Frustration and confusion merge into rage in my chest. “If something’s happened to Bilda, I’ll tear this town apart. I swear.”
Calhoun and Quinn both raise their eyebrows. “I’ll kill every single one of you, and then I’ll go kill Angelo, and then I will sink Jagged Grove into its fake ocean if I have to, but I will find her.”
I’m pointing my finger at Calhoun, but my glare includes all of them. Jones pulls me to him, holding on a little tighter. I fight him. “Bilda could be scared, or hurt, or locked up somewhere. Maybe Aries is using her as a sacrifice in some demon-calling ritual.”
Calhoun startles me by laughing. May and Quinn exchange a glance. “Maybe she is Rachel’s sister - I can see the resemblance.”
“Babe, it might be that you watch too much TV.”
“Stop calling me that. Help me find Bilda.”
Calhoun is still laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Demon-calling ritual. Hilarious.” He’s holding his ribs and laughing, which confuses me more.
“Why is that so funny, Jones? Why is he laughing?”
“Because, babe. Bilda - your sweet, fun-loving, slightly goofy mother - is a demon.”
His words sear my mind, and this time I do break free of him. “You’re out of your skull, Jones. She’s Bilda. My mom. She makes cookies and takes in stray teenagers.”
“And she’s a demon.”
“She wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
“Not anymore.”
A hand falls on my shoulder and I spin around to see May smiling gently at me. “Let’s go outside and talk, Trinket.”
I stare at her, wondering for a moment if I ever told her my name. Jones is still holding my hand, but as he starts to let go I suddenly don’t want to go anywhere with this woman, no matter how nice she seems. “Not without Jones. I need Jones.”
We both look at him. He nods and leads me to the door. May follows behind us, saying to the others, “We’ll be back in a while. You all try to find Bilda. And Dravo. He should have been here by now.”
The house May leads us through is more of a mansion than any home I’ve ever seen. It’s full of antiques and heavy fabrics in rich colors. I crane my neck at every turn. “This is my father’s house?”
“Yes, dear. He’s lived here for a long time now, since Rachel was a toddler.”
I try to imagine Rachel as a toddler, but can’t. Then we’re stepping outside into the afternoon and the house behind us spreads out in both directions. Jones whistles.
“Does this place take up a whole city block?” I ask.
“Almost.” Her smile is distracted.
The colony doesn’t look like Jagged Grove. Well, actually it does, but there is something not quite right. I can see the same streets, the same rows of houses, and even a couple of restaurants. The same benches line the sidewalks through town, and farther down, at the end of the street, I can see the water. It’s greener here and doesn’t have as much of the purple tint as the ocean on our end. But the sun doesn’t seem quite as bright, and the air doesn’t feel like summertime - it feels more like the crisp chill of spring. Not unpleasant, just different.
May leads us to a small park with only a swing set and a sandbox. It’s tucked away at the end of a side street, behind a row of houses that look too quiet for this time in the evening. “Please,” she says, gesturing toward one of the swings, “Have a seat.”
I sit, but not on the swing she indicates. Instead I find a spot on one of the wide sandbox walls.
“Tell me,” I say. “Everything.”
“I can’t tell you everything. You’ll have to ask your mother about that. Or your father, I suppose. But I can tell you the bits I know.”
She takes a deep breath, then sits down beside me. Jones is standing close, so I take his hand and pull him down too. He straddles the wall, and I move over and scooch between his legs, leaning back against him. I’m so glad he’s here, and I need to feel close to him right now because I don’t think this story is going to have a happy ending.
“There are four of us - Bilda, May, Louise, and Bloom.” She chuckles as she says the names.
“Witch sisters,” I murmur.
“Well, yes. But Bilda was always the impulsive one. The rest of us took it slow, learning our magic, but your mom...Well, she always dreamed big.”
“How big?” I’m waiting for her to get to the demon part.
“Has she ever told you about her teen years, Trinket?”
“Not much. She’s always been focused on me.”
May nods like she expected that answer. “Well, she wasn’t always the sweetheart that you know and love. She used to be quite the hellion, if I do say so. Certainly the wildest of the three of us.”
I look up at Jones. He grins like he can’t really believe that, either.
“It’s true. And she got even worse when she met someone named Trilion at a party one night. He was a handsome devil.”
Jones nudges me. “I get the feeling that’s not a figure of speech.”
She nods. “It’s not. He wasn’t the best influence on her, but she thought dating a demon - even a minor one - made her more special somehow.”
“Uh-oh.” I can picture it perfectly, even though it’s hard to imagine Bilda as an impressionable young teen.
“Exactly. Things weren’t going well between her and our parents - your grandparents, Trinket - and she slipped further and further away from us.”
“But a demon? If she was a witch, how does that even happen?”
May shakes her head. “I’m not sure. I just know that she fought long into the night, so often, with our parents, that they eventually worried about her influence on the rest of us.”
I blink. “That bad?”
She nods, a soft smile on her lips. “She was headstrong, and giving her rules to follow only made it worse. Eventually, just after her seventeenth birthday, our father asked her to choose.”
