Page 56 of Hallowed Bones

I pause at the second-to-last image—a depiction of five men who are each in their mid-to-late thirties. There’s an empty space between them, a middle part that’s just slightly off-center. I find my eyes going repeatedly back to the empty space as if drawn there by some unseen force. It’s different from if the men were just giving each other space. It’s as if someone should be there. My fingers itch to touch, to stroke, to see if the picture feels as real as it looks.

I swear I can smell the wet soil under their feet. My skin prickles with gooseflesh as if a cold wind is slipping all around me. The men in the photograph are all wearing coats, long, dark fabric covering them as if when the picture was taken had been on a particularly cool day. Behind them is the mansion I currently stand in.

The photographs are haunting in a way that’s different from reality. Capturing moments that seem normal but feel … empty.

Then again, everything about this place is ripe with hollow tragedy. The mansion. The town. The school. The people.

Damaged souls attracted to an already damaged place.

Leaving behind the older picture, I move to the newest addition at the bottom of the stairs. The final portrait is crisp and fresh, likely added recently. Reaching out, I hover a fingertip over their familiar faces. Ezra, Cameron, Lyall, and Reyes.

Their faces are stone. Bodies rigid, like holding still might keep them from shattering. They stand in front of this very house, posed by an obvious professional considering the light that hits them all just right to reflect their faces and forms to perfection. As if they could step right out of the image.

Ezra stands just ahead of the others—centered, commanding. Reyes flanks his right, Cameron to his left, and Lyall just behind, slightly off to the side. The spires of the Bishop mansion haunt the background, barely visible beneath storm-thick clouds, like even the sky wanted to mourn. They’re dressed in black as if this was taken right after a funeral.

The way they look at the camera … It isn’t just pain that I see. It’s something darker than that. A silent scream stretches across four faces that shouldn’t know how to wear grief so well.

The Sons of Salem stare out from the photo, and somehow, their agony reaches straight through the years and buries itself in my chest like a blade.

The front door cracks open suddenly, distracting me from the pictures. A tall, silver-haired woman bustles inside, releasing the outside air into the inner sanctum of the house. Cool wind and a few brown leaves follow in her wake before she manages to turn back and close the door behind her.

She’s tall and willowy, with a posture that screams elegance and a hat with a drooping brim perched atop her head. When she reaches up to slide it off, it’s to reveal hair the color of snow in the flattened imitation of a bun. Wrinkles and age spots line her shaking hands, and it isn’t until she pauses with her coat half off that she realizes she’s not alone.

Her face tilts upward, and I’m struck by the cloudy stillness of her eyes. She’s blind—I realize it just before she dips her head and slips a pair of opaque black glasses from her coat pocket.

“Good morning,” she says, her voice and greeting trailing after my realization. I shouldn’t be surprised that she noticed me. Sight isn’t the only way to sense someone, and people learn to navigate the world in more ways than one.

“Good morning,” I reply.

Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she finishes undoing the front of her coat and slipping it the rest of the way off her skinny shoulders. Once her coat is hung over one arm with her hat in hand, she lifts her glasses and slips them into place on her nose.

Who is she? A housekeeper? Another witch?

Before I can ask who the woman is, a familiar voice cuts through the hallway, echoing off the walls. “Anna!” Reyes appears from around the corner, dressed in dark wash jeans and a black-and-white band tee. He moves in her direction. “What are you doing here?”

Anna turns toward him, but Reyes is faster. He plucks the coat and hat from her hand before she can finish the full pivot and hangs them on the hooks by the front door. “It’s the final Sunday of the month,” she says. “Did you forget?”

Reyes flicks a glance in my direction, his mouth twitching—almost a grimace, as if he wants to apologize, but for what, I don’t know—before turning back to her. “I did. Sorry, Anna. Give me one moment.”

She stands still as he disappears down the hall, presumably to let the others know that she’s here. In the silence that follows, we face each other across the entryway—both quiet, both studying. She’s likely listening for the smallest shift in movement, but I don’t give her any. I’m too busy watching her.

She wears a tailored gray gown that buttons up the front and is cinched at the waist with a braided black belt. A silver cross dangles from a chain at her collarbone. Regal. Composed.

I let out a breath when Reyes returns to her side. What surprises me most isn’t her presence—it’s that he doesn’t offer her an arm, doesn’t guide her. And she doesn’t reach for him or carry a cane.

“Would you like breakfast before you go up to see him?” Reyes asks.

Who is “him”? I want to ask, but I keep my mouth shut, aware that this is not my house and I still don’t know much about these men.

Her smile deepens. “Actually, I’d like to be introduced to your lady friend, darling,” she says, her face angled toward mine. “I’ve never met someone so quiet yet so curious.”

Reyes hesitates. For a beat, I can’t tell whether he plans to introduce me or avoid the whole thing altogether. His face gives nothing away. But before he can decide, footsteps echo from the hallway beside the stairs—and Lyall enters the room.

“Morning, Anna,” Lyall says cheerfully. “I see you’ve met Haven.”

Anna’s face softens the slightest bit—her affection for the most wolfish of the Salem boys obvious. “Lyall.” Anna lifts a hand in his direction, and Lyall wastes no time at all in approaching her to take it, bending at the waist to press a kiss to the backs of her knuckles right before he sweeps her into his bulky arms for a hug.

My brows shoot up as Anna chuckles when Lyall buries his face in her hair, bending since she’s so much smaller than he is. She pats his head like a kindly old grandmother. “There, there, boy. It hasn’t been that long since I visited,” she says.