Page 25 of Snag
What could possibly be stored in the fucking armoire for it to be setting off my senses like this? The last time, this sense, this feeling, triggered a massive panic attack that left me gasping for breath on the floor.
Shaking as if merely remembering it is enough to relive it, I force myself to drop my hand, then to step back, to step away.
At some point, I’m going to have to face whatever is in the armoire. Whether it opens for me as my aunt indicated it would in her last note, or if I have to cut it open with a fucking essence-fueled chainsaw. Or maybe I’ll just ask the gryphon to tear through the sealing spell stopping me from collecting what I know is mine.
If I have to destroy the exterior of the cabinet to retrieve what I know instinctively belongs to me, I will.
Just not right now.
Not with everything else I’m still struggling to process.
Actually, I’m not entirely certain the gryphon would fit in the office. And as silly as that thought is, it brings a smile to my face. The edge of panic triggered by the armoire and the memory of my earlier meltdown recedes.
I gently set the photograph on the dark-wood windowsill, facing it into the room. Then I circle to sit behind the desk centered within the space, flicking on the desk lamp as I do. My aunt’s current notebook is still open on the forest-green blotter. Her favorite platinum fountain pen rests next to it.
The photograph of Disa surrounded by three huge shifters, which I found interred with unknown ashes and a blood-crusted dagger in the family mausoleum, rests on top of the journal.
I remember claiming the photograph and placing the dagger in its box back in the niche alongside the urn that was there. But I don’t remember putting the photo on Disa’s desk.
I settle into the wooden chair, rolling forward to peer down at the photo. I don’t think it’s one of Mack’s. It’s not shot in black and white, and it predates the other photos by almost two decades. That reminds me that I’m not even certain when Mack came to be my aunt’s chosen. Was he the estate groundskeeper first? A shifter originally aligned with the Outcast MC?
Oh, fuck. I still haven’t arranged transport for Mack’s and Ingrid’s bodies to a crematorium. Was that something the Outcast mage Harlee Larson was doing for me? Or Rath?
Should I … start a to-do list? Or buy a planner?
How does the most powerful essence-wielder in the world stay organized? Yet another question I never asked my aunt. My aunt, who never seemed to have a schedule or even a phone. Why would I ask about those sorts of completely inane things? I had decades to figure out everything …
No. I should have had more time. I didn’t.
Seriously, my focus is all over the place. My mind is as disjointed as the power I’m still in the process of accepting, absorbing. And maybe for the same reason. Maybe I shouldn’t even be trying to function yet.
Still, I’m starting to annoy myself.
I pick up the photo. It’s faded, aged. But as before, I can’t sense if it holds any special protections or preservation spells. It must, though, or the box it was tucked within must have had some sort of protections on it, because it’s been interred for …
I flip the photo over and make note of the date and names on the back. Again.
Oso, Ward, Disa, and Ari. Summer 1989.
Somewhere around thirty-four years.
Even without knowing exactly when Mack became my aunt’s chosen, or why he was digging around the family plot when he died, I don’t think I’m incorrect about this not being one of his photographs.
I suspect it was the blade, not the photo, that Mack was after. A blade with dried blood still somehow etched across its edge. A blade that seethed with dire-wrought malignancy, buried next to an urn with this photo. All three items are clearly connected.
I could give the photo to Coda, along with the names printed across the back. But despite my resolve to get the answers I need to move forward, it feels almost sacrilegious to dig into something that is really none of my business — something that firmly belongs to my aunt’s past, not mine. Especially when my own present comes with more immediate problems.
I tuck the photo into my aunt’s half-filled journal. I’ve already scanned the most recent entries in it for clues as to my aunt’s disappearances and death, finding none. I’m not certain why I feel an instinctual need to hide the photo, or who I’m even hiding it from. Myself, I suspect.
Instead, I settle my gaze on the framed photograph I’ve brought upstairs with me, already knowing that I could stare at it for hours and still not absorb every detail. I’m actually slightly wary of how obsessed I might get about it.
The date — 2011 — printed alongside the caption ‘Zaya and her boys’ gives me a starting point to construct a timeline around the memories, people, and connections I’m missing.
I need, I ache, to gather as many answers as possible. For at least one of the mysteries threatening to overwhelm my present, my now. That painful desire threads through all the empty parts in me — the missing gaps in my soul?
And filling those gaps isn’t something Coda can do for me. Even Rought’s memories of that time might not be enough.
But that year, paired with Disa’s journals that likely only I can access? That’s something tangible.
