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My brows pinched together. “Was there another coven in Salem?”
“No.” She pushed the book toward me and pressed her finger to a section of names. “We had one family line that carried the ice elemental in their bloodline.”
I looked down at the dates. The final witch from that bloodline passed away in 1970. She couldn’t have been my mother. “This doesn’t make any sense.” I lifted my gaze. “Maybe my mother didn’t know she was a witch?”
“Or she brought you to Salem because she knew our coven would protect you.”
I crossed my arms. “But your coven didn’t find me. I didn’t even know witches and magic were real until I met Ruby in high school.” My vision blurred as the buried memories crept back in. “I thought I was losing it when things kept freezing around me. How could she have left me like that?”
Her eyes softened. “The elemental magic doesn’t pass to her daughter until she crosses over. Maybe she was planning on returning for you someday. But…”
“She died,” I whispered.
Of all the ghosts I’d made contact with over the years, my mother had never come through. The pain of that rejection never really went away. It lay just below the surface, ready to sting all over again. She abandoned me and she died before she could ever tell me why.
Lillian hummed, snapping me out of my unwanted trip down memory lane. “This is strange.”
I went to her side, peering down at the book. “What is it?”
She tapped her red manicured nail against two family names. “Both of these lines ended in the late eighties, but I knew these women. Neither of them was murdered, and only one had a daughter.”
“So this ghost that asked me to find her baby wasn’t even from Salem?” I rubbed my forehead. “Why did she askmeto find her daughter?”
Lillian closed the book and met my eyes. “Maybe her baby grew up and lives in Salem now.”
“If that were true, she’d be in our coven.”
She arched a brow. “Only if she knew she was a witch.” She patted my hand. “You only discovered it because you were an elemental. If she carries witch blood in her veins without being an elemental, she might never know unless someone teaches her to use it.”
I groaned. “There’s got to be thousands of women named Ashley in Salem. How am I supposed to find her?”
Lillian took the book back to the cabinet. “If we’re meant to find her, I suspect destiny will bring her into our world.”
“I’ll mention that to her mother, if she shows up again.” I didn’t mean to take my frustration out on Lillian, but my emotions were raw at the moment.
Lillian came back and picked up the box with the witchfinder inside. “If we had a list of all the Ashleys in Salem, we could read them until the talisman recognized a witch.”
“We don’t even know if she’s in Salem.” But there was something gnawing at me. My mom wasn’t from Salem, but she dropped me off here. What if the ghost from my vision did the same for her baby?
I didn’t know why yet, but that would give me something in common with Ashley. Maybe that was way the ghost had come to me to ask for help. I looked at Lillian. “I think I might know how to find her. Judging by what her mom was wearing, Ashley would be about my age now.”
Creases formed on Lillian’s brow. “And how does that help us find her?”
“Her mom might have brought her to Salem to hide her; maybe that’s what my mom was doing too.” I took out my phone to send Jackson a text. “I need to find out if there were any other baby girls surrendered in Salem the same year I was.” I met her eyes. “That could be why the ghost chose me.”
Lillian straightened. “I don’t understand.”
My intuition was pinging, making my stomach flutter. “Maybe she and my mother were both being hunted. And if the ghost was right, whoever was after them, is back.”
And I could be in danger too.
CHAPTER 4
Jackson
The Lucky Ladywas a thirty-foot commercial vessel. The oversized propeller was tipped up out of the water, and the deck appeared to be deserted. I took a big whiff of the sea air. No sign of decay or blood.
I looked over at Wyatt. “You getting anything?”
