I should think further about whose side Mother was really on. I didn't doubt that she loved me, even now. I wondered if she really cared about my happiness or just that the Hallow fortune and Hallow House continued with the main line.
I thought that maybe Felix, Chrysie, and Jessie—the only friends I’d made since coming here—were probably on my side. But they didn’t have that bone-deep loyalty that came with being family. Here I was again, lonely and heartsick. I thought I’d gotten over that in the weeks since school started, but I hadn’t.
Elspeth was a big question mark. I thought that Martha could keep us safe. I was certain that Elspeth was no risk to Chrysie. Felix would bind wards on his rooms to keep him and Cyrus safe. Martha's wards would flare up and keep me safe in my room. And Elspeth wouldn't be able to lay down spells in Martha and have them work. We should be okay--I thought--as long as we were inside of Martha.
I stood. Letting the power of the pentacle flow over me and then I stepped out of it and said, “Martha…what do we have on necromancers?”
As she rumbled a bit, I realized that my question was too vague.
“Martha, do we have a book that talks about Talismans?”
But that wasn’t what I wanted—I wanted to know why dark necromancers wanted the Talisman so badly.
A little fairy light appeared in front of me, and I followed it down the stairs and into the library. I stopped before I’d taken even one step inside. Someone was in there, and I didn’t feel like interacting. Before I could turn away, I realized that whoever it was, they weren’t alone.
“…think she didn’t know?”
I didn’t recognize the voice at first and then realized it was Finn. It was the derisive tone I recognized so easily. I kept into the shadows and wrapped my hand around the fairy light so that I couldn’t be seen. Martha seemed to realize what I was doing—and the shadows thickened around me.
“About her mom?” That was Jessie.
“Yes, about her mom.” And that was Finn. I shouldn’t have offered them a safe place to stay. I had intended it for Cyrus only, but somehow Dr. Hallow and Finn had come inside as well. I'd been too heartsick to kick them out. Like a wuss. A wuss who was about to girl up--as soon as I was done eavesdropping.
“I don’t think she knew,” Jessie said. Her voice was firm and calm. She could come over whenever she wanted. She could even move in.
“How could she not know?” There was that snide disbelief again. Why did he hate me so? I was just a girl. A girl at school like one of the thousands here. And yet…he focused all of this ire on me.
“Did you meet her mom when she was here?”
“No.”
“You’d believe it if you met her mom. Finn, Rue’s mom was covered in stitches and Rue had barely survived. You were there, and you know what it was like. And the monster that had killed Rue’s grandparents had been destroyed. If that were me, my mom would have squeezed me until I couldn’t breathe and then yelled at me for going after it.”
“So, she didn’t do that,” Finn asked mockingly.
But was that a little curiosity?
“Oh no. Not at all. They sat there. Rue didn’t hold her mom’s hand. Her mom’s last words to Rue before she got into a taxi was something snide about the energy potion Rue makes. I don’t think they hugged at all.”
“You couldn’t have been with them the whole time.”
Jessie hadn’t been. But she wasn’t wrong. We hadn’t hugged. I hadn’t even thought about it until after Mother had left. But my mother wasn’t a hugger. That was Daddy’s job.
Mother had asked me if the creature had been destroyed. I had said yes. Mother had nodded at me once, but her eyes had blazed with approval. It was all either of us needed.
That wasn’t explainable to other people. Other people didn’t get us. Bran and I hugged though. We’d had Daddy to teach us.
I left the library and bounded up the stairs into my bedroom and called my sister. I should kick Finn out. But if I did...would he die too? That wasn't something I wanted on my conscience. Why listen to my new friend defend me to someone who was determined to hate me. For what? Being the likeliest choice for keeper—if my life were different—and not wanting it?
Bran answered, and I said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” she replied.
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
“Can I do anything?”
“No.”
The silence was weighted and a bit painful. I wanted to be there with her. With whatever was happening. And I never, ever wanted to go home to stay again.
