“Hey, I love the mountains,” Lydia said. “Agatha didn’t look too happy to see Wulf, though.”
I looked over my shoulder and smiled. Lydia’s cherished bloodhound was trailing at the end of his leash, giving every inch of baseboard a thorough sniff. “He’s more than welcome.”
And he was. Not only was he a great dog, but he would be able to pass messages back and forth between the planes, if Phineas needed anything else from his parents. And despite his assurances that Cooper was improving, keeping Phineas nearby was a priority for me.
I stopped at a door just down the hall from mine. “Here we are, it’s got a great mountain view. Arabella is right next door.”
“What’s Arabella up to these days?”
“She says she’s hunting for intel on the seeds, but I think she’s really trying to find a way to break the curse.”
Lydia squeezed my shoulder. “Which we will do.”
So everyone kept telling me.
Cooper continued to show slow but steady progress over the next few days. Although he didn’t regain consciousness, he lost his deathly pallor, and his pulse got stronger. According to Phineas, he was also showing signs of dreaming, which I was told was a very good sign.
Bolstered by that hope, and somewhat improved myself, I decided I had sufficient strength to go see Wendy, and find out what was troubling her so much.
I knew it was bad when I found Granny there with her. Wendy’s Granny definitely qualified as the heavy artillery.
“So what is it?” I asked, when the three of us were settled in the living room with a pot of strong, dark tea.
“Remember before you left, that thing with the Garden Club doing something at the spa?” Wendy asked.
I actually hadn’t remembered, not until she mentioned it. Too much had been going on. I sat up straighter. “Were you guys not able to cleanse it?”
“Of course we were,” said Granny.
“We think we were,” Wendy corrected. “You’ve been getting better since you got back, right? And you said coming back to Bristol gave you a boost of strength, when you were having that attack.”
“Yes…”
“She’s beating around the bush, but she wants to know if you can tell whether that piece of your soul you stuck to Bristol is still alive,” Granny said.
“I can, and it definitely is. Why, what did they do?”
Wendy pulled out her phone, tapped the screen a few times, then handed it to me. “This.”
I stared at the picture for a solid minute, before I finally asked, “Is that a hex jar?”
“Never seen one?” Granny asked.
I shook my head, still studying the photo. The glass canning jar was filled with an odd mix of things: dark hair, iron nails, an unidentifiable dust, and some dried herbs. A small stone at the bottom looked like jet.
That was a hex jar, all right.
Very few witches of my acquaintance actually used them. They were volatile, and sometimes had unintended consequences. They also required an enormous infusion of power and will.
But probably not more than an entire Garden Club, chanting and performing a ritual in unison, could provide.
“That particular assortment of items has been brought together to cause a death,” Granny said.
“And you think it’s the piece of my soul they’re trying to kill, as opposed to me. Why? They’ve been trying to get around the sanctuary and find a way to kill me for months.”
“You know Marjory and some of the rest of them have been spending a lot of time at Greyhill,” Wendy said. “So I went up there myself and did a little digging. Literally. Flip to the next picture.”
There was a second jar, nearly identical in its contents. In place of the hair in the first (which I presumed was mine, and I would most certainly be looking into how they’d gotten it), this one held something that looked suspiciously like a human finger bone.
“That was buried in the hearth,” said Wendy.
I gaped at her, then at Granny, while my hatred for Marjory Smith—never slight at the best of times—swelled inside me. I knew whose bone that was. The ghost of Greyhill, the only other person who had torn her soul for Bristol: my long-dead half-sister. “They robbed Letitia’s grave and stole her finger? But why? Why would they try to kill the piece of her soul?”
“We’re guessing they’ve been using it as a test case,” Wendy said. “Different contents, different incantations, whatever. There’s not really a precedent for killing a disembodied fraction of a soul.”
My heart was racing. I chalked it up to the dismay and disgust I was feeling. “And did they kill the piece of hers?”
“We don’t think so,” Granny said. “The place still feels the same. But I suppose they didn’t want to pass up the opportunity at the spa, even if they didn’t have a proven formula yet. Didn’t hurt to try.”
I shook my head. It was getting fuzzy. “What opportunity?”
“To eliminate any risk of discovery,” said Wendy. “The jar at the spa was hidden in a little recess in a wall where they were due to install a steam shower that day. If we hadn’t found it, and a great big shower had gone in over it—”
“The jar could have stayed there forever,” I finished. “Until its work was done.”
“I assume it wouldn’t kill you, if they did kill that part of your soul off?” Wendy asked.
“I don’t think so. But it might break the sanctuary spell, which is what they really want.”
I tried to sound calm about these potential consequences, but inside I was more than a little alarmed. I’d known, of course, that living with a piece of my soul outside my body would pose certain risks. But facing them in theory and facing them in the form of two hex jars were different things.
“We’ve already smashed and burned the jars, if that’s your next question,” Granny said. “That’s why you’re looking at pictures. Can’t go leaving stuff like that around.”
“Thank you.” I said it automatically, barely aware of the words. I felt dazed. I was breathing too fast.
“But there are other things—” Wendy began.
