2
Love affairs between the human and the nonhuman rarely end well for the human.
—Love Spells: A Witch’s Guide to Maintaining Healthy Relationships
By the time Jed had reunited the mama possum and her young, I determined I was far too awake to go to bed. I went through the house making lists of everything I would need to survive here, things such as food, sheets, towels, and mousetraps. Big ones.
I needed to go shopping, but I didn’t have a car, and I thought it would be pushing already-fragile “good neighbor” impressions by asking to borrow Jed’s. And now that I was able to recall more clearly moments from Dwayne-Lee’s drive to the house, I wasn’t about to take the cab service. Iris Scanlon proved that my love for her was not in vain. All it took was one phone call for her to send “more discreet transport” right to my doorstep.
Miranda Puckett was a slender thing, with long dark hair and keen green eyes. What she lacked in size she made up for with the obscenely large black SUV she maneuvered from my driveway to the gravel road with considerably fewer bumps than Dwayne-Lee. Aside from knowing where the all-night grocers were, Miranda was also a veritable font of information about the locals. She’d grown up in the Hollow and was happy to share what she knew of local history and gossip.
For instance, Miranda’s boss was not a freelance miracle worker but ran a concierge service for vampires called Beeline. The special arrangements Iris had been making for me were on behalf of my landlord, a vampire named—of all things—Dick Cheney. Miranda admitted to having a “soft spot” for Dick since he’d served as her knight in shining armor months earlier when she’d had car trouble.
“He comes off like this sketchy con artist, but underneath it all, he’s a marshmallow,” she told me, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “Totally devoted to his wife, which is a good thing. Otherwise, Collin would really frown on all those book club meetings.”
“Book club?” I asked, my brow furrowed. But Miranda had pulled into the car park of the local twenty-four-hour Walmart Supercenter, so I couldn’t question why a vampire and a chauffeur would join the same book club. Or who the bloody hell Collin was.
The Hollow, Miranda informed me as we shopped, had become quite the vampire-friendly place since the vampires had emerged from the shadows in 1999. That was the year a Milwaukee-based vampire named Arnie Frink demanded that his employers change his work hours to lessen his chances of bursting into flames. But seeing as they were as blind as the rest of the world when it came to the existence of vampires, the human resources department insisted that Arnie keep bankers’ hours. Arnie’s counterproposal was a massive lawsuit, claiming that he suffered from porphyria, a painful allergy to sunlight, and the company was not accommodating him. When the allergy discrimination argument failed to impress a judge, Arnie had a hissy in open court and declared that he was a vampire, a medical condition that rendered him unable to work during the day, thereby making him subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Although Arnie won his case, the first year or so afterward was a dark time indeed. For the Irish, who had always kept folk tales close to their hearts, it was no surprise to hear that one of many beasties they’d been warned against was an actuality. For the McGavocks, it was even less so. We knew witches were real, so why not vampires, werewolves, and any number of fairy folk we knew to be dancing in the hedgerows? Still, it was a shock to watch the scenes of destruction play out on TV. Here in America and across Europe, mobs of people forced vampires out into the sunlight or set about hunting them for no reason other than that they existed. More often than not, the hunters were injured in the process.
Once they had quelled their fury at being launched from the coffin, an elected contingent of ancient vampires officially notified the United Nations of their presence and asked the world’s governments to recognize them as legitimate beings. The World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead also asked for special leniency in certain medical, legal, and tax issues that were sure to come up. Oh, and for humans to stop dragging them from their homes and turning them into kindling . . . or else.
And so humans had to adjust . . . or else. For a small town, the Hollow had adjusted rather admirably. The local Council office had taken every step to ingratiate itself with the local human population, all the while doing the sneaky, slightly underhanded errands necessary to monitor and govern its undead citizens. A local woman had even opened the town’s first vampire-oriented restaurant recently, after winning a cooking contest sponsored by a synthetic-blood company.
Knowing that the town was paranormally liberal did not prepare me for the grocers. While I found everything on my list, the products and the packaging seemed garish and bright under the sickly green fluorescents. The sheer amount of nacho-flavored food available on each aisle was staggering. And there was the spectacle of the other shoppers—some without shirts and others trying to pass off other clothing as shirts. Honestly, who leaves the house wearing an athletic bra and a pair of bicycle pants?
