Page 27 of Witch Moon

"Well, we have to find out."

"Row! You promised you wouldn't tell anyone!"

Rowan gaped. "Hello? Shauna, are you telling me you still don't get it? Think, will you? Bryan is questioned by the cops. Then he tells this jerk he wants out, and twenty-four hours later, Bryan is dead. Doesn't that make you wonder, even a little bit, Shauna? Doesn't it?"

Shauna frowned. Then slowly her brows rose, her eyes widened, and her face went even whiter. "Oh my God...do you think...?"

"I don't know. But I think we'd better find out. Don't you?"

"I said all along Bryan would never kill himself! God, Rowan, what are we gonna do?"

"We have to find out who the guy was. Maybe the other kids involved would talk. Did Bryan say-?"

"No. No, he wouldn't tell me any details." She licked her lips, eyed Rowan. "Maybe there's something in Bryan's room. I mean, he kept journals-and I think this guy e-mailed him too. We could check his computer." Then she lowered her head. "But the cops have probably already done all that."

'"No. No, it was ruled a suicide and blamed on Witchcraft. They didn't dig too much farther once all that was decided. Will his mom let us in his room?" Rowan asked. She seriously doubted it.

"She's not home. My mom took her out. She...she wanted a new suit for Bryan to wear for...for the funeral. She just couldn't bear to do it alone. That's why I came over. I couldn't make myself go with them, but I didn't want to be alone either."

She started to cry again.

Rowan gripped her shoulders. "I know. It's awful, I know. But come on now, pull it together, Shauna. Get a grip. For Bryan."

Sniffling, Shauna nodded, got hold of herself.

"Can we get in, Shauna? Can we get into Bryan's house, his room?"

"Yeah," she whispered. "He always left his window-unlatched, in case I wanted to come by to say goodnight."

Rowan nodded, even though that sentence had her tearing up almost as much as Shauna was. "All right," she said. "Okay then. Listen, I can do this myself if you're not up for it."

Shauna dashed the back of her hand across her eyes, and got to her feet. "I'm in. If someone killed Bryan, I damn well want to know who."

They grabbed jackets, flashlights, and they headed out into the night. But when they got to Bryan's house, someone else was already there.

Jonathon walked silentlyinto the large room, the cat nestled in his arms. A group of women stood in a circle, holding hands, and they didn't even notice him there. They were faces he knew. Granny Kate. Dr. Plummer. One of the secretaries from the DA's office, for crying out loud.

Mirabella was in the center of the circle. And he'd never seen her look like she did then. Her dress was simple, white, draping, tied with a braided cord of three colors. Her hair hung loosely down her back. She wore several necklaces, all of them laden with gemstones. Amber and jet. Moonstone and citrine. Others he couldn't have named. She stood with eyes closed, head tipped slightly back, arms up and out to the sides. The candlelight painted her face. And in spite of himself, he thought she looked more beautiful than any woman he'd ever set eyes on.

The other women chanted, their song falling into so many layers of harmony he couldn't separate one from another. It was beautiful. They sang the names of ancient Goddesses, and he thought he heard the sea, but there was no source for that. The smoke of incense filled the air. And there was something else. Something different about the space in the room where he stood, and the space within that circle of female bodies. That circle was different somehow, denser or...or something.

But then he couldn't focus on that, either, because the chanting stopped all at once, and Mirabella turned to her left and spoke, but her voice was different, deeper, richer, almost ethereal.

"Ashley Rowan Hawthorne, I stir thy spirit! Come ye forth, from beyond the Western gate! Bring thy message now! For the sake of thy daughter, come!"

And the others began to chant again, only this time it was his dead wife's name they sang. Over and over again, they said it.

Tears boiled from Jonathon's eyes, rolling down his face. He opened his mouth to shout at them, to forbid this nonsense. But before he could utter a sound, he saw something. A swirl of particles, dust motes or atoms, gathered like a misty whirlwind right in front of Mirabella. And when they solidified, she was standing there. Ashley. She was filmy, and thin, but there.

Jonathon whispered her name in a harsh voice and lunged forward. But he hit some invisible barrier when he would have forced himself between the women in the circle. Some shield that wasn't solid, but pressed him back all the same.

Mirabella's eyes were still closed. But she drew her hands in, turned her palms out, and as Jonathon stared in wide-eyed wonder. Ashley pressed her misty hands flat to Bella's.

"What do you want me to do?" Bella asked.

"Love her." It was a long drawn out whisper, like the sound of a breeze in treetops.

"Idolove her."'

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