Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“Okay.” Narah sighed, putting one hand on her husband’s shoulder and the other on her son’s knee before she turned and looked at me. “We’re so sorry, Merritt.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. I don’t have a dog in that fight.”
She nodded. “Sadly, these men here are missing the importance of that.”
“Narah?” Abel said sharply.
“You insulted him the other day, and Justin doesn’t see what he should.”
Abel shook his head. “I don’t understand what that has to do with—”
“Merritt.” Evan sounded a bit annoyed, and I had to smile. He wanted his answers. “I don’t get how the bones of someone related to me ended up under the machine shed. How could that happen?”
“That part might scare you, but I need you to understand just a bit about magic.”
He gasped. “You are magic! I knew it.”
“It’s not the kind you’re thinking. Alongside what is scientifically known, like dinosaurs, pieces of Pangea breaking apart, the fossil record, and evolution, we have, running concurrently with that, religion, mythology, and lore.”
Evan was excited, so he scooted as far over on the bed as he could, to the very edge of the thin mattress, to be close to me.
“In certain places, there are ancient pockets of what we call magic because it’s an easy word to parse, but are actually abandoned workings of things outside your realm of understanding.”
He scoffed. “Use smaller words, please, Mere.”
I chuckled. “When the old gods walked the earth, my boy, and performed their rites, sometimes they left behind places that we call magic.”
“Oh, I see. Like those vortices in Sedona. We studied those in class.”
“Those are actually earth energy. There are a lot of them clustered together there, and it’s awesome.”
“Have you been?”
“A long time ago, yes.”
“Okay, so you mean something different.”
“Yes. The places I’m talking about are much smaller, but when you cross one, depending on what was done there, for good or evil, you can feel cold, or scared, or excited, or happy for no reason that makes any glimmer of sense.”
“I’ve felt like that. Sometimes you go to a place and it just makes you wanna cry and you don’t know why.”
“Right. And I mean, certain places you understand from a history book or a giant sign that tells you horrible things happened there, and that can be overwhelming, and you’ll cry.”
“Sure.
“But sometimes, for no reason, out of the blue, you’re having the best day, and then suddenly you’re scared to death, and you feel like you’re—”
“Drowning in mud,” Evan said, shivering.
“Aye.”
“What?”
“Sorry. I meant yes.”
“And this time, for me, that’s because the magic left behind allowed the bones to be there, and then the ghost moved from their bones into me.”
“Exactly right.”
“Okay, so since our pack lands are new, how did the bones get there?”
His questions were so on point and methodical, and I appreciated that. “I think they got there, were moved there, because of the spot of magic, and when I killed those two guys and spilled blood on the land, it triggered first the movement of the bones, and then the ghost.”
“And that’s because the person was killed. Or more likely murdered, right?”
“I suspect so, yes.”
“Okay, so because this person was murdered, and related to me, and Cole, and my alpha, and Narah and Justin—because of the connection to our family between the magic and the blood…boom, we got a ghost.”
I grinned at him. “Yes. Very good.”
He smiled back at me. “If it wasn’t so scary, it would be awesome.”
“Yes, it would.”
“I have a question,” Abel said.
I looked over at him.
“The bones, you say, are from a member of our family?”
“Most certainly. When they’re identified, you’ll find out who. They’ll also have a forensic pathologist check over the bones and try to find out exactly how the person died so there won’t be any mystery. But who, in your family, has died in the last twenty or so years?”
“Both my parents,” Cole said quickly.
“Yes, but your mother died in childbirth, which is horribly sad, but not unnatural.” I took hold of Evan’s hand when he reached for me. “How did your father die?”
“In a car accident,” Evan said.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. That’s what I was—” He looked at Cole. “That’s what you told me.”
“Because that’s what I was told.” Cole spoke to his brother, but he was staring at his uncle. “You went and saw him in the morgue, and that’s what they said, right?”
“Yes, it was,” Abel said, frowning as he turned to me. “But you’re saying that…that something else happened to Anson, if those bones are his?”
“I don’t know. What I am saying is that whoever those bones end up belonging to, they were killed, or as Evan says, murdered, and that is clearly not natural. The ghost needed Cole to know that, and now he does.”
Evan heaved out a breath. “Why would my father ever try to hurt me like—”