Page 67 of Hallows End
“Oh, my goddess, how did I forget?” Breena says with wide, green eyes. “Yes, tell us what it was.”
“Come on. We’ll all find out together.”
“You didn’t open it?” Lorelei asks with surprise.
“I couldn’t,” I admit. “I read the letter and had a little meltdown. Jonas consoled me, but I decided that I couldn’t open the rest without you two with me.”
“Well, we’re here now.” Breena lifts the basket, Lorelei and I fold the quilt, and then the four of us walk into the house through the back door. “Let’s go see what Aunt Agatha held onto for you.”
“I left it in the shop area so I could keep an eye on it today,” I say as we set our things down in the kitchen and move through to the apothecary. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Breena frowns at my question.
“I didn’t say anything.”
I shake my head. Why do I keep thinking that I hear someone speaking? I can’t make out the words, but it sounds like I’m missing part of a conversation directed at me.
“Sorry.” I flip on the lights when we enter the shop. “I thought you said something. You’re welcome to read the letter first, just so we’re all on the same page.”
Lorelei and Breena huddle together to read the letter, and both have to swipe at tears on their cheeks when they finish.
“Damn,” Lorelei mutters. “I sure miss her.”
“Me, too,” Breena agrees. “That was sweet, and I could hear her voice as I read it. Okay, let’s not keep us guessing any longer. Open it up.”
I reach into the box and pull out something hard, wrapped in a red velvet cloth. Embroidered on it in black is a protection rune.
“I can feel the power from over here,” Lorelei murmurs. “Your mother was a talented witch.”
“But not too talented to fall at the hands of a murderer,” I reply softly and feel the pain of it as swift and sharp as I did on the morning I found her.
“If you don’t unfasten the knot on that package, I’m going to scream,” Breena says. “I’m dying of curiosity over here.”
With a deep breath, I unfasten the knot in the velvet and fold it over, exposing a dark wooden box.
“I remember this.” I run my fingers over the engraving of my mother’s initials on the lid. “My father gave it to her when he asked her to marry him. She said that he was so nervous about it, but he built this for her and engraved it himself.”
“That’s so sweet,” Breena says softly.
“I wondered what’d happened to it after she died because I couldn’t find it with her things. Now, I know.”
I take a deep breath and lift the lid.
“I don’t get it.” I take a step back in frustration. “A deck of tarot cards and a pendulum? That’s it? No letter with advice or her Book of Shadows, which I also haven’t been able to find? Or something elsehelpful?”
“I suspect thisishelpful, we just don’t know how yet,” Lorelei says and bites her lip. “Maybe we’re supposed to do a tarot reading with the cards. Or use the pendulum.”
“I’ll have to ask the aunts,” I mutter, more than a little disappointed. “I’m getting so tired ofwhat-ifs.”
“May I hold the cards?” Breena asks, holding her hand out for them. When I pass them to her, her eyes widen. “Wow, I can feel the magic pulsing on them.”
“What?” I frown down at them. “I didn’t feel anything.”
“Here,” she says and passes them back to me. “It’s like a heartbeat.”
But when I hold them in my hands, I don’t feel anything at all. It’s just…blank.
“I don’t feel it. Here, Lorelei, you’re the tie breaker.”