Chapter 17

Seventeen

Dad's book is exactly where he said it would be.

It's also covered in mold.

"Gross." Johnny says, wrinkling his nose as I set it on the table on the deck. "Why would he put it down there?"

"You don't keep things like this inside the house… but you also don't want to let them get too far away from you." There are half a dozen others down there that fall into the same category. None quite as bad. "Dad's side of the family was a little less on the side of love and light."

"I mean… we can't all be saints."

I laugh and look it over one more time… just in case. But there's no getting around it. "I can't go through this until it's cleaned off. Luckily the book is dry and I have a surplus of parchment paper squirreled away.

"Is there a spell for that?" Chase asks as he holds the door open.

"Kind of, but it takes time."

"Time we have?" Johnny asks.

"Yes."

Walking all of my supplies out to the barn, I finally go back for the book with gloves and a ventilator. Mold mixed with magic is not something anyone wants to inhale.

The four of them are hovering and so, I shoo them away as I walk the book around to the barn. It won't go inside my house, not until the mold is gone and it's safe.

It takes some gentle prying and, in one instance an actual knife, but once the pages are all separated and I've slid parchment between each, I can go at the cover with a soft brush and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide—modern witches, modern solutions, after all.

By the time I take off the ventilator and toss the gloves into a bin for cleaning and cleansing, the guys have crept back into the barn. I think they thought they were being sneaky.

"All done?" Chase asks, eying the tome like it's a piece of roadkill.

"Not yet. Mold isn't the only thing that's been growing on those pages. Want to help me lift this tub?"

"We've got it." Johnny says as he and Joshua go to the metal bin and drag it from the place below the shelves bolted on the northern wall. "Jesus, what's in this thing?"

"Salt."

"Just salt?"

"Mhmm. I'm going to bury the book in it for a few hours, see if we can calm the spells down before we open them up."

They help me dig away some of the salt and place the book inside. It's probably harmless now, but it's not something I want to risk right now—no point in adding to the chaos.

"What are we going to do for the next few hours then?"

I glance outside. Cleaning it had taken longer than I expected and dusk has turned the sky a dim gray. "Let me get cleaned up, then let's go for a drive."

"Anywhere particular?"

"Yes. I'm driving."

I head inside, laughing as they grumble and call me a tease.

They don't figure it out until I turn off the highway.

"We're going to visit your grandmother?" Thomas asks, and the others shift. I hope it's nerves, not concern.

"Yep. I figured it was time for you to meet her."

"We haven't even met your dad yet."

"In our family, she's more important."

When I park the car, I leave the engine running. "I am going to go up first, make sure she wakes up without any problems and then send the wolves back for you. Okay?"

"Are we allowed to argue?" Joshua asks.

"No. Never. " I meet their smiles and shake my head. "You can come up now, if you want, but you'll have to stay outside the fence and she might be grumpy I'm waking her up again . Remember, she buried herself."

"Fine, but don't take too long."

"We're not particularly happy about you being alone right now…"

My grandmother is out of the ground before I get there, and I hesitate at the entry gate. "Were you waiting for me? Or do you get up often?"

"I couldn't sleep because of your little problem." She looks at me over her shoulder. "And I heard you coming."

At some point since the last time I was here, she's spelled her dress clean and pulled her hair back out of her face in a long braid… it always made me think she looked like a dragon.

"I've brought the guys with me."

She glances at the ghostly wolves on the other side of the fence. "I heard them too. So tell me what you want to tell me before they get here."

I tell her everything I know so far… "And I am certain this has to be broken at the full moon. Because of them."

She looks at me with a scowl that pulls up one side of her lips and exposes one slender fang. "You're right."

"I am."

She nods. "It was one of the things that bothered me most about our last conversation… you can't have werewolves in the equation and not have them screw everything up."

"I'm sure they'll love to hear it." I laugh when she shoots me a sidelong glance.

But it's not me she speaks to next. "Go," she says to the wolves. "Get your humans and bring them here."

Three of them do as she says. Chase's stays.

She doesn't seem to mind.

"Renée isn't going to help you. She'll deny that Aphrodite had her spells—no witch wants to admit when her grimoire has been desecrated. She'll see it as a sign of weakness and that woman can't show an ounce of humanity."

"It's still worth asking."

Nodding, my grandmother sits on the stone bench near the boggy bit. "You have the book from your father's family that deals with hexes… there is another. It's in your attic."

"My attic that was built after you were presumed dead? How did you manage that?"

"It's magic you'll learn in time." She looks behind me and I know the guys are here. "The book is in the chimney there is a brick stamped with a pentacle. It shouldn't be hard to find. The spell you're looking for is the only one that will be in both books."

It's cryptic, but it's more help than I thought I'd find here.

"As for the other reason you visited…" she turns to the guys. "You can come into the plot if you like. I won't bite you. But you are just as welcome to stay on that side of the stones."

None of them move, they don't say a thing, they look at me.

"The wolves have to stay on that side of the gate… since they are not inside of you anymore, you are welcome inside."

Chase is the first to step forward, and after he passes through the winding gate, the others follow. The single file entrance gives my grandmother more time to appraise them.

She doesn't smile.

"You are the four who think you have a right to my granddaughter's love and life?"

"No." Thomas says, drawing her full attention.

"You're the teacher, aren't you? Why don't you tell me what I need to learn?"

She's not trying to compel them, there's no scent of magic in the air. If there was, they'd smell it.

The fact that their noses are twitching tells me they know it's not there, too.

"We love her. It has nothing to do with what we feel we have a ‘right to' and everything to do with wanting to keep her safe and keep her with us."

"Keep her safe? And what if keeping her safe means you have to make a terrible choice?"

They shift and I know they're looking at me for clarification, but I don't know what she's about to say until it's too late. I can't stop her.

"If severing this tie means you have to give up the child or go back to shifting with every moon—"

Chase doesn't let her finish. "We would go back to being wolves."

"All of you?"

"Of course."

She studies them again, another long, narrowed glance. "Hopefully it doesn't come to that."

With one last long look at the four of them, she pulls a ring off her thumb and hands it to me. "The others are in the staircase."