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Chapter Twenty
Rowan
The place where my aunt died is not far from Raven Manor. Strangely, I hadn’t really thought about where it had happened until I saw the police file.
As I pull the rental car down a gravel road tunneling into the woods, I start to second-guess my plan. Is it really the best idea for me to be tromping around in the forest with a demonic killer on the loose? I shake my head. Of course it’s a shit plan. But then, so is hiding in my house and waiting for the police to find a supernatural murderer when they don’t know anything about magic. Not that I’m exactly experienced, either, but I’ve still got a leg-up on the sheriff.
I decide I’ll stay by the car when I get there. Let the grimoire and my magic do their thing, then leave again. It’s a reasonably safe plan, even if my heart is pounding faster in my chest with each moment that passes. The road seems to go on forever, nothing but thick trees. No buildings, no signs. I’m not even sure where this path leads.
Until, abruptly, it ends.
The car faces a small clearing with a giant cell phone tower in the middle of it. The lonely gravel road makes sense now—not exactly a scenic destination. Why bring someone here to kill them? Was it purely for purposes of seclusion or was there another reason? The hairs on the back of my neck prick up.
Now that I’m here, I feel frozen in place. I’m not sure that I can do this. It’s not just my fear. It’s that this is where it happened. Sybil must have been so scared. I close my eyes and rest my head on the steering wheel. Then I suck in a breath and open the car door.
The air is cooler than I thought it’d be, and my tank top is not doing the trick. Leave it to a California girl to underdress for the weather. I rub my palms over my goose-pimply upper arms to warm up, then I reach for my grimoire. It feels warm in my hands, which also helps heat me up. The morning sun cuts across its pages, and they flutter open of their own accord. My eyes move down to the spell the book has revealed.
To See the Past
Magic mine
Hawk of time
Circle the skies
Reveal the truth I seek
My heart goes still as I read the words. I don’t want this. I don’t want to see what happened to my aunt. But I trust her grimoire. My grimoire. And if this will bring an end to everything, I will endure it.
I look up to the sky and then back down at the book, and I recite the words. A cold breeze whips down from the treetops, lifting my dark curls and flinging them back. My magic stirs in my chest, in my belly, fortifying me for what I’m about to see.
Everything goes black, and the world spins around me like a merry-go-round.
When my vision clears, it’s still dark, but the deep blue of nighttime, not a total lack of sight. Daylight has vanished, or rather, the day I am in has vanished. I’m in the past now, or at least, witnessing it.
I see her then. Sybil. She’s tied to the base of the cell tower. The horned beast is there, and someone else. Someone in a long red cloak. The person in the cloak is turned away from me, so I can’t see their face. They’re holding a flaming torch.
I notice then the pile of wood at Sybil’s feet. The cloaked figure approaches her and sets the torch to the dry kindling. Flames spring up immediately and my heart climbs into my mouth. She hadn’t died this way. What is it I’m seeing?
The flames don’t burn Sybil. She stares defiantly at the cloaked figure as they flare up around her. Her blue eyes look like sapphires in the night. Her clothing catches and burns off of her, but her skin remains unmarred. The cloaked figure begins to pace, and next to it, the horned beast lets out a bone-shaking roar. Their rage is palpable. Witches are supposed to burn, but Sybil is perfectly unharmed. The flames soar around her, up to her shoulders. She is completely engulfed, radiant like a goddess in her power.
I try to move closer, which feels a bit strange. I’m weightless and transparent like a ghost. Focusing my attention, I float toward the cloaked figure. I need to see who it is. The person behind all this. They must be the one summoning the beast. If I can just see their face, I can end this. But with their pacing, and the cloak, and the shadows cast by the raging fire, I can’t catch a glimpse of anything other than pale skin. I can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman.
A far-off crash makes me turn my head, and I feel a strange sensation. It’s a heavy weight in my stomach. My physical body tugging on this apparition of myself in the past. The night begins to lighten, and I realize the vision is fading. I try to move closer, try to see under the folds of the cloak.
The beast rushes forward, roaring again, and then I’m falling backward…
I jerk back into my body and the current day. My skin tingles all over and my throat is bone dry. Spinning around, I survey my surroundings. I feel incredibly vulnerable, having been standing here alone, in my body, while my spirit traveled somewhere else. But no one is around. I’m safe. And I’m ready to get the fuck out of here.
Shakily, I get back into the car, tossing my grimoire on the seat beside me. I crank the engine and do a three-point turn to back out. Emotion washes through me. Grief. Exhilaration. Frustration. Rage. I’d been so close to finding out who the killer is. So close. I grind my teeth together as the car begins to roll back down the gravel road.
But it hadn’t been a complete loss. I know now for sure that someone is controlling the demon. And I also know that Sybil was supposed to be burned at the stake, too. It was like Maria had said—Sybil was impervious to fire. She’d ruined the killer’s plan for her. Though in the end, she’s still dead.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that I nearly collide with the log.
I slam on the brakes. What the hell? There’s now a tree fallen across the road. I go still as I realize that was the sound I heard in my vision, what yanked me out of it.
The trees are too thick on either side of the road to go around it. My breath catches in my chest as I dart my eyes to either side of the road. A coincidence? Highly goddamn unlikely. This is not good at all.
