by Fine, Clara
“Cam,” he asked, and his tone was suddenly deceptively calm. “They didn’t kill her, did they?”
Cam whipped around, ready to deny it, ready to deny everything and act enraged that he could even think such a thing. But suddenly she couldn’t do anything. He was staring at her, and it was as if the bottom fell out of her mind. She reached for a lie to tell and found nothing. She could only gape at him.
He took one look at her and he knew. She could tell that he knew. “My God,” he said, giving her a little shake and releasing her. He was still shirtless and he crossed his arms over his bare chest, his muscles flexing as he rocked back on his heels. “My God.”
“You can’t tell anyone!” Cam said desperately. Hating the way she sounded, she changed her tone. “Don’t you dare tell anyone.”
“They killed a woman.”
“They had good reason.”
“What good reason could there be for killing a woman?”
“She killed my mother! And Sam.”
“Cam,” he spoke to her as gently as if to a child. “Your mother died in a fire.”
“A fire that Kat started.”
He hesitated. “You said…”
“I know what I said. It wasn’t an accident. Kat started it.”
He hesitated, muttered to himself. “They fought. They argued just before your mother died.”
“Yes. Kat killed mama and Sam.”
“How? How did she start the fire without getting caught?”
Cam hesitated, licked her lips. “You know how,” she said finally.
His eyebrows were high with shock. “Magic.”
“Conjure.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Why not? It’s what’s making Hattie sick. It’s what nearly drowned me!”
His fists clenched. “That was conjure?”
“How else could I drown in a creek that shallow? I’m not a child.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Of course I didn’t tell you. I don’t tell anyone. Would you if you were in my shoes?”
“So someone did that to you?” Fury glinted in his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that a lie too?”
“No.”
“I believe you. If you did know who had done it I’m sure your grandmother would have killed them by now.”
“Would you blame her?”
“No,” he said savagely. “I’d do it myself if I knew who was responsible.”
“So you understand about Kat?”
“Understand? No. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would one planter’s wife kill another? Even if they were both… rootworkers. That’s not enough. There has to be something else. What, did they both take the same lover?”
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother and lovers in the same sentence.” Cam’s voice shook with fury. “I hear enough of those disgusting stories from Hadley.”
“Why did she do it, Cam? You have all of the answers, so answer that.”
“They had a disagreement,” Cam said simply. “They disagreed over power. Kat Varennes was half-crazy already and she was jealous of my mother.”
“So she killed her?” Brent’s voice was acidic. “That’s the explanation your sweet grandmother fed you to explain three murders?”
“There weren’t three murders! Kat murdered my mother and Sam! Grandma and Caro put her down like the mad dog she was. She wasn’t a woman. She was a monster! She slaughtered my mother over a petty disagreement.”
“And how do you know for sure?” Brent demanded. “As you’ve reminded me so many times, you were only six at the time.”
“My mother was powerful and desirable and Kat Varennes envied her!” Cam said, struggling to keep her voice down. “Are you saying that my grandmother and Caro lied to me?” She was beyond furious.
“I’m saying that if that’s the best your grandmother can give you then she’s leaving something out.”
“I don’t care what you believe!”
“Yes you do.” He took an almost predatory step toward her. “Of course you do. You’re afraid of what I might tell people. You want me on your side. That’s why you’re suddenly explaining everything. Until now you’ve been lying at every turn.” The accusatory tone of his voice infuriated her.
“Yes! I’ve been lying. I was practically born lying. At least now you understand why we can’t get married.”
“Oh, I see,” he said darkly. “So your explanation doubles as an excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse!”
“Damn it Cam!” He exploded. “What are you so afraid of?”
Cam opened her mouth to refute his accusation. Once again, she couldn’t quite manage a lie. She wasn’t sure what was happening to her, but she couldn’t seem to lie to Brent anymore. “Everything,” she said finally, shocked by her own admission. “Absolutely everything. Can you blame me?”