“Why? I mean, she might have been bad, but she was seventeen. She’s be an adult soon. They couldn’t just ride it out?”
Bay shook her head. “It wasn’t that simple. He caught her with him one night, making a blood pact.”
Jones moved behind me. “What is that?”
Jones doesn’t look as confused as I feel. “They exchanged blood, babe. She has demon-blood inside of her.” He rubs my shoulder.
I’m trying to imagine my mother in some dark room with a demon, slicing her hand or whatever it is they do, but my mind keeps interspersing it with drug deals in dark alleys, like on TV. Was she like that, shaking with desperation, wanting to bind herself to the demon? Or was it more fun, more laughter and light, children playing at something they knew nothing about? I might never know.
“She was gone for years after that, and all I know is that Trilion was dead by the time we saw her again.”
“What happened to him?”
“She never talked, and as far as I know, nobody asked.” May smoothed her skirt down over her knees.
“She did come home, though?”
“When she heard that our father was dying, she came.”
“Did he...I mean...?”
“Did he accept her back into our home?” she finishes for me.
I nod.
“He did - on one condition: that she accept the marriage he had arranged for her.”
“You all had arranged marriages?”
“No - only her. Bloom and I decided not to marry at all.”
“Why couldn’t Bilda decide that, too? That’s not very fair.”
“Because she had already proven that she was flighty, and our father wanted someone to watch over her. He couldn’t, because he knew he was dying. In fact he did die - three days after the wedding.”
“Dravo,” I whisper.
She nods.
“Keep going,” Jones asks. He squeezes my shoulder, and I lean into him. I’m not sure why, but I’m so glad he’s here with me. He feels solid against my back.
“Dravo knew what she was, I heard them arguing about it one night before the wedding. He still went through with it, though. He loved your mother so much, Trinket.”
I frown. Then why did he go away and leave us?
That isn’t my only question, though. I want to know why Bilda decided to hide this story from me, hide an entire family from me. Why would she pretend like we were fine, when she has demon blood coursing through her veins and a past that she had to know would eventually catch up with her? With us?
I remember her power, before we moved to Raleigh. I remember how sharp she was, and how well-respected by the other withes in her coven. Could that have been fear instead?
Then a scarier thought occurs to me. “Does that mean I’m demon, too? Or part demon?”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea. I would assume, but I don’t know a single thing about demons or their offspring, especially when that offspring as half witch.”
“Does that scare you?” Jones whispers into my ear.
“This entire situation scares me.”
He pulls me back against him in a hug. I watch May for a moment before asking, “How does Rachel fit into this? And Lilly?”
“Rachel came along after Bilda sent Dravo away.”
My heart jumps. She always told me that he left us. She lied. Again.
“Dravo waited for her to change her mind. He waited years, miserable years, keeping up with your progress any way he could.”
“”How?”
“Bilda allowed him to see you once in a while.”
I’m already shaking my head. “That isn’t right - I never met him.”
“I didn’t say she let him speak to you. I said she let him see you. From a distance.”
“But that’s...” I don’t want to say the word that comes to mind, but Jones says it for me.
“It’s cruel. Why would she torture him like that?”
May shakes her head. “You’ll have to ask her.”
“I plan to, as soon as we find her.” Too much information is crowding my brain.
“Anyway, Dravo waited for as long as he could, but he eventually moved on and married again.”
“And had Rachel.”
“Yes.”
“So he’s married to someone else now?” Jones asked.
“No. She wasn’t a strong woman to begin with, and she disappeared soon after Rachel was born.
“Disappeared?”
May waves a hand. “It’s not important to this story.”
I let it slide. “And Aries? What does any of this have to do with her?”
She seems surprised at the question at first, then explains, “You’ve never seen your father. He looks exactly like a male version of Aries. They’re twins.”
“Oh.” My dad has a twin. More new information. “So why is she interested in Bilda? For old times’ sake?”
May looks away now, back toward Dravo’s big house. “No, I’m afraid not. They never met.”
“How did my mother never meet my father’s twin? This whole thing is out of control.”
“She was away when Dravo and Bilda were married.”
That doesn’t even come close to answering my question, but I let it slide, too. “...And?”
“She was around to see how heartbroken your father was, though, and she stuck by him from then on.” She closes her eyes and then opens them again. “If I had to guess - and it’s just a guess - I’d say that Aries wants revenge.”
“Revenge?” Did I hear her right?
“For hurting her twin. For depriving them of you. For...well, lots of things.”
Jones is pushing me off his lap and then pulling me up faster than I can understand her words. “Then we need to find them. Now,” he says, pulling me toward the park entrance.
We’re almost there when Quinn comes striding toward us.
“Something’s wrong,” I mutter, watching him. He doesn’t seem to be the type who gets in a hurry, but right now he’s almost running.
“May,” he calls, waving at her and then brushing by us without even a glance.
Jones, changing directions, follows him back to May, dragging me along.
“May, you need to come. Aries...”
