Polly squeezed a pillow to her chest and her legs bounced up and down at a frantic pace. She hadn't said much since Lillian confirmed her identity. She let us help her up and let us lead her to the chairs, but since then she hadn't done much else besides cry, fidget, and look a little green. I kept a wastebasket nearby, just in case.
We have to do something, Lillian said from inside my head.
This is a lot for her, I replied in thought. Let her process.
We don't have time for processing—
"How the fuck did this happen?" Polly muttered, finally breaking her silence.
I sighed with relief. "That's what we're going to find out."
She glared at me with eyes swollen red from crying. "Aren't you supposed to explain all this to me? How're you going to do that if you don't know?"
"Lillian is going to do the explaining," I said.
Polly narrowed her eyes like she did every time I mentioned Lillian—like she was still waiting for the trick to be revealed. Even after Lillian's airtight assurances...
"Is she there with you, right now?" she asked. "I heard you arguing, but it was like you were on the phone and I was only hearing one side."
I felt my cheeks go red. "She's kind of always here," I said. "Though she tends to only pipe up when she wants to."
I felt the flicker of Lillian's irritation. She was as easy to rile as her sister.
"Does that mean she can hear me, right now?" Polly asked.
"Yep."
Polly's eyes brightened. She opened her mouth but then paused before closing it again with a sigh. "You know all those things you wish you could say to someone if only you could see them again?"
I frowned but I nodded. I knew that feeling. I had a long list of those for Luc, for Rick, even my parents, and of course my grandmother...
She gave a strange half-laugh. "Here I am with a chance to actually do just that, and I can't think of any of them. My mind's just gone blank."
"They'll come to you... Give yourself some time."
Polly looked wary as she asked, "Maybe it'd help if you—she—explained a little more."
"Are you ready for that?" I asked, looking straight into her eyes to make sure she wasn't forcing herself to say yes. "We can take this as slow as you need—"
No, we can't, Lillian insisted.
Polly agreed, unknowingly, with her sister. "I've been waiting for too long for this to put it off. I can deal. Rip the bandaid off. Get it over with."
"Alright, then," I said. "Where do we start?" It was both a question to Polly and to Lillian. "With Luc? With the curse? Or—"
"Start with Lillian," Polly said. "That's the mystery that I've wanted to solve. What exactly happened to her? Tell me about her story."
I took a deep breath. "Well, okay..."
You heard her, I thought at Lillian. You're up.
But despite all her pushing, now she seemed hesitant. You know, this would all be easier if you let me take over for a—
"No," I snapped.
We've already done it—a few times, now. What's the problem?
"Because it was only a little at a time," I said. "But if this is going to take a while..."
"Are you talking to her?" Polly asked. "What are you talking about?"
I didn't even know how to answer her. Your dead sister wants to take over my body and I'm not sure how I feel about it...
Lillian was as stubborn as her sister. It's a long story, she continued despite my distraction, so yes it will take a little longer, but believe me, it will be much easier for me to do this than for you to play telephone.
I chewed my lip. It made sense and I hated that. "Alright, what do I have to—"
I didn't have to do anything. In a moment, I was outside myself again, floating overhead, looking at Polly and my own body sitting in the chairs below.
I watched myself look up at me. Again, blue had replaced my brown eyes. They shone like jewels, but they still looked wrong set into my face.
You're getting a little too good at that, I said with a scowl.
My face pulled into a smile before she turned back to Polly.
"Y-Your eyes!" Polly cried when she saw. "I thought I had imagined that..."
"Nope," Lillian said. Her voice moved easily through my lips. "It happens whenever I, uh, take over."
Polly gaped at her, her brow furrowed. "I didn't know you could do that."
"I'm still learning," Lillian said simply, like she was talking about some harmless hobby, not occupying another person's body. "Don't worry, Rachel's fine with it."
She sat up straight in the chair and crossed her legs. It was weird seeing my body act out someone else's mannerisms.
"It starts with our mother," she said, "By now, you know the obvious: I am—I was—a psychic, a gift that was passed down from our mother's side."
"A gift that was not passed down to me," Polly murmured.
My face frowned under Lillian's command. "It's not always certain how it's passed down, or how it manifests," she explained. "When I started to show signs and you didn't, they decided not to tell you because they didn't want you to feel left out."
"Well, they did a shit job of hiding it," Polly said, her words gathering sharpness. "Maybe I didn't know why you got special treatment, but I wasn't blind."
"No, but I was," Lillian said, her voice soft. "I knew it bothered you, but I pretended I didn't. I was too preoccupied with my own life to really notice—"
"To really care," Polly corrected sharply.
Lillian went silent and closed my eyes. "I know you're angry. You have every right to be. I want to get into this, I do. I really do. We just can't right now."
Polly took a deep breath. "Whatever you say."
There was a moment of strained silence between them before Lillian continued.
"From an early age," she began again. Her voice was awkward and oddly formal like she was reading from a script. "I showed considerable talent as a psychic. Mom was thrilled, of course, and she was insistent that I get the proper training to develop my talents. Remember when they sent me away to school?"
"Yeah, I remember being stonewalled when I asked why I wasn't going, too."
Lillian swallowed hard. "That was because the school was for those with psychic abilities."
"Yeah, I've figured that out by now," Polly said.