I let her keep her secrets and said, instead, “I sent you a new potion. It might help with your restlessness at night.”
“I think I have that partially figured out.”
I tilted my head as I considered. She…she must have learned something since I’d been gone that made her feel like that. Her insomnia. Her endless, restless energy. It was why I’d developed a love for running at night. I’d run with her. My eyes fixated on the door to my room as I imagined her. She’d be sitting on the floor against her bed, facing her door in case Mother came in. Bran was curvy and freckled and adorable. She was a handful of loveliness. I was—maybe you could say that I was elegant. But I wasn’t classically beautiful, and I wasn’t adorable like Bran was. Despite the vast differences in our looks--Bran was an actual handful of venom and danger. And I was a snake--like my mother.
Maybe Bran's toes were painted. But if they were—they wouldn’t be the same color. Or even intended to be coordinating. It would be colors randomly chosen.
“I miss you.”
“Yeah,” she said.
I felt my teeth clench and listened to the sound of her breathing for a while. I put my phone on speaker and pulled out some blue nail polish and began painting my toes.
“Someone died in front of me tonight,” I said. My door creaked slowly open as I spoke, and I stared at it even as I finished, “I knew we were in danger, and I wasn’t fast enough.”
I had expected Chrysie. I found Finn. We both heard my sister’s answer.
“You can’t save everyone, Rue.”
“We can try,” Finn said. He was so angry. As if the ability to recognize that we had limits was somehow evil.
“Just because I didn't kick you out doesn't mean you can come into my room," I told Finn firmly.
My sister answered next as if she’d expected him to contribute to what had been a private conversation and said, “Go crazy trying, soldier boy. Try and try and fail and fail. And eventually die. Leave my sister out of it.”
“It’s that kind of attitude that has left the thinning so defenseless. Your family…” He said it like it was an insult. “You are heartless monsters.”
I could feel Bran’s anger.
“You’re a witch of the dead, soldier boy. You are the definition of a monster. You’re lying to yourself if you think you aren’t. Your spells call for bone and ash and blood. The kind Rue does so well call for flower petals and the bark of a tree and maybe a touch of smoke. Rue’s magic is beautiful. Can you say the same?”
He didn’t answer that question. He attacked again, “If she hadn’t spent so much time protecting your mom,” Finn began, and Bran cut in.
“Her mother, you idiot. What wouldn’t you do for yours?”
“If we’d known that the Talisman was tied to your mom, something could have been done.”
“If you think that the council doesn’t know, Finn, you’re lying to yourself.” That hadn’t been Bran. I looked up and found Elspeth and Chrysie.
“Why would they know,” Finn demanded. He stood and paced. His stride, the swing of his hands, everything about him was angry.
“Because Martin and Portia and Leander and I…we were raised with Autumn. Every single one of us knew her well enough to know what would happen after Dominique died. They may not have seen Autumn pick up the Talisman and take on the role of the keeper, but they are lying to themselves if they don
’t know that she did.”
Finn stopped, he was a stiff wall of muscle and anger. He didn’t turn, only asked, “Then why haven’t they done something about it?”
“What? Kill our cousin?” Elspeth was gentle, and I saw how the gentleness got through to him when nothing else seemed to.
Elspeth continued, “I didn’t realize until today that Autumn hadn’t successfully severed the bond between herself and the Talisman. And knowing, Autumn—she did the ritual right.”
“I don’t understand,” Finn said the words, but he was speaking for both of us.
“The Talisman of the St. Angelus Thinning—like this house—is more aware than it should be. If she tried to sever the bond and there wasn’t another who it would accept—it wouldn’t surprise me if the spell slid right off.”
“Why wouldn’t it accept Dr. Hallow?”
“Probably because Dr. Hallow, in his 20s, was an idiot who barely practiced magic and spent far too much time smoking weed.”
Bran laughed, but she couldn’t see Finn’s face flush in fury.
