Page 22 of Kat Bethel

Fingers caressed my cheek, making his words echo in my mind.You are a lovely Dandelion.

This was the information that mattered. “Did she say why?”

She shook her head. “Her mother would make her take them every day whenever they were in bloom, and because of it the curse never affected them.”

“So she used it as a ward?”

“No. It was a gift for favor.” She shook her head, smacking it. “I must be remembering wrong. You can’t get favor from a curse. That doesn’t make sense.”

Unless it wasn’t a curse at all.

Cold air ran over me again, but I knew it wasn’t just me because Myrtle ran her hands over her arms to warm herself up.

Nothing fit the situation right. I was going to have to do my research on this one. “Do you believe something lives out there?”

“I know they do.” She nodded. “I hear them whisper when I leave the dandelions.”

I paused as her words sank in. “You inherited your grandmother’s house?”

She smiled. “I still leave dandelions every day of the blooming season.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope.”

I looked down at my plate surprised to find it empty. Sneaky woman. She’s made me forget about the knot in my stomach.

I put a hundred down on the table. Enough to cover the bill and leave a generous tip. “Never change, Myrtle.”

We needed more Myrtles in the world.

Chapter 9:

Ipulledoutmylaptop once I was back at the hotel room. I’d asked for a room change, but it didn’t help. The atmosphere was ruined.

Like most things.

I searched the kid’s names who died and found their social media accounts. It didn’t take long to find videos from that night. Gotta love this generation's need to record everything. It made my life easier.

The first one I found started with them walking into the Dark Entry Forest. Even on the camera there was a constant buzz of whispers that could sound like crickets if you didn’t pay close enough attention.

“We have to make them leave.” I heard clear as day from a feminine voice. I backed it up to make sure I heard it right.

I thought about the ghost’s reactions.

One boy talked about how most people never make it to the settlement. He said it with bravado and a stupidly brave expression, but it made me think. I looked over my arm where they’d grabbed me, trying to keep me from entering.

The ghosts were keeping people out, because that creature killed them. That was why the ghosts were killing themselves in the settlement. It was a mirror of their last moments.

I jumped from kid to kid and found it relatively easy to follow the night. The pure joy on them made me smile as I watched them.

That was us once.

Willow and Esme were going into the archives, and I was going to be a hunter. We took a summer trip to Prague.

Now look at us. Esme left the archives with a thirst for vengeance. Willow sank deeper in, hiding how much her mother dying broke her. Then there was me.

Nothing went how we thought it would.