Chapter 12
“Ican’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Nova grumbled, as we piled into her car.
“I know. I’ll make it up to you,” I said, as I put on my seatbelt. “Bea, put yours on, too.”
“I know how to drive a car, Wren,” Nova snapped, as we jerked our way down the road toward town.
“If you say so,” I muttered. The truth was, I had no other choice. Nova was the only friend I had with a license and her own car—and even that license was still only a few weeks old.
“Am I about to find out why my mother tore out of our house tonight?” she’d asked, by way of greeting. “Because she wouldn’t tell me shit when she got back, but she looked pissed.”
“Yes,” I’d replied. “Yes, I’ll tell you everything your mother wouldn’t tell you, just get over here.”
That had been enough. There was no stronger lure for Nova than somehow outmaneuvering her mother. Check and mate.
“I still don’t really understand what we’re doing,” Nova said, as she barreled down the road. Lightkeep Cottage winked at us from the rearview mirror. I’d made Nova park a ways down the street so that no one would hear the car engine. Thank goddess she’d still been awake when I’d texted her.
“That makes two of us,” I said with a glance into the back seat, where Jess was seated beside Bea, who looked wild with excitement.
“Look, unless you want me to slam on these brakes…” Nova threatened.
“Okay, okay,” I said, and explained what happened after she, Eva, and Zale had left me alone at the Shadow Tree.
“Oh sure, the one time I insist on leaving an event early, and you find a body without me!” Nova grumbled.
“I didn’t find a body on purpose, Nova,” I cried. “And trust me, you’re welcome to the trauma if you’d like it.”
“Whatever,” Nova said, tossing her hair. “So, then what happened?”
Wearily, I went through the rest of the night’s events. My head was pounding.
“You have the Vesper grimoire? Like… the Vesper grimoire?!” Nova gasped, turning to gape at me.
“Road! Eyes on the road!” I shouted.
But Nova was pulling over to the shoulder and throwing the car into park.
“What is she doing?!” came Jess’ echoing voice from the back of the car. “We don’t have time for this shit!”
“Seriously!? No wonder my mother looked so frazzled when she got home. No wonder she wouldn’t talk to me. Holy shit!”
I was surprised to see that Nova, who was almost pathologically unbothered by just about everything, was white as a sheet. Her hands, which were clutching the steering wheel, were shaking a little.
“Nova, can we like… deal with this later? We’re kind of in a hurry here,” I said.
“Why aren’t you freaking out about it?” Nova asked, incredulous.
“Because I never heard of it until a woman handed it to me, and now that woman is literally haunting me from the back of this car! Nova, please!”
“Right. Yeah, we can…” Nova ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath.
“Wait, why doesn’t she just wait until the morning?
We can call over there and explain. I mean, it’s not like people won’t believe us.
I’m sure this isn’t even the weirdest thing they’ve dealt with, dealing with so many covens over the decades. ”
“I know, but Jess was adamant. She says she has some kind of… code of secrecy or something. She says people can’t know what she is.”
“And what exactly is she, did she say that? I mean, you’re risking serious trouble to help her.”
“She said she’d explain it all when she’s in her body again.”
“And you took her word for it?” Nova asked, her voice dripping with disbelief.
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“What’s to stop her from going back on her word? I mean, seriously Wren, you barely know this woman. Why do you trust her?”
“Because Asteria told me to,” I said quietly. “She came to me. She told me Jess was coming. And she told me to trust her.”
Nova pressed her lips together, considering. Then she nodded once, grudgingly. “Okay, fine. And you say the ghost is in the car right now?” Nova’s eyes darted from the road into the mirror, searching.
“Can you keep your eyes on the road please?” I asked, a little shrilly. “Yes, she’s here, and actually she’s not a ghost. At least, I don’t think she is. Like I said, I still don’t know exactly what’s going on.”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me to help commit felony breaking and entering, and you don’t know exactly what’s going on,” Nova hissed through gritted teeth.
“Hey, you asked me to break into a prison a few months ago, and I agreed!” I shot back. “It’s your turn.”
Nova continued to grumble under her breath as we drove into the center of town toward Bea’s house. Jess’ nervous energy emanating from the back seat was so powerful, it made the air in the car heavy and cold.
“Can you try to calm down?” I muttered over my shoulder. “It’s starting to feel like a walk-in freezer in here.”
