Radiance (Riley Bloom #1)(29)

But even after all that, I still didn’t stop looking. I just stayed right there in place, floating, struggling to keep my head above water as the seas finally calmed down all around me, glad my dog had the good sense to sit this one out too.

“What’s this about?” I asked, my voice sounding small, scared, and needy in a way that embarrassed me and aggravated him. “And where exactly are we right now? I don’t get it.”

Bodhi looked at me, his hair damp and clinging to his cheeks, having lost his jacket in the current, and I couldn’t help but hope that the nerd glasses had gone along with it.

“We’re in her world now,” he said, voice resigned like a sigh, clearly sick of arguing with me. “And it happens to be a dangerous one. One that is no place for children, and certainly no place for the faint of heart. So please, if you refuse to do what I ask, if you refuse to turn away and save yourself, then at the very least stay quiet. The water should stay calm now. Calm enough for me to leave you here on your own. But I’m warning you, Riley, no matter what happens next, no matter what you see or hear, do not head toward the rock. No matter how dire it may seem, you are much safer here. So please, just do what I say and stay put. Do not get involved no matter how bad things get. Okay? Can you do that for me?”

I nodded. Unsure if I could really follow through and keep a promise like that, especially if things really did get as bad as he seemed to think they would. Not to mention if the waters went all crazy and churning and scary again, then the rock would be the first place I’d head. But knowing he needed me to agree in order to get on with his task, I nodded my assurance, even though I wasn’t sure if I could actually live up to my promise.

I watched as he floated away, cutting through the current as easily as a fish, before climbing onto what appeared to be a small, lonely island somewhere out in the distance, and what further squinting revealed to be a large, jagged rock jutting out from the sea.

And that’s when I saw it.

And I’m pretty sure that’s the same moment he saw it too.

The second he climbed up and secured himself there, we both watched, from our own separate vantage points, the exact cause of the ghost lady’s anguish for the last several hundred years.

She was a murderer.

A child killer.

Or at least that’s what everyone said.

Falsely accused of what was pretty much the worst crime a person could ever commit—that of killing her very own children.

Her three beloved sons, whom I immediately recognized as the golden-haired Radiant Boys I’d just crossed over a few moments earlier.

Only thing was—she was innocent. She’d done nothing of the sort.

She was merely a poor widowed mother left to take care of her sons on her own, forced to find work right here at the castle, and just na?ve and innocent enough to trust the wrong person to look after her boys while she was gone.

A stable hand who promised to take them on a so-called fishing trip where instead of baiting a line, he drowned all three of them. Cleaning up nicely and planting just enough evidence to make it appear as though she’d done it—only to vanish nearly as soon as he’d come, never to be seen or heard from again.

And after being tried and punished with death, she took one look at the golden veil of shimmering light that led to the bridge, saw the way it glowed and swayed and beckoned for her, offering nothing but comfort and love and compassion and forgiveness—all of which she’d long been denied. But instead of joining it, instead of seeking the solace only it could provide—she turned her back, and chose instead to wander away. So driven by her overwhelming grief, her insurmountable blame, convinced she’d played a big part in it by being so na?ve, by not looking after them properly, by not doing nearly enough to keep them all safe, she returned to the very scene where she first heard the news.

To the place where she stood looking for them, waiting for them to return . . .

And suddenly, just like that, I knew exactly where we both were.

We weren’t so much in her head like I’d originally thought. Nor were we settled into a front-row center seat watching the memories she stored in her broken and damaged heart.

Nope.

Where we both were, Bodhi and I, was the darkest part of her soul.

The place she’d shut off from the world long ago. The place she’d condemned herself to. A self-imposed imprisonment for the last few centuries.

And now, like it or not, we’d joined her.

Were locked in with her.

And I had no choice but to watch as Bodhi braced himself against the rock, his arms spread wide, his head tilted back, his mouth open, as he started to take it all in.

Determined to swallow it—every last bit of the horrible grief that’d kept her chained to the earth plane for hundreds of years.

Determined to claim it for himself.

To steal it from her and make it his own.





21


Bodhi’s body bucked and convulsed, as his eyes rolled back in his head. But when I started to swim toward him, he immediately stopped me in my tracks. Flashing his palm in warning, and telling me to stay back. Telepathically reminding me of the promise I’d made, that no matter how bad things got, I’d stay in my place.

This particular job was his, and I’d better not come any closer or interfere in any way.

So I shrank back, watching as his entire being continued to spasm, realizing he wasn’t exactly fighting against it like I’d first thought. He wasn’t battling against the tsunami of overwhelming grief he took in.