Sisters of Isis: Volume 1 Read online

  The Summoning and Divine One © 2007 by Lynne Ewing

  All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-6430-2

  Visit www.disneyhyperion.com

  Table of Contents

  Book One: The Summoning

  Book One-Dedications

  Book One-Chapter 1

  Book One-Chapter 2

  Book One-Chapter 3

  Book One-Chapter 4

  Book One-Chapter 5

  Book One-Chapter 6

  Book One-Chapter 7

  Book One-Chapter 8

  Book One-Chapter 9

  Book One-Chapter 10

  Book One-Chapter 11

  Book One-Chapter 12

  Book One-Chapter 13

  Book One-Chapter 14

  Book One-Chapter 15

  Book One-Chapter 16

  Book One-Chapter 17

  Book One-Chapter 18

  Book One-Chapter 19

  Book One-Chapter 20

  Book One-Chapter 21

  Book One-Chapter 22

  Book One-Chapter 23

  Book One-Chapter 24

  Book Two: Divine One

  Book Two-Dedications

  Book Two-Chapter 1

  Book Two-Chapter 2

  Book Two-Chapter 3

  Book Two-Chapter 4

  Book Two-Chapter 5

  Book Two-Chapter 6

  Book Two-Chapter 7

  Book Two-Chapter 8

  Book Two-Chapter 9

  Book Two-Chapter 10

  Book Two-Chapter 11

  Book Two-Chapter 12

  Book Two-Chapter 13

  Book Two-Chapter 14

  Book Two-Chapter 15

  Book Two-Chapter 16

  Book Two-Chapter 17

  Book Two-Chapter 18

  Book Two-Chapter 19

  Book Two-Chapter 20

  Book Two-Chapter 21

  Book Two-Chapter 22

  Book Two-Chapter 23

  Book Two-Chapter 24

  For Lyla Lynne Firuza Osmanov-Fitzgerald who brought joy back into my life, and also for my very patient editor, Jennifer Besser.

  Thank you both.

  Sleep did not fall away from Sudi at once, but in slow swings between dreams and wakefulness. She fought the dream world, struggling to come back, and when finally she rose up from deep within her mind, the sharp, cold air made her reach for her covers. She flung her hand out, searching for her quilt, and lost her balance. Her eyes flashed open, and she let out a startled cry. She was no longer in her bed, where she had gone to sleep, but outside, and falling down her front-porch steps. She grabbed the iron railing and caught herself. Her elbows and arms scraped over the twisting balusters.

  She pulled herself up and stood, too frightened to do more than stare out at the grayish white clouds skittering across the moonlit sky. She couldn’t remember climbing from her bed or walking down the stairs, yet she stood in front of her house, barefoot and dressed in a long, loose T-shirt that flapped wildly in the autumn wind.

  The front door stood open behind her, and she could feel the heat coming from the house. Her father must have forgotten to turn the thermostat down again. Maybe she had been sleepwalking to escape the high temperature. That would explain why her nightmare had seemed so real. In the dream she had been wandering over scorching desert sand, lost among endless limestone mountains and barren valleys, her lungs barely able to take in the hot air.

  But her logic didn’t calm the trembling in her knees and hands. What would have happened if she had continued down to the canal or the Potomac River and fallen into the water?

  She started back inside, and as she crossed the threshold, a new worry seized her. Her parents and sisters were asleep upstairs, unaware that Sudi had left them vulnerable to predators. Sudi didn’t know how long she’d been standing outside. She touched her cheek. Her skin felt cold. She hoped she hadn’t let in something that didn’t belong, and at the same time she didn’t understand why such a concern should cross her mind. Her family lived in a safe part of the District.

  As she started to close the door, a long, doleful howl made her pause. She stared out at the night, suddenly aware of another presence. She searched the shadows, sensing something staring back at her.

  The cry repeated, more human than wolf, and for the briefest moment she thought someone was trying to scare her. She tried to convince herself that the wail came from a foreign breed, a diplomat’s dog. After all, she lived in Washington, D.C., and unusual animals were brought here from faraway countries. Maybe this one had a peculiar bark, a feral cry.