“Yeah, well, my body is currently in an actual walk-in freezer, so maybe cool it with the judgmental tone,” Jess shot back.
I pressed my lips together and suppressed a shiver. Touche, not-ghost.
Nova rolled to a stop in front of Bea’s house, and I saw the curtains twitch. A moment later, Eva and Zale came tiptoeing out the door and down the steps to the car.
“Okay, Bea, hop out,” Eva said.
“What? No! I’m coming with you!” Bea cried.
Eva snorted a laugh. “Carino, you have no business breaking into a building in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, and you do?” Bea replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “If it weren’t for me, none of you would even know that Jess needs help!
” Bea scrunched her brows together in such a fierce scowl that Eva actually took a step back.
I didn’t blame her; it was like Bea was channeling Xiomara with that expression on her face.
Eva cleared her throat. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you should get in trouble.”
“It doesn’t mean you should get in trouble either. Just get in, Eva, I’m coming whether you like it or not!”
Eva looked first at Zale, who shrugged, and then at me in a silent bid for help.
“We haven’t got all night, here!” Jess shouted in that faraway voice.
“Okay, okay,” I told her. Then I turned to Bea. “Bea, we’ll take you with us, but only if you stay in the car as a lookout.”
“Fine,” Bea said, mollified. Eva and Zale slid into the backseat with her, and Jess vanished to make room for them.
Zale shuddered violently as he sat. “Holy shit, turn that AC down!” he exclaimed.
“It’s not the AC, it’s the spirit energy,” I told him.
His expression lit up, and he looked eagerly around the inside of the car. “That’s so sick. Is she seriously in here with us right now?”
“Let’s get a move on!” Jess growled from somewhere near the trunk of the car. A moment later, Nova pulled away from the curb, and down the main drag.
There was only one morgue in Sedgwick Cove.
The police station was too tiny to house one, and there was no real hospital within the borders.
Instead, we had a single funeral home overlooking the sea, another of Sedgwick Cove’s repurposed grand Victorian houses.
There was a sign on the side of the building which read, “Blackleach and Graves Funeral Services.” I actually giggled out loud when I saw it.
“What are you laughing at?” Nova snapped.
“Sorry, it’s just… the name is a little on the nose, isn’t it? I mean, Graves? For a funeral home? Come on, that’s funny!” I explained.
No one else laughed, though I thought I heard Jess give a snort of appreciation.
“Okay, moving on,” I mumbled.
Blackleach and Graves looked normal from the outside, but the services they offered were anything but.
As Bea had explained it to me, because the various covens had their own unique funereal traditions, Blackleach and Graves served as a kind of staging area for rituals and spellwork.
The rooms that typically held coffins and viewing areas were instead full of altars, candles, and all sorts of ceremonial items—from dried herbs and shrouds, to incense and pyre materials.
And of course, in the basement, there was a morgue.
“Can someone explain to me why we have to break in?” Zale asked, sounding more hesitant now that they had actually arrived. “I mean, it’s not like anyone around here is going to bat an eye at a spirit hanging around. I bet they’d just let us in.”
“Jess says it’s a secret, what she can do,” Bea said, before anyone else could weigh in. “She can’t risk the wrong people finding out.”
“How does she know we’re not the wrong people?” Eva asked.
Bea shrugged. “I don’t know. But she’s trusting us.”
“Like I have a choice.” I felt rather than heard Jess’ sarcastic reply. “Desperate times, and all that.”
We all got out of the car. This close to the water, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks was a constant roar that masked the sounds of our approach.
“Are we sure there’s no one here?” I whispered, as we mounted the steps into the wide front porch.
“Ms. Graves used to live on the top floor until a few years ago, but her arthritis got so bad, she couldn’t manage the stairs anymore; so she took a ground floor apartment around the corner. It should be empty,” Eva said, though she sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as me.
Nova reached into her pocket and pulled out a tin.
“Since when do you know how to pick locks?” I asked her.
“Since about the age of seven, when my mother started locking the book cabinets,” Nova said with a smirk. “Ironically, if she’d just left them unlocked, I wouldn’t have had the slightest interest in them. Parents create so many of their own problems.”
I was the only one who heard Jess snort with amusement at Nova’s remarks. I stared around anxiously as we waited for Nova to fiddle around with the lock.
“Are you even sure your body is here?” I asked Jess. “It’s not like you’re a local. They probably had to get the state police involved, which means your body might be in some police morgue somewhere.”