Somehow, through this whole excursion, Miranda managed to keep up a steady stream of chatter. She talked like my uncle Jack after a few pints. Words spilled from her lips at such a clip that one wouldn’t dare try to ask questions—all this despite the distinct throbbing pain radiating from her left side. She was working hard to disguise the hitch in her gait by using the shopping cart handle for support, but the ache was obvious to someone with certain sensitivities, such as myself. So I worked around her, discreetly trying to keep her from having to lift or bend.
By the time I picked up all my essentials—specifically, a teapot, some passable Earl Grey, and some industrial-sized pest traps—I was a bit dizzy, both from the strain of Miranda’s discomfort and the information she had shared. And then there was the small matter of Miranda’s knocking a bottle of dish liquid off a shelf as I was bent over the cart, rendering me temporarily senseless. Given the way she managed to pick up the conversation after she picked me up from the floor, I suspected this sort of thing happened to her frequently.
“Well, this took less time than I expected,” I marveled as she unlocked the car. When a grimacing Miranda lifted a bag of groceries from the carriage to load into the back of the SUV, I gently took over the task.
“God bless the cultural amalgam that is the superstore,” Miranda said, keeping a hand pressed tightly to her side. “Some might object, but personally, I like being able to buy my underwear and antifreeze in the same place.”
“Would you like to talk about your ribs, or are you going to continue ‘playing through the pain’?” I asked.
Miranda blushed. “That obvious, is it? I thought I was doing a better job of covering.”
“Oh, you were the soul of discretion,” I assured her. “I’m just a bit sensitive to these things.”
She chuckled, wincing as her stomach muscles tightened. “I guess you would be, being a nurse and all.”
I nodded, smiling blithely. Now was definitely not the time to try to squeeze “I have an extrasensory perception that allows me to feel your pain” into the conversation.
“Would you like me to take a look?” I asked.
“Right here?”
“Why not?” I chuckled, stepping closer. “Want to tell me how this happened? And why you haven’t been to see a doctor?”
“No and no,” she said, shaking her head.
I held my hands over Miranda’s shoulders. While the pain throbbed steadily with every breath, her lungs felt clear. There was no puncture there, but her ribs were thoroughly bruised. It felt like some sort of side impact, as if she’d been thrown into a corner or a piece of furniture.
“Miranda, did someone hurt you?” I asked, feeling a sudden urge to find this “Collin” and introduce him to an old-fashioned Kilcairy arse-whipping.
Miranda closed her eyes, her face flushing red. “No,” she groaned, clapping a hand over her face. “As usual, I have no one to blame but myself. Let’s just say that when one is having athletic makeup sex with her vampire boyfriend, she should hold on for dear life. Particularly when there is a pointy nightstand nearby.”
“Are you telling me you fell off your undead boyfriend while having sex and landed against a nightstand, bruising your ribs?”
She shook her head. “I blew the dismount.”
“I don’t think I want the details of his dismount,” I said, laughing. I held my hand against her ribs as she snickered in response. The bones felt sound. It would be a simple enough thing to heal, but I needed to stay under the radar. So I gave her my best serious, professional expression and told her, “Ice and ibuprofen. Deep-breathing exercises and gentle stretching if you feel up to it. Just take it easy. If the pain gets worse or it becomes difficult to breathe, go to your doctor right away.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief as we climbed into the car. “I was really afraid I’d done myself permanent damage this time. What do I owe you for the consult?”
“Tell Collin to be more careful with his breakable girlfriend,” I told her as she blushed crimson again. “You shameless sex maniac.”
As Miranda started the car and backed out of the car park, I waited for her to relaunch her verbal barrage. But in her embarrassment, she seemed to be concentrating on maneuvering the car safely, so I took advantage of the silence. I breathed deeply, trying to center my thoughts and regain the energy it had taken to check Miranda’s ribs.
Being a medical empath was not an easy gift. Often, when I came across people with medical problems, I felt a “tug” of pressure in my own body reflecting the area of their body where they were ailing. And I came across a lot of people with medical problems. And sometimes, if I did nothing to heal them, or at least talk to them about how to improve their problem, the pressure would get worse, and I would get sick myself.
My gift was the reason I couldn’t practice in a large hospital setting. The discomfort and “tugging” were so draining that I would keel over by the end of the day. It was easy to spend time with Stephen because he was a health nut who rarely came down with so much as a cold.
