Page 59 of Hallowed Bones

My lips turn down. “Romanticize?”

Lyall hums. “Yes. Death is a tragedy to mortals, and what becomes tragedy gets romanticized—packaged up and sold to those who want to be close to the darkness without the actual risk of touching it.” He grips the steering wheel and flips on the blinker as we slow at an intersection. “People both fear and love what they cannot explain. If there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s a human’s curiosity and desire for answers. They come up with stories or even deities to give life and death a purpose. In reality, even the faithful wonder what really waits on the other side. Is there more than this? The body’s just a vessel, after all. But the soul…”

He trails off. I glance back to the window.

“Strike a nerve?”

I watch the buildings pass by, the images blurring at the edges. “Maybe,” I say. “Death and I have had a more intimate relationship lately.”

“Because of your parents?” he asks. I stiffen at the question, and he sighs. “Got it. Touchy subject.” More silence stretches into the cab of the Hummer. As we draw closer to campus and I find myself wishing that I’d reined in my reaction, he breaks it.

“You know the myth of Hades and Persephone, don’t you?” he asks.

I nod slowly, peering at him with uncertainty.

“It’s not the most original,” he continues, voice smooth as smoke, “but it’s the most well-known story of Death and Love. Death isn’t cruel—it just is. A creature of necessity. Not born to punish but to balance. Just like we are what we are … whether we want to be or not.”

“We” as in witches? Witches are meant to bring balance?

I open my mouth to ask, but then his gaze snags mine—rich earth and honey, darkened at the edges like something smoldering just beneath the surface. I forget how to breathe. His eyes pull at me, wrapping around my chest, winding tighter, tighter—like he could keep me there, suspended, if he wanted.

Then he looks away, back to the road. The spell breaks, but the echo of it lingers. My heart thuds against my ribs, loud enough that I’m sure he hears it.

“People are drawn to what they don’t understand,” Lyall continues, and I’m enraptured by his words. “They come here—to Salem and Ipswich—because, deep down, they want to know if it’s the place that drove people so insane that they’d accuse their neighbors and friends of witchcraft and sentence them to all manner of death and torture. They want to assure themselves that people aren’t really that cruel, that it had to be something else controlling them.”

I contemplate his words, my eyes finding my lap as my fingers curl into fists. Nails dig into flesh, creating crescents of skin paler than the rest. “Was it something else?” I ask, though I’m almost afraid to.

Lyall’s answer comes as no surprise. “No,” he replies. “Sometimes greed and panic win and everyone else loses. Sometimes people truly are that cruel.”

We lapse into more silence with nothing but the music coming from the speakers to fill the air between us. It isn’t enough for me, I have more questions, and when is the next time I’ll get one of these men on their own to answer them?

“Do witches worship a God?” I ask. “Do they worship Death?”

Lyall’s immediate reply is a snort, capturing my attention as I lift my head and see him with his signature smirk back in place. “We don’t worship Death—but we do respect it. It’s part of the natural cycle, not something to fear or glorify.” He glances at me, reading the next question on my face before I ask it. “And no, witches don’t really worship in the traditional sense. It’s less about deities and more about connection. We work with nature—its rhythms, its seasons. Some covens draw inspiration from ancient traditions, honoring the cycle of life.”

His hands rest loosely on the wheel. “Every coven is a little different. The older covens tend to follow the duality of the Goddess and the Horned God—two forces in balance, not masters to be obeyed but aspects of nature to be respected.”

“Which one is good and which is bad?” I ask.

Lyall shakes his head. “Neither,” he says. “Thinking of morality in a way that’s black and white is more of a … erm … oppressive mindset.” He casts a glance my way as if to make sure I’m following along. I nod my understanding, urging him to continue with a dip of my chin. Thankfully, he does.

“To many of us, morality is a spectrum. You can be a bad person that does good things. You can be a good person that does bad things for good reasons. The world can’t always be understood in thinking of people and actions taken as good or bad. Intention is important and so, too, are the results—whether or not a person’s actions have caused undue harm on another.” His expression darkens as he stares at the road, and I want to reach out and press my thumb to the furrow between his brows. Smooth it.

“So…” My teeth scrape across my lower lip as I resist the urge. “Which do you worship? The Goddess and the Horned God or … something else?”

Lyall’s lips twist, but he drives on—an unspoken answer hanging, silent, in the air between us. It isn’t until the iron gates of Ipswich College come into view that he speaks again.

“The Salem coven isn’t that old,” he confesses. “Witchcraft is thousands of years old, if not older. To the elders overseas, we are babies.”

“But you do worship something?” Unable to help myself, I stare at his profile as he directs the front of the Hummer around the drive and toward the side road that leads down into the woods that line the campus. “Someone?” I correct.

“It’s…” He sighs, casting a look my way before refocusing on the road. “It’s complicated. Being a witch is a spiritual journey. Some young witches do worship the Goddess and the Horned God, but others are drawn to older or newer deities.”

“There are more?”

Lyall hums in the back of his throat as if he’s debating on how to answer me. I don’t mind if he takes a moment; the fact that he’s even giving me this much is more than I’ve had in months.

“It’s hard to say for sure,” he finally tells me. “I believe that there are as many deities as there are animate and inanimate creatures of the world, but I have no proof of this. All we have to go on are stories, passed down through generations, and…”