“Your name. She couldn’t speak it, but she could write it. You were the one bewitching her,” she said, for it was useless to act coy now. There was only one reason why Carolyn would be standing beyond the threshold, staring at her.
“If you want to be technical about it, it was my father.”
“Why?”
Carolyn’s fingers brushed against the fur of her collar, smoothing it down. She motioned in the direction of the stairs. “If you would simply step out of the room, I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Why don’t you step in?”
She couldn’t. Ginny’s witch marks still had power. Especially with her ghost in the room. Something about the spectral presence combined with the markings helped maintain the space safe from the influence of an evil sorcerer. That was why the piece of paper had remained beneath the floor. That, and Carolyn probably had no idea it was there. Ginny had left a message for her friend scribbled inside a book, but Betty had never read it. Thomas might have been close to discovering the note, but Minerva must have interrupted his séance.
Whether he’d had an inkling of the note’s existence or not, the room was shielded and Minerva was safe within its confines. The room would not allow Carolyn in, nor one of her minions. Dark magic had no place within it.
Carolyn tapped her fingers against the wall. “You really should step out,” she said softly. It was a vicious command wrapped in silk.
Minerva shook her head. Carolyn sighed. She tapped the wall again, once, twice, thrice. Her eyelids trembled and her eyes rolled back until the whites were showing. “Your friend owns a blue car, doesn’t he? From his rearview mirror hang two air fresheners in the shape of palm trees.”
Minerva did not respond. Her hands curled, balling up the piece of paper. She swallowed and her throat was now so dry it ached.
“Young people these days are careless. They drive too fast at night; they don’t pay attention to the traffic signals. Your friend,he’s reaching the bend of a road,” Carolyn said, and she raised her hand, her fingers describing a sinuous curve.
“You can’t do anything to him,” Minerva said, but of course Carolyn could. It was a meaningless objection.
“Did my grandson ever mention how his parents died? It was a car accident. Anything can happen when you’re driving at night. If you’re a young man heading back to campus, you might be changing the radio station when suddenly you swerve and there’s a tree—”
“Stop it! He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“That’s up to you,” Carolyn said.
Carolyn smiled at her with that predator’s grin, with that smile that was all teeth. She’d smiled like that at Ginny many decades before and Minerva felt her power; it was a brutal, steely force that seemed to gnaw the walls around her.
Ginny’s ghost brushed against her arm, as if clutching it for a brief second, warning her to remain where she was. But Minerva picked up her backpack and stepped out of the room.
Carolyn blinked, her eyes fixing on Minerva. In the hallway, the temperature had dropped; the warmth of summer had been vanquished and instead Minerva’s breath came up in a plume, as though it were a chilly December morning. She was by the doorway and perhaps might have leaped back into the room, crouched in a corner, and waited for dawn to arrive.But you can’t outrun a witch. Not like this.
“What now?” Minerva asked instead.
“Now we go for a drive.”
1908: 13
Alba did not huntwith her father and brother. It did not appeal to her, and her mother would have thought it unladylike for her to stumble through the mountains in search of deer. But she knew a good hunter was an excellent scout who was familiar with the terrain. They were also quiet, stealthy. A hunter must walksoft and slow, think before moving, and wait. Patience is the hunter’s greatest weapon.
When you’re hunting deer, it’s relatively easy to remain concealed behind a tree, to hold the rifle with a firm grasp. But when there’s a mountain lion a few paces from you, it’s harder to steady the hands, to keep yourself from running away for fear that the shot might miss and the mountain lion will sink its fangs into your leg.
When she kissed Arturo, it was equally difficult to remain in place, to stop herself from bolting out of the room. For there’d be no turning back after this; she had chosen her path.
She stood up by the bed and he narrowed his eyes, perhaps thinking she meant to run off after all, but Alba took off her nightgown and let it fall to the floor. She stood naked now, her long hair covering her shoulders, half hiding her breasts. She shivered, at the cold of the room and the weight of his gaze. Then he lifted his nightshirt above his head and discarded it, stretching a hand towardher, and she breached the short space between them, sliding into his bed.
She’d grown up on a farm and thus understood the coupling of animals. Her father’s books—the tomes on anatomy and the leather-bound encyclopedia—had provided her with precise knowledge of biological processes. She grasped what this would entail, even if she had only skimmed the edges of lust.
She’d thought of him during the past couple of years in a way that flirted with the inappropriate yet never became full desire. Now they embraced and it felt like a fever dream, her lips burning as he kissed her, the room growing dim and dark.
It would have been a lie to say she was indifferent to the press of his body against her own, to the way his hands moved down her breasts, making her skin tingle. But dread echoed each motion, and she could hardly respond to him, her body stiff and drenched in fear as she recalled Valentín’s coffin and her brother dying in her arms, and in turn Arturo must have felt this fright and been repulsed. That was not the bargain they had made. He shifted his body as if to slip out of the bed.
She panicked, distressed at the thought of losing this chance, her one chance perhaps, and clutched his arms, pulling him atop her, kissing him. Then his mouth was upon her throat and her hands curled around his shoulders.
Dread was drowned by desire as his fingers caressed and probed her with caution, as if her skin were porcelain he must not damage. He kissed her hands, her wrists, her pulse quickening with every touch.
