Chapter 20

Twenty

After three dozen rounds of questions, Elaria sent the guys off to her guest rooms and dragged me down the hall to stay with her.

"It's not that I think you'd start an orgy or anything. I just want a little one-on-one girl time."

"Sure."

She shimmies into her pajamas, a pair of black shorts that say "witchin'" across the butt and a tank top with ghosts playing peekaboo over her boobs.

"So…" She says, fluffing up her pillow and snuggling down. "What's it like dating four guys? Exhausting?"

I glance toward the door, wondering if they're going to be close enough to hear. Either way, I tell her the truth. "Exhilarating."

She groans, a jealous sound, but it's followed immediately by a smile. "The literally endless supply of sex has to be nice."

"You have no idea."

"I really don't. Half of my potential dating pool thinks ‘old school' is desirable, when it mostly means they want me to do everything in the relationship."

She shakes her head and half buries it in the pillow. "The second you turn thirty-three your mom is going to be on you to give her grandbabies… especially since you've got all the requisite parts on standby."

I can't help but laugh at that. And when she joins me, I can't stop. My sides hurt so bad…

The hours tick by and exhaustion finally takes hold.

I'm not surprised that I close my eyes, and when I open them, seemingly on a blink, daylight streams through the curtains, and Elaria is gone.

I get dressed and follow the clattering to the kitchen.

The guys come out a moment later, and I have a feeling they were listening for me.

From the look Elaria gives them, I'd say they've guessed as much too. "I hope you all slept well last night."

They all nod and stumble through a round of "thank you for having us."

She flips a spatula at them, but none of the batter leaves the silicone. "Now that you've got the coven's blessing, make sure you keep it."

The look at each other and then at me.

I just shake my head. "She's being dramatic."

"Only a little bit."

Johnny clears his throat. "We'd be happy to make breakfast as a thank you."

"For a kitchen witch?" Elaria looks at him with mock horror. "Don't you dare."

"Is that why your kitchen is the size of Scarlette's whole house?" Joshua asks.

"It's one of the reasons." She points toward the far end of the counter. "Coffee's done."

The pot clicks over as she points to it. The kettle chirps a moment later.

As Thomas pours his coffee, he scowls at the black liquid. "What's with the one witch—blue-black hair and pink horn rimmed glasses—who voted guilty?"

"Picked her out, did you?" Elaria rolls her eyes and sighs. "Don't worry about her. She's part of the coven because she's just too old to abandon."

"And," I add, "she's Aphrodite's mom. So she definitely doesn't like us now that I've snitched on her daughter."

The oven chimes, and a moment later, Elaria's counter is covered in breakfast options that shouldn't have been able to cook at the same temperature for the same time… But that's a secret that kitchen witches usually keep to themselves.

We eat while Johnny quizzes her on half a dozen things. He seems particularly curious about the German pancake she made for me. Suspicious of the simplicity.

"I hate to eat and run, but I am ready to go home."

Elaria waves her hand. "I know, I know. You hate it here." She hugs me and I know it's partially to use me to block the sink from view as she moves her hand over it.

The dishes are clean, but it usually freaks people out to see it. I'm not even sure she's aware that she's hidden the action. It's probably just habit by now.

Once again, Johnny takes all of our bags to the car in one go and Elaria looks after him with a pensive twist to her mouth. "Maybe I need to stop looking at witches and find a wolf pack of my own."

"We're tamer than most," Joshua says with an apologetic smile.

When we pile in the car, Johnny's in the driver's seat, Joshua's up front with him, and once again, I'm snugly between the other two.

"Is there anything else you want to do while we're up here?" Johnny asks as he starts the car.

"Nope. There are several different reasons why I left. Don't need to revisit any of them."

"Cool, let's go home."

"Mine or yours?" I ask, chuckling.

"Ours." Johnny says with a nod.

"But it could definitely be yours if you want it to be." Chase's smile is wicked and I swat at his hand as he starts to pull my skirt up.

"No distracting the driver."

"He wasn't the one I planned to distract."

I shake my head at them, catching a sharp glint off the glass of a car that pulled away from the curb at the same time we did.

It is very clearly following us.

A familiar pair of glasses are the only thing visible in the dark of the car's interior.

Martha Lourdes.

Let her make sure we leave town. The woman can think she's chasing us out. I don't care.

