The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(47)

Placing one hand on his shoulder, she lightly pushed him a few steps to her right, and then looked up at him with that sunshine smile.

“I forgot to tell you. Aunt Elaine figured something out. The curse? It only exists within the town limits. Probably because the magic only fuels Graves Glen.”

“Gryffud was a very specific bastard from all accounts, so that makes sense,” he acknowledged.

“Right,” Vivienne said. “And as of right now, we are officially two . . . no, three steps outside the town of Graves Glen.”

With that, she lifted the hand on his shoulder and wiggled her fingers.

That little ball of light she’d conjured up his first night back in town sprung to life, and hovered there. It didn’t immediately explode into a ball of flame that took his eyebrows off, so Rhys assumed she was right. The curse didn’t extend this far.

That was a relief at least.

“Now, come on. We have a ghost to catch.”

Aaaaand moment of relief over.

They continued up the road for a few more minutes, the trees getting thicker, the path narrower, and while Rhys didn’t have the same sense of foreboding he’d felt in the library, he still wished he were anywhere but here.

And then, as the path narrowed even further, Vivienne’s shoulder brushed his, and suddenly being on a road through the woods, headed to a haunted house, was not really that bad. Maybe he didn’t want to be back on his sofa alone. Maybe he—

“Oh, fuck me running.”

Rhys came to a sudden stop, staring up at the house that suddenly rose up in front of him.

If you looked up “haunted house” online, he thought, this was the picture you’d get. It looked like something out of every bad horror movie he’d ever seen, and he was less afraid of ghosts than he was catching tetanus as he took in the crooked steps, the shutter slumping from one window, the front door hanging drunkenly on its hinges.

“Maybe the library needs a ghost,” Rhys said, studying the house. “Maybe we just leave it there. Bit of character, you know?”

Next to him, Vivienne sucked in a deep breath. “We just have to go in and light a candle. I bet we can be in and out in, like, three minutes.”

“That is about four minutes longer than I want to be in that house,” Rhys replied, but then he looked at her, saw her tug her lower lip between her teeth, and knew they weren’t leaving until this was done.

So, taking a deep breath of his own, Rhys held out his hand to her. “Let’s go catch a ghost.”





Chapter 21




Vivi had told herself that the inside of the cabin could not possibly be any creepier than the outside. It was probably going to be one of those things where all the creep was there on the outside, and inside, it would just be an empty, old house. Nothing all that sinister.

In the few moments she had before Rhys pushed open the front door, Vivi let herself really believe that.

And then they stepped into the front room, and—

“I grew up in an actual haunted house, and this is worse,” Rhys said.

“Way worse. I mean, I haven’t seen your house, but I believe it.”

The inside of the cabin had been wallpapered at one point in what had probably been a pretty charming damask, but now it was falling from the walls in sheets, revealing stained and warped boards beneath. Mildew and mold crept along the ceiling, and in the corner, there was a velvet settee that appeared to be rotting, one leg missing, a hole in the middle cushion.

The other furniture was in a similar state of disrepair, most of it covered in a thick coating of dust, but the floor was surprisingly clean, and Vivi glanced around, wondering if other people had been here before.

Rhys seemed to be noticing it, too, frowning as he looked around, shining his flashlight on a framed photograph tacked to the wall. Piper was in it with a couple of other teenagers, all rocking a very mid-nineties look, standing in front of one of the buildings at Penhaven College.

“Well, at least we know we’re in the right place,” he said, and then swung the beam around the room. “But why is the floor so clean?”

“Maybe she had a spell,” Vivi suggested. “Some kind of cleaning spell that sort of hung on after she died?”

Rhys shrugged. “Possible. Stranger things have happened.”

Avoiding glass from a broken window, Vivi moved farther into the room. One floorboard felt mushy as she stepped on it, creaking ominously.

“So,” she said, swallowing hard. “We just need to figure out where she had her altar, light the candle—”

“And get the fuck out of here. With alacrity,” Rhys finished, and Vivi nodded.

“Lots of alacrity, yes.”

Luckily, the cabin was small. There was just the front room with a tiny closet, a small room that had probably been Piper’s bedroom and a kitchen, the appliances old and rusting in places.

Vivi had thought the bedroom would be their best bet, but the room was completely empty and, unlike the front room, covered in dust. Plus there was no hint of lingering magic there, no ancient wax stains or soot-marked walls, all the things Vivi would’ve expected to find.

She checked the kitchen next, but like the bedroom, it was empty except for an ancient table and chairs that had half rotted, the chair little more than a pile of wood.

Rhys was still checking the living room, squatting down by the fireplace and shining his flashlight over the cracked brick. “I’m not feeling anything,” he said, and Vivi looked at him, his jeans taut over his thighs, his shoulders broad as he peered up into the chimney, the beam of her own flashlight highlighting the sharpness of his cheekbones, the line of his jaw.