Chapter 8
Eight
Bex
The cabin of the stagecoach I’m sitting in is lacking any means of comfort, and without a designated road, the uneven earth has me bouncing in my seat. Garrett said the ride would be about a four hours, and he insisted we needed the wagon to bring this man, Booker I believe his name was, supplies.
When we hit a deep hole along the plains, I almost fall right off the bench and onto the flour sacks and potatoes piled up on the seat across from me. They secured some crates to the roof and luggage hold in the rear, but what was left ended up in the cabin.
“Sorry about that!” Murphy shouts from the buckboard seat where he and Garrett sit. Murphy, a sheriff’s deputy, is also Davie’s father. They’re the father-son pair I’ve seen a couple times now in town.
I pick my hat up off the floor and set it on the seat again.
I wanted to ride Tumbleweed alongside, but Garrett wouldn’t have it.
He insisted that it would be safer for me to ride in the stagecoach.
Their horses knew the way home if things got ugly and he had to let them run free.
I didn’t want to imagine what that might entail, so I didn’t argue.
But it still rubbed me the wrong way. If I’m meant to be some kind of protector, he needs to let me experience this land—the good and the ugly.
There’s a part of me that is upset I had to make this trip sitting inside the cabin all alone, with no one to talk to. Why didn’t Maureen let Nina come? Her company would’ve helped keep my boredom at bay. There’s only so much open prairie one can admire before the thrill fades and boredom sets in.
“We’re about there!” Murphy shouts. Davie, who’s usually right by Murphy’s side, stayed in Gravers Junction to help fix a broken ladder somewhere…
or something like that. I wonder where the boy’s mother is.
He might be the youngest person in Gravers Junction.
Unless Maureen is hiding the children underground somewhere.
Off in the distance, a strange rock formation sits along the horizon.
It appears massive, taller than the Gravers Inn.
The red surface is smooth—well, it looks smooth from here.
The natural formation is so out of place with the flat plains stretching out for as far as the eye can see.
It’s as if the gods themselves carefully arranged these massive narrow boulders against one another like a giant campfire for them to sit around and tell ancient stories.
It’s quite beautiful, and I hope we get a closer look at it before heading back to town.
I’m so enamored of the rock formation off in the distance that I don’t notice out the other side that we’ve come upon a small cabin.
There’s a sizable barn too, attached to the back side of the home.
Normally, barns are set a good distance from any farmhouse, but out here in Graveyard Territory, I’ve learned that it’s not safe to go outside at night, and if you need to get to another building, you have to either build them on top of one another, or have an underground tunnel connecting them.
The second the stagecoach stops, a man sitting in a rocker on the front porch stands and makes his way to us. A pair of hunting hounds leap to their feet and flank the man’s sides.
“I wasn’t expecting you until next week,” he shouts, looping his thumbs through the front of his suspenders. “Your order isn’t ready. Maybe tomorrow, after tonight’s full moon.”
Garrett hops down from the bench seat where he and Murphy sit. Murphy does the same, but on the other side. Garrett says to the man, “Not here for that, but good to know,” while Murphy opens the door for me and says, “Don’t wander off. The snakes are poisonous in these parts, you hear me?”
I nod and climb out, grabbing my hat before Murphy shuts the door.
The muscles in my legs are ready to stretch and shake off the lingering stiffness.
Bright, warm sunlight claims every part of the open land.
I put on my sunrider and tighten it by sliding the bead up the leather straps.
My pale blue dress grazes the red dirt of the man’s plot, and I’m thankful the sand sensation beneath my long sleeves remains dormant. No danger here.
I circle around the back while Murphy climbs up onto the tread step to unload the bags and crates secured on the roof.
The man, Booker, is facing away from me, and the second Garrett’s gaze finds me from over the man’s shoulder, he turns.
The man’s eyes narrow for a brief second before he removes his hat and brushes a hand through his overgrown dark locks, peppered with streaks of gray.
He holds his sunrider hat to his chest and takes a step closer.
“Well, hello there. I’m Booker. And you are?
” His smile is kind, and his teeth are abnormally white.
Maybe the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. He catches me staring and brings the tips of his fingers over his mouth.
“Oh, don’t mind my pearly whites. I’m quite particular about keeping them clean,” he says with a wink.
