Page 53 of Calling Quarters

I was uncomfortable with taking advantage of Tabitha’s trust. It didn’t make sense that she would be the only one who could provide answers, but I never understood her role in any of this to begin with. She very well could be the one hiding the truth from the Quarters and contributing to the chaos that has ensued since they lost their gifts.

“You don’t have to do this. I’m sorry that I even asked. We’ll find another way.”

“I’ll do it.”

His brows raised high into his forehead as he blinked at me in stunned silence.

My eyes rolled to the ceiling to hide their growing mistiness. “You’re right. She isn’t my family. You’re the closest thing I’ve felt to family since Aunt Ash died, and probably long before that. I’ll get into the room and see if she has what you’re looking for.”

“Are you sure? I swear, we can find another way,” he started, but I shook my head and stopped him with a kiss.

“I can’t lose you, too. And as much as I find it to be puzzling and unwelcoming, I can’t let this town burn to the ground over any more secrets and lies,” I explained when we pulled away.

It would kill me to deceive the family who has welcomed me with open arms, but Remy was right. The information wasn’t Tabitha’s to keep, and if he was telling the truth and she was holding onto it out of spite, then she was putting the rest of us at risk for her own ego. I’d make sure to get in and out of there before she even knew and hopefully put an end to the destruction.

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Blaire and Tabitha’s moods never fully shifted into the same hostility that everyone else had. I'm not sure if it was because they were already generally hostile people or if they had protected themselves with spells strong enough to avoid it. Still, they remained untouched by the growing darkness that loomed overhead.

I realized that Tabitha reminded me of an older, grumpier version of Aunt Ash. Watching her work on her incantations gave me a strange sense of familiarity that comforted me each time I felt my panic rise. I wanted to express my gratitude toward her for taking me in and treating me as her own in a way that I’d never been able to do with Aunt Ash, but Tabitha made that impossible. Each time I tried to offer her anything, she’d swat me away and mumble something crude under her breath. It all made what Remy asked me to do that much more difficult.

She wasn’t happy that I didn’t heed her warning about him, and she couldn’t stand that I kept my faith in the Quarters coming around about their Counters the same way Remy had. I liked to think those feelings were rooted in fear of something bad happening to me, but I knew deep down that Tabitha didn’t worry herself with much outside of her family. There was clearly something the Grangers weren’t telling me about our pasts, but I wasn’t ready to face that reality just yet.

I’d spent nearly a week waiting for the right opportunity to sneak into Tabitha’s study. Blaire would be easy enough to get past. It was Tabitha and Callista who made it difficult to find a window of time long enough for me to get in and out unscathed. That was so long as Remy’s speculation was correct, and the protection spells were lifted for me. If she put new ones in place, there was no telling what could happen to me.

Tonight, the three of them were at yet another town meeting about the Movement. I faked a stomachache and hung back, grateful that none of them pressed me too hard. Even if they had, the dread I was feeling had put a rock in my stomach so large, my lie wasn’t too far off from the truth.

I knew from watching Blaire lose her keys multiple times that they left a spare office key beneath the mailbox hanging beside the door. The entry leading into their home was always open, so after I replaced the spare exactly how I’d found it, I walked right into their dark foyer.

Once I reached the hallway, I was sure the door to the room would be gone again. Remy explained that one of the protection spells she could have used might have masked it, disguising it as part of the wall. I figured that was why I didn’t ever remember seeing it before she’d taken me there. But as I rounded the corner, the wood door was still fully visible.

My dread grew stronger the closer I got, nearly paralyzing me in fear when my hand finally reached for the handle. I was shocked to find that it turned with ease, the hinges creaking as I pushed forward into the unlit room. I found the light switch and shoved my fears as far down as they would go, then quickly got to work on reading spines.

Most of them were records of the births she’d assisted, all separated by year. Remy instructed me to look for a black, leather bound book with gold foil lettering titled something along the lines ofWatchtower Quarter Book of Shadows.

I nearly reached the last shelf, and my hope was all but lost when I stumbled onto the book Tabitha had used to tell me about my role as Remy’s Counter. It had been moved to a different spot than where she pulled it from that night, an entire bookshelf over and three rows up. I wondered why she would have gone through the trouble of moving it if she never expected that I’d come back.

Was she just overly paranoid? Or did she know I’d return to find out more? That would explain why she left the spells untouched.

My fingers gently grazed the plain spine of the ancient-looking book, stopping over the small, lonely compass that sat at the top. It was similar to the compass that was plastered all around town and served as Beacon Grove’s official logo. This one was slightly different in that instead of the lines simply crossing over each other in the center, there was another circle placed there, same as the one’s on each directional point.

I wanted to pull the book from the shelf to show Remy but decided against it at the last minute. If Tabitha had expected me to come back here, that would be the first one she looked for to be missing, since it was the one she showed me. Instead, I committed the logo to my memory and moved on, afraid that I was running out of time.

The Book of Shadows sat on the final shelf I checked. It was set against the wall behind the door and filled with different colored spell books and grimoires. The title was as Remy described, but when I pulled the brittle, cracked leather from the shelf, the cover was nothing like anything I’ve seen before.

Instead of a four-point compass, the black book was adorned with a silver, five-point star. Each point was labeled with the elements I’d grown familiar with hearing about. Water, earth, fire, and air were represented with their corresponding symbols, with the addition of spirit. It was represented in the uppermost point and was accompanied by a circle symbol. My eyes scanned the cover curiously, wondering if this was the correct one for me to take. I looked back to the shelf I'd taken it from for any other books with a similar title and came up short.

Before I could reconsider, I heard a noise outside the hotel and shoved the heavy book under my arm in a panic. With a quick scan of the room to make sure everything looked as untouched as it had when I arrived, I slipped through the door and closed it quietly behind me. Then, with the same dreadful feeling I entered the house with, I locked the office behind me and ran to my room.

Chapter 30

Storie

Iwas having dinner with Blaire at the Watchtower Tavern the first time I heard it.

In the beginning, we chalked it up to nasty rumors that would never gain momentum. Then, we heard talk of it while walking past the barber shop and Hazel’s boutique. Slowly, the news made it to Maisey's diner where we had lunch two days later, and we knew there was no way it could be false.

The town was planning to hunt down the Quarters.

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