Ash
“What?”
I know it’s rude to say What and not I beg your pardon. Guy drilled that into me.
But none of what Frankie’s sister is saying makes sense to me.
“You were with Meg Boucher?” I demand.
“Yes, I was.” Angie lowers her plate to the table and takes a seat, still glowing with self-importance. “Jackie called me
earlier and asked if I’d to come to the hospital with my gear to see a patient. Naturally I said yes. I’m always willing to
donate my services for someone with cancer or alopecia or whatever. Only this didn’t turn out to be just any patient. It was that missing girl you and Ash found, Frankie.”
Both of Angie’s daughters gasp excitedly. Between their aunt showing up with me and their mother having met one of the long-lost
witches, this might be the most thrilling dinner at Grandma’s house they’ve had in a while.
“How was she?” Frankie asks.
“Uh, not good.” Angie can’t stop glancing over at me.
I can tell that it won’t be long before everyone in town knows that Frankie and I are sleeping together.
Not that I care, but Frankie might. “Her hair was the least of it. Her nails are appalling. I wanted to fix them, too, but Jackie didn’t mention her nails, so I only brought my hair supplies.
I guess someone cut the girl’s hair for some kind of sacrifice—”
“Sacrifice?” Dina looks horrified. “Who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t know exactly.” Angie pauses for a sip of wine before barreling on. “I did ask her, later, after Jackie had to step
out of the room to take a call. All Meg would tell me is that someone named Haley ordered all of them to cut their hair—”
I knew it. It was goddamned Haley all along.
“That’s enough,” Mrs. Giovanni says, rising from her seat at the head of the table. “Not in front of the bambini. Girls, help Nonna clear the table.”
Both her grandchildren groan.
“Nonna, I want to hear about the missing girl!” Bianca wails.
But a single look from Mama Giovanni silences her. Both girls meekly follow their grandmother back to the kitchen, each holding
a modest stack of dirty dishes.
“It’s not really that unheard of,” Dina says as soon as the kids and Frankie’s mother are out of earshot. “There are many
spells that require human hair as an ingredient. Personal artifacts like hair contain some of the strongest magic of all.
That’s why it’s so often used for protection and love spells—”
“I don’t think this was any love spell,” Angie says with a snort. “That girl seemed scared. Jackie told me not to ask her any questions that weren’t beauty related because it might trigger her into another panic attack, and even jeopardize their case—”
“What case?” Mark demands. “Did somebody do something to them? I mean, besides make them cut their hair?”
“I don’t know.” Angie’s beginning to lose some of her smugness. “But whoever cut her hair should be arrested. Her edges were the most uneven I’ve seen since my beauty school days. I don’t know what they used to cut it,
but an axe probably would have done a better job. I had no choice but to give her an asymmetrical pixie cut, which isn’t really
right for the shape of—”
“But how did she seem emotionally?” Frankie interrupts. “Aside from the haircut.”
Angie shrugs. “She seemed fine to me. She’s hooked up to a lot of IVs and has poison ivy and some horrible bug bites, but
I overheard a nurse say that the hospital is letting her go home tomorrow. That’s why Meg asked for her hair to be shaped.
She said she didn’t want her little brother seeing her with such an ugly cut.”
Dina raises her eyebrows as she looks at Frankie. “Well, that’s a good sign, right, Frankie? The fact that she wants to go
home?”
“Possibly.” Frankie looks thoughtful. “But did she say anything about where she’s been or what she’s been doing?”
Angie’s eyebrows pucker as she tries to remember.
“You know, it’s funny,” she says. “When I told her I was sorry that I hadn’t brought any nail files or polish or even hand cream, Meg looked down at her nails and said that she knew how bad they were, and she’d be getting a manicure from her regular stylist as soon as she got back to New Jersey.
She was feeling well enough to joke a little, and said she knew it looked like she’d been digging holes with her bare hands, and that’s because she had been—”
“Holes?” exclaims Angie’s husband, Troy.
I glance across the table. Troy’s jaw is slack. He looks like someone who just found a fly—or worse—in his beer.
“She said she’d been digging holes?” he cries.