  She shut the door and slipped the deadbolt in place, then turned the thermostat down and went into the kitchen. She switched on the overhead light. If her best friend, Sara, had been there, the two of them would have been falling against each other and laughing at how frightened Sudi had become, but alone Sudi couldn’t find the humor in her fear. She opened the refrigerator with tremulous fingers and pulled out a carton of cherry-vanilla ice cream.

  Her cat, Patty Pie, rubbed against her leg, begging with purrs and meows for a bite. Sudi found a spoon, scooped a tad into Pie’s dish, then stood over the sink and spooned a larger bite into her own mouth. She let the ice cream melt over her tongue.

  As she started to dip her spoon into the carton again, Pie hissed. Sudi turned to see what had upset her cat, and as she did, she caught an image in the corner of her eye. She turned back and glanced up. Behind her reflection on the windowpane, a long, snouted face with lurid eyes and tall, pointed ears glared back at her.

  The spoon fell from her hand and clanked against the porcelain sink. Sudi stepped back, dropping the carton of ice cream. She switched off the light and stood in the dark, gazing back at the empty window frame. She wasn’t sure what she had expected to see, but the wraithlike image was gone now.

  She tried to convince herself that a lost dog had seen the light in the kitchen and had stood on its back paws, nose against the window, begging for her company. But such an animal would have needed to stretch to a height of seven feet at least. She didn’t think that was possible.

  Without considering it more, she picked up the carton of ice cream, then took a roll of paper towels and cleaned up the mess on the floor. A soft thump on the back steps near the mud porch made her freeze. She was too afraid to go and see what was making the sound.

  Reason told her that it was just the stray dog, trying to get inside, but still her heart continued to pound. She didn’t believe in ghosts or demons, and she had never been afraid of the night. She tried to talk herself out of her uneasiness—but then she saw Pie.

  The yellow cat crouched low and backed away, appearing afraid, the fur on his back standing straight up.

  Sudi’s instincts took over. She raced up the stairs to her bedroom, Pie scampering beside her. The cat darted into the room ahead of her. She turned on the light, and when she closed the door, the sudden movement stirred the air and the pile of torn-up photographs on her desk fluttered before settling again.

  She had spent the afternoon ripping up all of her pictures of Brian. She wanted zero reminders of him. But now she wondered if maybe the breakup with Brian was affecting her more than she wanted to admit. Brian had scared her. Did he still? Could anxiety have caused her sleepwalking?

  She grabbed the masking tape from her desk drawer and tore off several pieces, then stuck them
over the doorjamb and across the door. The tape wouldn’t stop her from leaving her room, but she hoped that untangling it would be enough to awaken her if she did start sleepwalking again. She crawled into bed, wanting nothing more than to huddle under her covers and lose herself in dreams. Pie jumped on the quilt, curled up beside her, and began purring noisily.

  As Sudi drifted off, she thought of Brian again. They had broken up on Saturday, but the real break had come the day Dominique Dupont had transferred into Lincoln High School. Her father was the cultural attaché at the French embassy. Usually the diplomats’ kids attended Entre Nous Academy, but Dominique had wanted to experience the “real” American teen life, so she had enrolled in public school.

  Sudi shuddered, trying to push memories of Brian away. She should have felt grateful that they were through, so why did she keep crying? It wasn’t as if she had really been crazy about Brian, anyway. She had liked Scott, but Brian had asked her out first, and by her third date with Brian, everyone was calling them a couple.

  Then Brian had revealed a darker side, and everything about their relationship had changed. What had made her go back for more?

  She drifted off, her mind replaying the memory of the night she wanted to forget.

  * * *

  Morning came before Sudi was ready. She blinked at the sunlight, grateful to find herself in bed. The masking tape still bridged the crack between her wall and the door, and the fear she had experienced the night before felt like a fading dream. She pulled the covers over her head and rolled over.

