Page 23 of The Accidental Witch

“Okay, so she’s here. Now what the fuck do we do?”

“Nina!” Wanda chastised. “Let the man have a moment. Clearly he wasn’t expecting to find his grandmother in her grave. Have some respect.”

Robbie put a hand on Greer’s arm, giving it a light squeeze. “You okay?”

He nodded his head. “I’m fine, Robbie. I’m not upset at seeing her. I’m shocked she’s still there.”

Nina slapped him on the back again. “So lemme ask you this, why the fuck hasn’t she decomposed? She should be a skeleton by now, shouldn’t she? What kind of fuckery is this?”

Greer sighed. “It’s just a spell, Nina. My grandmother was a vain woman. So vain, she always said upon her death, she wanted someone from the coven to cast a cloaking spell on her corpse, so even then, she’d be beautiful.”

“Jesus, she was a real fucking piece of work, huh?”

Greer nodded again. “She was. A real piece of work. A lying, murderous one.”

He really hated her, didn’t he? Robbie got that. She despised her mother, but there was a very small part of her that wished things could have been different between them. Greer didn’t appear to feel the same way about Gwinnifer.

Marty turned off the flashlight on her phone. “I wanna know who her plastic surgeon was, because wowzers. She looks incredible.”

Greer scoffed. “That’s exactly what she looked like when she died, too. She looked that way because of all the underhanded spells she cast in order to steal the essence of young men and women.”

Robbie’s leg shook as she tucked herself tighter into her jacket. “That feels like a lot of people.”

Greer shoved his hands into the pockets of his vest. “Don’t get me wrong, we age very slowly, but wedoage. If she were still alive, she should look more like she was in her fifties. She wouldn’t look like this.”

“But this does mean she’s not chasing after Robbie, right?” Wanda asked, swiping at the snowflakes swirling about her head, her cheeks pleasantly pink.

Greer’s face looked as confused as she felt. “I guess not. Which means I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s time to go to the coven to figure this out.”

“The coven that lied to you?” Robbie couldn’t help but ask.

“To protect me,” Greer reminded. “And I’ll explain what I meant after we cover her back up and get somewhere warm. You’re shivering. We can’t have you sick when you need to learn how to use all this power you now have.”

Nina brushed her hands together. “Okay, that does that shit then. Cover the old bag back up and let’s get back to the car. The cats are probably hysterical and that talking dust mop is gonna shit a brick. Plus, my Tater Tot’s lips are blue. I can’t have my new BFF freezing to fucking death.” She pointed toward the way they’d come. “Let’s do this and dip.”

Greer held out his hand to her again.

“Repeat after you, right?” she murmured, not as terrified as she’d been initially.

He smiled, warm and reassuring, his palm soothing if a bit calloused. “Yep.” Inhaling, he said, “Return what was to its place, untouched and perfect; Universe, do so with rapid pace.”

Robbie swallowed. “And then point my finger, right?”

“Yep.”

She repeated the words he’d spoken and this time, her jab at the air was a bit more confident.

There was that weird silence again before the deafening roar of the earth crashed in her ears. Only this time, the ground shook much harder, almost as if Gwinnifer didn’t want to go back.

It shook so hard, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tottington willingly latch onto Nina’s arm.

Robbie stumbled, losing her grip on Greer’s hand, catching her sneakered foot on a stray root from one of the trees, tripping backward until she fell into a headstone, cracking her head against it before slumping on the ground.

As she tried to regain her composure and pull herself up, the earth began to rock and crumble beneath her.

She clawed at the slick headstone, fighting to stand upright, but the ground kept giving way.

Greer yelled her name over a thunderous roar of noise and rumbling. “Robbie! Hold on! I’m coming!”

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