I didn’t hear what she said next. Serena was standing behind her. Blood from the dead witch’s empty eye sockets dripped into Wendy’s hair.
“Hold on.” I got up as fast as I could. “Bathroom.”
I was wheezing by the time I got there. I closed the door behind me and then, dreading what I might see, checked my bruise.
It was squirming.
Again? So soon?
A rumble of deep but feminine laughter came from behind the shower curtain.
Okay. Okay. Hold it together.
It’s just the curse.
The laugh got louder and louder, until I decided that privacy wasn’t such a good idea, after all. I flung open the bathroom door and stumbled back to the living room.
Wendy and Granny both got one look at my sweaty face, and rose to their feet.
“Curse attack. Sorry.” It was all I could manage.
“Lie down,” Granny ordered.
“What do we do?” Wendy asked.
“Nothing you can do.”
By the time Granny had pushed me onto the couch, Serena was back, standing by the fireplace. She wasn’t laughing anymore.
“You left me there!” she screeched, drowning out all other sound.
Ignore her.
She’s not real.
“You were supposed to bring me home! You left me there!”
I gasped for air and rolled over, pressing my face into the back of the couch despite the warm fabric making it even harder to breathe. It was worth it, not to have to look. I only wished I could block out the sound of her as well as the sight.
It went on for an eternity. When screaming wasn’t enough, Serena clawed my back, tugged my shoulders, tried to make me roll back over and face her. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t face her.
“YOU LEFT ME THERE!”
Ignore…
No.
I bolted upright. “I can’t ignore her. She’s right.”
“Who’s right?” Granny asked. She and Wendy were both kneeling on the floor by the couch. Maybe they’d been trying to help me, or hold me still. They stared at me like I’d grown a third eye.
“I’m so sorry.” I pushed my sweaty hair out of my face. “How long was that?”
“About half an hour.” Wendy looked shaken. “I thought you were having a seizure at one point.”
“Who’s right?” Granny asked again.
“Serena. She said I left her there. She kept saying it, over and over. That I shouldn’t have left her there.”
“What choice did you have? She was dead,” Granny said. “Why don’t you rest for a bit?”
“No. I was supposed to bring her home. And I left her.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Wendy.
“No, you don’t understand. I’m not beating myself up over it. I’m saying, what if it doesn’t matter that she was dead?”
“Well, I’ll allow that not many people seem to be mourning the woman,” said Granny.
I felt a stab of shame. “No, I didn’t mean it that way.”
We didn’t mourn you, did we? Not even Arabella. All your death has meant to any of us is that I’m still cursed.
I pushed the guilt away. I would pray for Serena later, but for the moment, I had to focus on getting out of the mess she’d left me in. “I meant, what if it doesn’t matter to the curse? She said herself that curses aren’t always precise.”
They were looking at me like I was raving, which I supposed I was. But I was sure of it: whether by sheer luck, or because the curse was still trying to fulfill its purpose, that attack had just given me something I could use.
“She said all I had to do was bring her home. Walk her through the front door of Number Twelve Fenwick Street.” I almost dared to smile. “I think we may have found another way, after all.”
“So you want to walk Serena’s dead body into her house,” said Wendy. “And what, just hope the neighbors don’t notice? Not to be indelicate, but how much longer do you even have, before she starts decomposing?”
“Not her corpse,” I said. “Bones or ashes, something we can carry.”
“Well, it’s morbid, but it’s worth a try. You need to talk to Lydia. She’s our expert on putting spirits to rest. Maybe she can figure out some kind of homecoming ritual to do over the remains.”
“Maybe she can even help Serena’s spirit move on, if need be.” Offering Serena whatever peace I could seemed like the least I could do, after we’d gotten the woman killed.
Granny snorted. “Would you two listen to yourselves? You’re missing a crucial point, wouldn’t you say? What are you going to do, go knock on the Wicks’ front door and ask nicely where they dispose of their murder victims?”
As a matter of fact, that crucial point had not been lost on me. But I was so encouraged by the prospect that there might be a way, any way at all, that I couldn’t yet worry about how difficult it might be.
Wendy’s talk of spirits and rituals had given me another idea, though. “Do you think it’s possible I don’t even need her body? Maybe there’s some way to summon her spirit there and bring her home that way. Like if we used some object of hers, the way Lydia did when she banished ghosts?”
I suspected, even as I said it, that that would be too easy. The specter of Serena had been pretty clear that leaving her behind was a mistake. But anything that might save us a trip back to Pennsylvania, and into Cillian Wick’s strange and awful lair, was worth trying first.
“Another good question for Lydia,” Wendy said.
I nodded and got shakily to my feet. “I’ll go back to the hotel and find her.”
“Hold on,” said Wendy. “Did you walk or drive?”
“Walked.”
“Good.” Granny stood up, too. “I’ll drive you back. You’re in no condition to walk and it will give me a chance to talk to you about the rest.”
“The rest of what?” I asked.
Granny put a hand on my shoulder and began steering me toward the front door. “I’m sorry to say that hex jars aren’t our only problem.”
