Page 71 of Grave Robbing and Other Hobbies (Grave Concerns 1)

It kicked its feet, reaching up as if for a mobile.

Only, there wasn’t a mobile there.

The mother hummed a soft song, one that resonated with me, as if I’d heard it before but couldn’t place it. It felt so ingrained that I could have hummed along with her, following each note.

The baby’s expression twisted, its gaze moving toward the foot of the bed, upset belting from its lungs.

The woman gathered the infant up and held it against her chest. She swayed back and forth, never missing a beat in her song, until the baby settled. She whispered, and I couldn’t catch it at first.

It felt wrong to intrude on the moment, on the sweetness between them, something I never had, as if I wasn’t meant to even see it. Still, I had to hear her. Ineededto know what sort of words a loving mother might say to their child.

“Close your eyes, little one,” the mother whispered. “They can’t hurt you.”

They?

She clutched the baby closer, a fierceness in her grasp, a reminder that no matter how soft she might speak, how sweetly she might hum, she was also a mother who appeared ready to defend her infant, no matter what. “Just rest, Ava.”

Ava?

My name.

The scene didn’t fade away like some memory, because instead, it shocked me awake. I leapt to my feet, unsteady and nearly taking out a toddler who was wavering by.

A sharp look from that child’s mother had me muttering a half-hearted apology—kids fall over all the time, so what was the real risk there?—before I rushed toward my car.

Once inside, I sucked in adeep breath.

Had that been real? Was that some sort of memory? Had the mist shown it to me, and if so, why?

I lifted my hand to start the car, but when I did, I spotted my bare arm.

Where the shadow had struck me, the place that had burned so badly, sat a thin scar. It looked like a third-degree burn that had healed years before, with ridged and twisted skin, going from shoulder to elbow.

Which meant it hadn’t been just a dream…

And thatthingmight not have been able to see me, but it sure as hell could hurt me…

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