Being a hereditary witch is like inheriting frizzy hair or an unfortunate nose. I had no choice in the matter. For my family, witchcraft wasn’t quite a religion. It simply was. It was part of our lives, the way we saw and interacted with the world. I couldn’t turn it off, no matter how I tried. Believe me, I tried. I couldn’t always control it. And there was nothing I could do, take, or try to make my ability easier to use. Sometimes it was particularly embarrassing, trying to broach the topic of sensitive medical problems with people who didn’t want to discuss such things with complete strangers. But Miranda seemed happy with the outcome of our conversation, and I don’t think I’d heard a story more embarrassing than hers.
In some cases, it would have been easier to use magic to heal my patients. But I’d learned that illness had a purpose. Bodies have to go through the pain to get to the good part, the healing. It’s the payment portion of the process and shouldn’t be skipped over.
My relationship with magic was complicated. At one time, I had been Nana Fee’s prize student. Like most witches, I had a smattering of talent in most magical areas but excelled in a particular skill. In my case, I was a gifted healer. My instruction started at a later age than that of most of my cousins, but I had taken to it like a duck to water. The problem was that I had a little too much “oomph,” an erratic excess energy. When I tried a simple exercise intended to restore a withered mint plant to its former glory, I overdid it on the roots, which grew so spectacularly that they burst the pot and peppered the walls with shattered clay and potting soil. And then there were the fires. After that, I limited myself to harmless glamours and spells that made everyday life a little easier. I was too timid to try advanced spells, because I could pose a threat to myself or others.
I tended to limit friendships to members of my family or the village, because I could never quite trust outsiders with “everything.” Either they’d think I was bonkers and drop me, or they’d want to use me to their own ends—quick fixes to money problems or love spells, which frankly never worked the way people hoped. I lost more boyfriends than I cared to admit over the years, because my abilities drove them away. If I lost my temper, things tended to explode. And then there was the boyfriend who was stupid enough to contract an infection when he cheated and then got indignant at me for “spying” on him using my empathy. Not to mention that shared psychic itching was just disgusting. Even the men who had no problem with my family’s history became suspicious of whether I was using spells on them. Were their feelings for me real, they wondered, or the result of a potion? Eventually, they got tired of wondering and left.
Magic always muddied the waters. There was only so much “weird” that men could take, even the ones who claimed to be open-minded. And so when I’d met Stephen months before, and he turned out to be someone I thought could be “the one,” I’d decided against using magic anywhere near him. I saw Stephen as my chance at a seminormal life. He was a straight, single, employed, functional adult who was also sweet, considerate, smart, and funny. He had treated me with nothing but kindness since meeting me at a nursing conference in Dublin the previous year. (His brokerage firm was holding a summit at the same hotel.) He remembered my birthday and sent me a huge bouquet of roses for Saint Valentine’s. Coming from a family where sensible was in short supply, that was incredibly attractive. We’d heard that men like him existed, but actually laying eyes on one in person was a once-in-a-lifetime event. He was the Sasquatch of boyfriends.
Stephen always said he knew what he wanted and how to get it. I was just grateful that he wanted me. Stephen said he wanted to marry me, to raise a family with me. And the way he described our life together in a sweet suburban house with a play set in the back garden, it seemed to be everything I wanted.
So three months before I came to the Hollow, when Stephen began talking about moving in together, I asked Penny for a favor. I asked her to place a binding on me. We tried to be clever about it. She worded the spell so that the binding prevented me from “doing harm,” meaning I could still heal and diagnose, but I couldn’t, say, stir the air or manipulate water or any of the sorts of things that might do harm to my relationship.
I should have known better than to trust Penny. I loved her dearly. She was my closest friend, the youngest daughter of Nana’s youngest sibling. At thirty-six, she was a few years older than I, so it was a bit like having a cool older sister. But her magic had always been, well, spotty. Sometimes she could perform beautiful spells that made gardens flourish or wounds heal without any sign of a scar. And then there was the eviscerated sofa and the inexplicable loss of Mrs. McClaren’s eyebrows.