“She’s not wrong,” Dr. Hallow said, and I noticed him behind Elspeth in the shadows. He sounded as exhausted as Finn was angry.
Well, wasn’t this a lovely party in my bedroom. I patted the floor next to me and Chrysie joined me and got her toes painted while Finn argued and raged and paced and hated.
“I was an idiot,” Dr. Hallow said. He leaned against the door jamb and looked around my room. I realized as he did that he knew whose bedroom this had been before it became mine.
Dr. Hallow continued, and I wondered how closely I was related to the doctor. Close enough for him to be on the Hallow Family Council. How well had he really known my mother? When she was my age…was she like me? Was she totally different? Which answer would make me happier?
“We were in college or even younger. I don’t think Portia was even a teenager. Leander was a womanizing fool who spent much of his time chasing women or romancing them. Elspeth…”
“I was and still am terrible at magic. I never had the dedication to take what little talent I have and make it worthwhile. The best I can do happens when I'm angry, and it's all broad strokes. I'm useless at the intricate and layered spells.”
Dr. Hallow took Elspeth’s hand and squeezed it and then said, “Only Autumn was really focused on learning. The rest of us—well…we weren’t real choices for the Talisman.”
Elspeth finished. “We hadn’t seen our parents die in front of us. We played and went to dances and obsessed over makeup. Autumn filled her arsenal of spells and brooded. Do you remember how she called the spells she learned an arsenal?”
I didn’t say anything about how she still called it that.
Elspeth laughed her angry little laugh and continued her story. “We just…we just laughed about her calling it an arsenal. Like it was funny. Instead of tragic.”
“We were stupid,” Dr. Hallow said. “Young and self-absorbed and so very stupid.”
“Well, we hadn’t seen our parents die in front of us.”
Elspeth’s words rang in my ears. My mother had seen her parents die in front of her? Sweet Hecate. I didn’t realize I had choked until I found the glass of water that Chrysie had pushed into my hands. I didn’t need to see my sister to know that she had stopped breathing and was utterly focused on this phone call.
“I thought the legion thing had killed our grandparents,” I said, speaking for me and Bran.
“It did,” Elspeth said. “In the street, outside the wards. Your grandparents burned from the inside from the spell the creature had put on them. And all the while Autumn watched from the window. No one could persuade Hallow House to open until Dominique arrived. So Autumn was in here—alone—for nearly three weeks.”
Bran and I said nothing. What could you say to something like that? No wonder she never talked about them. No wonder she’d let us make up stories about them but never told us one single word. But Chrysie—my sweet cousin the vampire—she cried for our Mother. My face was stone blank, but I could feel everyone’s gaze on me. Like they thought I should be the one crying for my mother. It just…wasn’t that surprising given who our mother was.
“Well shit,” Bran said and then hung up. I thought her comment about summed up my feelings.
CHAPTER 16
“The dark necromancer has to be a member of the Hallow Family Council,” I said, ignoring the news.
“If you need a moment,” Dr. Hallow began.
“I don’t,” I snapped. “What I need is for this to be over and to get on with my life.”
“Regardless of what happened to your family,” Finn said—for once not being a total jerk. “Someone has to be the keeper here. The team…we’re not good enough.”
“No,” Dr. Hallow said. “We’re not. Autumn will sever her tie to the Talisman. She has never been one who won’t keep her word.”
I had nothing to say to that. But I didn’t agree. My mother would lie or change course in a second. It had been a long time since they’d known Mother. But, I didn’t think Mother would lie to me. Unless it was for my good. Probably.
Finn had his doubts as well, “Do you think she’ll do it?”
How to answer? I considered and then I shrugged noncommittally. I could see his disgust resurfacing.
“People are dying,” he reiterated.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I cared. I did. Shockingly to me, I cared very much. But you cannot make Autumn Jones do anything. Being her daughter didn’t change that one little bit.