We take the coast road home, winding down the 101 arguing about the quality of movie remakes and cover songs.

Each time the gray water of the Pacific peeks into view from between the thick stands of evergreens, Chase turns to it as though it draws him.

But it's not until we've passed Florence that he says anything about it. "I hate that it's too cold to actually enjoy the beach."

"It's technically always too cold to enjoy the beach."

"True… maybe we should take you somewhere it does get warm enough."

I swat his hand once more when he tries to crawl it up my skirt again, and then lean forward, pointing off the road as we reach the tiny town set just off the hillside. "Pull over?"

"What are we doing here?"

"Just a small amount of penance."

When we turn off, the white minivan that had been riding our tail for the last twenty miles or so zooms past and I spare a moment's glance after them. Whatever their hurry, I hope they get where they need to be.

"Park on the street right here."

Johnny does, and they all get out with me, looking up at the stepped cement walls and grass carving level ground out of the hill.

"What is it with you and graveyards?" Thomas asks, stretching out the kinks of the prolonged journey.

"As it happens, I haven't been to a graveyard since I was a child."

Chuckling, Johnny is the first one up the uneven steps. "Who wants to tell her where we are right now?"

"In order to qualify as a graveyard it has to be attached to a church. This is just a cemetery."

"Alright then, what is it with you and cemeteries?"

"There's a lot of power in death. And the dead talk more than you might think."

"So who are we here to see?" Joshua stops at the top of one set of stairs, and holds his hand out to me to help me up. To steady me. "And what will they have to say?"

"A witch hidden from the people who killed her, and she's never talked to me before, but that doesn't mean I want to pass without paying my respects."

That gets me four puzzled looks, but I ignore them and continue on to the top of the grave-dotted hill.

Nestled between two enormous fir trees, the flat stone is roughly carved.

I clear away the needles and grass that have covered over it.

KNOWN UNTO GOD

SINS WILL OUT

MAY 6 1982

"Her name was Elizabeth Black. She was a witch, hung by a superstitious and spiteful group of men in our own, tiny town."

"Why does her tombstone say that then?"

"Because the family that hanged her is still around, and they're terrified of the curse she laid on them before she died." I sweep away the last of the moss. "And if they knew she was here, they'd have dug her up and turned her bones to ash."

"Was she a relative?"

"No. Her family is entirely gone." If I'd thought of it, I'd have brought the tiny kit of tools I've compiled to get the growth out of the engraving. "But she shouldn't be forgotten."

A sickly feeling—like someone's walked over my grave—brushes over me, and Chase shivers and looks back toward the road. The others felt it too.

"We should go." Joshua says, looking down toward the road. "The longer we wait, the later it gets."

He glances at Thomas and a mocking look crosses his face. "And someone has been putting off his laundry."

Thomas rolls his eyes. "I'd argue if it wasn't true."

Heading back to the car—slower, because it starts to rain and the steps aren't completely maintained—I can't help but think something happened that we've missed or that I should have accounted for.

That sickly feeling of dread has settled on me and it doesn't feel like it's going to go away anytime soon.

"I don't know about you," Joshua says, taking the keys and getting in the driver's seat, "But I am ready to be get home."

We all agree.

But ten miles down the road, we have to slow. Flashing lights surround the white minivan.

It's been pulled off the side of the road, but it's crushed and crumpled. A light pole still sits, tangled in the mangled wreckage.

We drive past, slowing, and I take in the whole scene, a little ill at ease.

A pair stands beside the car, arguing with a highway patrolman.

I can tell from here that there was no one else in the car—it's crammed full of boxes.

The pole fell directly in the center of the car… the patrolman would likely call it a freak accident. Their survival some sort of miracle…

"Thank God that wasn't us." Chase is still turned around looking at it as we cross the next bridge.

And I have to agree. If that had been us… I'd be dead.

The chill we felt… if that didn't directly coincide with this wreck, I'd be amazed. Because it should have been us.

"It's a good thing we stopped to visit Elizabeth." Johnny says. He's scowling too and I have to assume they've all come to the conclusion I did.

Elizabeth may have saved my life.

Whether or not they suspect that someone was directly involved…

I think about Martha Lourdes, who knew the route we'd take, and what time we'd left. But she wasn't foolish enough to have done something like that.

Was she?