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He looked over his shoulder at Fern leaning against the far wall. “There is soup and bread on the stove, Dear. Why don’t you make all three of you a plate. You all look hungry. Make yourselves comfortable."
Fern rushed over to make the plates, while Ernest leaned over my body. “How did this come about?” he asked.
Kellan’s shoulders slumped, as if he’d regretted ever accepting my father’s request.
“It started when I saw Deidamia at my home in Louisiana.”
The swiftness of his movement startled me. One second, he was hovered over my body, judging the color of my skin, and the next, he was inches away from me.
I gasped, seeing Kellan take a careful step over in preparation of Ernest going crazy.
Ernest’s eyes were wide in shock, and worry was written all over his features. “How do you know her?” he asked.
I swallowed. “She took me from my home because someone in my house stole from her. I woke up in another realm. She blew some dust into my face, and then I began to dream of Kellan,” I whispered, watching the way his throat moved as he swallowed. “And then he rescued me. I’ve been following myself around since then.”
Ernest closed his eyes slowly and inhaled deeply. Fern nudged my arm with my plate, and I greedily took it.
“Mr. Ernest,” I said over a bite of food. “I’m assuming this is because you know who she is?”
He opened his eyes and glared. “Everyone knows who she is, and everyone knows to stay away from her.”
A small gust of wind hit my ankles when he turned around and marched toward my body. “She has put you in a sleep state. Your parents asked for Kellan’s help?”
Kellan nodded. “I’m a bounty hunter. They asked me to save her, and when I found out it was Deidamia, I had to come.”
“You know her?”
Kellan didn’t give any indication that he did other than the sad look on his face. He’d done a really good job of hiding his thoughts since he realized I could hear them. But before he found out, he thought of Deidamia often. There was pure hate in his heart for her. She’d taken his family from what I could tell, but he never replayed that so I could see it.
But he did replay her. Analisa. It didn’t take much to know they were married. The love written on her face in those short clips that ran on repeat in his head was evident.
Ernest sighing brought me out of my own head.
“Do you know what someone took from her?” Ernest asked before looking up at me. “Or who?”
“No,” I said and then I took another bite. The intense look on his face made me shift on my feet. “You don’t believe me?” I asked.
“You lived there?”
I shook my head. “It was my second day back since I graduated high school. Everything was already weird when I got there.”
Ernest gestured for Kellan to eat his food. He’d been holding the plate Fern passed him. “Eat. All of you. I need time to think.”
Kellan was reluctant to leave my body but stepped several feet away to sit down on a wooden chair.
I sat near Fern on a small couch. “Did you know who Deidamia was before this?” I asked her.
Fern’s light brows folded inward. “Yes,” she said. “Like Ernest said, everyone does.”
I took a bite of the stew. “What do you know about her?”
She cleared her throat, pushing her food around with her fork. “Lots of things. Not good things. That she is a witch,” she whispered, “that she sees everything, and not to go into the woods alone.”
I nibbled on a piece of bread, sneaking a glance at Kellan leaned back in his chair. His legs were spread wide, his elbow perched on the arm of his chair as he ate his stew.
“Our mothers would tell us stories about her,” she said. “That she had evil blood and that every so many years, she has to feed off humans to survive—”
Kellan’s bowl broke into pieces on his legs, and the stew dripped onto his pants. He jumped up, trying to clean his mess while Ernest rushed into the room to help.
