Page 82 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork

“Are you okay?” Saga’s voice was barely heard over the pounding in Avery’s ears.

“Fine.” The word was acidic in her mouth, and her voice sounded dragged over gravel.

“Shouldn’t we interview the family?”

“He should not have done that,” Avery growled. “He is not running this investigation, I am.”

“It puts us in a bit of a time crunch, but we can still do this.”

“I know I can do this. I did this before with fewer resources and far more obstacles in my way, but at least then those obstacles were not pretending to be on my side!”

There was a weighted pause, but Avery didn’t trust herself to turn around. Saga spoke again, calm, but not condescending. “I’m going to give you some time alone. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can talk to the family.”

Avery didn’t answer, and the door closed behind her without another word. It was for the best. Saga was good with people.

“I need to calm down.” Had it been spoken by any other person it would have infuriated her more, but from her own lips, it was a directive. It gave purpose.

She put two fingers on the pressure point between her brows, gently massaging in small circular motions. She focused on her breathing, imagining each breath like the stroke of a bow on a violin string. With each exhalation of her concerto, she concentrated on transitioning from the jeté-like bounce in her breathing to a more relaxed détaché and eventually an extended legato.

The shadows of the hallway swayed with her rhythm like smoke caught in a breeze.

The sound in her ears quieted, the bitter flavor on her tongue subsided, and the muscles of her shoulders relaxed. What remained, however, was an ache across her palm: the tangible absence of the instrument. Her fingers curled instinctively on an invisible fingerboard, where she would have if playing the start of Bach’s Chaconne. And the ache waned.

She aimed her gaze forward. Her wrists flicked and began conducting the shadows to gather on the floor, forming stepping stones before her so she could avoid standing on the carpet directly. The notes played on in her memory as she stalked farther inside.

The main living space of the home had been modernized—there were hints in the architecture that suggested walls had been removed to give the bottom floor a more open feel. A parlor to her right was filled with plush furniture and a television set. There was a smattering of photographs framed on the wall, all of which appeared to have been taken within the last few years, depicting only Theresa and her children. Carson Abernathy’s photograph was markedly absent. The wall sconces leading up the stairway to the second floor were illuminated. Had the children turned them on? Or Theresa?

Directly in front of her were several large windows and a sliding glass door that led to a back garden suffering from a rather impressive gopher infestation. To her left, the kitchen…and Theresa Abernathy.

The woman lay on her back, her arms splayed on either side of her. The blood made it hard to make out any specific details. As with Luna, the face was unrecognizable as a face, and in her hand, still tightly clutched, was a very large kitchen knife.

The music grounding her to the reality of the here and now faded, and suddenly she was a child again. When she’d pulled herself out from the closet. When the screaming had finally ceased… When she’d realized the silence that followed was somehow far worse than the violence that had preceded it.

Her mother’s form crumpled on the floor, unrecognizable as a person, let alone the woman and comfort she’d known. And the blood. There had been so much blood. How did one person have so much blood in them?

Avery inhaled sharply and took a step back. She was not a child. The monster who had taken her mother that night had been slain. She concentrated a moment, her free hand miming its way through the fingering of the partita until she could hear the music once more. She could not allow herself to be emotionally compromised here.

Avery hovered just above the blood, peering through the umbra at the crimson beneath. The plush carpet was made of a strange fiber that contained the blood close to the body but barely absorbed it and thus slowed the drying process. Quick estimation by the drying patterns on Theresa’s clothing and the body itself, however, indicated she’d died sometime last night.

The knife was large—too large for what Theresa had used it for. She had gone first for the eyes, like Luna Ravenwood. If it had been a conscious thought to self-mutilate, something closer to a stiletto would have had an easier time. A blade, regardless of its length, at a width of two inches would inevitably wedge and get stuck in the bone that made up the socket around the eye itself.

She cast her gaze back to the kitchen, finding the knife block the weapon had been pulled from. Sure enough, the largest was missing. It was odd, almost too obvious. It was the sort of knife you grabbed to communicate the threat of violence rather than perpetrate it.

She retraced Theresa’s apparent steps, pretended to take a knife from the block, and then walked in the direction of Theresa’s body. If harming herself had been her intention when she’d taken hold of the knife, why had she taken steps toward…

Avery’s eyes sharpened on the sliding glass door. There was a deep and visible scratch on the glass. It was approximately an inch and a half in length and fresh. Her fingers hovered above the scratch. It was on the outside. Had someone scratched it to get Theresa’s attention? To get her to look toward the door?

Avery mimicked dragging a claw against the glass like the killer might have. The Erlking’s claws had been unforgiving to flesh. She shook the thought from her mind and tried several different angles, finding the most natural movement was if the scratch was made somewhere between the top of her head to her nose, which potentially put the killer somewhere between five feet, eight inches, and six feet. It was a relief somehow, knowing whatever made such a mark did not share the mad king’s great height.

Still, whatever made that scratch was strong enough it hadn’t left any kind of transfer on the glass. Was it made by creature? Or weapon?

Then what she’d taken for gopher holes in the backyard came into view…and then the shovel that dug them.

Avery flipped the latch and opened the sliding door. Someone, very recently, had been digging in the backyard. Had they taken something from Theresa’s garden the same way they had from Luna’s home? “What were you looking for?”

What was important enough to be hidden but not kept under lock and key? Luna kept her item close to her—she slept above it like a dragon might over their horde. Yet Theresa had buried hers beneath waves of thyme to be forgotten. As Avery turned around, she noticed the light above the door was also on—a light operated from a switch inside. Had Theresa caught the thief in the act?

As the pieces fell into place, Avery began conducting an invisible symphony once more, and the shadows fled from beneath her feet, forming the vague outline of a person so she could visually observe what she believed to be Theresa’s movements before her death.