"We're not eating," her sister Darrah said. "We're watching the future."
Darrah and Dev had only been eighteen months apart, so close in age they'd experienced their adolescence as a shared one. What happened to Dev also happened to Darrah and vice versa.
Until now, the tight little voice said. Now she's going where you can't.
Anyone who saw the Montrose girls knew they were siblings: golden strawberry blond hair that verged on red, peaches-and-cream complexion with rosy cheeks, piercing eyes. The older three were round and soft; only the youngest, Delilah-probably because she never stopped moving-had managed to keep the curves at bay.
"The future is here," Delilah said, her eyes sad. Dev wanted nothing more than to rush across the room and run her hands over the bristly stubble of Delilah's shaved head. Once again, Delilah was the nonconformist, unwilling to act or look like the rest of her sisters.
"The future sucks," Dev said.
Her mother and sisters did not respond to her bitter words.
"Come look, Dev," Melisande said, her bobbed gray hair neatly combed so it curled around her ears. She gestured to the orange bowl as a head of steam began to rise from inside it.
"I don't think I want to," Dev said, shaking her head, her feet planted on the thick-slatted wood floor.
"But don't you want to know what happens?" Darrah asked, pursing her lips into a frown.
The kitchen felt smaller here than it had in reality. The wooden cabinets were so tall that they seemed to reach up into the sky-and when Dev looked up, she saw there was no ceiling to the room, merely a layer of smoke. Dev felt something hot singe her hip, and she realized she was leaning against the heated stove.
"What're you cooking in the oven?" Dev asked. "It's so hot I've burned myself."
"No one gets away without a scar," Melisande said, fingers plucking at the metal spectacles she kept on a chain around her neck. Dev watched as she slipped them onto her nose and then peered into the orange bowl.
"We just want you to know something important," Delilah said. "It's only a little of the future. Come look. Please?"
Dev felt herself being drawn toward the table, a place she did not want to go. So she did the only thing she could think to do in order to stop herself: She plunged her hand into the pot of soup. The liquid heat was intense, a burning sensation shooting up her arm as she cried out in pain and bit her lip.
"Don't do that, Devandra," Melisande said, scolding her naughty child. She waved her hand at the pot, and the pain in Dev's arm instantly disappeared.
Surprised, Dev looked down into the pot. She found the cast-iron pot empty, its innards scrubbed clean.
"Come on," Melisande added. "Don't dillydally."
"But you killed everyone and you let him take my girls," Dev wailed, wanting nothing more than to pick up the heavy soup pot and slam it into her Judas-of-a-mother's temple.
Melisande shook her head, shooting Dev a dismissive frown.
"Are you kidding me? You really believe I would do something like that?" Melisande asked, her annoyance at Dev's stupidity plain in her words.
"I saw you-" Dev began, but Melisande interrupted her.
"You saw nothing," Melisande replied, ignoring Dev's frustration. "And you really think that soup was what did this to us? You ate some, too, Devandra Montrose. So how come you're still alive?"
Dev had just assumed that she hadn't eaten enough of it to kill her.
"But Thomas made you bind the ghosts to the house, bind us to the house-"
"To protect us, Dev," Darrah said with a sigh. "But it was already too late. The seed had already been planted."
"What do you mean?" Dev asked, her voice rising in pitch as a wave of hysteria shot through her. "A seed? Who planted a seed here?"
Melisande pointed at the orange bowl.
"Come and see."
"No," Dev said as she closed her eyes, not wanting to see.
She found herself physically repulsed by the scrying bowl and whatever was inside it. Just the thought of peering into its depths made Dev's stomach lurch. She felt the blood rushing in her head, her temples throbbing with each heartbeat.
"Come."
Her mother beckoned her forward and, against her will, Dev opened her eyes and went to the woman who had borne her. Melisande took Dev's hand and guided her to the fourth chair at the table. Dev sat down and Melisande pushed the bowl in front of her.
"Take my hand," her mother said, and Dev did what she was told, taking Melisande's right hand and Delilah's left one, so that the Montrose women were linked together in an unbroken circle.