Matilda screamed in pain as the poison leached into her bloodstream and raced along her veins.
"Scream as loud as you want," Carmen screamed in anger and frustration, rather than in pain. "No one will hear you down here. You could die and rot down here, the rats could feed on you, and no one would be any the wiser. So scream, if that's what you want to do, until you are hoarse, or you could speak to me, tell me who sent you!"
Matilda's head lulled back and forth. "I told you," she breathed, "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not a witch."
Carmen threw the switch down onto the floor at Matilda's feet. Marching toward the heavy timber door, she shoved it open and walked out into the lighted hallway. "Have it your own way, you stupid girl. But let me tell you this, no one is coming for you." She slammed the door shut, extinguishing the torches in the dungeon.
Matilda heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, and screamed, but her cries for help were lost in the mute darkness of the cavernous room.
Time passed, Matilda was not aware how long, when the sound of the door being opened stirred her from a restless sleep. A dark figure, a hood concealing its face, hung the key on the wall.
"I'm sorry this has happened to you, but I'm too late, and there is nothing else I can do," the hooded woman whispered. "Someone will come for you, soon. Perhaps your people can help you."
"I don't have any people. Please don't leave me here," Matilda pleaded in a small, hoarse voice. But she was too late, the woman had gone, closing the door behind her.
After Alexandria had bathed and changed into dry clothes, she sat down, spoke her piece, then stared accusingly at Kat, her foot tapping impatiently under the table.
"I can't believe that you would think I could ever do that," Kat began, staring at Alexandria in disbelief. "I could see that you and Bran were really into each other. Actually, how far into—"
Alexandria raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms on the kitchen table.
Kat looked crestfallen for a moment, then said, "Okay, I would, but I would never do that to you. You're my family, for Christ's sake."
"Then why was he coming out of your room at that hour of the morning, half naked?"
"For a start, he wasn't really half naked ... he still had his pants on," Kat held up her hand when it looked like Alexandria was about to protest. "And secondly, he was coming out of my room because he spent the night—"
"He spent the night?" Alexandria cut in, looking mortified. The cups and plates on the table and benches around the kitchen began to rattle noisily.
"No. That came out all wrong ... well, not wrong, exactly, just not what you're thinking..." The cups and plates rattled louder. "Will you please just settle and let me finish telling you what happened before you go smashing all the china. Geez... I thought I was supposed to be the drama queen in this family—"
"Kat!"
"Alright," Kat sighed. "Like I was trying to tell you, he spent the night because I was about to turn Stanton Jameson into…" Kat paused, noting the bewildered look on Alexandria's face. "Stanton is that guy—"
"I know who Stanton is," Alexandria said irritably, recalling the boy propping open the front door at the Abbots' mansion that morning with whiskers drawn on his cheeks in black and fingernails painted with fire engine red nail polish. The same color nail polish Kat was wearing. Okay. Now the whiskers and the nail polish on Stanton made sense, at least, Alexandria thought.
Kat continued. "Good. Anyway, Stanton was being a complete jerk, and I was about to turn him into a hideous, pimply teenager with bad hair when Bran swooped in out of nowhere and dragged me, very ungentlemanly I might add, upstairs where he barricaded me in my room until I fell asleep, and, well, I guess he fell asleep, too." The accusing look on Alexandria's face hadn't shifted. "He fell asleep on the sofa in my room, not in my bed." Kat shook her head. "You have some serious trust issues."
Alexandria thought about that for a long moment. "I see. So he knows you're a witch? Does he know that I'm a witch, too?"
Kat shrugged. "I guess so. It’s a family thing, after all. I figured you must have told him."
Alexandria shook her head. "I never said a word…" She paused for a moment, then continued. "So why were you throwing your shoes at him?" she asked, her mind in turmoil thinking about the host of possible reasons, none of which she imagined she'd like. She also wondered how long Bran had known she was a witch. Had he known all along?
"Did you not hear what I just said?" Kat said, jolting Alexandria from her thoughts. "He dragged me up the stairs by my arm like a common criminal, then barricaded me in my room! At my own party, in my own home. The cheek of him," she said, tossing her hair, then uncrossing and re-crossing her tanned legs. "He's lucky that's all I threw at him. You make sure to tell him that too, when—"