Page 28 of Freed By the Witchbone Knife

Did you get my flowers?

Which I ignored and blocked.

By Friday, I was determined not to care about Axel’s weird reaction. Ambrose’s blatant antagonization. I needed to focus on the task at hand. Getting the knife. That was all that mattered.

Getting my magic back. My family’s magic back. Breaking the curse.

Which was what fueled me Saturday morning when I pulled off the road and headed into the forest on Axel’s property. I wanted an early start. It was the only reason I arrived an hour ahead of my usual time.

Unfortunately, the sky decided to spite me. Halfway through the day the clouds rolled in and opened up. I got caught in a monumental downpour. Axel never appeared. I didn’t even feel his gaze—not a single time.

I was forced to slip and slide back in the direction of my car, with no cave discovery to show for it⁠—

And promptly twisted my ankle.

“Mother-fucking-fuck,” I gritted out, sliding to the ground.

There I sat for a solid five minutes, sopping wet, shivering, and furious. What did I expect? For him to show up like some knight in shining armor? Whisper calm reassurances as he massaged my injury and carry me the rest of the way to my car?

I snorted, then hobbled to my feet.

By the time I made it back, the rain had stopped, but I was miserable.

I cranked the heater and drove back to my bungalow in record time, drawing myself a bath, and pouring a very large glass of wine.

Sunday was a little better. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. Small mercies.

I wrapped my ankle, which was mostly fine after a good long soak the night before. It warmed up after a bit of walking.

The sound of rushing water reached me before I saw it. I pushed through a curtain of ferns and stopped short. A waterfall, maybe fifteen feet high, tumbled over a stone ledge into a shallow pool below. For a moment, I just stood there and blinked, taking in the picturesque scene.

Then my eyes fixed on the waterfall. Behind the cascade was the dark outline of a cave entrance.

My heart leapt.

I was less careful than I should have been as I picked my way down to the pool’s edge, boots slipping on the wet rocks. The ankle I’d twisted yesterday gave a sharp protest and I hissed, dropping onto a flat boulder at the water’s edge. My excitement was short lived. The cave was shallow—a pocket, really. No connecting passages, no lunarium readings worth noting. Just a dead end.

Disappointed, I marked it off my map and tried not to let the disappointment settle too heavily. This place was too beautiful to be sad. So I unlaced my boots and peeled off my socks, rolling my injured ankle experimentally. Tender, but functional. I removed the wrapping and dangled both my feet into the pool. The cold water was immediate relief.

I groaned, planting my hands behind me and leaning back, taking everything in. The sunlight filtering through the trees. The patches of blue sky above. The birdsong.

I sat there longer than I should have, letting the cold do its work. Then I decided to call it a day.

The entire hike back and drive home, I thought about Axel. He never appeared. And I couldn’t understand why he’d pulled a one-eighty.

Would he be angry if I drove to his cabin and demanded to know why?

The thought was tempting, and when I passed the dirt road leading to his cabin—or where I presumed his cabin to be—I was tempted. But I kept on driving, granting him his privacy. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was home, and what that home looked like.

Over the next several days, what little free time I had was spent with Basil and Sage, or putting up my autumn decor. Since it was my favorite season, and Halloween was my favorite holiday—a cursed witch is still a witch—I had tons of stuff to put out. Paper bats fixed to the walls like they were flying out of the windows, fairy lights, leaf garland, light-up pumpkins. I still needed to do something about my porch, though. I’d never had one back in Walton, living in an apartment.

So I used the nights I couldn’t sleep to scroll Pinboard and save a bunch of inspiring porch decor. Pumpkins cascading down stairs, big ribbons tied to bannisters, hay bales artfully arranged with cute signs welcoming the fall season. I probably wouldn’t do anything quite so elaborate. Most of my pins were of gorgeous cabins with beautiful wrap around porches, laden with flowering pots of autumnal mums and sunflowers, flannel throws, porch swings, and pumpkins of all sizes. The kind of designs you see in magazines.

A girl could dream.

I finally asked Iris about the pumpkin patch. It was at a local farm just outside of town. They pulled out all the stops in the fall. There were the usual activities you’d expect, like hay rides, a corn maze, games, and more. But there was also a harvest festival that happened the second Saturday of October.

“You have to go,” Iris told me. “They transform the old barn until it looks like it barfed up fall. There’s free food, live music, dancing.” She leaned closer to my table. “You might even meet a few cute locals. Some of the farmhands that work the surrounding ranches.”