Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(75)

She stepped back and gave him a smile that was a little thin around the edges. “And there’s nothing more I can do to affect that one way or the other.” She rubbed her upper arms and said briskly, “Have you found anything interesting?”

She looked over at the smallish pile of things he and Tag had set aside and let out a pleased sound. She knelt by the antique spool cabinet. It was about two feet square and a little older than Charles was, clearly a family heirloom. It had six drawers, and Anna opened each one and took in the spools of thread set on individual dowels—organized by color, black in the top drawer working down to white.

“Is it the thread or the cabinet that is magical?” Anna asked, brow furrowed. “Even calling on my wolf, I can’t tell for sure.”

“Both, we think,” said Charles. “But neither Tag nor I have a clue what they would be used for.”

Her fingers traced the bird’s-eye maple appreciatively, but she said, “What happens if Carrie wants her stuff back? Or one of her relatives?”

“I don’t think Da will agree to give back the grimoires,” Charles said in what he was fairly sure was a massive understatement. Anna’s quick grin told him she agreed with him.

“As to the rest . . .” He looked at the spool cabinet, then shrugged. “If she is not dead, we’ll give it back. If she is dead and there is a will—we are not thieves. Anything that isn’t dangerous we’ll hand over.”

She listened to his tone as much as his words—that was one of her gifts. “You don’t think that there’s anyone.”

He shook his head. “It feels like she was alone.” He tried to explain why he felt that way, but failed.

“Other than Daniel Green,” said Anna.

“We wouldn’t give him anything,” Charles said. “But I don’t think that will be an issue.”

“I wonder,” said Anna thoughtfully, “do you think that Carrie knew what she was doing when she entrusted him into the loving arms of the witches who run Angel Hills?”

“Yes,” said Charles. Someone as organized and thorough as the woman whose life he’d been invading was not the kind of person who would make a mistake on that scale. He wondered what Daniel Green had done to his granddaughter.

“He said she was Wiccan,” Anna said. “How does leaving him there jibe with ‘An it harm none’?”

“Even the most peaceable people have their limits,” Charles suggested. “And putting him there certainly reduced the harm that he could cause.”

“You like her,” Anna said.

He considered that. “I like what I know about her.”

“You gonna sit around, or are you gonna work?” asked Tag, hauling a wingback chair out to the bigger pile.

Anna snorted a laugh at Tag, so Brother Wolf didn’t remind Tag who gave the orders.

“Sissy translated the letter her father wrote. She said there were a few differences between the letters, but most of it was word for word.” She pulled a couple of pieces of paper out of her back pocket and handed them to Charles. Tag took up a position where he could read them, too.


Dear Dr. Connors the Younger,

My daughter. So much has gone wrong I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t even know if you’ll get this letter, but I live in hope.

First, I love you. I take joy in every day because I had you, your brother, and your mother in my life. I do not think that I will survive this coming night.

It discovered that we had broken our bargain, before I knew there was a bargain to be broken. Remember, if something is too good to be true—it is a lie. Do not come here.

I have not spoken to you about the Singer, have I? I suppose that must mean that I understood there was something wrong before I admitted it to myself.

We tried to kill ourselves, we tried to kill each other, and it would not let us. Nor will it let us leave.

I woke up this morning and I looked for your mother because I thought that it was the morning after we got married. I looked for her for an hour before the Sign Maker found me. He is deaf and it seems to make him immune to most of what the Singer has been doing to us. The Opera Singer has been crying for two days because she thinks that her daughter died today instead of twenty years ago.

It feeds upon music, but I think it also feeds upon emotions. I don’t think it eats memories, because we wouldn’t get our memories back if it could feed upon them. And mostly we get our memories back.

We all know there are black witches here now—but we don’t remember them.

Sometimes some of us remember that it plans on killing us when it’s done playing. We can’t prevent that, but we need to prepare. We, Sign Maker and I, killed all of the animals last night because once we are dead, they will suffer. The coven lay wards around the bodies and we mourned. I don’t think there was anyone there who did not wish to trade places with those animals.

I don’t think we will meet again in this life, my daughter. I wish you joy and happiness. I am so proud to call you my daughter. So proud of the man my son is, too. Please let him know in case I don’t get a chance to write to him tomorrow.


With love,

Dr. Connors the Elder, aka Dad



“It would have been nice if he’d spelled everything out,” Charles murmured.