  Her cheek hit something hard. Her eyes opened.

  A snake lay beside her.

  She jumped out of bed and choked on a scream. The reptile was made of bronze, maybe four feet long, and inlaid with blue and green stones that mimicked a viper’s skin. She picked it up, surprise mingling with curiosity. It might have been someone’s staff or walking stick. She smoothed her hand over the symbols etched in the sides. The tiny pictures looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs. Her fingers caressed the beetles, frogs, and baboons.

  The images squirmed beneath her touch until they were streaming down the rod.

  She cried out and dropped the snake. The rod clanked on the hardwood floor.

  She rubbed her hand down her T-shirt, trying to erase the unpleasant feeling on her skin. Sunshine reflecting off the bronze had probably given the impression that the images were moving, but that didn’t explain the strange throbbing beneath her fingers. She looked around wondering how the snake had gotten into her bed.

  A sudden gust blew through her open window and caught the pile of torn-up photographs. Bits and pieces of Brian’s face whirled around her. The sheer panels between the drapes had been pulled aside, and the window screen rested against the wall. Maybe she had gone sleepwalking again after all.

  Panic-stricken, she examined her hands and knees for proof that she had crawled out onto the porch roof while still asleep. She imagined herself digging through a neighbor’s trash, finding the horrible walking stick, and bringing it home.

  She picked it up again and ran her fingers over the markings. The symbols remained still. She sighed and closed her window, then ripped off the masking tape and threw open her door.

  The doorknob continued thumping against the wall as she ran down the hallway and into the bathroom. She locked the door, then stared at her swollen eyelids in the bathroom mirror. Everyone was going to know she had been crying. But that wasn’t her biggest concern. She and Brian shared the same friends, so what happened now? Did Dominique just replace Sudi, or did they both fit into the same group?

  She thought of the three girls in her drama class, loners who didn’t belong. Kids made fun of them, and to avoid the taunts the girls ducked through the crowded hallways, heads down, wearing their bulky coats in spite of the furnace heat, as if they were trying to hide inside their winter clothing. Sudi worried that she would share this same fate.

  After taking a shower and drying her hair, Sudi went back to her room. She slipped into a silky purple camisole, then pulled on her tightest low-slung jeans. The new stiletto pumps were going to inflict serious pain by the end of the day. She wrapped Band-Aids around her toes and wore the shoes anyway.

  Normally she put on mascara, but she couldn’t chance it. The forecast of tears made it too risky. She hurried to the stairs, but as she passed her sisters’ room, the silence made her pause. They were never that quiet. And why hadn’t they been banging on the bathroom door, telling her to hurry so they could take their showers?

  Maybe Sudi had let something into the house last night after all. Slowly, she stepped back to their door and wrapped her fingers around the knob, her heart racing in anticipation of what she would find inside their bedroom.

  She opened the door and gasped. “What are you doing?” she asked, even though she knew.

  Nicole and Carrie sat on the bed under their lacy pink canopy, a Ouija board between them. Their fingers tapped the planchette, and the small plastic triangle shimmied beneath their touch, then streaked across the alphabet printed in a semicircle on the board and stopped on the YES.

  “Mom’s going to be pissed,” Sudi said. Their mother had thrown away the last Ouija board, along with a tarot deck and the dried herbs that had left a lingering scent of licorice in their room.

  Nicole and Carrie turned, each tucking a wisp of waist-length, white-blond hair behind her ear. They were identical twins, but Nicole’s love for potato chips and chocolate had added plumpness to her cheeks, while Carrie’s picky eating habits had narrowed her oval face. They no longer wore the same size, but they still had a similar unsettling way of looking at Sudi as if they could read her thoughts.

  “We’re doing this for you,” Nicole explained.

  “Don’t put what you’re doing on me,” Sudi said. “I have enough problems.”

  “Precisely,” Carrie answered.

  “I saw the two of you burning something in the backyard,” Sudi said. “I thought you were getting rid of bad test grades, but you were practicing magic again, weren’t you?”

