“Perfect.” He narrowed his eyes. If his memory was correct … “Wasn’t the ritual done in Louisiana? And you brought me all the way here?”
“You were really out of it afterward,” she explained. “I barely dragged you to the car, and you fell asleep like a baby. I didn’t know what to do, so I brought you home. To my home.” She folded her hands in front of her. “And I bought you some PJs.”
“How long ago was that?”
“A few days.”
Jesus.He reallywasout of it. “And what’s up with the pentagram above my—your—bed?”
“It’s a pentacle. Small difference—the pentacle is enclosed with a circle. It’s for protection. The ladies who performed the ritual were very competent, but since you kept sleeping, I thought an extra layer of protection wouldn’t hurt to ensure you’d come out of it okay.”
He stepped over to a wall mirror with a wooden frame, painted with a patina to give it a rusted look. At first glance, the house looked like a cozy cottage from a magazine spread, but the more details his freshly-geared-up mind processed, the more it started to look odd.
The strange shapes of the trinkets she was making.
The runes painted along the rim of the vase next to the mirror.
Another pentagram—pardon,pentacle—above the said mirror.
Simon scrunched up his nose at it. “So what are you, some kind of witch?”
“Well, yes. Some kind of.”
“Wait, what?” He whipped his head back to her. “Really?” Somehow, though, it wasn’t too hard to believe, after all the memories of rituals and body-switching.
Then the belated sight of his own face in the mirror pulled him back. He’d been out of his body for three years. With a heavy dose of fear, he inspected his own features. Raleigh could’ve done anything. Plastic surgery, piercings, tattoos, that stupid trend of changing one’s eye color …
A version of Simon he’d last seen during his college years stared back: a few days’ worth of a beard, dark bags under his eyes, but luckily, still unpierced, untattooed, and normal. Except for—
“What the hell did that bastard do to my hair?” He ran his hand through the long locks on top of his head. Who did Raleigh think he was, a twenty-year-old hipster? That town better have a barber.
“You’ll be all right.” Shanna lowered her eyes to the floor. “Disheveled or not, you still look great.”
There was one thing he hadn’t figured out yet. He understood the crash, his strange journey back to life, and he approximately understood his whereabouts. But where didshefit in?
“Why you?” he asked. “How did you know me? How did you know I had died? And why would you bother spending three years to get me back?” There were very few people who’d care enough for him to go to such lengths. Perhaps only Everett.
He took a few steps toward her, inspecting her face. Pretty pink lips. Wide, pale blue eyes, like the sea after a storm. Lightly arched eyebrows, a shade darker than her hair. He strained his mind, tried so hard to make it make sense, but no recognition came. “Who are you?”
She slumped her shoulders. “You won’t remember me, and why is a story in itself,” she said. “But I’m your wife.”
Chapter 3
“Itried calling him multiple times, and he didn’t answer.” Shanna cinched her phone with her shoulder while she mixed the soup on the stove. “Do you think he’s forgotten me already?”
“Give me a second to check,” Gran said on the other side. “He wouldn’t have yet. It’s barely been a few days.”
Maybe, but for some people, it only took a few days. Then again, even if she was starting to slip Simon’s mind, why wouldn’t he pick up the phone out of curiosity, if nothing else?
“Oh, no. Oh, dear,” Grand said. “He’s ghosted you.”
Shanna slumped her shoulders, catching the phone just before it fell into the soup. “So he’s ignoring me now?”
“I mean, literally.” Gran’s voice took on a heavy, sad tone. “Shanna, he’s dead.”
***
In the end, Shanna should have expected it. Perhaps, deep in her heart, she did. She knew Simon would forget her—who in her life didn’t? When he didn’t recognize her after waking up, she attributed that to the side effects of the ritual. He only needed a good night's sleep, and he’d come back to his senses.
