Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(43)

He released her and stood. “Tell me. Just how fast can you run?”

May forced her way to her feet and began struggling across the gravel drive that separated the glowing remains of the church from its cemetery.

“Call to your Beekeeper, woman,” Maguire shouted after her. With each step May was doing just that. But she felt nothing. No response. “Call to her.” His mania overtook him, and his voice rose in pitch, following her as if he were shouting directly into her ear.

In the dark, in her panic, she tripped over a low stone and landed on the ground, scraping her hands and knees.

Maybe, she wondered for the first time ever, the White King could be right.





SEVENTEEN


None of this made any sense at all to Poppy. She and Henry had been writing each other since the day she got to Charlotte, and with each letter he seemed to grow more and more determined to have her hand in marriage. She’d always been in love with him, she figured, only it had taken leaving Savannah for her to realize it. Every time a boy came calling for her in Charlotte, she would find herself thinking “Henry’s taller,” or “Henry’s smarter,” or “Henry’s more handsome.” Maybe “Henry always makes me laugh” was what had finally tilted the scale of her heart, convincing her that she belonged with Henry. That her heart belonged to Henry.

So when she heard his voice by the front door, Poppy had felt sure he’d come to ask Nana for her hand. The last thing she’d expected was for Nana to go off with him. Hug him, maybe. Scream at him, more likely. But instead the two had flown the coop, heading out to who knows where.

It was growing colder. Much colder. After buttoning up her cardigan, she turned her focus to the woodstove. Nana kept a mitt hanging from a hook on the wall, so she slipped the enormous padded glove over her right hand and grabbed the fire poker with her left.

She knelt beside the stove and turned the handle on its side door. The wood beneath had burned to nothing but glowing red coals. She pierced them with the poker, giving everything a good shake until the logs on the top of the pyre fell to the bottom, popping and shooting sparks. Something about the sparks fascinated her. They felt like little eyes peering out from the smoke. She shuddered, then laughed at her own silliness. Working quickly, she leaned the poker against the wall, pushed another split log into the stove, and closed the door before any more smoke could spill out into the room. Coughing, she waved her gloved hand before her face to dissipate the smoke. She stood and returned the mitt to its holder. And then she froze.

Poppy knew she was just letting her nerves run away from her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching. She looked over her shoulder and then turned all the way around. She could see she was alone in the room. Her eyes fell on the windows. The curtains had been pulled tight. Certainly no one could be peeping. She made her way to the house’s front window and pulled the drape aside, looking in the direction the truck had gone, hoping to see its cockeyed headlights pointing her way, but the overhead light was still on. In the glare, her own reflection and the image of the room behind her was all that she could see. She leaned in, nearly pressing her face to the glass, but the world outside was still hidden by her own features.

Though Poppy had promised her nana she wouldn’t worry, she couldn’t help it. She recognized this feeling for what it was. There was magic in the air, and it made her queasy. She loved her nana, but she couldn’t wait to escape back to Charlotte, where she could just be a simple working girl, a seamstress, not Mother Wills’s granddaughter.

She and Henry had made a plan. They were going to marry, and he was going to join her in Charlotte. They’d leave Savannah and its ghosts and magic behind. Lead a normal life. She felt a smile come to her lips. Soon she wasn’t going to be a Wills girl at all. She was gonna be Poppy Cook. Mrs. Henry Cook.

She would miss her nana. She would always love her, but a part of her could never forgive her for getting messed up in such dark forces. Poppy worried about her younger sisters. She felt guilty about leaving them trapped in Nana’s odd world. Maybe after she and Henry got settled, they could send for Jilo and Binah. But what if she and Henry started having their own children right from the get-go? Would Henry want to take responsibility for a brood?

In the distance she heard a rumble, a sound she recognized as Henry’s truck. Her shoulders relaxed, and she only then realized she’d been holding her breath. Poppy pulled open the front door, a lingering sense of disquiet prompting her to leave it gaping wide in spite of the night’s chill. She eased the screen door forward so its protest wouldn’t wake the little ones. She stepped out onto the porch, drawing her arms around herself to fend off the cold. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Here, without the glare of the electric light blinding her, she could make out the approaching truck pulling onto the tracks that ran up to the house. The one headlight seemed permanently aimed at heaven, but the other sputtered to life and lit the ground. Poppy was surprised to find the house surrounded by a dense, low-lying fog. Thick, dirty billows had turned it into a virtual island.

Henry pulled the truck up before her, stopping nearly on top of the bottom step, but he didn’t kill the engine. Poppy did not see her nana with him. He banged his shoulder into the driver’s door until it popped nearly halfway open.

“Where is Nana?” she asked, her stomach falling into her shoes as she ran down the steps to greet him.