I stepped aside and put my hands on the split-log rail of the porch to hang my head, fighting the dizziness and nausea that was creeping up my throat. My hair hung around my face in a wavy black curtain, one I did not care to part. I could not look through that window again or I would go more mad than my cousin, and with madness I could not save Lu or even myself. I’d seen enough.

Yes, now you’ve seen enough.

I raised my head just enough to see out from between layers of hair with one wet eye. They were all three there, Willa, Luanna, and Mae, standing before me in the damp overgrowth that passed for a front yard. They appeared the way I had always seen them before, dead and unhappy. Three furies, or three fates . . . the Gorgon sisters once beautiful, made into sad monsters.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, having half an idea but needing instructions.

Your mother-aunt will be dead at sunset, Mae said, nodding towards the sun. It had already fallen behind the trees and would soon be level with the horizon. I had light enough to see by, but not much more than that.

The energy that hit you, that was his call for her life.

It’s gone to claim her.

If you kill him, the wave will wither before it reaches her.

I glanced sideways into the window at the hulking form, still looming and carving at Mae’s corpse. “I can’t kill him. I don’t think I can even look at him.”

But you will kill him. Or all is lost.

“What do I do?” I asked desperately, clutching the rail with my hands and forcing back a wad of rising vomit. The women remained immobile, stiff as statues except for the swaying of their garments, pulled at by a wind I couldn’t feel, touched by a peculiar breeze that didn’t brush anything around them.

Why ask us? Luanna finally shrugged. Go and make your own try if you want to save her.

Willa agreed. Go on, now. You’ve come this far. Would you kill her now by waiting? She who hesitates . . .

Yes, she who hesitates . . .

She who hesitates. . .

Once again I begged their aid, “What do I do?”

Mae shrugged as casually as if I’d asked her for the time and she had no watch. How should we know? As you’ve now seen, we failed. We would have stopped him if we could, but our try came too late. We were weak against him, because we loved him.

“I’m not strong enough.”

You are. He’s seen to that. He’s given you everything you need. What did you think those draughts were for? Why do you think his old sister still lives? Oh yes, darling. You’re plenty strong now.