Page 42 of Midlife Witch Unexpected

But okay, at least I knew it worked.

Soon, they were knocking on the library door with a perfect model of the cemetery made in clay on the kitchen table.

“It’s even painted.” I gave them a smile of congratulations. “It looks amazing.”

“This isn’t the right room,” I said. “Let’s go into the red room with it.”

The others all looked at each other but I lead the way. It was my house, and I didn’t care. We needed to have the right atmosphere for this and if it was my spell that was going to make it happen, then we were going to do it my way.

“Trina, can you put a table in here?” I asked. She waved her hand and a table appeared. Without moving a thing, the model of the cemetery appeared on top of it.

I glanced down. “Are you sure this is accurate?”

“It’s not entirely accurate because we don’t know the entire layout of the place,” Drake said.

“Some of it is hidden by shrubs and trees,” Anita explained.

“It should work fine,” Hilda said. “The main point is that the spell needs to know the general geography of the place, not the actual details. This should at least get us into the right ballpark.”

I looked down at the cemetery carefully. I recognize the location where the Celtic Martyrs were. Beyond that was a hillside with a door leading into the cliff.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A burial chamber,” Anita shrugged.

“What’s inside?” I queried.

Drake looked at me like I was a complete idiot. “Dead bodies?” He asked as if it was kind of the obvious answer and at my age, I should've known.

“I understand, smart ass,” I said. “I mean whose dead body? What is their particular family? Are they from The Hayes family?”

“Despite the amount of time your family has spent in this area, not every major grave is a Hayes,” Hilda said.

“So, who is it?” I asked.

“Rumor is, it’s not even a dead person,” Anita said with a grin. “I read online it is a vampire that’s been put to sleep there for a long, long time and only The Hayes can keep him in there or let him out.”

“Stop spreading rumors,” Trina said. “The truth is we don’t know who’s in there. It’s an unmarked grave.”

Drake made spooky sounds in the background.

“Stop it,” Anita said. “You’re so cringe.”

“Okay, so we have the cave of the unmarked potentially dead person,” I said, pointing down to the area south of the cave. “What’s this large group of trees?”

“A bunch of old graves,” Anita said.

“Thank you very much.” I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. “Is there a reason they’re covered in trees?”

“Probably some elementals are buried there,” Hilda said. “The elementals tend to spark natural growth when they die.”

“What is an elemental?” I asked. “Are they like beastials?”

“Yeah, but they’re a different type of supernatural being,” Branson said. “Some are more tied to the elements, and some are more tied to animals. Your group, the mages, are more tied to humanity.”

“Basically, the Elementals are Fae who don’t want to live in the Fae kingdom,” Trina said.

“There were Fae who wanted to stay here after the separation. But the only way they could stay is by taking on tasks specifically in service to the DGC,” Hilda explained.

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