“Whether or not my mother successfully severs her link to the Talisman,” I said. “The dark necromancer has to be someone who thinks that they can benefit from the Talisman. And that says Hallow Family Council to me.”
“They’re trying to do something to help,” Finn said.
“Look, Finn…” I said back, done with taking his crap.
“I don’t disagree with Rue,” Dr. Hallow said mildly. “I’m somewhat surprised that you even let me in the house given what happened the last time you were at risk.”
“I feel safer with you both here,” I said bluntly gesturing between him and Elspeth. “I doubt you're both involved. And though you could probably take Elspeth, I don't think you could take all of us.”
He laughed and then said, “You aren’t just like your mother you know. You’re very like Dominique.”
“Isn’t she though,” Elspeth said. “You even have the look of Dominique. Along your jaw and, oddly, your hands.”
“I don’t care,” I lied. “What I care about is stopping the necromancer from killing, freeing Jen’s spirit, and getting on with my life.”
“Well,” Elspeth said. “Since it isn’t me who is killing these children. And it isn’t Martin, we could consider who else it could be.”
“It could be any of us, Ellie. Including me. We all have the skill. The Talisman would have shown up when Rue helped exorcise the ghosts that had possessed Mandi if it were free. I’m not the only one who realized that.”
“No one said so,” Finn said. He sat down on my bed and looked utterly defeated. “You asked if she had it, but I thought that was because the house was open. Not because you thought it would appear.”
“No one really needed to,” Martin said. “We all knew it. Plus the ether felt different while Autumn was in town. Like it knew she was back.”
“Why didn’t she take care of the creature then,” Finn asked. “Surely she would have given her kid was in danger.”
They all looked at me, and I shrugged.
Maybe. If she thought I’d needed it. But…I think she might have tried. I was certain that my mother hadn’t been accessing the ether on Sage Island. I would have felt it. And Hazel would have known if Mother had been using it on the island. Hazel didn’t like necromancy. She didn’t like that it skirted so closely to the type of stuff the North Island Coven did—with their dark, dark ways. I don’t think my mother would use necromancy where Hazel led.
Which mean
t that she was out of practice. She would have been a rusty blade against someone who was powerful. Someone that had nearly killed her before. She--gods why lie to myself—she had been hurt. She might have tried. But also, she might have failed to make me win.
“Your family is screwed up,” Finn said disgustedly.
Well…yeah. I didn’t bother to agree. I started painting my fingernails instead.
“Any of them?” It was Elspeth who asked.
Martin nodded. He might have been suave and handsome in that professor kind of way, but he was tired. And sad. Like me. Like all of us.
I sighed and then said, “Well, I suppose we could set a trap.”
“With what?”
“Bait,” I said as I carefully painted my pinky finger and said a word in proto-Romanian to seal the polish from chipping.
“With what bait?” It was Finn who asked.
“Me,” I said as I examined my nails. “I told Lisa I’d see Jen free. I intend to keep that promise.”
I think what bothered me most was that no one objected. I bit the inside of my lip to keep my dismay hidden and said, “I’m going to need to get some sleep. You two will have to figure out how to tell the council without giving away the plan.”
“What plan,” Chrysie asked with a horrified gaze as she realized no one else was objecting.
“The trap is one necromancer and her ghosts against whoever shows up to help with me as bait," I said. It was simple. Simple. Stupid. Dangerous. And if it worked, it would be quickly over. One way or the other.
“You won't be alone,” Martin, Dr. Hallow, said.
“Ok," I replied not feeling very comforted.
“You won’t be alone," Chrysie repeated. That did make me feel better. I found myself smiling.
Martin and Elspeth rose and were followed by Finn.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Chrysie said softly. But she wrapped her arms around me and said, “But I have faith in the arsenal your Mother gave you. She saw that you would be able to protect yourself. That’s why you’re alive, and I’m a vampire.”
Hungry Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery Page 12