When Bennett brought down part of the roof of the crypt to try to stop Cordelia, Gordon had shielded Eustace with his own body, dragging her into the room of bones once the attorney and his nephew had taken chase, before digging his own way out to go after them. They’d found her afterward, fully restored and stumbling out on her own two feet. “I always thought I wanted a family reunion,” she’d said sarcastically. “I’ve changed my mind.”
Arkin’s body was a different story. They found him lying at the bottom of the basement stairs. He’d suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, according to the coroner. Multiple brain bleeds at one time—something their office had never seen the likes of before.His death was ruled natural, though Cordelia knew it was anything but. Han had killed his brother in a fit of rage. She felt responsible, but she couldn’t see another way. Bennett had poisoned his nephews against them over many years. There would never be a world where both lines could exist side by side. Hella had confirmed it herself—for the tree to survive, one branch had to be felled.
Of course, there was plenty of questioning that followed. But a key to the big house had been found in the old man’s pockets, and Cordelia explained again and again how she’d come in to discover the attorney already on the stairs, his speech deranged upon seeing his nephew’s remains, refusing to come down or listen to reason. As evidence of his mental unrest, she pointed to the myriad doors and windows flung open around the house, something he must have done before making the slow march to the tower to leap to his death.
It all looked cut-and-dried enough. The two women appeared to have little reason to bring harm to the aging attorney. And everyone knew of Bennett’s devotion to their great-aunt. There was an assumption that grief—and, possibly, unrequited love—had been compounded by the trauma of his nephew’s mauling and driven him into a fit of temporary madness. And the people of Bellwick had developed a certain desensitization toward odd happenings at Bone Hill. This, no doubt, would become another in a long line of tragic tales that made up the Bone family lore.
Even the authorities were quick to write it all off, taking the easiest and most obvious explanation for all three deaths. For once, their family’s haunted history served them well, and Cordelia was grateful for the nursery rhymes and superstitions. Though it was not a reality she relished for her daughter, being raised near Bellwick. She’d been holding Eustace and herself to the highest standards of cordiality and ordinariness ever since, in the hope that they might put some of the past to rest.
It helped that they were seen regularly in town.
Cordelia rubbed at her left arm.
“Still itch?” Eustace asked, nodding her chin in the direction of Cordelia’s healing tattoo.
She looked down at the eight-pointed star marking the underside of her left forearm, just like the design in the stair hall. “Not really,” she said. “It’s healed remarkably fast thanks to your poultice.”
“Mine too,” Eustace agreed, raising her right forearm to expose the same design inked just below her elbow.
Cordelia pursed her lips, twisting them to one side. “There’s a property for auction near Mystic,” she told her sister. “It’s a real mess, but the bones are good.”
Eustace eyed her carefully. “You promised not to go farther than Bellwick with the baby.”
“And I won’t,” Cordelia assured her. “I just thought, you know, maybe someone could go in my place. Bid by proxy. Gordon could really make a gem of it. We’d stand to double our investment.”
Eustace frowned. “And what is this one saying?Buy me, Cordy?”
Cordelia gave her sister a dark look. “It’s not like that. The whispers are…informative,not commanding.”
Before Bone Hill, Cordelia had never heard them from so far away. But now, the whispers came to her across varying distances, rustles in her mind like dreams, waking her in the middle of the night, driving her to the computer to search listings—houses that needed rescuing, that begged to be seen, to be restored, to recapture their former glory. They were always historic. And always haunted. Cordelia found she had a heart for them. She liked to think she and Gordon were doing them a service—the housesandthe dead.
“Can I take the dog?” Eustace asked reluctantly.
Cordelia burst into a wide grin. Gordon had adopted a blueheeler mix a few months ago, which he named Asher. Asher had promptly adopted Eustace. He could hardly be pulled from her side most days. The only reason he wasn’t down here now was because Gordon had taken him to the woods to gather firewood. “Sister, you can take anything you damn well please.”
“The dog will do,” Eustace told her. “But only if you promise to wait until after the baby is born on any more of these. I don’t want to be gone when she comes.”
“Done,” Cordelia told her. “This is the last one, I swear.” In total, they’d acquired four properties so far, and already flipped one. Cordelia’s knack ensured they found the diamonds in the rough before anyone else did; Gordon’s handiwork ensured they profited on the sale. Together, they made an unbeatable team. And the business gave them some normalcy in the community. It was important to Cordelia to provide that for the baby.
She knew full well that like her and her sister, like their mother and grandmother before them, her baby would be born a Bone—a witch, a necromancer, avolva.A speaker for the dead. A reader of runes. Sage’s gifts would show themselves in time, and she would learn the secret history of their bloodline, the one she and Eustace were still unraveling, though much had been laid bare between Bennett Togers’ revelations and Eustace’s decoding of the rest of the therimoire. But until then, Cordelia wanted her daughter to have as normal a childhood as they could provide.
“Besides, Molly will be here next month. She can be my auction lackey after that,” Cordelia said. Once the baby came, Cordelia and Gordon would need more help with the business. And even now they could never tear Eustace away from the garden or kitchen or basement long enough to do what needed to be done. Molly would stay in the carriage house and take over the day-to-day for a while. Cordelia was looking forward to seeing her again. She’d proved herself more loyal than Allison had ever been, even when she’d been forced to accept another job, andCordelia was thrilled to have an opportunity and excuse to hire her back.
Eustace sighed. “You think she can handle this place?”
“If she can handle John, she can handle Bone Hill,” Cordelia said confidently.
Eustace frowned again.
“What is it?” she asked her.
“I need to tell you something.”
Cordelia felt the baby kick and placed a hand to the right of her navel to still her. “Okay.”
“There was a sighting,” Eustace told her cautiously. “Of Diana.”
It was Cordelia’s turn to frown. “When?” she asked. “Where?”