I ended up with the magical equivalent of Mrs. McClaren’s eyebrows. Penny had left me for the most part completely unaffected, but then there were seemingly random times when I had no magic whatsoever, for days at a time, and then, as a result of the “bottling effect” of those lulling intervals, there were terrifying moments in which every bit of power I owned poured forth in torrents of energy that shattered lightbulbs, crockery, and any nearby windows. And unfortunately for me, the most recent of these explosive moments had occurred while I was at dinner with Stephen at a rather posh Italian restaurant. Since I was the only person standing nearby, I ended up paying to replace several Murano glass light fixtures and a rather heavy antique gilt mirror.
Penny had to go in halvsies with me, the twit.
It was as if I had a state-of-the-art, wall-shaking stereo but couldn’t control the volume. The only time I felt remotely in control of myself was when I felt “tugged” by the pain in people around me. Penny theorized that particular grace was only granted because I had no choice in the matter. I couldn’t stop feeling those tugs any more than I could choose to stop blinking or breathing. And fortunately, I had enough nursing training to heal people through conventional means.
We couldn’t seem to undo the spell, no matter how many different approaches we took—countering spells, rituals, prayers, and anointments. Nothing worked. There was no magical “control Z.”
When Nana began my instruction, I’d been disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to make rooms tidy themselves like Mary Poppins or fly on a broom. I’d eventually adjusted my expectations and learned to enjoy manipulating the energy of the natural world. But now I couldn’t even perform the most basic of “fun” magic: no more minor glamours to cover the occasional spot, no more “quick-start” fires on the hearth, no more kitchen magic to cover for my abysmal cooking. Thanks to this colossal blunder of judgment and execution, which we were endeavoring to hide from the rest of the family to prevent panic, I learned that having magic was like having an automatic dishwasher. Once you were used to having some machine do the washing up for you, even unloading the damn thing seemed like a chore. I could see that now, having become accustomed to some other force taking care of life’s little details. I had, to an embarrassing degree, stopped living my own life. So I tried to do as much as I could independently of magic, even when I did have a “witchy” solution.
Nana, who took a dim view of my timidity toward practicing the craft, had told me often that there was no such thing as a “halfway” witch, particularly given my extra ability, and that dabbling would catch up and bite me one day.
I had a feeling that day was coming soon.
I flexed my fingers and toes, feeling my body coming back into balance. I blew out a long breath and gave Miranda my best smile.
“Would you mind terribly if we drove by Paxton Avenue on the way home?” I asked as we rolled through the neon-lit streets of the Hollow’s “mall district.” As we moved farther and farther away from Walmart, the streets grew darker and quieter. The buildings were sort of mashed together, as if they were supposed to prop each other up. Every other restaurant seemed to serve some form of fire-roasted pig. And most of the business signs were intentionally misspelled, which seemed odd.
Miranda arched her dark brows. “Sure. Any particular reason?”
“There’s a bookshop in that area I was hoping to visit after I’ve settled in,” I said, working to keep my tone casual. “I’d just like to know how to get there.”
“Specialty Books?” she said. “That’s where my book club meets! You’ll love it.”
I blinked at her. “Your book club meets at an occult bookshop?”
Miranda gave a startled laugh. “How did you know about that? I mean, it hasn’t been an occult bookshop for a few years, not since Jane took over.”
I could only assume she meant Jane Jameson, who was now listed as the shop’s proprietor on the updated Web site. According to what my cousin Ralph could find in county court records, Jameson had taken over the store a little more than a year before, when Mr. Wainwright left it to her in his will. I couldn’t find much information about Ms. Jameson online. Her Facebook privacy settings were stringent. She had no Twitter account. In 2002, she gave a comment for a Kentucky Library Association newsletter article about electronic card catalogues. At the time, she was listed as a youth service librarian for the Half-Moon Hollow Public Library, but the library now listed that position as “vacant.” Other than the Specialty Books Web site and a memorial Facebook page on the Half-Moon High School reunion group, her Google presence was virtually nonexistent.
“The Internet,” I said. “I try to find little independent bookshops whenever I can. They usually serve great coffee.”
“Well, if Jane offers to make it for you, wait for Dick or Andrea Cheney.”
“My landlord works at this bookshop?” I asked as she turned the SUV toward Paxton.
That seemed like a strange coincidence—the man who owned Mr. Wainwright’s former home also worked in Mr. Wainwright’s former shop? What sort of connection did Dick Cheney have to Mr. Wainwright?
