Lonely Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery (Rue Hallow Mysteries Book 3)

by Amanda A. Allen

  Felix shoved back the chair he was sitting in and crossed to Saffron.

  “Hey,” he said. When Saffron didn’t turn, he said it again and she slowly turned to face him. “Rue is not evil.”

  “I know,” Saffron said simply and Felix deflated. “I like Rue despite how she is afraid of me. I have liked her since I first met her. She’s a good one. But you can’t just tell the Presidium they don’t need to worry about this one or that one.”

  I wanted to protest. But Saffron seemed to know when I was lying, even to myself, so I kept my mouth shut and listened instead.

  “The Presidium is not infallible. But they are well- intentioned. And they don’t always watch witches because they are concerned for what they might do. Sometimes they watch to help with what they might need.”

  “How do you know?” Felix asked. He didn’t sound convinced. And I didn’t blame him. From what I’ve heard, the Presidium isn’t the type of charity caring type organization you’re describing. “Cause I’ve never heard that before.”

  “Because the Presidium helped me escape my coven and find Hazel’s.”

  “I am bothered by this,” I said. “I am so very bothered by this. The Presidium was super quick to decide I was shady and guilty of killing Chrysie.”

  “They were. They aren’t your friends Rue. But they might help you.”

  “Until they stab her in the back or make her an example or some other such load of…”

  “Felix,” I said mostly because his jumping to my defense was reminding me of Bran which was stressing me out and all of this was more than I could handle. I needed. Gods, I needed to run. Run, run, run until I wasn’t feeling so very trapped. A cool breeze wrapped around my ankles, and I felt the wards built into Martha shift. She wasn’t being challenged, she was telling me that she’d protect me and be there for me.

  But she was a house.

  And my sister wasn’t there. And my mother couldn’t be trusted and my daddy wasn’t a witch. And my biggest allies were Felix, a witch who hid his ability. Chrysie, a baby vampire. Jessie, a witch who had more book smarts that skills. And Cyrus, a human who wanted to learn witchcraft. I was the one who had been trained. I was the one with the arsenal. They couldn’t help me. And no one else would.

  My phone rang. Speak of the devil, there was Mother.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Veruca.”

  “Mother.”

  I waited for her to say what she wanted. She waited for me to ask her how I could help, so she could manipulate it. There was a long silence with Felix and Saffron looking on.

  “Have you heard from Branka?”

  My finger traced over the counter, the breeze swirled around my ankles, and my heart stuttered.

  “No,” I said.

  I did not ask if she was missing. Mother wouldn’t call if she had any other choice.

  I heard a shuffle and then Daddy’s voice came through the speaker, “Rue, darling, don’t worry.”

  “She doesn’t ignore me this long, Daddy.”

  “I know baby, I know. But we’ll find her. She and your mother have been having some…conflicts.”

  Gods, the tone there had been loaded with meaning.

  “I’m afraid that I didn’t,” and his voice cracked. My eyes burned as he started to weep. Who could stand the feel and sound of their father weeping? Especially my daddy. All goodness and blueberry pancakes and singing in the shower and red shoes when Mother would have only purchased black? “I didn’t…I didn’t help as I could have.”

  “It’s not your fault, Daddy,” I said, breaking a little inside. “Bran is a runner.”

  “But, she always had…” He stopped himself and said. “We’ll find her. Don’t worry. Your Mother will fix everything.”

  But he had been going to say she always had you to run with her. This was more than I could handle. What to do? What to do? If there was a chance to find her by going back to the island, I would go. I would leave every single thing here if I thought I could find her there. But I was sure I couldn’t. My one comfort was that when I followed my heart strings to my sister, I could say for sure that Bran was ok.

  “Daddy,” I said. “I can feel her. And she’s ok right now.”

  “Oh baby. Thank goodness. Thank god. Thank…oh baby, thank you. The relationship between you and your sister…what a relief. Your mother…well…she can’t tell right now. Bran…Bran…Bran did something. I don’t know what. Your mother is working it out, but it has really made it hard for us to find her.”

  Done something. Bran you evil wench. I could hardly breathe, hardly think. What had she done? I wanted to gasp. To run. To laugh. I…

  “You’ll have to tell Veruca,” I heard my mother in the background say, “That I will be unable to finish my task until this is worked out.”

  Well damn it. She couldn’t break her bond with the talisman. She hadn’t done it for the last two months for one reason or the other. I had assumed it was because she was waiting until I was more compliant, but how to explain that to Captain Finny and his ever-present hatred?

  “Don’t blame Bran, mother. Two full moons have passed since you agreed to break the bond and free the talisman.”

  “Veruca,” Mother snapped, but she wasn’t on the phone and despite her silent demand for the return of the phone, Daddy didn’t turn it over.

  “Baby,” Daddy said. “I just want you to know how much I love you. Nothing will ever change that.”

  “I know Daddy,” I said.

  “It’s important that you know, Veruca baby, I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I said. “It’s going to be ok.”

  It was a promise I couldn’t keep. And we both knew it. Bran was going to do what Bran did and the rest of us had about as much effect as an umbrella in a hurricane.

