Sisters of Moonlight Read online

  Sisters of Moonlight

  Katherine Livesey

  One More Chapter

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

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  Copyright © Katherine Livesey 2022

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  Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022

  Map © Laura Hall

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  Katherine Livesey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

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  Source ISBN: 9780008467722

  Ebook Edition © April 2022 ISBN: 9780008467715

  Version: 2022-02-24

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Sisters of Moonlight: The Playlist

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for reading…

  About the Author

  Books by Katherine Livesey

  One More Chapter...

  About the Publisher

  For Mum & Dad, thank you for always believing.

  Was she of spirit race, or was she one

  Of earth’s least earthly daughters, one to whom

  A gift of loveliness and soul is given,

  Only to make them wretched?

  — Letitia Elizabeth Landon, ‘Erinna’

  Prologue

  Snowflakes of ash waltzed through the still and silent air. Where the mighty Kelseth lighthouse once stood, tall and proud, a beacon of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape, there was nothing but a pile of rubble. Glowing embers. Tendrils of smoke. The remnants of broken hearts and long-forgotten dreams.

  The only sound that interrupted the eerie silence was the relentless, rhythmic sound of digging. One, two. One, two. Metal on dirt. Metal on rock. The gravedigger was tireless, and all the onlookers could see was his mud-splattered forehead and his long, dark hair like strands of burnt sugar pulled carelessly into a knot on the crown of his head.

  Jem Rafferty ploughed every ounce of his energy into digging the grave. He didn’t stop for water, or to catch his breath, and certainly not to look at those watching him keenly with sadness, or worse, pity, in their eyes. He had failed Glenn. He had walked away when the boy needed him the most, and now his body lay lifeless barely two strides away. The blisters on Jem’s palms, the blood beneath his nails, the agonising strain of muscles desperate for rest… it all felt like a pathetic excuse for penance.

  No, digging this grave was the very least Jem could do for Glenn.

  What Glenn actually deserved was the deaths of those who had manipulated him, killed him, and destroyed their home. Jem was all too happy to give Glenn that. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hundred lives for Glenn’s. It wouldn’t bring him back; of course not. But maybe, just maybe, it would quieten the endless screaming in Jem’s mind. Or shine a light into the pit of darkness that had settled in his chest.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jem noticed five figures walking towards him with a tentative slowness. He forced himself to pause his digging and wiped the salty mixture of sweat and tears from his tanned face. He had never, in all of his years on this forsaken island, showed weakness to those who needed him most. He wasn’t about to start now.

  ‘Jem…’ Grace, his sister and closest friend in life, sat herself down on the edge of the cavernous grave. Her jaw-length hair was unkempt and her eyes were circled in scarlet from the tears. She swung her legs over the side and let her feet dangle hopelessly. ‘Jem, please. Let us help.’ The figures behind her – a vaguely distant tall boy, Cass; a concerned, though still composed, Morven; and two very teary twin girls, Brenna and Maeve – all nodded as Grace started to speak. ‘Glenn wouldn’t have wanted you to kill yourself digging his grave. I know it helps with the pain, but we need you alive, Jem. We need to leave this place.’

  ‘Don’t you dare come here and tell me what Glenn would have wanted. You abandoned him. He’d grown older, taller, wiser, since you knew him. You wouldn’t know what he wanted now. But I can tell you that he’d want to be alive.’

  Cass stuttered in disbelief. ‘N-now, c’mon Jem. Glenn was exactly the same, and Grace knew him best out of all of us. I think you’re being a bit unfair—’

  ‘Unfair?! Cass, his body is still covered in the bruises you kindly bestowed on him. I hardly think you’re the expert on Glenn,’ Jem spat.

  Brenna wandered towards the edge of the grave and, before Grace could stop her, jumped her tiny legs down into the hole. She landed with a thump and a sharp intake of breath, but shook herself off and stood up tall. With as much bravery as she could muster, Brenna walked towards Jem and wrapped her matchstick arms around his waist, pulling him into a tight hug. She tried to bury a sniffle into Jem’s shirt but, at the sound of her defiant whimper, Jem himself burst into tears.

  Maeve appeared at Grace’s side and tugged on her sleeve. Grace pulled her gently onto her lap and the little girl, like her sister below, buried herself into the shirt of a Rafferty sibling – the safest place to be amongst the chaos and the tragedy.

