Page 97 of Amber Gambler

“I will.” He hugged me back tighter. “It’s you I’m worried about if Harrow is involved in all this.”

“That’s one silver lining,” Carter said. “Josie can sayI told you sountil it makes her feel better.”

“That is her favorite song,” Matty allowed, nudging me out into the hall.

“If that’s what it takes to make her sing again, then I’ll gladly provide backup vocals.”

As soon as we exited the hotel, Badb leapt from an awning onto Kierce’s shoulder. He tilted his head and let her update him. He scratched under her beak, and she resumed her post as sentinel at the entrance.

“Badb has requested to stay and watch over your siblings.” Kierce faced me, his eyebrows rising. “Would you prefer she come with us?”

“I trust her judgment.” A thief she might be, but she was honorable to those she claimed as friends. “If this is where she feels she’s most needed, then I’m not going to argue with her.”

Not that I could. I had tried. Several times. She ignored me or played theI’m just a birdcard.

They exchanged another wordless communication then he nodded, and the three of us piled in the truck for the short trip to Bonaventure. The gates would be open when we arrived, but they wouldn’t stay that way for long.

To avoid an after-hours manhunt for wayward tourists, Carter parked at the nearest business, less than five hundred feet from the front gate, and we walked in.

The agreed upon location was Little Gracie Watson’s grave. Her marble statue was as iconic as Bird Girl. I had a framed black-and-white print of her final resting place hanging in the office taken before the fence was erected to protect her from a laundry list of superstitions. Rub her button nose for a good grade. (It had to be replaced prior to the fence.) Touch her cheek under a full moon to feel her warm skin. (Of course, marble exposed under the unrelenting Georgia sun all day was still warm after dark.) And the list grew more whimsical from there.

All the locals knew where to find her, most of them had left her a gift at least once, which meant Harrow wouldn’t have trouble locating us.

Carter, who placed a handful of hard candies inside the fence, asked, “Have you ever seen Little Gracie?”

“No.” I swept my gaze over the beautiful little girl who had died from pneumonia in 1889, two days before Easter when she was six years old. “I’ve always thought it was sad how people come to this grave hoping to see a ghost when it’s one of the quietest ones here. Spirits are all around them, their markers overlooked or forgotten, and they have no idea.”

“That is sad.” She took back her candy. “No point leaving gifts for a hunk of marble.”

“There’s power in belief.” Kierce left a small gold coin of no denomination I recognized on the dirt inside the fence. “More than you realize.”

“If death gods can draw power from universal belief to fuel themselves, can a cemetery do the same?”

Would attention Little Gracie and other popular but absent graves received benefit their neighbors?

“Tithes to individual graves soak into the ground and feed back into the spirits who slumber within it.”

“I always wondered why spirits in famous cemeteries are stronger.” I traced a warm wrought iron bar. “I asked Vi once, but the cemeteries in New Orleans are teeming with powerful energies. Since she doesn’t leave the city, she’s never experienced how empty the neglected ones feel in comparison.”

“It’s almost time.” Carter tapped her watch. “Kierce, you need to vamoose.”

Low-flying bats skimmed his shoulders as he turned to go. “I’ll be close.”

He strolled deeper into the cemetery, and it embraced him in oncoming shadows.

“That doesn’t weird you out at all? That he might be communicating with flying rats?”

“I like bats.” I shrugged. “They’re cute.”

Though I had a feeling his bond with Badb didn’t extend to other creatures of the night. I suspected they shared a connection based on his god form but asking would only make him self-conscious.

“Forgot who I was talking to there for a second.”

To kill time, I began pulling stubborn weeds near the grave of Josiah Tattnall III.

“Tattnall sounds familiar.” Carter divided the distance between Gracie and me. “Founding family?”

“He was the last generational owner of Bonaventure Plantation. He sold it to Peter Wiltberger in 1846.” I dusted off my hands. “Wiltberger incorporated a section of land as the Evergreen Cemetery Company of Bonaventure Plantation. He’s responsible for what we see today.” I brushed off my knees. “Oh, yeah. He coined the phraseblood is thicker than watertoo.” I paused. “Tattnall. Not Wiltberger.”

---