While You Were Creeping - Poppy Rhys Page 0,24

was a man of few words and kept his nose to himself. Yet, with a wife like my mother, who knew every detail about everyone’s business, he probably knew more than he let on.

“He got your favorite brandy,” I teased. Dad stroked his beard, a playfulness in his gaze. He wasn’t stupid. If Kye knew what my dad liked it was because I told him. “You’re welcome.”

He chuckled and went back to whittling.

“Sit, sit. Time’s a’wasting.”

With a sigh, I plopped down in the chair and watched Gretta shuffle the transparent deck of square disks.

I hadn’t fibbed, I really didn’t believe in this stuff. At least, not until last time and all the events that directly unfolded.

I’d convinced myself it was a coincidence, but who really knew?

Gretta spread the deck before me. “Pick the first disk that calls to you.”

“None of them call to me.”

She leveled me with a glare. “Child.”

Pursing my lips, I picked one at random, sliding it toward me.

“Now pick a second.”

I did.

“And a third.”

After I picked the final disk, Gretta swiped the deck, placing it to the side before flipping over the first disk in front of me.

I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath.

The card glowed with a glitzy holographic image. A four-headed snake curled around a glass heart, squeezing it until it burst, shards flying everywhere. The moving image looped repeatedly.

Perfect. This is going well.

“Hmmm,” Gretta hummed and scowled. “This is the Serpent of Oborosa. He’s a slippery one. Be careful of your peers, Mouse. Friends aren’t always friends.”

That was vague. Vague, and common knowledge. That was the thing about these disks. Most of them were nonsense. Just like horoscopes. Generalized information that could be applied to anyone, anywhere, at any point in their lives.

Ridiculous.

Gretta flipped the second card.

A red waterfall flowed, and I couldn’t help but snort. “I hope this is code for red wine. Because I could use some right now.”

“This is Fernisha’s Fountain.” Gretta chuckled. “Expect your menses soon.”

I eyerolled so hard it hurt.

See what I mean? Ridiculous.

And finally, she arrived at the last card. I peered closer. The image had falling snow and purple vines riddled with thorns that dripped with blood, staining the white ground. Beyond it, three suns rose.

“Let me guess, my menses are going to be extra crampy this month?” My eyebrow hiked into my hairline.

“No, these are Rendu Vines and the Triplet Stars. It just means the situation you may find yourself in could be painful, but there’s warmth at the end of that journey.”

“Sounds like a load of crazy.”

“What’s life without a little crazy?” Gretta waggled her brows and looked past my shoulder. “Right Kye?”

I craned my head on my neck. Hadn’t even heard his hooves on the wooden floors. He regarded me with a strange expression, but it quickly morphed into a small smile aimed at Gretta.

“Meredith sent me in to let you know third meal is ready. Holly, can I speak to you for a moment?”

Any excuse to get away from Gretta’s ullek disks, I stood. “Sure.”

We traveled downstairs into the empty game den. My fingers drifted over a puzzle board before I turned to Kye. “Thanks for saving—”

“You lied.” Kye’s eyes were narrowed to slits, his nostrils flared, and his breathing picked up. His voice was razor sharp. “A berchta always lies. I should’ve known!”

“Whoa, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m not a witch,” he mimicked, in a terrible impersonation of yours truly, I might add. “I don’t want to trick you.”

“I’m not a witch!”

“I witnessed you foretelling the future with my own eyes!”

“Me?! That was Aunt Gretta, not me. And besides,” I crossed my arms, “all that shit is fake.”

Now wasn’t the time to mention how real it felt the last time I had a reading.

“It was vague information. Like hey, I’m gonna get my menses soon, like I don’t already get them every month. And hey, maybe watch out for backbiters because we all know I have enough of those in my life. And maybe, maybe one day this shit-show will be over, and I’ll stop compulsively flushing toilets and creeping on my ex like the psychopath I apparently am.”

I sighed, realizing I needed to talk to my therapist again already because Kye just got an info dump of my life the past three years and he was looking at me like I’d lost my ever-loving mind.

Which, I had. A long time ago.

“I’m not a witch, those cards are bogus, and I’m not trying to trick you.”

Kye scrubbed his horns,