  “I love you Daddy,” I said before he could hand the phone back to Mother, and then I turned mine off.

  I looked up, ignoring Saffron to meet Felix’s gaze. Behind him was Jessie, Chrysie, and Cyrus. Their eyes were wide, sympathetic and full of concern for me. I didn’t know what to do with that. With any of it.

  “Your sister is missing?” Felix’s voice broke through the shield I had been trying to form.

  I nodded once. And then because I couldn’t do anything else, I ran.

  * * * * *

  When I reached the Hallow family graves, I slumped onto my favorite grave of Constance Hallow and stared up at the angel. It had bothered me since I had first seen it. We were witches. We didn’t really believe in the traditional version of heaven and hell. Why an angel? Why not the sun and moon? Why did Bran not answer her phone? Why leave me hanging like this? For the love of Hecate, why an angel?

  Bran hadn’t blocked my feeling after her. But Bran wasn’t answering her phone. Was she in danger? Should I make a follow spell and chase her down? Should I trust her? Should I trust that she can take care of herself? I could take care of myself and yet I had nearly died a few times lately.

  Was being able to take care of herself enough?

  “Are you ok?” Chrysie’s gaze was heavy on me and wide with so much feeling. Sympathy or whatever. It was not helping.

  I looked up to find Felix and Chrysie standing on the edge of the graveyard. Felix looked as if he might be puking again—the man needed to get out and move a lot more. Chrysie looked as if she were a pixie in flight.

  And I probably looked like some woebegone waif, lying melodramatically on a grave of her kin, and moping about the troubled little sister who had, unsurprisingly, runaway.

  Damn it all to the many, many hells.

  Hells were not death. Hells were life where you had no control over anything that happened to you and a constant slew of stuff you had no idea how to deal with while be tortured by those you loved. And possibly dark witches.

  Because nothing is ever easy. Not ever.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “What are we going to do?” Chrysie asked.

  We were, all of
us, sitting in the room where we’d done the finding spell staring at each other. Everyone was trying too hard to avoid talking about Bran. I had my phone at my fingertips—just in case she might call. The truth was. I couldn’t think. I was in no shape to lead this baby coven.

  “Saffron said that our finding spell might have only led us to the closest dark witch,” Felix said, taking lead for me. Hecate bless him.

  I didn’t really listen as they discussed. I kept seeing visions of my sister. Without really thinking, I dropped to my knees and began to draw a pentacle. With muscle memory more than thought, I drew the star with my spelled chalk and then made a perfect circle to finish the emblem. I didn’t notice that the others had stopped talking to watch as I worked. I didn’t discuss or speak. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, and as I delved my mind, I followed the holes inside of me and sought the runes to counter those. It was all very instinctive and there were places for five runes at each of the points and one in the center. I started with unity, going onto clarity, judgement, discernment, and focus.

  And then, in the center, I put the one for search.

  I didn’t think of the dark witch. I didn’t care about her or him so much right now. What I cared about was Branka. My first friend, my greatest ally,my sister.

  I placed myself into the lotus position. But after a moment of reflection, I changed my mind and leaned down to press my forehead into the rune on the floor, stain burned up the back of my legs and down my spine. But I didn’t care, I let my magic burn through me more than calling it to me. I had reached this place of—lack of thought and pure instinct. I was folded into the runes I had created, with my magic flowing as it willed, and listening to the blood rush through my body. I don’t know how long it took, but I reached a state where all I could heard was the swish-swish, swish-swish, swish-swish of my blood.

  As I reached that point, I let the last face to face memory of Branka flow over me. She had told me, “If you come back or regret this, I will punch you so hard that you feel it in previous lives.”

  I smiled at the memory and let it unfold in my mind as stark and clear as it had been when it had happened. It was as if it were happening again, it was so vivid. But, this time I wasn’t just experiencing the moment. I was looking for a little thread. One that went from the memory to me. And then I examined it further and further, letting it play over and over again until I found the tiny thread that led to Bran. And because she was my sister, and we were witches, and we were bonded by love and affection and power and the same flavor of magic, I followed it to her.

  I stopped only hearing the swish-swish of my blood and the replay of the memory. I heard the creak of wood and the sound of waves, and the call of gulls. I twitched as I realized she was on the deck of a boat or ship.

  “Bran,” I said, speaking to her from inside of her memories.

  And she heard me.

  “Rue,” she replied, on the ship, thousands of miles away.

  “Are you alright?” I was just behind her, speaking into her ear, in our memories, but there was an overlay of a boat, where she stood wide-stanced, gazing out at the sea.

  “Yes,” she told the sea. I knew her, so I knew she wasn’t lying. I let her feel my relief and my worry. She didn’t apologize. But, right at that moment, it was ok with me that she didn’t. I was going to punch her hard, later.

  “Daddy is blaming himself.”

  I was not guilting her. She would want to know. Just as I would have wanted to know. He worried himself over her. I was certain, without actually knowing, that he’d been sleepless for days over her.

  “Tell him I’m ok.” I could feel her guilt now. Guilt, but no regrets. She didn’t want him to suffer, but she’d have done it again.

  “I will,” I promised.