“Yes.” Angie seems a little annoyed that her husband is interrupting her story. “That’s what she said. When I asked why, all
she’d say was that they’d been looking for some old bone—”
Now Dina is the one to react. “Bone?” She sounds alarmed. “What kind of bone?”
“How should I know?” Angie looks even more annoyed. “I had my hands full trying to get her layers right. I couldn’t be bothered
asking about some old witch’s bone—”
“Did she say witch’s bone?” Dina has pulled out her phone and is checking something. “Were those her exact words, witch’s bone?”
“I guess—”
“Dammit!” Troy slaps his hand down on the table and stands up. Naturally, everyone looks at him.
“Someone’s been digging holes all over Center Island,” he says. “I told you guys, and you tried to say it was treasure hunters, or tweakers, or goddamned fairies, or some shit. But there are holes
all around Satan’s Seat—”
“Center Island?” Now Frankie is looking at me, wide-eyed. “If Meg took a boat from there, even one without an engine, the
current would take it directly to your dock.”
I’m already climbing from my chair. “Right. Well, this has been lovely, but I need to go. Please tell Mrs. Giovanni how much
I enjoyed the meal—”
“Hold on.” Troy is on my heels. “You think those missing girls have been out there on Center Island this whole time? Because that’s impossible. We’ve been patrolling out there. Someone would have seen them.”
“Not if they cast a glamour spell.” I’m already striding toward the front door.
“A what?” Troy wails.
“A spell that changes how they’re perceived by others. A glamour would hide them and their campsite.”
“Excuse me.” Frankie has followed us into the front hallway, with her sister and Dina close behind. “Can we all just take
a breath?”
“Yeah, I don’t know where you think you’re going.” Angie is glaring at her husband. For once she and her sister seem to agree
on something. “You can’t just go after a bunch of witches by yourselves.”
“Why not?” Troy has pulled his jacket from Mrs. Giovanni’s coatrack and is shrugging his arms into it.
“Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s nighttime already. How are you going to find them in the dark?”
“Easy.” Troy’s jaw is set determinedly. “It’s gotten cold out. They’ll have built a campfire to stay warm—”
“The glamour will hide it,” Dina warns. She’s texting furiously. “Unless the fire gets out of hand. I’ll contact Jessica and
Esther. They can help me cast a binding spell—”
“Oh my God, you can’t just go busting in on a cult!” Frankie cries. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that can be? Let the
police do it.”
“And us.” Troy has pulled on his Department of Fish and Wildlife cap. “I’ll call the boys right now. They can meet us there with Jackie and her guys.” He pauses for a moment. “Maybe they’ll finally let us use the swift water rescue boats . . .”
Angie is looking horrified. “Are you even listening to Dina? Those girls are witches. And from the sound of it, not the good kind.”
“Yeah, and they’re trespassing on my nature preserve,” Troy says. “What are you so worried they’re going to do to me anyway, pelt me with eye of newt and toadstools?”
“That’s the least they’ll do to you if they have the witch’s bone.” Dina is standing by the front door, her cell phone casting
her face in a ghostly glow. She glances up from the screen, her gaze troubled. “It says here that over a thousand years ago
the primordial mother goddess, Gaia, blessed Satan’s Seat—which was then used as a sacred altar by people native to this part
of Connecticut—but accidentally left behind her witch’s bone. Paranormal investigators as well as many in the witch community
believe that it is the ancient magic from this bone that has manifested so many paranormal occurrences in West Harbor, and
made it the spiritual destination for witches that it is today.”
Frankie and her siblings look confused—and no wonder. Whoever heard of a witch’s bone?
Except for me. I have. Though I wish I hadn’t.
“What the hell is a witch’s bone?” Troy demands.
“‘She who is in possession of the witch’s bone,’” Dina continues to read out loud from her phone, “‘holds virtually unlimited
power. Formed from the bone of a black cat, this ancient talisman grants its possessor with uncanny gifts and abilities, including
invisibility, shapeshifting, controlling the weather, and flying.’”
Dina’s voice begins to tremble as she goes on, “‘Should a witch’s bone fall into the hands of her enemy, and that enemy makes a sacrifice of human blood, she will become endowed with all of the witch’s powers, and thus be able to destroy her .
. . as well as any others who attempt to stand in her way. ’”
Shit.