Mistress of Souls: A Prophecy of the Sisters Novella by Michelle Zink Page B

already half gone. Sometimes she stayed out too long, so unaware of her surroundings that her fingers and toes were numb from cold by the time she made her way indoors.
    Even the weather seemed to change. Though it was winter and already cold, the sky seemed darker, the storm clouds more threatening, as Alice sat in her circle, losing herself to the Otherworlds and the Souls. It was just such a night that Alice emerged from the Dark Room—her legs stiff from kneeling, her mind still half in the Otherworlds—to find Aunt Virginia standing in the hall. Waiting for her.
     
    “It is time we had a frank discussion.” Aunt Virginia had stood near the firebox, one hand on the mantel, while Alice sat on the sofa.
    “Fine.” Alice waved a hand absently in the air. She was beyond pretending to care what Virginia thought. “Say what you must.”
    “Your…activities are bringing great darkness to this house.” Virginia’s green eyes had been bright, brighter than Alice remembered them being, and she wondered if it was due to anger. It was possible that her unflappable aunt had finally summoned an emotion other than the efficient earnestness with which she approached all tasks relating to her dead sister’s household and family.
    For a moment, Alice had almost refuted the accusation. Denying her proclivity for the Plane was habit. But then a newfound rage rose within her, and she met her aunt’s eyes with an unwavering stare.
    “Well, it is, after all, my house,” Alice reminded her.
    Aunt Virginia’s cheeks had turned crimson, her mouth flattening into a straight line. “That may well be, but I have been designated as your legal guardian.”
    “My legal guardian?” A bitter laugh escaped Alice’s throat. “You were appointed another kind of Guardian to my mother’s Gate, were you not? And we both know how that turned out.”
    She had expected anger, but after a moment’s hesitation, Aunt Virginia simply sighed, crossing the room to sit next to Alice on the tufted sofa. She was surprised when her aunt took her hands. It had been many months, perhaps even years, since Virginia had touched her, since she had looked at Alice with anything other than the strange knowing gaze shrouded with worry.
    “Alice,” her aunt began, “I understand the battle you are fighting within yourself, the struggle to assume your place as Guardian when you were meant to be Gate.”
    A flash of white-hot anger illuminated the darkness that seemed always to shroud Alice’s heart. That is how it had become; the blackness lit only by fury or the euphoric release of her travels on the Plane, the affection shown her by the Souls.
    “You understand?” she had asked angrily, pulling her hands away. “You, who were born to be Guardian and who have not had a single moment’s doubt about your suitability to the role? You, who have never felt the companionship of the Souls, who have never had the desire to walk side by side with Samael? You have no knowledge of my battle.”
    Virginia sighed. “It is true that I have not suffered the same struggle. But I have seen it, Alice.” She started intently into Alice’s eyes. “I watched your mother battle it, watched him take her little by little, until what was left was a shell of the gay and laughing Addy of my childhood. And your mother was born to be Gate, born to bring Samael into this world. Your struggle must be that much greater for the confusion of your birth.”
    “Yes, because I was meant to be Gate like my mother,” Alice had hissed, the indignation of it, the unfairness, making her face hot.
    “But you are not,” Virginia said firmly. “The doctor pulled Lia from your mother’s womb first, ensuring her position as Gate and yours as Guardian.”
    Alice looked away, defeat slamming into her with Aunt Virginia’s words. “It isn’t fair. Neither of us wants the role we have.”
    She felt Virginia’s hand on hers. “And yet…perhaps that is the very purpose of this confusion.