  ‘We do need to leave though, Jem. We can bury Glenn and take the time to do it properly, but then we really do need to go. Hecate knows we’re here. Hell, look what she did to us for daring to escape her.’ She paused and placed her hands over Maeve’s ears. Jem, watching, did the same to Brenna. ‘Do you really think this is all she’s got?’ Grace whispered, her hoarse voice breaking.

  Jem sniffed, wiping the tears from his eyes with his sleeve. ‘I’m sorry, of course you’re right. I just… I need to do this. I need to feel the pain in my hands and my back so that for a few moments I can stop feeling the p
ain in my mind.’

  Grace nodded.

  Jem lifted Brenna onto his shoulders. Grace, who had just about teased an upset, overtired Maeve from around her neck to hand her over to Cass, retrieved Brenna from Jem’s shoulders. ‘I’m nearly done. I’ll call you all over when I’m ready. And then yes, we will go.’ He rubbed his eyes and tried to stifle a yawn. ‘In the meantime, go through the rubble. If we’re lucky, we might be able to salvage a few things. Take Lily – I changed a few things around in my office after you left and she’ll know where’s best to look.’

  Raising her eyebrows, Grace almost managed a smile. ‘Don’t be too long,’ she warned, gesturing to the others to follow her.

  Alone in his metaphorical pit of misery, Jem returned to digging the hard ground beneath his boots. Looking around at the cavern he had created in a matter of hours, he had to admit that there wasn’t much point making it any bigger. It wouldn’t make Glenn any more comfortable. Grace was right – any longer and he himself wouldn’t be fit to go anywhere or do anything. He still had to row them off the island. Looking down at the blood-filled blisters on his palms, the thought of holding a pair of oars made him drop his shovel over the side of the grave.

  Enough.

  Jem clambered out of the hole in the ground and shouted over to the rest of the group. From a distance, he could still see Lily Knight’s mass of unruly curls, and the sight made him calm. He was thankful she had given him the space he needed, and thankful she hadn’t witnessed his tears on the muddy ground of the grave. But now he was ready to feel the steady warmth of his hand in hers, while they did the hardest thing any of them had ever had to do.

  A few moments later, Jem was surrounded by his family. Cass climbed into the grave and, as they lowered Glenn’s body, wrapped in old, singed blankets, down to the ground, Cass caught him and laid him to rest. Maeve passed down a posy of late-autumn branches, which Cass slid beneath Glenn’s cold, fire-blackened hands at his chest. He looked more peaceful than any of them had ever seen him, now that the terrors and anxieties of his life had left him alone. Jem wanted to remember the calm, contented look on Glenn’s face, as he couldn’t ever remember seeing him without his furrowed brow and slumped, sad shoulders. At least now he can rest, Jem thought.

  From the corner of his eye, Jem saw Lily arrive by his side. She took his hand and squeezed gently. With a swift glance at her, Jem saw that her face was red raw from crying. He squeezed her hand back, and they stood together and said their own silent wishes over the peaceful, lifeless form of Glenn.

  Cass clambered back out of the grave, and with deliberate slowness, the whole group began to fill the grave with soil, covering over Glenn’s face. As the final shovelful of dirt covered the grave, Jem felt the whole world darken a little, as if the candle of Glenn’s life had been extinguished and there was no way to bring back the illumination.

  He was gone forever.

  Chapter One

  Half a moon cycle later

  Winter arrived, and the swirling wind waltzed through the trees, its choral voice humming an eerie lullaby in the gloaming. The usual silence that accompanied the first real snowfall of the year was absent, and in its place was the steady thrum of gathering snowdrifts and the creaking of the water as it strained to resist the inevitability of freezing over.

  A castle, half-crumbling, jutted from a tiny island in the centre of a crystalline lake, like an overgrown spectre from the mist. Its ungainly limbs stretched into turrets towards the heavy-lidded sky and the pearlescent sprinkling of snow blurred the edges and framed it like an oil painting. On the ground lay a thick blanket of powder that glimmered in the flecks of light that escaped through the swollen encroaching clouds. Lily Knight gazed from her window in one of the turrets and breathed a sigh of relief for the hundredth time since they had found their way to the castle; after traipsing across country with the weight of their belongings and their grief, it felt like the safest place in the whole of the Shadow Lands for them all. For them all, except Alice Blackwell.