I looked back at Wendy, but she only offered me a helpless shrug and a wave.
I’d barely buckled my seatbelt in Granny’s little sedan when she asked, “Do you have the exact wording of the sanctuary spell you used?”
Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. “Not off the top of my head, but I’m sure it’s in my notebook back at the hotel. I wrote about a thousand drafts in regular pen before I copied it out in spell ink.”
“I’d like to look at it, if you’ll trust me with it. And then I think you’d be very wise to burn it.”
“What’s this all about?”
“Marjory’s got more than one trick up her sleeve, to try to destroy the sanctuary. I’d like to make sure we’re protected from all of them.” Granny turned onto Main Street and headed toward the hotel. Somehow I had the idea that this conversation was going to be longer than the drive.
“Okay, so what else are we talking about, besides hex jars?” I asked.
“Politics.”
“What, she’s going to dismantle the sanctuary by committee?”
“Let’s hope not.” Granny’s voice showed no sign of joking. “You know the Garden Club people go into The Witch’s Brew all the time. They won’t talk in front of Wendy and Caleb, but Wendy bugged the place.”
I laughed so hard it hurt my poor battered lungs. “You’re kidding me!”
“No, it’s great for getting all the news and gossip, and no magic required,” Granny said. “Anyway, Asher and Jessica Glass have been talking a lot, and so has Emily Talbott.”
“Talking to who? About what?”
“To people who aren’t in the Garden Club. But only the ones who come from magic, you know, the believers. They’re telling them you’ve tried to reinstate the devil’s deal, with yourself as the new devil-in-residence.”
“They’re telling them about the sanctuary spell?”
“Not only that, they’re telling them you botched it. That it’s protecting you and making you prosperous, but it’s doing nothing for the rest of Bristol.”
“What are you talking about? Bristol is as prosperous as ever.”
“Mostly. Not entirely. The town’s not as invincible as it used to be.”
“But it is being protected from being drained alive by feeders!”
“I know that, and you know that. But the average citizen of Bristol doesn’t know anything about sapwoods or Wicks or feeders. They don’t know what you’re up to in there.” She gestured ahead of us at the Mount Phearson. “But they do know that the hotel seems to be doing great, while John Withers got killed on the mountain road by a drunk driver last month, and Tricia Landry’s antique shop is about to go out of business.”
I stared at her. “So what do they think? I’m draining the town of its prosperity?”
“And hogging it all for you and yours.” Granny parked, but neither of us made any move to get out. “I don’t know how many people believe what they’re hearing, mind you. But the rumors are being spread. And I’ll be frank, I don’t know that most of the town trusts you.”
I sighed. “Most of them have been treating me like an outsider since I got back last year.”
“Because you are an outsider.” She said it flatly, without pity or diplomacy.
Ordinarily, I would never have dreamed of taking out my temper on Granny. But what can I say, it had been a long week. A long season. When I spoke, it was not in the respectful voice that should be used with one’s elders.
“How can you say that? I was born and raised here, and in case you haven’t been paying attention, I’ve done a whole hell of a lot for Bristol lately. And you’re right, the Mount Phearson is doing great business. Which is something this town depends on, so they can damn well be grateful for it.”
Granny seemed more amused than offended. “Two cu
rse words in one outburst. That must be a record for you.” She patted my arm. “Blame the messenger all you want, but I’m just telling you how things are. You don’t want to let this spin out of control.”
I looked out the window at the hotel, wishing I was inside. “So what do you suggest?”
“That you go out there and walk among your fellow man.”
“Thank you, Jacob Marley.”
“I mean it. You’re right, the town does depend on the Phearson. Its owner should be one of our most prominent citizens. But you barely leave the hotel, and your closest cohorts are outsiders. You need to get out more. And it wouldn’t hurt to host a few community and holiday events at the hotel, too.”
“We host tons of stuff at the hotel!”
“No, Lance and Agatha host tons of stuff,” she corrected. “You need to be the face of the Mount Phearson, or at least one of them. People can’t trust you if they don’t know you.”
I leaned back against the headrest and closed my eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, Granny, I have a lot on my plate right now. Joining a book club isn’t my highest priority.”
“Since you mention it, the Classics Club meets at the library on Thursday nights. In the meanwhile, I’d like to have a look at that spell.”
“For what?”
“Chinks in the armor. Marjory is organizing this rumor campaign for a reason. I want to make sure there’s nothing there she can exploit. I’m doing some research on the original sanctuary, too, with Lydia’s help. I want to compare the two.”
I shrugged. Clearly it would make her feel better, and I didn’t see how it would hurt to share it with her. Wendy had helped me write most of it, anyway.
“Sure. Come on upstairs with me and I’ll give it to you now.”
But when we got to my suite, all thoughts of the spell and the citizens of Bristol were dispelled from my mind.
“Cooper!”
He was standing in the living room, wearing pajama bottoms and no shirt, drinking a bottle of water. Just as casual as you please. When I threw my arms around him, he held me so tightly it hurt, but he also let go quickly.
Witch Bound (Devilborn Book 3) Page 10