The Line (Witching Savannah, #1)(43)

I pulled a pillow in front of me and hugged it. “What do you want to talk about?” I asked, a sense of vulnerability adding an edge to my question.

He smiled. “I want to talk about the day Ginny was killed. Something’s been bothering me about that day,” he said, leaning forward a little. The chair squeaked beneath its heavy burden. “I was going to let it go, but then last night you pulled the anchor lot.”

He allowed a pregnant pause, but I said nothing.

“It’s just that my pendulum kept giving me some odd answers that day when I asked it to show me the location of the weapon used to kill Ginny.”

“You said it wasn’t there,” I said.

“Well, that was a wee bit of a lie,” he said and began to swing the pendulum in a slow circle. “Every time I asked for the location, it pointed at you.” He stood up and came closer my bed.

“I had nothing to do with Ginny’s murder,” I said. “And I’d really like you to leave my room now.” I was afraid to hear what he might have to say.

“Are you so sure about that?” he asked. “Or maybe what you really want to do is to take this moment, when it’s only the two of us, to tell me everything you know.”

“I don’t know anything I haven’t already told you,” I replied. “Now, please leave.”

He ignored my request. “Ginny was angry with you. You were mad at Ginny.”

“I didn’t hurt her,” I responded.

He sat next to me on the bed, and I pulled my arms more tightly around my body. “Oh, I believe you there,” he said. “That’s where things start to get interesting. The pendulum was so insistent about you that I asked it then and there if you had killed her.” He stared deeply into my eyes, and damn it, I blinked. “It told me emphatically no.” He stood abruptly, and the mattress squeaked as he moved.

He began to pace a bit back and forth. “So the message I got was that you were the weapon used, but not the hand that wielded the weapon. Any idea what that means?”

“None. Go ask your toy.”

“I have, and I’ll continue to ask for clarification, but I was hoping that you’d open up, maybe tell me what you were up to that was pissing Ginny off so much.”

I glared at him. “Who knows? It was always something with Ginny.”

“That’s true,” he allowed. “She was a touchy old bird.” He stopped pacing and turned to face me. “Like I said, I would have let it all go, chalked it up to confused energies, except for the fact that you were chosen to take Ginny’s place.”

“You yourself said that was a mistake,” I countered.

“I know what I said, but I was just trying to look out for you. And I was trying to right a wrong that was being done to Maisie. I don’t know what you’re up to, but somehow you have gotten in way over your head,” he said, shaking a finger at me. “You should have never tried to take what was intended for you sister. You keep it up, and you are going to get yourself squashed like a bug.”

“That’s enough. We are done,” I said and threw the pillow I had been holding across the room. I swung my feet onto the floor and stood, stretching as tall as I could make my body go. “I haven’t done anything.” I reached out and poked him hard in the chest. “And I haven’t tried to take anything.” I poked him again. “Anything. Period.” I got right up in his face. “Now get out!”

He took a step back. There was a smile on his face, but no warmth in his eyes to back it up. He didn’t say another word; his expression said it all. He knew I was guilty of something, even if he hadn’t quite figured out what it was yet. I tried not to think of Jilo, but try not to think of an elephant, and all you see is trunk. Oliver could have read me with no problem, but thank God, Connor was weak. After a long moment, he turned and left the room. I shut the door behind him, locked it, and then I rushed over to the window to open the shutters and let the sunlight flood in.





EIGHTEEN


Several moments later there was a light knock on my door. “Everything okay in there?” Ellen asked. “I heard you yelling.”

“I was having a bad dream. I’m okay,” I said a little shakily and then added, “Everything’s fine.” I opened the door so that she could see for herself that I was in one piece.

“All right, then.” She hesitated a moment. “Listen, I’d like to talk to you about last night if you feel up to it. Maybe we could get out of here for a while? We could get dressed up all girly, and I’ll treat you to high tea at the Gryphon.”

“I’d love that, but I need a shower first,” I said.

Ellen was exactly the person I wanted to talk to about last night—not the drawing, but what had happened with Peter. In a normal world, I would have rushed upstairs this morning to tell Maisie about it. I wondered if not having her around was going to become the new normal.

“I’ll be in my room,” she said. “Come and get me when you’re ready.”

I showered and dressed in a vintage 1950s cocktail dress that Ellen herself had gotten for me. I let my hair hang loose and put on the string of pearls that Iris had given me for my eighteenth birthday. After adding on a pair of ballet flats I had excavated from my closet, I felt much more girly than I had since I turned twelve and stopped wearing princess costumes for Halloween.