“Yeah, I realize that, but they were growing in your hair.”
She shrugs. “My magic will keep them alive for a while, but once they’ve been cut from their parents, they’re dying. Whenever someone around me has cut flowers, it’s like I can hear them screaming.”
What?
“But you dressed your hair with them?”
She smiles, touching her golden braids. “As I was leaving the house, the vines came down and wound themselves around my head. I would never have cut them. It’s almost as if…”
Her voice trails off, and the pain in her voice touches me, a faint ache deep in my chest.
“As if what?”
“As if they knew I wasn’t coming back,” she answers, her voice deep and rough with emotion.
It suddenly hits me how much she’s leaving behind, and I realize I should have been more sensitive to her needs.
I’m not bound here—it was never my home. I’ve bounced around between the packs just like I always did in the military. Grace has a whole life she’s walking away from—she literally has roots here.
She turns to look out the window again, and even though I have a newfound respect for her feelings, her strangeness still unnerves me.
I can’t escape the fact that she’s a witch… and I’ve never been able to trust anyone who uses magic.
Even though the silence is still awkward, I have no idea how to break it, so I decide it’s just better not to. We drive the rest of the way in silence, and by the time we reach the new town, it’s fully dark.
Luke is waiting for us at the main garden in the center of town, and I’m surprised to see a soft glow from the tall, ornate streetlamps.
“Hey,” I say, leaning out the window to greet him. “You guys got the power on already?”
“Yep, and the water,” Luke says. “This place was practically ready to go. All she needed was a bit of repair and cleaning.”
“It’s really pretty,” I say, looking around at the old-fashioned buildings. “Do we know why it was abandoned?”
“Something to do with our fiery friend, I’d say,” Luke replies.
I look over at Grace to get her opinion, and she nods. “It’s outside the blast radius,” she says. “But my best guess is theinhabitants were used in a ritual trying to raise the snake and manipulate it.”
Warriors, and innocent blood, I think to myself. I can’t remember exactly how many lives the thing demands to be free, but I know it’s a lot.
And now, the creature is just loose. We’re truly in unknown territory.
“So, do you want to see your house?” Luke asks.
“Sure,” I answer, laughing. “I don’t want to sit here all night.”
“Okay, follow me.”
Luke gets in his truck and moves off down a nearby side street. We haven’t gone far when he pulls into a wide, stone-paved driveway.
Grace opens the door and gets out almost before the car has fully stopped. A soft gasp of surprise rises from her lips as she looks up at the house.
It’s a solid rectangle, two stories high, with stone walls. Little overgrown gardens gather around its edges, and as Grace gets closer, I can hear a rustling sound as if the plants are greeting her.
I get out and follow her up the drive, feeling a massive shift in her mood. When I come up beside her, she’s looking up at the roof, a little smile on her face.
“Do you like it?” I ask.
She nods. “It’s really beautiful. I wasn’t expecting anything this nice.”
