Page 55 of Wicche Hunt

Lifting my other hand, I scratched under his chin a moment before he slipped away, padding through Gran’s front door. Mom sat up straight, her expression alarmed. Gran patted her daughter’s knee and we waited.

“Well,” Mom said. “What did you see?”

A moment later, he came out with my backpack, dropping it beside me.

“What?” I asked.

He nudged it closer to me and then trotted to his truck.

Did he want me to leave? Ugh. Dumbass. I unzipped the backpack and pulled out the honey bottle, pouring seawater on my hands and then patting it on my forehead, my cheeks, the back of my neck.

“Oh, that’s right,” Mom said.

“Dad’s DNA to the rescue,” I mumbled.

“Better?” Declan asked from the far side of his truck.

“Yeah. Thanks for reminding me.” The pounding was no longer making me nauseated.

“What did you see?” Mom repeated.

I explained as best I could. “The flashes made it difficult. Those are my impressions of what was happening. My interpretations could be off.”

Mom and Gran sat silently, thinking.

“She was right,” Gran finally said. “There was something about that child that always seemed off to me.” She stared out at the trees surrounding us. “Of course, I hadn’t thought sorcery. I thought maybe drug addiction or kleptomania.”

“I didn’t see it,” Mom said. “She was Sylvia’s baby, and I didn’t see it. I thought she was a sweet little thing. Not as powerful, sure, but a good girl.” She blew out a breath. “I never saw it.”

“And we still don’t know where she is,” Gran said, “other than in an empty house on the ocean.”

“It was large. The rooms she walked through were huge and the view was amazing. This wasn’t a hut in the woods, which is what I was afraid of. At least oceanfront property gives us a place to look. Maybe we should rent a boat and sail along the coast until we see or feel something dark.”

“Yes,” Gran said, patting my mother’s knee again. “Let’s set that up.”

“I will.” Tapping my leg with her foot, Mom gestured to the bear bottle. “Is it working?”

“Mostly. The ocean always makes me feel good. I was helping on that child killing case last month and was struggling. Declan thought to go out to a stream in the family’s backyard and pat fresh running water on me. It helped. Visions often make me sick, so I tried bottled ocean water to see if it would ease the pain, and it did.”

“Good,” Gran said. She looked up at the sound of Declan’s boots on the cobblestones. She turned to her daughter. “I don’t know why that never occurred to us.”

“Probably because we never talk about my dad and try to hide the things that are different about me because of him.”

When I felt Declan’s hand on my head, I realized I’d said the quiet part out loud. I dropped my wet hands from my face just in time to watch my mother walk into the house.

Gran sighed, watching her daughter disappear.

I wanted to talk with her about the other vision I’d had about her and her own prophetic dream of a Cassandra child, but now wasn’t the time—or maybe it was. This had always been the pattern. I asked a question, make a reference to Dad, and she got angry or sad or something and walked away.

I raised an arm and Declan pulled me to my feet. “You two stay here. I’ll be back.” I stopped at the door, remembering. “Wait. Did you find any curses on Gran’s property?”

Declan shook his head and sat beside Gran. “All clear.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” she said, but I was already walking through the door, looking for my mom.

I started for the kitchen and then saw movement out the back window. Mom, silhouetted against the night sky. Detouring to the door off the living room, I startled her when I stepped onto the patio.

“Arwyn, I thought you’d be leaving with that wolf.” It wasn’t cold out, but her arms were crossed tightly.

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