madison placed her hand over Katherine's, synching up with Katherine's mind, and placed her seals over all the mirrors in the hallways above them, as well as the mirrors on the floor they were in, but paused over the one-way mirror leading into the boudoir where Nico and Mara were. "Including the one in your private bedroom?"

"That one, too," Katherine said.

So she did so, saying, "You know this will hurt you, right?"

"I know. Just do it already!" Katherine said.

With that, Madison released her spell and exploded every mirror in the house, shaking the place to its foundations and rattling the bookshelves and furniture in the library and rumbling the flooring beneath their feet.

And with the explosion, Katherine winced and felt the concussive blasts of all the mirrors breaking into shards and digging into her chest in a vicious grip over her heart. She became dizzy and winded, nearly fainting, buckling her legs under the stress and falling to her knees and vomiting onto the floor under wave after wave of nausea.

Her sisters came to her aid, Celia and Madison grabbing both of her arms and dragging her limp body towards the couch and easing her onto the cushions.

"Kathy, are you okay?" Celia said.

"I'll be fine. Just give me a sec," she said, taking several deep breaths to steady herself, then lifting herself on tenuous feet as both of her sisters held onto her. Then she asked them to help her get to the mirror that now had a clear view into the boudoir, and she expanded its dimensions to fit all three of them passing through it at once. Then all three walked through the reflection—

14

And into the boudoir, where they found Nico in her underwear stripping off Mara’s clothes on the bed, pulling the bloodstained shirt over her sister's shoulders and revealing her bra and bare stomach and then unfastening Mara’s soiled dress skirt and pulling it off and revealing her soiled panties that had slipped off part of the way down her thighs. As Nico struggled to slip the panties back in place, all three Hearn sisters gaped and stared, wide-eyed, at the scene before them, and Celia said, "What are you doing?"

Nico looked at the faces of Celia and Madison and Katherine and blushed, saying, "It's not what it looks like. I'm just changing into her clothes, that's all."

"Why would you do that?" Madison added. "That's kind of creepy, you know."

Nico gave her a death-glare, making the older girl flinch, and said, "I'm doing it, so if Rancaster gets here, he'll have to deal with me to get to Mara. So there!"

"Okay, okay, we get it," Madison said. "Don't get your tits up, girl, geez!"

While Nico pulled on Mara’s shirt over herself, Celia and Madison took Katherine to the vanity table, where Celia wiped away the remaining shards of glass from the tabletop and the seat pan before easing her onto the chair for her to sit and rest. And while Nico walked into Mara’s skirt and pulled it up her legs and fastened it over her hips, Katherine slouched in the chair, facing the mirrorless backing that used to be her vanity mirror, then placed her head on her forearms over the tabletop, so her sisters won’t see her tears.

Celia said, "Are you sure you're okay, Kathy?"

"I'll be fine, don’t worry," she said. "Just give me a minute."

After pushing her sister into a sitting position and pulling her own shirt over Mara, Nico paused at a crying Katherine, saying, "What happened?"

"She asked me to break all the mirrors in the house, including those," Madison said, pointing at the empty vanity mirror and one-way body-length mirror on the floor beside it and the dozens of shards lying there. "It's not something I'd ever do, unless it's an emergency."

"What do you mean?" Nico said, lowering Mara back onto the bed and grabbing her dress skirt from the floor.

"Kathy has an affinity with mirrors," Celia said. "It's a rare skill among magic users, but she's very good at using them, and she knows it, too, but it has its downsides."

Nico mulled it over, thinking of the Evil Queen and her magic mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and said, "You mean, like, vanity?"

"That's the one," Madison said, "but in Kathy’s case, it's more like self-confidence. Kathy's mirrors reflect her will power, so breaking a lot of them at once will bring her down a few notches."

Katherine slammed her fist on the desk, shaking all three girls from their discussion, and said, "I can hear you! Stop harping on the obvious, okay? It's pissing me off!"

Celia and Madison and Nico clammed up and backed away from her, all three seeing a dark red aura emanating from Katherine's body.

Nico grabbed Madison's arm and whispered, "I've heard of mood swings, but that's crazy!"

"I know, trust me," she whispered. "My mood swings are nothing compared to hers."

"Does she always get this mad?" Nico asked.

"Not often, thank God," Celia said, “but when she does, run as fast as you can, and don’t look back.”

That's when the room turned drafty and cold, a swirl of energy emanating from the epicenter that was Katherine's corner of woe. When she lifted her head off the tabletop and wiped tears away with her sleeve and slowly turned to face them in her chair, she froze them where they stood with an icy glare, till they each turned white and trembled on wobbly legs.

"Don't . . . talk . . . behind . . . my back," Katherine said like a strict schoolmarm lording over three delinquents, "unless . . . you want . . . to die!"

At this, the girls gulped and kept nodding their heads, so she finally stopped her murderous stare, all three breathing out sighs of relief as though coming up for air from a deep dive, till Nico noticed the dress skirt still in her hand. And so, with perfect timing, Nico asked Celia and Madison to help her put the skirt on Mara in bed.

While they were thus occupied, Celia and Madison elevating Mara’s legs on the bed and Nico slipping the skirt up her legs and pulling it past her butt and fastening the waistband over her hips, Katherine had settled her emotions, taking another deep breath and breathing out the remnants of her outburst before saying, "I'm really sorry, guys. I didn't mean to explode you like that."

"That's okay, Kathy," Madison said, edging towards her elder sister by the vanity table and placing a comforting hand over her shoulder. "Just get some rest, okay? That last spell took a lot out of you."

"But I—"

"You need to rest, okay?" Celia said, coming up beside Madison and placing her own hand on Katherine's other shoulder. "I know you're used to giving out orders, but you're only human. You need to take a break some time."

And before Katherine protested, Nico came forward in between Madison and Celia and added, "We all need rest, Ms. Hearn. Let's hole up in this room for a while, and I'll keep a lookout for the time being."

At her formality, Katherine deflated somewhat and let out a sigh and said, "I guess you're right. Till I get my strength back, I won't be much use, anyway. But Nico," she added, turning around and facing the girl, "please, just call me by my first name, okay? The same goes for my sisters, too. None of us are strangers here."

"Okay," Nico said, keeping her distance with her gaze to the floor, keeping the turmoil of the last 24 hours from collapsing on herself in a rush of emotions she could no longer suppress in the idle moment, a desperate strength on the edge of breaking into a waterfall of tears. Now that she had time to think for herself, Nico felt the weight of it all bringing her down a few notches like Sisyphus doomed to roll a boulder up the mountain over and over and over.

Katherine then got up from her chair and hugged Nico close to her, saying, "It's okay. You don't have to keep it bottled up. Just let it all out, okay? Just let it out."

At her words, something inside Nico released like an overflowing dam, and her wide-eyed expression of being caught in a moment of weakness now melted into fits of crying over the dead and reliving the same hell that Mara experienced to the edge of her plight. She let all that baggage out in a cascade of regret, as she fell to pieces in Katherine's embrace and cried into her shirt.

All the while, Celia and Madison followed suit and wrapped their arms around both girls in commiseration, breaking down themselves into two more cascading waterfalls of tears. And in this way, even at their collective weakest, Katherine Hearn was their pillar of strength, their rock amidst the storm, their shield against the sword.

Tsuzuku