Her sister just nodded. "Right. Well, the school was very prestigious—it was founded by The Gathered. Only the best were accepted and only the best of the best were invited to join their order after—"
"Wait, The... The Gather? Gathered?" Polly asked, cutting in. "Who the fuck are they?"
My eyebrows cocked up with Lillian's surprise. "You were with Matilda for how long and she never mentioned The Gathered to you?"
"No," Polly said with a quick shake of her head. "She said she was retired, but she made it sound like she was some kind of ordinary job. I didn't think it was all... connected."
Lillian frowned. "That is strange. When I knew her, she was immensely proud of her position in the order. I don't know why she would hide it, unless..." Lillian trailed off. She shook my head. "No, we're getting off-topic again. All you need to know right now was that The Gathered is an old and powerful order, that I was set to become a member, and that Matilda was mentoring me to develop my power."
What were your powers? I asked, curious. I had heard plenty about Lillian's skill as a psychic, but never about what her actual powers were.
Lillian turned away from Polly, looking over my shoulder to glare up at where I floated overhead. It was a look that said, Stay out of this.
"Did Rachel say something?"
Lillian turned my body back to Polly. "What?" she asked.
"Rachel said something to you, didn't she?" Polly said, staring into Lillian's eyes. "What did she say?"
Lillian rolled her eyes. "She asked a question."
"So? Go ahead and answer."
"Not right now. This is a conversation between us—"
Polly cut her off. "Rachel deserves answers—all the answers—just as much as I do," she said. "Anything you'd share with me, I'd share with her. What did she ask?"
Lillian sniffed and shifted her shoulders. "She asked what my powers were."
"See?" Polly said, looking smug. "That's a perfectly reasonable question."
"I guess," Lillian huffed. She pursed my lips in a way that reminded me of Polly's own expressions. "My powers encompass a lot of things," she began reluctantly, "but my true talent is with auras. I can see beyond the simple colours most other aura readers see. My visions told stories, opened people up like books. I didn't need to be a mind reader—I read their soul, instead.
"And, unfortunately, that's how the trouble with Luc got started."
Upon hearing his name, my chest tightened painfully. I wasn't sure if it was a reaction from me... or from her. An uncomfortable thought flashed through my mind.
Did she still have feelings for Luc?
That was one question I didn't dare ask, regardless of Polly's wishes.
"I won't get into the details about my time with Luc," she continued, throwing me the quickest of glances. "I'm sure you know more than enough already. Just know that we were together while I was still in training, developing my vision before I took my oath for entry into the sisterhood.
"But as my vision grew stronger, I saw something new in Luc's aura—something I hadn't noticed before."
"What was it?" Polly said, leaning in closer.
Lillian reached out with my hand, skimming it along the edge of Polly's face."Right at the innermost edge of his aura was a hair-thin line, so fine that you wouldn't see it unless you were very really, really good. But my long hours of practice were paying off—I could see it. And when I looked closer, it really frightened me.
"The line was deep red, blood red. That colour... To see it in your aura, it means sickness. It means poison. It means death." I felt the shiver that ran up my spine as Lillian shuddered.
Polly frowned. "He was sick?"
"Not exactly. At the time I didn't know what it was about. I had seen such a colour before—in cancer patients, in accident victims. But in those instances, the colour bleeds out into the aura, encircling the areas with the most serious wounds. With him, the colour didn't bleed out, it encompassed him."
The way she explained it, it reminded me of someone I had almost completely forgotten about: Anne, my cantankerous co-worker from the thrift store. She had said something just like that, right before her bloody accident—that she could see that there was something wrong with my arm from the colour of my aura.
Lillian continued, "I decided not to tell him until I knew what it was for certain—I didn't want him to freak out if it turned out to be nothing. So I began to research. The Gathered had extensive resources that I was able to draw from, even if so much of it was behind locked doors." She seemed to deflate. "It took a while, but I finally figured out what it was.
"It was the mark of a very strong curse."
Wait, I said. So you're saying Luc was cursed before you even met him?
Lillian nodded my head. "I found it hard to believe, at first," she said. "I didn't understand why Luc, of all people, would be cursed. He was so sweet, so kind, so well-liked..." She stopped herself short, reining herself in. When she spoke again her voice was a little too even—detached. "Who would want to curse someone like that?"
"Then why didn't you go to The... The Whatever for help?" Polly asked.
"Because by then I had seen how they handled the things—the people—they considered threats," she said simply. "And a curse is a threat—even if you had nothing to do with it, even if you had no idea it was even there. And you know how they react. You've seen it for yourself, now. And so, I didn't want to put Luc in danger, because I lo—" She cut herself off again. "Either way, I figured it'd be simple. So far, everything had come easy to me, so I thought that everything would be easy," Lillian said, shaking my head and laughing softly to herself. "God, I was so naive."
"What did you do?" Polly asked.
"Exactly what I had learned from studying under The Gathered: a curse must be broken, bound, and banished," Lillian explained, counting the steps off my fingers. "I still didn't know where the curse came from, what it was meant to do, but I figured I didn't have to know all that to get rid of it. Just get in there and—" she snapped my fingers, "—clean it up. But, as you can probably guess, I was wrong.
"What I didn't understand was that the reason that line of curse clung so closely Luc was because it had already been bound. And my messing only broke the original bind, setting the curse free."
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