Page 170 of Blue Moon Mistress

Mrs. Miller ferrying lemonade into her basement.

Mrs. Miller, spelled to believe she hasfourgranddaughters.

Passing through the veil is like falling into deep water. Coming out of it is like reaching the bottom of a bungee line. I am flung back into myself so violently, I have to drop to my hands or I’ll hit face-first.

“Welcome back.” My grandmother steps around me, crouching down and taking hold of my chin with her hands, forces me to meet her eyes. “You did make it back, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” The words are a rasp, but I choke them out, anyway. “How long?”

“Less than a minute.” She lets go of me, and I manage to sit back on my heels. “The veil knows you despise it. It doesn’t want you any more than you want it.”

“I know where to look.”

“Good. I didn’t want to have to throw you back in.”

And I wouldn’t have let her.

I can’t shake the cold fingers of that half death.

“You’ve got company.” When I look up, Chase’s wolf watches me from outside the Carraway plot. Paws on the wall he looks at me with eyes dark with concern. He’s nearly solid.

“He thinks you’re a threat.”

“He’s technically right.” Scooping the bowl from the ground beside me, she tosses the remnants of the potion into the soupymire and fills the bowl with fresh dirt, grinding it into the wood to clean away the last of the spellwork.

The dirt follows after the potion and when she sets it down, she turns back to me.

A handful of new dirt in her grasp. “Scrub that off or you’ll have terrible nightmares.”

Aphrodite needs the full moon.

But I’m not going to wait that long.

I won’t let them stay with her a moment longer than I have to.

She leaves me to clean away the remnants of Aphrodite’s blood from my face. The rainwater is freezing, but the dirt was worse.

I turn to the sound of scraping wood as I wipe my face down with my sleeve.

Grandma has turned the coffin and let it drop back into her grave. “It’s time for me to go back to sleep.”

“I don’t have a shovel.”

“You won’t need one.” Laying down, she rests her arms to her sides and looks up at me. “I sincerely hope I don’t see you again, cutie pie.”

With a snap of her fingers, the casket falls closed, the chains snake back around it and the lock clicks into place. I stumble backward as the earth that had exploded outward sweeps back over her, sealing her back in place.

She’s never been trapped here.

Thirty-Five

My car is totaled.If Aphrodite hadn’t lost as much blood as I just witnessed, I’d have thought she’d done it with magic… but it’s more likely she rammed it with her own car before speeding off back to town.

Crunched, the driver’s door doesn’t come off until I force it. The recoil of the spell sends it hurtling off into the woods. I don’t look after it.

But the car won’t start.

I’d be more surprised if the gibbous moon didn’t cast long streams of light down on a pool in the gravel. The mixing fluids are all the wrong colors.

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