Wicked Like a Wildfire (Hibiscus Daughter #1)(94)
“How would you know? You hated her stories.”
“I didn’t hate them,” he forced out. “And I always listened. And I’m just . . . I think something here doesn’t add up properly.”
Dunja moved so quickly I barely had time to gasp. One moment she’d been facing the lake, and in the next she’d streaked over to Luka, where she crouched balanced on the balls of her feet, violence radiating off her like a wildcat with a swishing tail.
“Maybe that’s true,” she said through gritted teeth, “and maybe it’s not. Either way, I don’t remember asking for a critical analysis from doubting Thomas. And unless you can present us with another solution, why don’t you consider not undermining your sister before she even begins?”
He met her gaze, his hazel eyes even. All of us held our breath as she considered him for a moment longer, eyes dangerously narrowed, then sprang up and spun on her heel.
“Um . . .” Niko turned to Dunja, warily. “It has to be you who does it, actually. You’re the one trying to move the spell, right, shift it from Mara and onto you? So the intention behind it has to be yours. You should be the one who sings, too.”
Silence settled over the four of us as Dunja stalked off to fetch the jug of gasoline that had been bumping in the back of the van beside the pots and pans. She doused it over the objects and the bristle of kindling that surrounded them. I felt a piercing pang for what would be lost. That singular tapestry; the bougainvillea, the gift I’d given my mother made with my own breath; the violin that my sister had used to play me everything I’d ever felt but couldn’t say, since she was barely old enough to hold it properly. Even the idea of burning the saint’s hand felt like sacrilege.
Still, there was a quivering sense of expectation in the warm, early-summer air, the sunlight dense as amber as it fell over us and broke itself into the ripples of the lake. The world beyond us and the lake seemed to have receded entirely. The van was tucked into a secluded campsite about a mile away, far from where tourists usually gathered, and it was still too early in the season for hikers and wildlife enthusiasts to be making their pilgrimages to the Black Lake.
I wondered if the name was why Dunja had chosen this place—yet another connection to Mara, besides its obvious and staggering beauty. A perfect ring of pines surrounded the water, reflected in its sky-blue surface; one of the pines had died, and stood white and bare next to its green neighbors like a lingering ghost.
Dunja stood still in front of the assemblage, gathering herself. She splayed and flexed her fingers a few times, the only sign of nervousness I’d seen her show so far. When she began singing, her voice was clear and lovely as a lyre. Probably all of them were taught to sing, along with everything else. Just in case that was something that he liked.
Her bones are of nightmares, her face cut from dreams,
Her eyes are twinned ice chips, cold glimmering things,
Her hair is the scent that will drive you to death,
Her lips are the kiss that will steal your last breath.
Kill her in winter, so she can birth spring.
Reaching into her deep pocket, Dunja withdrew a plastic lighter, small and orange, the kind you could get at any gas station. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that could set us free from an ancient magical binding, but then again, what did I know.
As if she’d caught my thought, Dunja hesitated, dancing the lighter through her fingers like a magician’s coin. Then she strode over to the leftover pile of kindling and found a slim little branch, rolling it between her palms as she strode back over to the pile. She dropped to her knees and angled the stripling against a central hank of wood. It whirled between her palms into a blur; one moment there was a bright ruby glint of sparking and a single thread of smoke, and in the next, flames raced over the pile like a conquering army. Dunja leaped neatly away as they whooshed together into a massive, roaring fire.
I bit my lip as my fractal bougainvillea charred and then melted, wilting in on itself like a true flower. Below it, Malina’s violin and the tapestry threw off a shower of sparks.
We watched it burn for a while, the smoke and fire smelling uncannily of winter against the sunlit day. Dunja’s eyes were closed and her face intense with concentration as she sang the next stanza.
To chase out the winter, build her to burn her,
Make her a body, the better to spurn her,
Build her of twigs, and of scraps, and of sticks,
Then build up the fire, and sing loud as it licks,
Kill her in winter, so she can birth spring.
Once the fire settled into a steady, almost homey crackle, Dunja reached for the pots and pans she’d filled with lake water earlier, and began tossing them over the conflagration. The flames hissed like a tangle of snakes, and the stink of wet wood rose and filled the air.
Strip her arms bare of glitter or silver,
Choke her and flay her, force her to deliver,
Drown her in lakebeds, or quick-running streams,
Dunk her in pond scum to smother her screams,
Kill her in winter, so she can birth spring.
As soon as the fire subsided, Dunja began picking up the objects and flinging them into the lake. Some still smoldered, and they’d have burned me to the bone if I’d tried to do it, but her movements were so deft and quick that once she was done, the few streaks of soot on her silk pants were the only signs that she’d even been close to the flames.