  And she faded away, ending the connection and hiding whatever she was doing from me beyond that glimpse of the sea. I was going to punch her so hard. As hard as I could, magic included. But I wasn’t going to let this meditation and seeing state fade. Not when life was hard enough to give me loads of worries. As if a missing sister weren’t sufficient. So, I slid back towards myself but focused on another memory.

  A darker shape of darkness in the shadows. A plea for help. Screaming in pain. And because I had just done it, and because I was a witch, and because they wanted to be found, I followed the second thread from that memory to a body.

  Not a dead body.

  A living body. In the darkness.

  “Hello,” I said. And then because I’d just done it, and was in the mode, and I was witch— a powerful witch in my place of power, and the spirit wanted to be found, I connected. The spirit wanted to be saved so much they were reaching out, without knowing what they were doing, they were reaching, searching, pleading with the gods and the universe for help.

  And the whimpering began.

  How many times had this spirit thought they’d found help? Imagined it? Dreamed it? Wish it so hard, it seemed real and was not? A lot, I guessed. Too many to count.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  There was no reply.

  “You asked for help.”

  “I…I…I…”

  “Where are you?”

  The crying began again. And no answer was given. I took a long deep breath and then moved one careful step away from the darkness and the spirit and found myself in a field I didn’t know. I was out of my body and couldn’t stay long. So I leaned down, focused my will, and created a memory above the darkness.

  * * * * *

  There was the person I wanted to find. And there was the person who needed me to find them. I sat up, wobbled, and then let the magic go. Recovering my normal level of senses, I blinked several times to shake off the meditation and the spell and then took a deep breath.

  “We need a finding spell,” I told Jessie. “Let’s see your whole list.”

  “But it didn’t work last time,” she said, tossing her long red ponytail over her shoulder. Her face seemed upset, and I guessed that she was frustrated with herself. She was good at knowing things, but she hadn’t been right last time. No time for bewailing. Magic was a practice, like being a doctor or an artist. No one got it perfect all the time.

  “Saffron says it didn’t work. But I’m not sure we can trust her fully. I think she’s probably fine. But we can’t risk being wrong. Not with what’s happening. Not on blind faith. Let’s see what you got.”

  “What did you see?” Felix asked as I stood, wobbled, and then caught my balance.

  “I’m not sure it was real.”

  “But what did you see?” he pressed, not letting me shrug off the horror I’d seen with the hope that it wasn’t real.

  “I saw a kid, buried in a box, with some sort of tubing for air.”

  “Oh my gods,” Chrysie breathed. “That’s worse than being murdered and being turned into a vampire.”

  Cyrus’s mouth opened, but he said nothing. Felix rose as soon as he’d digested what I said, he crossed to get the list Jessie had created before, and he brought it back. There was a determination on his face that showed the strength of his will. His jaw was defined despite his goatee, and everything about him had changed—just for an instant—from slacker to hero.

  “We need to be sure this time,” Felix said, “that it’ll work. We can’t leave the child there. We can’t screw up.”

  “Not when someone is buried alive,” Jessie agreed, her own determination was back, and she nodded once. Then she rubbed her hands over her face and bound her long red hair up into a bun on top of her head and started muttering to herself. She wasn’t really speaking to anyone when she began listing where each of the spells had come from and what they had been used for.

  “Is there a spell that can track a rune?” I was tapping my fingers, trying to figure out what to do next.

  “Well…” Jessie cocked her head and then said, “Yes. But I didn’t copy that one down.”

  “Can you find it again?”

  Jessie nodded
and said, “I need a ride to the library.”

  Cyrus said, “I’ll go with you. We shouldn’t be alone. Not now…”

  “You should get some stuff and stay here, Cy,” Felix said. “The wards on Martha are better than any security you might have.”

  Cyrus nodded and walked after Jessie who was muttering about the color of the book where she’d found the rune tracking spell.

  “Are you ok?” Chrysie asked once the other two were gone.

  I nodded, a lie, and then ran up the stairs to my workroom to shuffle through my potions. I had a weird collection of them since I loved to brew and made stuff I never expected to use just to see if I could. I had no idea what to take. I was so far out of my depth that I was drowning. Gods and monsters, it was one thing to be a cute little coven with college kids who did things like called familiars to them or made spelled candles and energy potions.

  It was another thing to take half-trained witches after a dark witch. We needed help, but Captain Finny was a jerk and a necromancer. I trusted the Presidium as far as I could throw them. Saffron was shady given she’d come to town and gone straight to the closest dark witches house—who just happened to be related to her.

  Gods. Monsters. I didn’t know what to do. Not in the least. The last time I’d faced a dark magic spell, we ended up passed out on the pavement. We were lucky to be alive after that and well I knew it.

  “Are you alright?” Felix asked from the doorway to my rooms.

  I looked towards him without really seeing him. And then I finally said, “You know that part in the hero movies, when they walk into danger, knowing they won’t come out?”

  “Yeah,” Felix said, his face expressionless.

  I met his gaze and said, “We’re not the Suicide Squad. Or the Avengers. We’re college students with abilities that aren’t fully realized. We’re more of a danger to ourselves than the bad guys. What do we think we’re doing?”