Page 43 of Ever After

“Dead?” Blue offers.

“Oh my god. That’s so rude,” I say, horrified.

Branok gives a roar of laughter. “He speaks the truth.” He sobers. “Nay, I think he is as trapped there as I am here, and we cannot get to each other. I know my Xander. He would move heaven and earth to get to me, and I would do the same. ’Tis a powerful magic that keeps us apart and that is where I—we need your help.”

“How?” I ask. “How can we help in that?”

Branok leans forward. “I have had centuries to think of this, and I believe it to be the work of a powerful enemy of either Xander or myself. I think now it is he or she who separates us.” His eyes are fierce. “I also think that my death must be tied into that.”

“How did you die?” I ask.

Blue shifts beside me. His eyes are far away, intent on something I can’t see. “So much blood,” he says slowly. “He was hit over the head from behind.” He touches his own head and looks at the fingers as if he’s seeing the blood. A chill skitters down my spine as he turns to Branok. “You were left to die by the side of the road.”

Branok’s face is set. He doesn’t display any signs of shock at the description of his own death. All I can see is resolve. He must have been a formidable man in his lifetime. “Ah,” he says. “So that is what happened. I do not remember any of that.” He looks at Blue. “Can you see more? The face of the man or woman who hit me?” Blue shakes his head and Branok stares into the distance. “I cannot even recall the week before my death. I just remember finding myself back at the cottage. And I have been mainly here for centuries.”

“Mainly?” I ask.

His gaze comes back to me. “I have travelled extensively.”

I stare at him. “You’re not tied to the place where you died?”

He shakes his head. “Others maybe, but not I. I have a powerful will and that is to be with Xander again. All other things must bend to that desire. So, I travelled and I found hidden old texts and I researched. And I have waited.” He looks up. “And now the waiting is over.”

“And Xander?” Blue asks. “How did he die?”

A helpless look comes over Branok’s handsome face. “I do not know. I have never been able to get into the hall to find out. When I came back to awareness here in the cottage, I knew that he was gone from this world. I wasn’t sure how or when, just that I could no longer sense him living.”

I cock my head. “Can you sense him dead?”

He raises his eyebrows at me, holding my gaze. “This one is clever,” he says.

“And incredibly nosy and far too kind,” Blue responds.

“Pot and kettle,” I say, poking him.

“Over the years I have sometimes thought I could sense him,” Branok says, waving a hand. “It is a tug at my bones and a vibration on the air. I hoped it meant he was still here and waiting for me, but I had no proof of that.”

I wonder what it would be like to wait for Blue for so long—centuries of being near but not close enough to touch, and my heart clenches for the spirit in front of me.

Branok sighs. “I had a friend,” he says slowly. “He was a man of the cloth—the vicar of the church here in Porthkrogour. He was very learned and knew much about the spirit world.” He looks at Blue. “I think he had a foot in both worlds like you.”

“Poor sod, then,” Blue says.

“I wish Richard was here,” Branok says. “He would search his head, which was far too full of strange knowledge, and he would find the answers.”

“Have you ever seen your friend again?” Blue asks.

He shakes his head, a fond smile crossing his face. “He has probably moved on. If the occupants of the next world from this have libraries, then that is where he will be.”

“What do you need us to do?” I ask. Blue gives me a fond, chiding look. “What? You know you’re going to help him.”

“I do not know where my body is,” Branok says. “I presumed at first that it was in the graveyard, but when I tried to enter the grounds, I could not. I can stand on the edge, but I cannot enter. That is not usual for spirits, and at first, I thought that it was because I had abandoned the church’s teachings in life.” He rolls his eyes. “And then I saw the calibre of people they have given a church burial to over the centuries, and I revised my opinion. I now believe that the very fact that I cannot get into the churchyard means there was foul play involved in my death, and that where I lie may be a key to who or what killed me. The boundaries of the hall are salted too. I can sense it. Like a low humming on the air.”

“So that’s why you can’t get in. Well, isn’t that easy to sort out?” I say, looking at Blue. “We could go up there with a shovel and disturb the ground.”

“I would presume so, but it depends how deep the salt was laid,” he says slowly. “But there’s more, isn’t there, Branok?”

Branok sits back in his chair. “There must be more to it, but I do not know what that is.”