Page 21 of My Neighbor Literally Bites

My phone buzzes against my chest. Elias. I answer without speaking.

"You felt them," he says.

"They've marked four sites. Bloodroot."

"It's gotten worse. Movement's tripled this week—and not only hunters. The old families are interested now." His voice drops. "Draycott's name is moving through the private channels. Quietly, which is worse. If Lucien has heard Elspeth's archive is real, he won't send negotiators. He'll send silence. You know what that means for the woman."

"I know."

"Do you? The last time you understood, you came to me with ashes." The line goes quiet a moment. "Get clear of it. Or get her clear. There's no third door."

He ends the call. Boots crunch the frost behind me. I turn, and Ben is coming up the lane with a flashlight he doesn't need now that the sky has gone pale, his cruiser idling at the bend.

"Blackwood." He stops a few feet off, studying the painted boards. "You're out early."

"Couldn't sleep."

"Yeah." He rubs his jaw. "Third one of these somebody's phoned in this week. Chapel, the bridge, now here." He crouches, touches the red with a gloved finger, frowns at how it smears. "County's calling it kids. Some club. Spray paint and nothing better to do."

"You don't believe that."

"I think kids don't drive this far for a shut-up schoolhouse nobody remembers." He straightens. "We've had people through town. Quiet ones. Renting the old motel by the highway, paying cash. That historian and a few friends of his." His eyes cut to me. "You seen anybody around the Marlowe place?"

The question is careful. So is my answer. "Hannah keeps her doors locked."

"Good." He means it. "Elspeth was a friend. I'd hate for her granddaughter to inherit her trouble along with the house."

"What trouble?"

Ben shrugs, slow. "Old woman kept odd company. Visitors at strange hours, right to the end. People I never met. I figured it was her secret." He nods at the mark. "Starting to wonder if it's becoming mine."

"It might be everyone's," I say, even though I knew her secret.

He studies me, then clicks off the flashlight. "If you see those quiet men near her, you call me."

"I will."

He believes me. It's strange that a sheriff this practical decided I'm worth trusting, and he has no notion of what he's trusting. I watch his taillights shrink toward town and the morning goes colder than the weather accounts for. Elspeth was clever. She carried more than the town ever guessed.

I'm supposed to be glad of that. I'm not. Keeping Hannah ignorant is keeping her protected. That's the bargain I struck when I met her, but now, I see that's a cage. Hannah is walking this blind. She's no idea what she could find out or what hunts her along the way. She needs to know what surrounds her. She needs to know what I am.

Not tonight, with Elias' warning still cold in my ear and my own fear whispering that there will be a better moment, a softer one. There won't be. But I cannot turn her world upside down. Soon, though. Before the old families move.

17

HANNAH

Iwipe dust from me and survey the older wing of the house, the part that has resisted every fresh coat of paint and every straightened floorboard. Sunlight filters through in uneven patches, catching on the warped planks. After my night with Alaric—his quiet presence lingers in me like a promise I'm not ready for. Lily will be home from school soon, and I want progress to show her, not questions.

I kneel where the original foundation meets the addition my grandmother oversaw. The boards creak differently, hollow in spots. I pry at one with a flathead screwdriver until it lifts enough for me to shine my phone light underneath. A narrow crawlspace opens up, just wide enough for shoulders. I hesitate a moment before sliding in on my stomach, elbows scraping against joists.

Thick beams run the length of the space with carvings that look to have been there years—deep, deliberate lines sealed over with a crusty paste that flakes away under my fingernail. Symbols. One repeats in a careful row: a circle bisected by a single line. Others resemble marks I've seen in Elspeth's journals. I snap photos from every angle, the flash harsh against the dim timbers, then ease backward until I can stand again.

I pull the latest journal from my bedside and flip to the pages where those same symbols appear. The circle and line matches one exactly. Clara mentioned old founding-era markers once, scattered through town like silent witnesses.

The front opens, Lily drops her backpack with a thud that echoes up here. "Mom? You in the creepy wing again?"

"In here," I call. She appears in the doorway, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, cheeks flushed. Her eyes scan the room and land on the journal and my dusty clothes.