Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68024 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68024 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
She blinks. “I don’t think that was just a figure of speech.”
“No. It was not. You say that this is new for you, well, it is new for me, as well. But I am not willing to share you with anyone. So, now that we have established that, we can move forward without any feelings of uncertainty.”
“I just realized that your speech is quite modern, at least for the most part. But when you get angry or worked up, it becomes more formal. Similar, I assume, to how people spoke in the Puritan days.”
With that small storm over, I reach for Lucy and pull her to her feet.
“We should go. You really shouldn’t be here. Someone was coming this way to check out the barking he thought he heard.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” I step into her and kiss her forehead. “There’s no need to apologize. You needed me. But it’s risky coming here. From now on, I’ll stay with you at night.”
“Won’t people realize you’re gone?”
“Probably not. I can move in and out so I still have a presence here, but I won’t leave you alone at night again.”
“Thank you.” She simply wraps her arms around me and holds on tightly before pulling back and gesturing to Nera. “I assume we leave the same way as last time? In the trees?”
“Yes.” I put the fire out, extinguish the candles, and take the few books I’ve been reading through. “Let’s go.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of reading,” Xander says. He invited me to his home, and I decided to come today while Lucy is working in her shop.
From the moment I met him, I knew that Xander was a powerful witch, perhaps more so than anyone I’ve ever come across before.
I hope I can pick his brain.
“That makes two of us,” I reply and set my books on the table.
“I found mention of the curse of the blood moon,” he says and holds up his hand. A few seconds later, a book floats across the room from a bookcase and lands in his outstretched palm.
I simply blink.
“This is my seven-times-great-grandmother’s Book of Shadows,” he says and gently opens the front cover.
One I recognize.
“I’ve studied it before, but it has been more than a decade. And at that time, the curse wasn’t something I was looking for.”
“Of course. May I ask her name?”
“My seven-times-great-grandmother?”
“Yes.”
“Katrina Harwood.”
I still. “Are you certain?”
Xander frowns and raises an eyebrow. “Of course, I’m certain. Did you know her?”
I stand and walk to the wall of windows that look out onto Chestnut Street.
“Her home was on this property,” I say quietly. “The street looked much different then, with small cabins and dirt roads for the carriages, but Katrina lived here.”
“I know,” Xander says behind me. “How did you know her?”
“She was my sister.” I turn back to him and take a deep breath. “I’d heard that she moved to New York with her husband, Thomas.”
“She did, for a while. They were worried about being persecuted for the Craft and stayed away for about ten years. But when her parents grew older, they came back to Salem with their family.”
“Did they have children?” I ask, hanging on his every word, then realize what I said. “They must have. Because…here you are.”
“Six,” he confirms. “Four died of childhood diseases, but two lived well into old age.”
“And the Craft lived on through her children and grandchildren.”
“Yes,” he confirms. “Jonas, there is no mention of you anywhere.”
“Of course, not.” And it’s a sharp stab to the heart to be reminded of it. “I told you, any existence of Hallows End and its people were erased from existence.”
For the first time, I see compassion in the other man’s eyes.
“I can feel the love you had for her,” he says.
“She was…one of a kind. So smart. Dedicated. She and Charlotte, my other sister, were extremely gifted in the Craft. Very powerful witches.”
Xander’s eyes light at the mention of Charlotte’s name, as if the more I speak, the more he believes me.
“They were co-leaders of their coven,” he confirms.
“Charlotte went to Philadelphia.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “That was the rumor they told to the townspeople so she wouldn’t be hunted and persecuted. She just went to Boston for a few years and then eventually came back here.”
“With Charles? Her husband?”
“Charles died of measles,” Xander says. “You never looked into all of this, even though you could move between worlds?”
I shake my head and drag my hand down my face in frustration. “The temptation to see them would have been too great, and they didn’t know me. It was too painful. And a bit of cowardice. The curse was never supposed to last this long, as I told you. I thought I’d be reunited with them after only a short time. And when it became obvious that it wasn’t going to happen, I had to cut the emotional ties as well as the physical because watching them all age and die and having them not know me was its own form of punishment.”