Page 88 of Haunting the Deep

Susannah shakes her head. “Your father already wants you to move away from Salem. This is only going to further convince him that magic is bad. And breaking the spell or not won’t depend on you being here.” She pauses. “Also, if you care about your dad and Mrs. Meriwether’s friendship, you won’t strain it by doing magic in front of her.”

I waver. “But it’s Jaxon.”

Mrs. Meriwether nods, tension pulling at her forehead. “I don’t want you to go, either, honey. But Susannah’s right. Go on home and we’ll keep you updated. And I promise if we need you we’ll call.”

Alice drags me down the hallway and out the door like a mother pulling her child away from the playground.

I stop when we reach the driveway. “You’re not going to tell her everything that’s been—”

“Are you insane? Definitely not. We’ll tell her it’s Niki’s fault and that’s it. Andyouneed to keep yourself calm. You already did your part. Let us take a whack at it. I didn’t know Suze was gonna out us like that, either. But she always has her reasons, and as much as I fight her, when everything comes to light…she’s usually right.”

Ichew the crap out of my pen cap and stare out the window at the Meriwethers’ house.

Elijah blinks in.

I swing my legs down from my window seat and take the cap out of my mouth. “What’s the update?”

“Alice took Susannah and Mary home, and now it is just her and Mrs. Meriwether. Jaxon is thoroughly refusing to cooperate. They have tried everything from logic to bargaining to get him to willingly take off the bracelet. Currently, he has locked himself in his room and is talking to Niki.”

“And Mrs. Meriwether?”

“Committed to finding a solution and shaking large spoons at whoever did it.”

I smile at the visual. “How does this connect to everything else, Elijah? If this is just Niki being infatuated with Jaxon, then I get it. But if it’s tied to theTitanicand possibly to the Collector, what’s the motive?”

“I could not say. It seems more likely that Niki attained a love spell. But the fact that it came in an object is troublesome. When did you notice the change in his behavior?”

I tap the pen against my note cards. “I guess I really noticed a shift the day after the drowned man gave me the dog collar.”

“The day after you went on a date with Jaxon.”

“It wasn’t a date.” Who cares if he thinks it was a date?

“Is it possible someone thought Jaxon was distracting you from focusing on Myra?” he says.

I consider his words. “You’re saying you think whoever’s behind this might have wanted us to find Myra so badly that he or she would actually try to eliminate Jaxon?”

“It is not an entirely good reason, but it is the only one I can think of,” he says.

“No, it actually could make sense,” I say. “All of those Myra objects showed up in a really short period of time, like someone urgently wanted us to find her. And in that case, maybe Jaxon was a distraction. But what’s the rush? Why didn’t this person just trap her himself?”

“Perhaps he or she could not locate her,” Elijah says. “I did a great deal of searching, you will recall, but it was you who ultimately found her.”

“Elijah, do you think Redd could be right? That this person is actually collecting spirits?”

“I think that it is more logical than not, considering what we have observed,” Elijah says.

“You are invited back,” Ada says, and Elijah and I jump. She stands in the middle of my room. Her hair is in braids again. Only this time there is no joy in her expression, no laughter.

My heart thuds. “Ada?”

“You are invited back,” she says again, a little louder.

“Invited where? To theTitanic?” I ask.

She nods.

I move toward her, but she takes a step away from me.