“Technically, I don’t think they pay him. He just spends a lot of time there. Anyway, he and his wife, Andrea, are the only ones who can make decent coffee for humans. Jane’s coffee experiments have been known to convulse innocent bystanders, living or otherwise. She says it’s not her fault. She couldn’t cook before she was turned, either.”
Jane Jameson was a vampire?
“Oh, sure, she was turned about three years ago,” Miranda said in response to the question I hadn’t realized I’d asked out loud. That explained the memorial page. “Nice lady. Married to her sire, Gabriel. And she made her own vampire son earlier this year. Collin says I should call him a ‘childe,’ but when I call Jamie her son, it makes Gabriel’s eye twitch. And that’s way more fun.”
She slowed the car as we approached the one well-lit building on a sad, careworn street lined with dilapidated shops. Specialty Books was like a beacon, its bright windows and security lights accentuating the recent coat of sky-blue paint on the exterior brick. The inside appeared to be painted a darker purplish blue. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with light maple bookshelves. I could make out the shapes of four people sitting at a long polished bar, laughing and chatting. This was not what I expected.
Given the neighborhood and the state of Mr. Wainwright’s house, I’d expected the shop to be sort of beaten and half-finished. What had Ms. Jameson had to do to get the building into this condition? How much of the stock had she moved around?
“Are you sure you don’t want to stop in now?” Miranda asked, making me jump a bit. Apparently, the anxious expression on my face was coming across as eager. “They keep vampire hours, so customers are welcome any time of night.”
I shook my head, struggling to find words that wouldn’t set off Miranda’s bullshit sensor. Frankly, I was fighting the absurd urge to slink down in my seat so no one in the shop would see me. I wasn’t ready for this. I needed to prepare for my visit to the shop. I cleared my throat and reminded Miranda about the perishables we’d loaded into the car. “I’ll come back some other time, but thanks for showing me where to find it.”
Miranda shrugged and sped the car down the street. The farther we got from the store, the more I was able to relax. I leaned back against the seat and mulled over this latest development. My plans would have to change. I would need to do more research on Dick Cheney. I would need to change the way I approached Jane Jameson.
The woman who owned my grandfather’s shop was a vampire. That could make my life a lot more complicated.
* * *
Sleep didn’t come easily that night, and not just because of my faulty internal clock or the lingering possibility of small mammals scurrying about my bedroom while I slept. It was a combination of worries, including the fact that I was sleeping under the roof my grandfather once owned. Penny called it a “beautiful coincidence” that she’d found it on a Web site listing local rentals. It made me edgy and uncomfortable, for reasons I hadn’t quite pinned down yet. So I tossed and turned in my newly outfitted bed, thinking of Nana Fee and the night she died.
For a witch, Nana Fee died a shockingly normal death. Her heart was old and simply couldn’t give any more. When the body is unable to carry on, there’s only so much magic can do. She was tired of fighting nature and decided to let it take its course.
So on one unremarkable evening a few weeks ago, she sat propped up in her bed, the same one where she’d spent a lifetime alone, well aware that she was breathing her last. She sent everyone from her cozy little bedroom except me. My uncles, aunts, and cousins did as they were told, knowing it was likely the last time she’d boss them around, but they weren’t happy about it. Death was rarely a solitary event in the McGavock family. We were practically our own Greek chorus.
Nana tried to keep a stoic face through the whole affair. Although the family had never held an official election, Nana was definitely the leader. And somehow they’d gotten it into their heads that I was inheriting the position, no matter how much I pleaded for someone else to step in. Nana insisted that we dress her in the lavender bed jacket that Uncle Jack had given her for Christmas. Her snowy-white hair was piled high on her head. The fire was burned down to embers, giving her pale-blue eyes an unearthly glow. “It’s time,” she said, her voice steady but weak. “I made a mistake, putting it off for this long. He’s gone now.”
“Who’s gone?” I asked.
Moving slowly, she pointed to the foot of her bed, to the space between her mattress and box spring. I reached in and pulled out a well-worn manila envelope. She smiled, a slight lift of the corner of her mouth. “Your grandfather.”
“Gilbert Wainwright?” I read the address on the envelope, listing a resident in Half-Moon Hollow, Kentucky, and looked up at Nana, a million questions burning the tip of my tongue.
“He was a good man. Smart, just like my Nola.”