  Carrie shrugged. “We were burning chicken bones to give Brian skinny legs for hurting you. We hate him for making you cry.”

  “That’s not nice,” Sudi scolded, taking on her big-sister role even though she hoped the spell worked. “Besides, I’m the one who broke up with him,” she said, practicing the words she planned to say at school. “I told him we were through.”

  Carrie and Nicole stared at Sudi with something close to pity in their large blue eyes. They obviously didn’t believe her. If Sudi couldn’t convince her twelve-year-old sisters, then how was she going to convince her entire sophomore class?

  “You need something to protect you,” Carrie said.

  Sudi laughed. “I need a charm to protect me from bad boyfriends,” she answered, but as she turned to leave, a soft rasping made her look down. The planchette slid across the Ouija board and pointed to the S.

  “How’d you do that?” Sudi asked. The board hadn’t tilted, and neither of her sisters had moved.

  “We didn’t,” Nicole said excitedly. “It’s speaking to us.”

  Nicole and Carrie put their fingers back on the plastic pointer. The planchette slid to the U, then twirled back and pointed to the D.

  “It’s going to be a message for you, Sudi,” Nicole whispered, as if speaking too loudly might interrupt the board’s concentration.

  “You know I don’t believe in that kind of stuff,” Sudi answered and started downstairs.

  In the kitchen she grabbed an apple and bit into it as she walked through the back porch and out into the yard. She stood under the kitchen window and examined the wet grass. She saw no paw prints in the soggy earth or nose smudges on the windowpane. Maybe she had imagined the dog after all.

  When she reentered the house, Carrie and Nicole stood in the kitchen, waiting for her, their faces solemn.

  “You need to know something,” Carrie said.

  Sudi rolled her eyes. “I don’t
need your Ouija board to know my life is trash.”

  The twins gasped.

  “Don’t say that,” Nicole scolded. “Words have power…”

  “…And what you say will come true,” Carrie finished. “It’s a scientifically proven fact that you’ll eventually become whatever you call yourself.”

  “Then you two had better be careful,” Sudi snapped back, “because if you keep messing around with the occult, you’re going to turn into little hags who marry toads and—” Sudi stopped. She was taking her anxiety out on her sisters. “Sorry,” she whispered and stepped past them.

  “Today could be dangerous for you,” Nicole warned. “The Ouija board is always right.”

  “Someone is after you,” Carrie added.

  “And I suppose it’s someone eeeeviiiilll,” Sudi said, mockingly stretching evil into a sinister Halloween melody. She left the kitchen, grabbed her sweater from the hall closet, tugged it on, and turned to leave.

  Her sisters stood behind her, blocking her way.

  “Listen to us for once,” Nicole pleaded.

  Their worried expressions almost made Sudi believe that something bad was going to happen.

  “You have to stop this,” Sudi said gently. “It isn’t healthy. That’s why Mom threw away all that occult stuff. You need to understand that when your kindergarten teacher told you that twins have a psychic connection to each other, she didn’t mean that the two of you are psychics, or that you have supernatural powers.”

  She kissed Nicole, then Carrie, and headed out the door.

  At the corner, Sudi glanced back at the house. Her sisters stood together on the porch, their nightgowns waving in the breeze, staring after her. Sudi didn’t believe in their connection to another world, but, looking at them, she wondered what message the Ouija board had given them.

  The printer whirred, pushing out paper copies of the Web site on sleepwalking. Sudi leaned back and put drops in her eyes, which were dry and red from staring at the computer screen. Then she pulled the band from her ponytail and ruffled her hair.

  School had ended, but she had stayed late, searching for information on somnambulism. Stress had probably caused her sleepwalking, and for that reason she had decided not to tell her mother about the episode unless it happened again—and maybe she wouldn’t even tell her then—because if she did, her mother would start questioning Sudi, searching for the cause, and Sudi didn’t want anyone to know the truth. She hadn’t even told Sara about that night with Brian.