Page 94 of Wolfsbane Hall
“Perhaps a witch is exactly what we need,” Everett said. “We should curse our mother. Curse them all.”
“Witches don’t exist.” James shook his head.
“You and I both know they do.” Everett glared at his brother. “Great-Grandmother—”
“Was a fraud. Science exists.” His voice was solid stone, stubborn and unbudging. This woman is just going to give us a concoction that will teach our parents a lesson.”
As Dean opened the door, a bell shook above their heads, and they walked into an apothecary. Ivy laced the ceiling, and there were shelves and shelves of corked bottles. Weeds, herbs, and pastes lingered inside them. Books and gadgets rested on the shelves between bottles, from clocks ticking backward to butterflies trapped in jars and an actual barn owl staring at them, watching their every move.
On one shelf, a bottle glowed with red light. Dean shuddered and said under his breath, “Are you sure she isn’t a witch?”
“Ah, the lordlings.” The Herbalist smiled with a thick knowing, her eyes cutting through all of them. The stare was so jarring that all three men shifted on their feet uncomfortably as they flicked their eyes to each other for support.
“She is expecting us?” Everett mouthed to Dean.
The Herbalist shimmied her shoulders. “Of course I am, Lord Breython. Your brother told me you wanted to kill your parents for murdering your wife.”
Everett’s head snapped to James. “You told her that?”
“Not at first.” He held out his arms as in surrender. “That came up after many, many conversations…don’t worry, I trust her.”
The Herbalist shifted a couple of bottles behind her desk before she walked out and met the men in the middle of the room. “We have a better plan for your parents. They can be more useful alive, especially with where your bloodline stems from.” She said the last bit under her breath, and a snake of anxiety climbed the rungs of Dean’s ribcage. “Besides, they deserve torment for what they did. Death is too easy.”
Everett raised a wary eyebrow. “What will we do instead?”
“You’re going to poison them with this.” She turned on her heeland walked to the corner, where she lifted a large red jar filled with liquid. Then she walked and placed it on the counter.
A shiver ran through Dean. He knew that jar was not in any way good.
The Herbalist—or witch—confirmed his suspicions when she said, “It will cause them to go into a coma, in which they will experience your torment. But you must ensure you also take the elixir, or it won’t work.”
Dean did not like any of it. The woman was dangerous. She was not their salvation or their solution. She was darkness. He could sense it clinging to her skin and caking her pores.
“Why?” he asked, crossing his arms.
The witch met his defiance with strength, staring him directly in the eye. “Because the magic requires an anchor—and puppet master, which you three will act as.”
“Magic?” Dean turned to his brother. “James, I think she is a witch.”
Everett nodded. “She’s definitely a witch.”
“I am beginning to believe it as well,” James said, examining the jar, but he didn’t seem horrified like Dean. No, he was intrigued. There was something deeply wrong with him.
The witch cackled and smiled as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. “Make sure you all get a large portion of the potion. It won’t work in small doses. I wish it did.”
The vision shifted, and the men were at a ball with their family. Skirts twirled through the room in a choreographed waltz. The rich elite laughed and danced, soaking up the atmosphere. Wallflowers stood at the side of the room, their eyes tracking eligible gentlemen as they hoped they might walk up to them and ask for a spot on their dance card.
The horror that happened next played out much like the one had in the present day. There was a toast, and the family collapsed.
The scene shifted, and they were all in a hospital. The men werethe first to wake, and their nurse was the Herbalist from the apothecary.
“Good morning, little lordlings.”
“What did you do to us?” James asked, his voice scratchy. His hands traced over his body, patting his arms, chest, and legs, making sure they were solid, because something felt utterly off—wrong. It was as if he were both solid and translucent at the same time.
He wasn’t corporeal anymore. Not really. It was something in between life and death. But he also wasn’t a ghost.
He was alive but also dead.
