Page 149 of Blue Moon Mistress

I turn back as Josuha looks at her, and she’s pointing down at the disturbed dirt where I placed the tourmaline.

“Actually, she was checking on something I asked her to. Please stop harassing our friend.”

With a sharp breath, Mrs. Miller stomped back into her house and slammed the door behind her.

“Will it be a problem if she comes back and tries to dig that up?”

“No. By the time she thinks to come back out here, they’ll have sunk far enough into the foundation that she’d have to literally excavate them.”

I lead the way inside and go to where I left my purse on the bench by the table.

“I assume that was part of the protections you wanted to add to the house.”

Nodding, I pull the final pieces out. “I’ve buried some spelled stones at the corners of the house and on either side of your front stoop. Now I just need to hang these over each door—even the basement entrance—and you should be snug as bugs.”

I hold up the charms and he takes one from me. “They’re pretty.”

“Lucky for me you like pretty things.” I lay the other two out. I chose the moon medallions as a kind of teasing joke, but I love the way they look in the copper against the wood over the door frame. “I assume a carpenter has a hammer and three nails in his home.”

“You assume correctly.” He collects them and hangs the charms himself… saving me from having to use a stool or a chair.

With the last one hung over the basement garage door, Joshua drops the hammer on a shelf and scoops me up. “Stay for dinner?”

I want to say yes… but, “I need to go do some research. Mrs. Miller’s behavior seems too erratic for your run of the mill busy body neighbor. I’m actually starting to worry about her.”

“About her, or for her.”

“Both.”

Because I have no idea how Aphrodite would have managed it, but if it’s blood magic, I don’t know who else it could be.

I leave before the others get home… the more of them there are, the harder it is to go.

As soon as I park in front of my house, I dial my mother’s number.

“Yes?”

She didn’t look at the caller ID.

“Mom, we need to talk about Aphrodite.”

She sighs heavily and I hear her move to a quieter room. “No, we don’t. You need to leave this alone.”

“I’m worried and I feel like you’re not taking me seriously.”

“It’sherI don’t take seriously.” She sighs heavily into the phone. “Do you honestly think we would have cut her loose like we did if she had the potential to do what you’re suggesting?”

No. They wouldn’t have.

They would have kept the tenuous thread of a connection to her like they had to me.

“Well, if it’s not her, there’s still something going on. And I don’t know if I can handle it on my own.”

“I hesitate to point out that you were the one who wanted to leave.”

She knows my reasons, which is why I keep my mouth shut and let her stew in silence.

“I didn’t mean to sound that way.”

---