There’s something about him that unsettles me, yet the dustslinger powers aren’t stirring.
“I was admiring your smile, and my name is Rebecca Rose Ellington, but everyone calls me Bex.”
Booker brushes his hair back once more before setting his wide-brimmed sunrider hat on his head. “And what might be the purpose of this unexpected, yet lovely, out-of-the-blue visit?”
“Book, we’ve got some bad news and, well, some good news,” Garrett says, stepping around so he’s included in the conversation.
“Is that right? Well, let’s have the good news first, then we can deal with the bad.” The two hound dogs, with their oversized floppy ears and long snouts, have already lain together in the red dirt. One watches us closely while the other keeps an eye on the open land.
“I’ve come into some special powers that I need your help to understand,” I answer, not wanting to be the one to dish out the bad news.
Booker looks from Garrett to me. “All right, show me where you got bitten.”
“Bitten?” I ask, my body tensing at his assumption.
Did she bite me? Was that how she transferred her powers to me?
I think back to that stormy night, and there was no way she had the strength to do anything but lie in my arms and die.
Most of her energy was spent on gasping for air and getting me to remember her message.
“Tell Maureen O’Callaghan Persephone is dead. Tell her it was Malik Graves. Say the name!” the woman in my arms yells, spitting up blood. Her lips were coated in red as she yelled over and over, “Say his name!”
“Mal-Malik Graves,” I stutter.
“Good,” she says with a long sigh, sinking into my lap. Her breathing was more labored. “Gravers Junction.” Another shallow breath. “Persephone is dead.” Her eyes fluttered closed.
Our hands were clasped tightly over her chest, and I could feel her breathing grow weaker and weaker.
Then, as she spoke her last words, “Malik Graves,” a whirlwind of sand swept in through the open back door and circled around us like a twister.
I held on to the woman’s body, as if to protect her from the tornado of dirt, sand, and dust, only to be struck in the head by something hard.
I swore as I blacked out, my mouth filled with sand and dust as the cyclone spun around us.
The one blessing that night was that Nina wasn’t home. She was visiting our parents a few hours south. When she returned, every surface within our kitchen was covered in dirt, and not just a dusting but buckets of the stuff.
“I wasn’t bitten,” I clarify at the same time Garrett says, “It’s not like that. It’s a different kind of magical power—one you’re familiar with someone else having.”
Still focused on what he meant by getting bitten, I open my mouth to ask what power comes from a bite, but then Booker says her name and I quickly refrain from asking.
“Persephone.”
Garrett nods.
Booker looks at me, eyeing my arms and hands. “You’re a dustslinger?”
“Apparently,” I confirm with a shrug. A trickle of sweat breaks loose and trails the skin along my spine, and I can’t tell whether it’s from nerves or from the heated day. It gets fairly hot out in these parts, especially when there’s no overcast.
A smile spreads and he rubs the back of his neck. “Well, damn. Persephone will be thrilled to meet ya, though she’s not here right now. I’m not sure when she’ll—”
“Booker,” Garrett cuts in, his voice low, and the sorrow laced in it mirrors the look in his eyes, “Persephone isn’t coming.”
The man purses his lips and stares at the ground.
After a moment, he shakes his head. “Nah. Whatever you’re about to say, it’s not true.
She’s a fighter. That woman can get out of any pinch she faces.
” He pushes past Garrett and walks toward his cabin, whistling for his hounds to follow, and they do.
“Booker!” Garrett calls after the man.
Murphy comes around carrying a stack of crates. “You two should go talk with him. I’ll get all this unloaded and into his barn.”
Garrett nods and gestures with a tilted head for me to go first. The man’s front door is open, so we follow him inside.
It’s a cozy cabin with an open living space, a bedroom in the back corner, and then a door that I assume leads to the barn.
There’s a second door between the barn door and the bedroom doorway, and I’m tempted to see what’s behind it. A washroom or a storage room, perhaps.
Booker sighs, hanging his sunrider hat on a wooden peg stuck into the wall at eye level. He’s muttering curses and when he finally faces us, he looks right at Garrett and asks, “Are you sure?”
“She died in my arms,” I explain. “I don’t know how she found her way to my farm, because we live out in Billingsworth County, but she showed up in the middle of the night, bleeding out from multiple gunshot holes in her chest.”