Double-Sided Witch (Covencraft Book 3) by Margarita Gakis Page A

fingers.
    Blood. It blossomed bright red against her pale skin, like water over the petals of a delicate flower. As she turned her hand, a few fat drops ran down her fingers, then her palm and started crossing her wrist. She had to look away then. Blood on her hands, on her wrists always made her think of the day Lily left. But that wasn’t what this dream was. These were only the cuts from the mirror, when she thought she saw Lily. Nothing more, nothing less. She didn’t have any other wounds on her. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from turning her hands over, palms up and checking her arms. No wounds, just smooth skin with the hint of blue-green veins underneath.
    Her fingers throbbed in time with her heartbeat and she found herself pausing in her walk toward the lake, distracted by the pulse. One-two. One-two. One-two.
    The sparrow dug its feet into her shoulder and she winced. She started moving forward again.
    This time on the dock, her body knew how to sway along with the slight movement. Keeping her balance felt easier than before. She walked to the end and then curled her toes over the edge, feeling the rough, worn wood under her feet. It was foolish of her to be standing so close. She couldn’t swim.
    In the first dream she’d had of Lily at the lake, back when Jade had been worried about Dex, Lily had been underwater, her eyes closed, her arms reaching up, like a ghostly stalagmite stretching for the surface. Jade stared at the spot where Lily had been before, but there was nothing out there now. Just the flat surface of the cold water. It reflected back broken fragments of the sky and the surrounding trees - the picture jumbled and odd.
    The sparrow nibbled at her neck and Jade raised a hand to flick it off or push it away. It unset her balance and she felt herself falling toward the water. Time slowed in the impossible way it can in dreams and she was able to turn, putting her back to the water. She was out of step with time, tipping backward so slowly that it seemed she would have forever to dread and fear hitting the water. She could see a shape on the dock. It must have been standing behind her - a cloaked figure, the face hidden by black folds, like a grim reaper. It stood still and solemn, neither helping nor hindering. Behind that figure was Lily - her eyes, so green, so wide. She was like Jade - moving so slowly she was nearly frozen. Her hair moving around her face like lazy smoke. Her hand stretched out toward Jade, as though she wanted to stop her from falling. Her mouth was open, mid-shout, but there was no sound. Nothing from the forest, nothing from the cloaked figure, nothing from Jade herself.
    Except her heart. One-two. One-two. One-two. An absurd number of beats in her ear as she fell backward, the water moving up to meet her.
    Jade woke up, again not in her bedroom, but in the kitchen, halfway to the back door. Her heart stuttered in surprise and she shook her head to clear it. Feeling wetness on her fingers she looked down. Tiny red droplets of blood were dripping from her bandage-free fingers, leaving small crimson spots on the kitchen linoleum. The time on the microwave said two in the morning - way too early for her to be up and only about an hour or so after she’d gone to bed. She looked slowly around, hoping a reason for her being in the kitchen would come to her. None did.
    Mechanically, she went through the motions of cleaning up the blood she trailed on the floor, following little bloody droplets all the way out of the kitchen, through the living room and up the stairs to her bedroom. Thank God she didn’t have carpet. What a disaster. It was easier to focus on the mess that could have been instead of thinking about her dream.
    Back in her room, she found her old bandages by the side of the bed and could only guess that she’d ripped them off in her sleep. A quick peek in the closet showed Bruce sleeping like the dead - his belly rising and falling heavily. It made her smile.