Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“That’s true. Yours is just so much more interesting.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I mused. “When I was in college, whenever I was invited to a friend’s house and their grandparents were there, I loved sitting and listening to them. Stories of when and how their parents met or about where they immigrated from. That was my favorite way to spend an afternoon.”
He grunted. “You’re going to love meeting my mom and my grandmother, then.”
“I have no doubt.” I smiled at him.
We drove in silence, and he knew where to turn until we took a left that led us onto a road that had a sign up saying it was not maintained by the city of Osprey.
“This is a private road?”
“Yeah, this is Willow Brook Road, and then you’ll see a trail on the left, and that’s where we want to be.”
“How long has it been since you were out here?”
“A long time.”
“So you stopped coming because Taylor’s mother didn’t want you near her daughter?”
“A lot of parents didn’t want me around their kids. I lost a lot of friends that summer before high school when I came out.”
“If I were her mother, I’d have wanted the gay kid with my daughter.”
“Well, she saw me as an aberration and convinced a lot of other mothers to think the same.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. My grandmother explained how small-minded they were, and though it hurt at the time, everything happens for a reason.”
“And what was the reasoning for you to be excluded?”
“I spent my summer alone, on the land, walking back and forth from the pond, following the stream. I learned a lot about Corvus and got so I could follow the ley lines myself and never get lost.”
“Tell me who this Morgan is that Taylor talked about.”
“You have an excellent memory,” I complimented him.
“It comes with being a cop. So? Who is he?”
“She,” I corrected him.
“Okay. Who is she?”
“Well, Bryan Corey, my ancestor Taylor mentioned, he was a witch like me, and he was branded by the goddess Morrighan. I think Bryan didn’t want to answer questions about a goddess, so he designated Morrighan as Morgan to keep things simple. Or maybe it was Morgan to begin with, for all I know. There are so many different spellings and incarnations of the goddess that anything’s possible.”
“And who is she?”
“She, or one of her incarnations, is the one who originally blessed our line with our magic and who, eons later, branded Bryan Corey.”
“And her incarnations?”
“Goddesses like the Morrighan and Hekate have different pieces that make up the whole, and those pieces have individual names.”
He shook his head. “Okay, we’ll have to sit down together and go over all that, but for now, what does branded mean as far as witches go?”
“It means you bear a mark from a god or goddess, inside your body, etched on your bones, branded in your blood, and they, in turn, have bestowed special gifts upon you.”
“This sounds so crazy and out there, but I’ve seen you do things with my own eyes that shouldn’t be possible.”
“Well, I—”
“You’re a branded witch. Declan said it, so did Rulaine, so go ahead and tell me what happened to you.”
“I will,” I promised him. “But not right this second because we’re getting really close to the farm.”
“Soon, though? I want to know everything about you.”
“Absolutely,” I said, patting his thigh.
Interestingly, the farm I’d passed by a million times when I was young and walking to the river, was unchanged. It had been old and run-down twenty years ago, but neither the elements nor man had finished the job and put the buildings out of their misery. The farmhouse was roofless, there were only three walls, and nothing else remained. There used to be furniture inside, but it looked like all that had been cleaned out. It had probably been chopped into firewood ages ago.
We walked around for a while, and when Lorne jogged back to the Jeep to grab his flashlight, I realized how dark it was getting. I felt like the idiot in a horror film who inadvertently ended up searching the haunted house after dark.
When Lorne reached me and was about to walk by, I stopped him. Lifting my right hand, I called on the elements for fire to illuminate my path. It was there instantly, flames rising from my palm.
“Please allow me to see what is lost or hiding,” I said softly, realizing the wind had picked up.
Lorne’s breath caught as the flames split off in every direction with several going into the barn farthest from us and disappearing inside. With the flames in place, it looked like fairgrounds at night, illuminated and with only a few shadows.
“That’s very helpful,” Lorne complimented me, taking hold of my hand and leading me toward the barn. “The rest of this, from what I can see, is deserted. There’s nothing in this area, but the fact that it’s getting really dark and windy is creeping me out.”