Page 81 of When Bones Whisper
“I found them, Duke, but the demon is closer. My father lost time in the end. He was incoherent and couldn’t talk. I fear I am close to that fate and don’t want to hurt anyone, especially you.”
He meowed in response, nestling up next to her when she heaved the massive books onto the bed.
“Will you help me?”
He blinked softly and slowly, and her heart ballooned.
After she climbed onto the bed, he nudged his mouth to her chin.
Crossing her legs, she pushed back a black coil of hair that had fallen loose. She opened the front cover, the dust and sharp parchment smell hitting her nose. With watering eyes, she flicked through the brittle, yellowing pages filled with symbols, rituals, practices, family history, and spells.
Her fingertips dragged over inked comments in the margins. Every page was a labor of devotion to the craft, and there were at least a thousand of them. She stopped quarter of the way through when she spotted a hauntingly familiar sketch. A shiver ranthrough her body as she dragged her thumb over the charcoal drawing.
The mark on her hip pulsed with its own heartbeat as she devoured the text.
Among the demonic beings trapped on Earth, the Smiling Woman, is the most ruthless. Once a powerful witch who became a demon after her death, she was imprisoned for centuries in a cursed object.
“Oh my gosh. Duke, I think she was imprisoned in the mirror.”
Her lips parted. Had she let her out?
Was this her fault?
No, her father was hexed before she even touched that mirror. She dragged her finger down the page until she found confirmation.
For those who bear her hex, she can temporarily leave and attach herself to the victim, slowly oppressing them until they are consumed with darkness, often manipulating their reality until they either die or abandon their bodies, so she may take over their flesh.
An icy dread ran through her, and she closed her eyes, temporarily muting the uncanny sketch of the demon that she had seen stalking her in Sallow Manor.
Hours passed, the clock ticking mercilessly as she hurried through the pages of blood magic, a branch of sacrificial power, when she found the familiar ritual she had spotted before. The spell to break generational curses, which would potentially help her family, except it required a sacrifice from the bloodline andthe caster of the curse. Meaning, she would have to die along with Gertrude.
She wished she was selfless enough to perform it, but every nerve in her body screamed at her to live. As the night swallowed what was left of the sun, Charlotte devoured every incarnation that might help, and the instructions on the ritual to break the curse. There wasn’t any information about breaking the hex, but there was one about trapping a demon.
Shifting her position on the bed, she turned on her side, stretching out her aching limbs.
With fatigued fingers, she aimlessly sifted through the remaining pages to ensure she hadn’t missed anything, struggling to pay attention when Duke’s paw stopped her from turning the page.
A second paw landed on the page, his yellow eyes bright when he looked at her.
“What is it?”
She stroked him under his chin and brushed her gaze over the family tree.
She pulled Duke closer, squeezing him gently. “You are brilliant. You know that,” she said into his fur, punctuated with a kiss.
The thirteen witch bloodlines covered each page. A large amount of magic was infused into the family line, spreading evenly across every witch. When a witch in the family died, that magic passed onto their closest female relative.
Her eyes glazed over eerie portraits drawn on an expired family tree. The Serea family. Each of them had a cross marked over their faces, their eyes crossed out.
They were all murdered.
She’d heard the story of Penelope Serea, the witch who had killed everyone in her family to gain more power and then killed herself.
It was a myth, a story to warn against seeking power, according to Charlotte’s mother, but it was true. Penelope’s portrait was the last one at the bottom of her family tree, and while she was deceased now, there was a note at the bottom.
That much power was not meant for one person. For when she died, it was taken from her.
Which meant, if she was the last of her bloodline, then all the magic meant for the Lysanmore’s was hers. No wonder she could overpower Gertrude that night.