She’s searching his face. “What is it?”
“Aries is dead.”
May’s hand flies to her mouth and she stares at him with wide eyes. “Come. Please,” he says, taking her arm.
We follow him as he leads her back into town, but he doesn’t even notice us.
A crowd has gathered in a small clutch at a narrow intersection in town. Jones tries to hold me back when he sees it, but I break away from him. I have to know - is my mother there, dead too? I push through and look down at Aries’s body only after scanning the faces for Bilda.
She isn’t there.
Aries is face down, her hair tangled into knots in the dirt and her clothes stretched at awkward angles, like she tried to catch herself before she died. Her neck is not right, though. It’s twisted in a way that makes me look away from her quickly and find Jones in the crowd.
He makes his way to me and pulls me away, then presses my face into his chest. “Don’t look again,” he says into my hair.
I won’t.
The murmur of the people looking on swells a little when Angelo shows up with a team of men. I remember Ronnie from when Maggie died on my first day here in Jagged Grove, and it’s somehow comforting that he remembers me, too. He nods at me as he passes into the center of the circle.
Angelo is right behind him, and he gets a nasty scowl on his face when he spots me in Jones’s arms.
Behind him is an odd little man, escorted by two others in EMS uniforms. He gives me a little sidelong sneer, but doesn’t say anything as he passes.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“Sither. You won’t like him.”
“I already don’t like him. He seems...sleazy? Is that bad?”
“He is sleazy.”
“Can we please go find Bilda? Do you know where we might start looking, at least?”
“I can call in a few favors. I have friends here.”
I hug his arm with both of mine. “Thank you.”
We don’t make it that far, though. Jones weaves me expertly through the crush of bodies and starts in the opposite direction of Dravo’s house, but then a shadow looms over us, and the biggest man I’ve ever seen steps out to block our path.
I blink upward just as the man says, “Trinket.”
His voice is deep, strong, but somehow sad. It stops me cold, and I pull Jones back to me. “Yes?”
When my eyes adjust, I see that he’s probably close to seven feet tall, and broad at the shoulders. I can tell he’s muscular, even dressed as he is in a well-cut, expensive looking suit. Dark hair, slightly thinning, shines in the sun, but I can’t make out his features.
“Trinket, my name is Dravo. I need you to come with me.”
My mouth drops open and my brain trips hopelessly over the words. Dravo. My father. Standing right in front of me, bigger than life.
Much bigger.
“Jones,” he nods toward Jones, who has a death-grip on my hand.
“Dravo.”
Dravo turns and walks away. I start to take a step after him, following, but it feels wrong. “Please come. I need you.”
“Jones can wait here,” Dravo - my dad - says over his shoulder.
That kind of pisses me off. “Uh, no...If he doesn’t come, I won’t either.”
Dravo stops. Sighs. Runs his hands through his hair. “Fine.”
We get to his house, and he leads us back upstairs to the room we were in before. Most of the doors in the house are closed, but I think I catch a glimpse of an office or library, filled with books, on the main floor as we pass.
Just as we step inside and he starts to close the office door behind us, someone runs through it and tackles me, screaming about the demon. My head bounces off the carpet and I’m clawing to get this person off my ches
t, but I can’t get a grip on them, and all I can see is red hair and hands trying to scrape long fingernails down my face.
I don’t think I even have time to scream before Jones and Dravo are dragging them off me, shoving them through the door, and slamming it. Dravo reaches down to click the lock before turning to me.
“I’m sorry,” he says to me where I lay panting in the floor.
“Who was that?”
“Tula. Aries’s daughter.”
“Oh. OK...why did she attack me?” It feels safer to just stay here than to get up.
“She probably thinks Bilda killed Aries, Trinket.”
I can’t help it. All of the tension, the worry, and now this? I start laughing. “Bilda? Kill someone? You’ve got to be kidding,” I say between giggles.
Jones kneels down beside me. “Come on, babe. Get up.”
He thinks I’m getting hysterical, I can see it in his eyes. He might be right, but I can’t quite stop laughing.
Dravo doesn’t think it’s so funny. He simply offers a thin smile and reaches out a hand to help me up. “Please, Trinket. We have to help your mother. From the way things look, she’s going to be charged with this crime, and I know for a fact that she didn’t do it. Help me.”
That settles me a little. I reach for his hand, but then freeze when I realize he’s missing a finger.
It’s a pinky finger, the one on his large, square left hand. I can see the ragged pink scar tissue where it was severed. I can see that it would be just about the same size as the flesh-colored lump that was hidden away in the box in my mother’s attic.
For the first time in my life, I can’t say for certain that my mother is an innocent, quirky, fun little witch.
Thanks for reading Jagged Grove Book Two: Conflicted Witch, and I really hope you enjoyed it! If you have any comments or thoughts, feel free to email me at [email protected], or leave a review on Amazon.com. Book Three will be out by the middle of September, barring any unforeseen catastrophes (like me trying to cook dinner again).
Conflicted Witch (Jagged Grove Book 2) Page 17