repositioned it on the deity stroking the cat.
If not for Roane, Ink would’ve bolted. He wanted nothing to do with the kid. In all fairness, Samuel’s touch was a little cool. But the poor kid just wanted to pet the creature. I understood the desire. Sometimes, I just wanted to pet Roane.
“He’s not going to take no for an answer.” He stared at the door, which was now vine-free.
I could see the wheels in his brain spinning. “He’ll get the message eventually.” But like Roane, I didn’t really believe that.
Something brushed past me, and Samuel disappeared.
I glanced up to Ruthie waiting quietly near the staircase, elegantly draped in a new dress that was no less magical than the first. She didn’t look a second past sixty—if that—though I knew her to be closer to eighty.
I jumped to my feet. “You’re out.”
Roane stood too.
“Did you feel that?” She gazed up at the balcony.
“Did you just brush past me?” I asked her.
Confused, she turned toward me. “Where were you just now?”
“Here. We went into town but—”
“What did you do there?”
Annette wandered out. “We met with your coven.”
“You brought something back with you.” But Ruthie wasn’t looking at Nette, she was looking at me. “Something very dark.”
“Oh, well, Jason Vorhees came to the door. He was very angry.”
“No. Not that,” she said absently, missing the reference entirely. Did ghosts even watch horror movies? “Where else did you go in town?”
Roane was eerily silent.
“We went to the Witch House,” Annette said.
“That’s it.” Ruthie’s expression turned grave. “Did you open the witch bottle?”
“Yes.” Nette’s warning came back to me in the form of pins and needles pricking the back of my neck, but I brushed it off. “Why?”
“Defiance, you never open a witch bottle.”
“Ruthie, I can’t imagine I’m the first person in four-hundred years to open that bottle.” And I hadn’t been. Karl had told me so.
“No, but you’re the first witch. Certainly, the first charmling. You set them free.”
Them? Them who? “If you mean the men and women persecuted during the Salem Witch Trials, they were hardly real witches.”
“A witch bottle captures all sorts of malevolent spirits. Not just witches. And they are bound for all eternity to any witch who sets them free.”
Nette gave me an I-told-you-so look.
Which I ignored. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Ruthie said, “that any spirit you set free is now attached to you.”
“Great.” Like I didn’t already have a behemoth of baggage to drag around.
“If there were any malevolent spirits in the bottle, they’ll come after you. You’re the only thing anchoring them to this plane.”
“See?” Fed up, I stalked past her, taking the other set of stairs. “And you wonder why I’m done with all of this.”
Somehow, Ink beat me to my room and lay sprawled out on the bed.
I took out my suitcase and started packing while he watched. I’d come to Salem with exactly five outfits. But while I’d been KOed, my dads had the rest of my belongings shipped here, so at least I had a few outfits to choose from.
“Defiance.” Ruthie stood at the threshold to what was essentially her room. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just need to get away for a few days to a place that’s not filled with magical powers or malevolent beings that want me dead.”
“Sweetheart—”
“If nothing else, I’ll stay at a hotel for a few days. I just need to get my bearings.” I tossed underwear and a couple of T-shirts into my suitcase. “I’ll decide what to do from there.”
“Sweetheart.” She was beside me, her hand on my arm. “First, you can’t go anywhere that doesn’t have a magical presence.”
“Of course, I can. Most places on the planet don’t have magic hanging in the air like string lights.”
“No, I mean, you can’t. Personally. Because just your being there will change everything. You are the magical presence. You change every place you visit.”
I sank onto the bed next to Ink, holding two bras in one hand and a sock in the other. “I told you, I lost my powers.”
Annette knocked on my open door. “Can I join you?”
I waved her inside with the bras.
She climbed onto the bed to pet the cat, who was not in the mood to be fondled. Not that she let his grumpy disposition deter her.
Ruthie sat beside me. “And second, if there are malevolent beings after you, there’s no safer place on Earth than this house.”
I dropped the bras and socks on the bed and moved to get up.
Ruthie took my hand to