His shoulders slumped suddenly and all of the fight seemed to go out of him. “Cam…”
“Don’t!” Cam said suddenly, through a thickness in her throat. Tears gathered in her eyes. “Just don’t.” Her survival instinct was rearing its head, warning her that she was too vulnerable to confront him right now.
There was a pained expression on his face as she turned away, but he knew her well enough to let her go.
Chapter Fourteen
“Cam, Mr. Anderson is here again.”
Cam turned a page in her book with pretend nonchalance. “Tell him that I’m—”
“—not at home. I know; I know.” Helen said irritably. She ducked out of the drawing room with an exasperated sigh.
“This is the fourth morning Mr. Anderson has called on you,” Aunt Beth noted from where she sat by the window, reading a letter from one of her childhood friends. She lowered the stationary slightly to peer meaningfully over the paper at Cam. Her explosive anger from the week before seemed to have dissipated. Aunt Beth and Cam hadn’t technically reconciled, but for the past few days they had been pretending that Aunt Beth’s outburst hadn’t happened. Knowing her aunt, Cam suspected that Elizabeth was extremely embarrassed by her own lack of control.
“Yes.” Cam said quietly. She was pretending to read Shakespeare. The play, appropriately enough, was Romeo and Juliet.
“And the fourth time you have sent him away.”
“Yes.” Cam said again, and turned another page.
“Oh well,” Aunt Beth sighed. “It’s your own business, I suppose.” She returned to her letter without another comment.
There were footsteps in the hall, and Helen returned to the drawing room. She remained in the doorway and gestured furtively to Cam. Thinking that Helen was trying to convince her to see Brent, Cam shook her head firmly.
Helen gestured again, pointing in the direction of the kitchen. Cam snuck a look at Aunt Beth, who was deeply engrossed in her letter, set Shakespeare down with relief, and joined Helen in the hall.
“I don’t care what he wants. I’m not seeing him.”
“It’s not him,” Helen said, “Mattie Deveraux is here to see Caro and Grandma.”
“What?” Cam couldn’t remember Mattie ever leaving the forest before. Caro and Grandma always went to see Mattie and not the other way round.
“She’s in the kitchen right now.” Helen said, “I thought you should know.”
“Helen?” Aunt Beth called from in the drawing room. “Do I hear your voice? Come here a moment child, I want you to read this letter.”
Helen frowned, obviously eager to see Mattie Deveraux, but then her shoulders slumped and she walked obediently into the drawing room. Cam slipped out of the front door and hurried across the lawn to the kitchen.
Sure enough, Louis Deveraux was waiting outside of the kitchen, minus his usual cheerful smile. Cam took one look at his solemn face and barged into the kitchen without knocking.
The three women inside were standing by the window when Cam entered,
watching something on the road. “What’s wrong?” Cam asked immediately.
“Who is that?” Grandma asked, pointing to a man who was riding down the road away from Cypress Hall.
“Brent Anderson,” Mattie answered for Cam. “And the man reeks of conjure.”
“He’s not a rootworker,” Cam said, bracing herself for the same old argument.
“Oh, I know he’s not,” Mattie said, “But someone in his household is. And today they’ve used enough that it has even leaked onto him.”
“Tonight’s the black moon,” Caro said. “Maybe this is what our mystery rootworker has been waiting for. Where are you going?” She called as Cam picked up her skirts and turned to leave.
“I’m going to warn Brent,” Cam said, just as Brent’s horse vanished around a bend in the lane.
“Not alone you’re not,” Grandma said, grabbing her by the wrist. “Thank you for your warning, Mattie.”
Mattie nodded. “I’m returning to my home,” she said. “I have to warn the others.”
“Be safe,” Caro told her.
“And you.” Mattie let herself out.
Caro and Grandma made Cam wait until the carriage could be brought round, insisting that she couldn’t go alone to the Wickers Plantation. It took nearly a quarter of an hour, plus five minutes of lying to Aunt Beth. By the time they finally climbed into the carriage, Cam’s nerves were stretched tighter than piano wire. She still wasn’t certain how Brent and his family fit into this mess, but she did know that when bad conjure was unleashed good people were inevitably hurt.
