Page 16 of The Tanglewood Witches (The Three Sisters 1)
Chapter Seven
The deathly figure Alena recognized as Charon steered his boat next to the dark shore, and she suppressed a strong desire to run and hide. She’d read about this creature who rowed travelers along the river Styx for a fee. The way the path ended at the water’s edge, it was clear the only way to keep searching for the grimoire was to travel on his boat.
Bony fingers extended from the tattered sleeves of his obsidian robe and turned upward, flexing imploringly.
“He requires payment.”
Orpheus’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t sing us out of this one. Tell me you have a couple obols in that bag of yours.”
She shook her head. “No, but maybe…”
Scanning the beach, Alena’s eyes landed on a circular shape protruding from the sand. Abandoning her extinguished torch on the beach, she turned her back to Charon and used her toe to dig a sand dollar from the sand. She returned to Orpheus with the disk-shaped creature cupped in her hands between them. “It’s close to the size and shape of a drachma. Here goes nothing.”
“Wait. You should kiss me first.”
She raised her face to his. He was warm and alive, a comfort among their dark and deadly surroundings. “What? Why?”
“For luck.” His eyes flashed. “And because I want you to kiss me again before I die. Do it now before you have time to think yourself out of it.”
They were close, his breath mingling with hers. His dark beauty made her insides tingle. What did she have to lose? There were no whispering women here. No one to see. She couldn’t resist. She rose up on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
His fingers tangled in her hair and he said into her mouth, “You can do this. I believe in you.”
“Metamórfosi,” she whispered, concentrating on the sand dollar. The animal turned cold in her hand. She looked down to find one silver drachma in her palm, more than enough to pay Charon’s fare.
Orpheus ran his thumbs along her jaw. “Brilliant. I knew it. I knew the first moment I met you.”
She pulled back, the muscles around her mouth tightening. What did that mean? Was he only interested in her for her power? He seemed to notice her mood shift and his eyes darkened.
“I knew the moment I met you that you were cunning and talented. Does this upset you?”
She looked away as her face grew hot.
He sighed heavily. “How long will the transformation last?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never done it before.”
“Then we’d better go.”
She glanced between the drachma and the boat. “Yes.”
At first he didn’t move. Neither of them did. They stood there, staring at one another as if they were assessing a new statue in the temple. But then Orpheus grabbed her hand and led her to Charon, where she placed the coin into the skeleton’s waiting palm.
The spectral figure gestured for them to climb on board. Alena cringed as she slipped through the cold aura of Charon’s presence to get to the front of the boat. But once the warmth of Orpheus’s body was beside her and he wrapped his steadying arm around her shoulders, she could almost forget their harrowing circumstances. She leaned into his side, trying her best to absorb his heat, and he placed a tender kiss on her temple.
“Thank you,” she mumbled.
He gave her a small nod. Slowly the boat began to move.
Alena stared at the water, at the strange pale plants that wavered under the surface as Charon’s boat passed. “Are those…?”
Faces stared up at her, pale, decaying corpses locked into a weedy eternity. She swallowed the scream that built in her throat.
Orpheus gripped her jaw and turned her face toward him. “Don’t look,” he whispered into her ear. “Look at me. I’m right here.”
Thankful for the escape, she buried her face in his chest. His steady breath in her ear calmed her. Tucked into the cocoon of his embrace, she could almost forget they were careening across a river of the dead toward their probable doom.
The boat came to rest on the opposite shore, and Orpheus swept her by the waist, out of the boat and along the path away from Charon before she could blink. A screech the likes of which Alena had never heard before came from the direction of the boat—Charon.
