Page 31 of Kat Bethel

“Like a guardian angel.” She smiled fondly. The wind chime twinkled louder with his approval. Her eyes flicked to it in acknowledgement, before her face turned grim.

“That night, all the livestock dropped dead, and the garden withered away. The only thing that survived was the dandelions. My stepmom screamed about a demon threatening her, but daddy never found anything. After that, she always reminded me to take the dandelions out, and I could swear she was always looking over her shoulder. She convinced daddy to give me the house as soon as I turned eighteen.”

The stepmother felt him too, but not like the peace he gave Myrtle or the fucked shit I did.

“Do you still feel him?” I asked.

“Every day.”

How could he be with both of us?

The faintest touch of jealousy crossed my mind. Did he make her cum the way he did me?

My eyes narrowed on the kind, elderly woman for one second, before I realized how angry I was getting. I shook my head to dislodge that train of thought. What the fuck was wrong with me?

A heavy hand landed in my hair, claws gently scraping my scalp. As if to tell me to quit acting crazy. Something a man would do to comfort his envious significant other. Reassurance.

I ducked my head down. I didn’t need reassurance. I needed a padded room for ever having that thought.

He followed me, threading his hand in my hair. A soft warning to never pull away from him again.

This motherfucker.

“Do you want me to show you how I take him flowers?” Myrtle offered, distracting me from the battle of wills I was about to stupidly jump into.

“I’d love that.” My rage seeped away, letting curiosity win. Perhaps the ritual would illuminate the situation.

Then she opened a drawer and pulled out some twine and chicken feathers. She sat down and started a loop that I was intimately familiar with.

“I wish you peace that death did not offer you,” she proclaimed as she put in the first knot. “I wish you calm and serenity.”

A witch’s ladder.

Hand-knotted with healing intentions.

“Do I need to slow down the knots?”

“No. I’ve got it,” I promised. It sat on the edge of my lips that they were my specialty, but my fingers went to the twine around my neck. The one I made while I was in the asylum to ease my heart.

Interesting coincidence.

I watched her go through all the knots until she came to the last one. “I wish you rest.”

She rubbed it between her fingers, closing her eyes. Properly pouring all her intentions into the last knot. I didn’t dare interrupt and interfere with the spell she didn’t know she was casting.

The shadows in the room quivered and slowly shrank. As if he’d released the tension in his body. It worked.

Once she was done, she blushed, like she suddenly realized that I would probably think the whole thing was stupid. If only she knew.

A lot of off-branch Rinah’s only remembered the knowledge they needed to survive. They latch onto a nugget or two that their direct ancestors drilled into them. Especially with families that have a local issue, like this one.

She took her ladder and led me out the back door. “Between March and June, this entire field fills with dandelions. We haven’t done anything to get rid of them for obvious reasons. My grandmother said her mother was the one to plant them.”

“Interesting choice.” I nudged, hoping someone told her why a weed was her choice of decor.

“Supposedly, she’s the one who replanted most of the Dark Entry Forest. That the trees were ash near the settlement, and she would go and throw seeds around.”

“She was allowed to enter?”