Grandma and Caro were carrying every instrument of conjure known to mankind, even some that Cam had never seen before. There was a steely glint in the eyes of the older women that matched the expressions they had worn in Cam’s vision— the night that they murdered Kat Varennes. Cam knew that whoever lurked at Brent’s house was likely responsible for the incident at the creek, and her grandmother probably wanted the rootworker dead for that. Cam was less interested in revenge. Her first priority was Brent’s safety.
If you’d seen him when he came to the house, her guilty conscience reminded her, he wouldn’t be home right now with the most dangerous practitioner in the county.
Cam shifted uneasily in her seat, and then sat up taller as the Wickers plantation appeared in the distance.
“We don’t know what we’ll find here. Maybe you should stay in the carriage,” her grandmother suggested as it rolled to a stop in front of Brent’s home.
“Not a chance,” Cam said, nimbly climbing over the old woman’s lap and letting herself out before her father’s driver even had a chance to open the door for her. She darted across the lawn, but hesitated at the sight of the large brass knocker on Brent’s door.
What if…
“Don’t be a coward, Camilla Jean,” she muttered to herself, reaching for the knocker as her grandmother and Caro arrived behind her.
Cam hammered on the door, unable to hear anything, even the calming words of her grandmother, above the rush of blood in her ears. The door opened so suddenly that Cam nearly fell right into the house. Cam caught herself on the doorframe, and nearly cried out with relief at the sight of Brent standing, whole and healthy, in the doorway. His gaze warmed at the sight of her, but then he raised his eyebrows at the sight of Grandma and Caro. “Here to kill me?” He drawled.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cam said before either Grandma or Caro could intervene. “Brent, who else is here?”
“What do you mean?” He asked, instantly alert after seeing the alarm on her face.
“Who else is in the house? Besides your family?”
“Where are your servants?” Caro asked.
“Is anyone visiting?” Grandma put in.
Brent’s eyes widened as he was accosted by the two old women. Grandma gave a frustrated sigh and pushed past him into the house, Caro on her heels. “What is going on?”
“Come out wherever you are,” Grandma called from inside the house. “Coward… We’re ready to face you.”
A grin twisted the corner of Brent’s lips. “Life has been so exciting since I met you.”
“Oh God,” Cam groaned and followed him into the house.
“Who’s here?” Caro asked again.
“Mr. Anderson?” Two young women dressed in identical uniforms stood on the stairs, gazing in confusion at the two old ladies who had invaded the house.
“Who are they?” Grandma asked, eying them with open hostility.
“It’s not them,” Caro told her. “Not a trace of conjure on them.”
“Well someone in here is responsible for what happened to Cam, and I’m not leaving until we find the bastard.” Grandma barked back. “You can go,” she added to the two maids.
“What?” The smile had slipped from Brent’s face at the mention of what had happened to Cam, and now he looked positively fierce.
“Mr. Anderson?” One of the maids asked again.
“You may have the afternoon off,” he told them, gesturing for them to leave quickly. “What is this all about?” He asked Cam as the door closed behind his maids.
“Mattie Deveraux thinks that the threat we’ve been sensing is here.” Cam filled him in quickly.
“Mattie Deveraux?” Brent’s eyes widened. “You’re here because that woman from the creek thinks—”
“She knows,” Cam told him. “Mattie knows.” They faced each other for a moment, communicating with their eyes what couldn’t be spoken aloud.
I have missed you. Cam thought. Brent took a step forward as though he wanted to embrace her, but when Caro cleared her throat, he stayed where he was. “Now that the maids have left there’s only Hattie and my Aunt Julia at home. John went out for a walk to clear his head, and the other servants have the day off.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Cam frowned.
“There’s someone else here,” Caro said. “Not someone related to Mr. Anderson. Someone malicious.”
