Page 76 of The Ghost and the Graveyard (Knight Games 1)
"Did Reverend Monk unleash the unholy on Red Grove?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so. He wanted to save his followers, but when you give the devil an inch, he takes a mile. Monk unknowingly opened a portal to the underworld. Every vile creature-vampires, zombies, ghouls, demons-all of them have access to our world at sunset. Only the caretaker and, of course, you when you've been here, keep the world safe from their menace."
"So you think I'm the Monk's Hill witch?"
"Oh, I'm certain of it."
"But I can't be. Prudence lived here before me. She must have been the witch."
"Prudence was never the witch, Grateful. It's always been you. You planned for your own reincarnation. You gave Prudence the power to maintain and protect this house because it is your seat of magic. The only trouble was, you couldn't foresee that Prudence would die two years before your time to come back."
"That doesn't make any sense. I knew Prudence when I was a baby. I couldn't have passed her any magic."
"No, I think she worked with the old you. You were both nurses at St. John's in your last life. That's how you met each other before you were born."
I tried to wrap my head around the idea of being alive before, of having a relationship with Prudence when she was a young woman. "What does the witch even do? I saw that thing Rick turns into. I hardly think he needs my help."
A mug floated down from the cupboard and the cocoa poured itself, releasing tendrils of steam that curled oddly against the force that was Logan. Once the pan was back on the stove, his body formed and hardened into a solid-looking version of himself.
He leaned his elbows on the counter. "Think of the cemetery as a prison for the unholy. The caretaker is law enforcement. The witch is the law. When a supernatural being steps out of line, she judges if they are guilty or innocent. If they're innocent, they walk. If they're guilty, she sentences them to the hellmouth. She decides. The caretaker enforces her decision."
I took a long, deep drink. I wasn't the judgmental type. Could I send someone's soul, vampire or not, to hell if I had to? I didn't think so.
"Rick said that when I was Isabella Lockhart I saved myself by storing a piece of my soul inside of him."
"Isabella made Rick the vessel to contain the immortal part of her outside of her human body."
I swallowed hard. "And Prudence has another part?"
"Not a part of your soul but of your magic. Think of Rick as the key and you as the lock and the house as the box that holds the magic. Prudence took care of the box."
I wasn't sure I followed his correlation, but I had a deeper question to ask. "But if a piece of my soul is in Rick and another part of who I was is in this house, what's left inside of me?" My voice gave out with the last words, but Logan seemed to understand anyway. Was I some kind of half person? Was I living my life with less of a soul than everyone else?
He cupped my face with his hand, a warm tingle registering on my cheek. "Oh Grateful, some part of you may be Isabella Lockhart but another is Grateful Knight, a new person with a new body, living in a new time. If you don't take up this burden, life will go on. The caretaker will make do, and the part of you that is the witch will transfer to another host. You have a choice. You don't have to accept the power back. You don't have to do this."
"I don't have to be the witch?"
"No."
I exhaled. The tension in my shoulders eased slightly, but a rogue thought niggled at the back of my brain. I was forgetting something. I sipped my cocoa and pretended my insides weren't writhing with unrest. It came to me with the rich chocolate aftertaste.
"What about you? Why are you in the witch's attic?"
He folded his arms across his chest. "The witch is the sorter."
I covered my mouth with my hand. "Get. Out. I am the sorter. Prudence was trying to tell me from the very beginning!"
"Sometimes people die unexpectedly, and their souls don't know where to go. The witch helps them. As the ruler of the hellmouth, she has the power to usher the supernatural between heaven and hell. She can do that for us ghosts too. She's the only one who can do it for us."
The implications of what Logan said weaseled into my brain. "So, I'm supposed to sort you."
He nodded with the woeful expression of someone breaking bad news.
"Do you want to be sorted?"
He shifted his hip against the counter. "It depends. I'd rather not end up in hell."
I scowled at the possibility. "But I could decide that. How do I sort you?"
