She pauses, and Sara squints with concern. “Marian?”
With a deep sigh, she continues while rubbing the handle of her cane for comfort. “My motha’ was known for bein’ able ta see spirits. It’s rare, ya know, for a witch ta have more magic than what she shoulda been born with.”
Sara crosses her arms. “Most covens have someone who can do a bit ‘extra’.” She finger-quotes the word, voicing the same thing I was thinking.
It’s normal for covens to have witches with the gift of premonitions, and a few covens have some who are so adept at magic, so full of it that nature practically bends toward them. Witches like Marian. Witches like Sara.
“They do,” Marian nods curtly. “But ya won’t see much past a witch with foresight. Ma mama’s gifts were rare. People would come from all ova’ ta see if she could speak ta they dead loved ones. And she could. As a li’l girl, I could feel her magic, feel the otha’ness about it. I could feel the otha’ness about mine too. Knew I was different than most.”
“You share her gifts,” Jacob voices aloud, his tenor deep and rumbly in a sea of soft, gentle, feminine voices.
She nods at him, puckering her thinning lips. “One time, a rude man came ta seek the spirit of his wife. I felt the spirit. Knew she were beaten often by this man. I knew he killed her, too, and this was his sick an’ twisted way ta get the last say. So, I hid the spirit from my mama’s calling ta protect her, and when my mama couldn’t reach her spirit, he beat her too. We left, and neva’ looked back.”
I rub the side of my cheek, using my imagination to witness this all for myself. I can see the old colorful buildings and the men and women linked arm and arm as they travel through the old streets brimming with the sound of street-playing musicians. The scene morphs as one of the men, cruel-faced, dirty, and unshaved, enters one of those buildings – Marian’s home. I blink before the scene can get carried away, and peer at Marian. By the faraway look, she’s been taken over by her memories too.
Witches don’t practice so openly. At least not in my generation. Very rarely does a witch advertise her gifts these days, especially for profit, and probably for this very same reason.
“What does a witch being able to see spirits have to do with Jinx?” Cinder asks. He wraps an arm around Sara’s shoulders, an automatic gesture. She melts into his warmth. “She’s not a witch, and she can only hear them, not see them.”
Jacob clears his throat and shifts in his seat, but Cinder’s words relieve the high priestess from her past. “Why, o’ course not. She a skinwalka’,” Marian drawls, the words a chastising snap. We’re silent under the knowledge that she knows exactly what I am, but she huffs, waves a hand, and continues, “She skinwalks inta the spirit of animals, shifta. She sees them in her mind’s eye.”
“You know, don’t you,” I say. “The animals I can change into are – they’re – um –” A bite of my dream where the wolf is shot shoots an echo of pain into my ribs. I rub at it absentmindedly.
“They dead,” Marian says bluntly. “They spirits. Ya take the form of a dead spirit, and ya wear it like skin. Skinwalkin’. Where ah ya brains, child?” She taps at her temple. “But that’s not all, is it?”
I look away from her hard, probing gaze. It isn’t all. I not only see them in my mind’s eye, but I can sense them, hear them, including the living’s. Sometimes . . . sometimes I can see them, too.
From the corner of my eye, Marian’s expression softens.
“Doesn’t this make her a necromancer?” Sara asks slowly.
Marian barks a laugh. “O’ course not. She ain’t raisin’ the dead. She just borrowin’ what she finds lingerin’.” She looks to me and sobers. “But ma past’s story ain’t why ya came here, is it, child.”
I shake my head and brace my hands on my knees for the news I have to share. I blow out a breath and begin with, “I found my aunt.”
Jacob Trent
Jinx’s mother, Tabatha’s skin turns whiter than snow as she listens to Jinx recount the last few weeks, starting from when the Bane had chased her through the streets and the murder she committed to stay alive. Her mother’s cheeks then redden with embarrassment as the story morphs into the tragic tale of her aunt’s visit.
I watched Tabatha closely the entire time. This woman is the object of Jinx’s focus – the reason we came here in the first place: For answers. By the looks of things, Tabatha is guilty as hell.
Under hooded eyes, I studied Tabatha as she looked at the floor, sliding her heel in and out of her shoe. Jinx had noticed too, and still, she left nothing out.
She retold the high priestess about the whispers, the value of her Adriel Whitethorn’s book, and the Bane’s damnation. Her mother hadn’t questioned the spirits trapped inside the wolf pendant when Jinx reached that part of the conversation. Hadn’t batted an eye because she knew. She knew, and she didn’t tell her daughter – didn’t warn her.
As Jinx’s information comes to a close, Marian’s nostrils flare. She’s the first to break the silence. “I heard of the Bane Pack. Not only ah ya trouble ya’self, but ya attract it, don’t ya.”
Jinx bristles. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
They begin bantering in quiet voices, but I keep my focus on Tabatha, who has yet to even swallow. She still peers away from the group, her hands folded tightly together in her lap. My wolf perks inside me at the secrets he sees swimming in her eyes.
“You know Kaya Whitethorn,” I say to Jinx’s mother, guessing at least one secret. Jinx and Marian jerk their heads to me. “More than you’re letting on.”
Slowly, Tabatha raises her eyes to mine. They sparkle with unshed tears. She says nothing, but her bottom lip trembles.
“Mom?” Jinx pries.
“I did,” Tabatha answers, her voice soft. “From a distance.”
Silence creeps over the group as we allow the information to seep into Jinx. “Tell me,” she eventually growls.
With trembling hands, her mother rubs at the dirt on the surface of her nails. “Kaya ran away the day after I reconnected with your father.”
Reconnected? My scowl deepens, but that’s not part of the sentence Jinx heard.
“Ran away?” Jinx chuffs.
Tabatha nods. “I don’t know where she went, but Adriel was never concerned about it. He claimed she was a wild child. Moody. Disobedient. It was –” she looks up at the glass ceiling. “It was as if he knew where she was and was ashamed of his sister. I don’t know. He never specified, and I didn’t push. I was young and didn’t see a reason to care. But, the way he briefly spoke about her – there was always something different about her. Something odd.”
Sara snorts. “You don’t say.”
Rubbing her eyebrow, Tabatha continues, “Now that I know she’s like you –”
Like you. I stiffen at the same time Jinx does.
“You have to believe me, Jinx. I didn’t know she was a skinwalker. Adriel said nothing about it, but –” She tucks her hands between her knees and visibly grows some courage.