“We should search the house,” Grandma said.
“If you don’t mind,” Cam added apologetically to Brent.
“Search away.”
“Come with me Cam,” Grandma held out her hand for her granddaughter. “We’ll search upstairs. Caro, you go with Mr. Anderson.”
Cam was reluctant to leave Brent with the elderly rootworker, but she didn’t argue as her grandmother pulled her up the stairs. “Brent’s great-aunt and his sister-in-law live up here,” Cam explained to her grandmother in a hushed tone.
The conjure grew in strength as they reached the top of the stairs, and Cam could feel it humming dangerously along her skin and crackling through her hair as they walked down the hall. “There!” Grandma said suddenly. “That room is the focus of it.”
Cam exhaled deeply. “That’s Hattie’s room,” she told her grandmother. “Someone cursed her. I don’t know why. It’s odd conjure too. I didn’t recognize it; I don’t know what it was for.”
“I might,” Grandma said, reaching for the doorknob.
“I don’t think you should go in there.”
“You’re entitled to your own opinion,” Grandma assured her. “Wait here.” She opened the door and vanished inside, closing it firmly behind her.
“Yell if you need me,” Cam called after her.
Her grandmother didn’t respond, and Cam sighed and crossed her arms. She took a step backwards, listening for the even the faintest sound from inside the room.
Then, with another step backwards, Cam backed into something. Something that wasn’t a wall. Something that was soft and breathing and… alive.
Before Cam could scream, a hand was clapped over her mouth, and another wrapped around her, keeping her arms bound to her sides.
“Last time I saw you, you looked like a drowned rat.” The woman’s voice was a vicious hiss straight into her ear, menacing and. . . . Elderly?
Cam struggled against her captor, and the feel of wrinkled skin rubbing against her arms as she thrashed reinforced her
suspicion: the woman who held her was old, perhaps even older than Grandma.
But that didn’t make any sense because no matter how hard she struggled, Cam couldn’t break free from the old woman, or even shout a warning to her grandmother. Then again, the hands were ice cold and tingling with conjure. The woman’s strength had to come from some sort of spell. Cam gnashed her teeth, trying to bite the hand that kept her silent, but the woman was too strong. “Be a good child,” the woman hissed.
Cam flailed wildly, kicking back with her foot and hitting the woman hard in the shin.
“Brat!” The woman muttered a curse.
The hand at Cam’s mouth shifted, and suddenly Cam felt something being wrapped around her throat. It felt almost like a cord or rope, but it was very thin and oozed conjure onto Cam’s skin. A cursed object of some sort. It burned and hummed against Cam’s body, hot enough to blister the tender skin of Cam’s throat. When it was wound tightly around Cam’s neck, the hand at Cam’s mouth moved, and Cam was able to speak.
She didn’t waste time, breathing deeply and shrieking “Grandmaaaa!”
Hattie’s bedroom door was flung open almost immediately, and Cam could hear Caro and Brent running for the stairs.
Grandma paused on the threshold of Hattie’s room, her gaze going immediately to the face of the woman who held her granddaughter. Her eyes snapped with fury, but when she saw the cord wrapped around Cam’s neck she swallowed and didn’t move forward to engage the woman.
Uh-oh. It had to be bad if Grandma was holding back. Whatever it was, it seemed to be sapping Cam’s energy, because since it had been looped around her neck she had barely been able to move.
“Cam?” that was Brent.
“Daphne?” Caro called with concern.
“Stay back,” Cam’s captor warned Grandma.
“Cam?” Brent called again.
“Stay put!” Grandma called to Brent and Caro. She didn’t take her eyes off of her granddaughter. “She has Cam.”
“Who?” Brent sounded furious, and he started up the stairs.
“Please!” Grandma said, her gaze going again to the rope at Cam’s throat.
“Good girl,” the woman said condescendingly. “Now— back up. We’re all going downstairs, and we’re going to discuss this like civilized rootworkers.”