  Lily turned her back to the window and looked upon Alice, her best friend, who was sitting on the edge of Lily’s bed, wrapped in a woollen blanket. She knew things hadn’t gone smoothly for Alice since the group had found the castle. It had been a difficult journey, and they hadn’t even been sure there would still be a castle where their ancient, dog-eared map said there would be. They had all bickered and whined, each person losing patience as they traipsed cross-country. The children had been deeply disturbed by the loss of the lighthouse; Jem, Lily, and Grace were still reeling from the death of Glenn, their young ward; and Alice had once again found herself feeling like an outsider. Lily had heard Alice and Grace arguing several nights in a row, and now Alice was here, on her bed, begging Lily to allow her to share her room for a while.

  As she wandered over to join her friend on the edge of the bed, Lily couldn’t help but notice how drawn Alice looked. When they had spent time together before everything changed, Alice had been thin but healthy, her countenance always glowing with the fresh mountain air and the exertion of making a life for herself up in the cabin. Her eyes had sparkled then, but now they were dull, flat, watery. Her cheekbones protruded viciously through her gossamer skin and there were dark circles beneath her eyes like she hadn’t slept in weeks.

  ‘Alice…’ She sat beside her friend and rested a head on her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t. I can’t bear anyone else tiptoeing around me like I might explode at any minute.’

  Lily, knowing full well that Alice had essentially exploded the last time she had been placed under pressure by Hecate, thought it wasn’t an especially ludicrous suggestion. She, however, thought it best not to mention that to Alice. ‘I’m not tiptoeing, Alice, I’m being nice. I can very well be cruel if you prefer it. Whatever you need to be able to open up to me, I can do that.’

  ‘I know. I know,’ Alice sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you.’

  ‘I’m very aware of that, believe me.’ She paused, taking a moment to catch Alice’s eye. ‘Come on, we used to tell each other everything. Close your eyes and pretend we’re curled up by your little fire, drinking hot cocoa. Take yourself to your safe space and then, when you can, tell me what’s going on.’ She allowed her voice to trail off into a gentle whisper, in the hope that it would coax Alice from the fortress she had built up around her.

  ‘I just…’ Alice looked down at her hands. ‘I don’t feel right. I can’t explain it.’

  ‘Try.’

  Alice let out a tremulous sigh. ‘I guess it’s as though I’m surrounded by people who love each other – a family, almost – but I’m standing on the outside. Again. I spent my entire life feeling like the freak in the corner, the one people whispered about, the one people were suspicious of. I have crept and hid my whole life. I’ve made myself smaller. I’ve made myself quieter. And then…’ She paused, biting her lip, ‘and then I found Hecate.’ She stuttered and caught herself, ‘N-not necessarily Hecate herself, but what she gave me. Stability. Routine. Magic, Lil, real magic that was mine to wield. I’ve never felt power like it; I’ve never felt so much like the Alice I’ve always buried deep within me. And then there was Grace, who looked at me as the fierce, angry, free Alice, and loved me. She loved me not in spite of my flaws, not in spite of the things I’d long hated about myself. No, she loved me because of those things. It was like pure magic ran through my veins every second I spent with her.’

  ‘But that’s wonderful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but Lily… Here, surrounded by her people, I suddenly see how I pale in comparison to her. She is a figurehead of this family; she fought tooth and nail to bring up these children. She was stolen from this family, stolen from everything she knew and forced into the world that I found almost agreeable. And now she’s back where she belongs and I…’

  ‘Feel cast adrift?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Alice choked. ‘I don’t know how to handle thes
e feelings. I don’t know what to do or who I am anymore.’

  ‘So, you don’t love her now?’

  Alice let out a grotesque cackle. ‘Love her! Lily, she is everything. I didn’t even know I could love, not like that, until I met her. She made my awkwardness, my anger, my spite, all fade away. That’s why I’m struggling so much: I don’t deserve her,’ she spat, her eyes filled with fire. ‘There is nothing I can do on this earth to earn the love of a woman like that.’ Alice’s face had darkened, and suddenly she was the sullen, spiky child Lily had first met all those years ago.

  ‘Alice, you’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘But… it’s not only that.’

  Lily frowned, questioning Alice silently.

  ‘It’s the dreams, too.’

  ‘Dreams?’ Lily asked, but Alice was already lost to her. Alice’s eyes were screwed shut, an intense frown of concentration etched across her face.

  Then, out of nowhere, a black fog passed across Lily’s vision. Her ears rang with a thousand bells and her head felt an intense pressure all around it, like she was being infiltrated by an unknown, invisible army.