I emptied the envelope into my hand and found several black-and-white photos of a much younger Nana laughing into the camera, her arms slung around a slight man with light hair and dark eyes. He was grinning down at her, a look of fond admiration on his face.
“He didn’t love me,” she said. “But I didn’t care. I was young. A little foolish.”
“You got his name tattooed on your bum?” I asked, sniffing as I sorted through photos, letters, and what appeared to be Nana Fee’s journal.
“Impudent chit,” she muttered. “Shouldn’t have expected anything less from you.”
“You would worry if I was behaving any other way.”
“He has them,” she said, leaning back against the pillows. “Had them.”
“Them?” I stared at her, not comprehending. My eyes widened. “Them? Them them?”
“Yes. I gave them to him for safekeeping,” she said, tapping a photo in which Mr. Wainwright stood next to a packed motorcycle, giving the camera a sad little wave. “On the day he left.”
“Nana, the whole family has wound themselves up over this for decades. How could you—why would you? Why in God’s name would you—”
“Don’t curse at an old woman on her deathbed.”
“Stop calling it a deathbed!” I exclaimed.
“That’s what it is, sweetheart,” she said, squeezing my hand between her dry, brittle fingers. “No use pretending it’s not. It’s my time, you see, it’s run out. And your time is just coming. I’m sorry this has fallen to you, the responsibilities, the burden. But it couldn’t be helped.”
“Nana, I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Promise me,” she said. “Swear that you’ll go to America to retrieve them.”
“How do you even know he still had them? He could have lost them on the way back to America. What if he sold them?”
“He swore he would keep them safe. He knew how important it was. I contacted him every few years, to check on him. The last time I called, they told me he was gone.”
“And what if his family has sorted through his effects and sold them off?”
“He had no family.”
“He had a daughter and a granddaughter,” I snapped. I was immediately sorry for my tone and pushed a stray lock of hair away from Nana’s face.
“It was better this way, Nola,” she assured me. “There was no reason to tell him about your mother, although I know it caused her pain. I had all of the best bits of him, right here. How could I ask him for more? I couldn’t ask him to spend his life with someone he didn’t love. And if he knew there was a baby, he would have come back.”
“I’m sorry, Nana, I really am, but maybe it’s best just to leave the past in the past. There’s no reason for me to go halfway around the world and open old wounds—”
“If you don’t go to America and find the Elements before they do, the whole family will be bound. No magic, no healing, no more help for our neighbors when they need it. Have you seen what happens to a village when they’re suddenly without magic after generations have lived under its care and protection?”
“Let’s not talk about this now,” I told her.
“Oh, yes, we’ll talk about it some other time.” She sighed. “Let’s schedule an appointment next week. It will be so much more convenient after I die.”
I groaned, pressing my fingers against my eyelids. She pulled my hands away from my eyes and gave me a stern look. As weak as she was, it was still enough to make me sit up and speak plainly. “I don’t know if I’m up for this, Nana. I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking of me.”
“Magic won’t tolerate a practitioner who dances around it. You use your talents as you see fit, but there’s a price for it, Nola. And the price has to be paid. If you continue to live as half a witch, you’ll lose your gifts. Promise me that you’ll find them.”
“Nana . . .”
“Promise. Me,” she ground out, as if the very effort exhausted her. “Unless you want my spirit stuck on this plane with unfinished business. It won’t be pleasant haunting. Lots of flies. Portents of doom. Midnight wailing.”
“Fine. I promise,” I said. “Just lie back and get some rest, all right? I love you.”
“I love you, too, darling.” Nana closed her eyes and leaned back. Her breathing evened out, and her pulse went steady. Just before she fell asleep, her eyes fluttered open. “Nola, your mother . . .”
“Shh.” I leaned against the bed and whispered against her temple. “Don’t worry. Get some rest.”
When her breath evened out and faded into light snores, I went into the parlor to assure my family that she was resting comfortably. In other words, they should get out and let both of us rest, for pity’s sake. The next morning, I woke propped against the bedside with my hand still twined in Nana’s. The fire was out, and the room was cold and dark. I’d fallen asleep against the mattress, my face cradled against her journal. At some point, she’d taken off her great-grandmother’s wedding ring and closed my fingers over it. It had no magical significance. It was just an old family ring, passed from mother to daughter. I was the only one in Fiona McGavock’s line left to pass it along to.
And she was gone.