Page 19

Seventeen

ALEC

The Sinclair house is exactly as I left it: desolate, unoccupied, and a grave for two deceased witches.

The door is still unlocked from the night I stole Harlow, but a quick sniff suggests no one’s been in here. The neighbourhood, I suppose, seems safe enough. Boring, with a lot of homes that are built identical to one another. For a witch family living away from their coven, they’re easy to blend in.

Sinclair mentioned her grandmother’s grimoires. Maybe having access to the spells the once-powerful Lorraine wrote down might trigger something. It’s a longshot, but a start.

The grimoires are the main purpose for my trip, but I’m also here for Harlow. To unpack more of her strange background and upbringing, which she feels is normal, but I don’t. The entire thing is perplexing, most notably the marks on her wrists.

It’s unsettling, and I’m sick of the feeling, needing answers so I can return to not caring about every little thing in that woman’s past.

I tread through the downstairs, scanning over the family’s items while searching for anything suggesting it’d be hiding a grimoire. Right away, I notice the lack of natural objects within the space. There are a few candles and bundles of spices I watched Harlow place around, but nothing else. No pentagrams, no plants. This place looks too…normal. Too human. Like her parents were caught up in the very lie they likely fed to their neighbours.

I pace through the living room, scanning over the many photos the Sinclairs display above the fireplace. Some of her parents, one of their wedding, but I skip over any involving Emily Sinclair to study the ones of my little captive.

In one, she’s a child. Five or so, if my recollection about human lifespans is correct. Her red hair is fuzzy in twin braids that rest over her shoulders. She’s grinning up at the camera amongst her throne of leaves.

In another, she’s older, sitting on a swing, her gaze directed at something far away.

The third picture is her as a teenager, posed in front of a tree, her smile joyful and natural.

The last photo is one taken more recently, based on her features being nearly identical to the woman I have in my castle. Once again, she’s seated in a pile of leaves but she’s staring down at the leaf in her palm.

Before I realize what I’m doing, I slide the photo from the frame and into my pocket.

Finishing with the mantle, I continue searching the rest of the downstairs, finding nothing useful, so I head upstairs, following the scent of my witch, now slightly faded.

In her bedroom, an empty tote bag on the floor strikes another idea. One that’ll get her out of those dirt-crusted pyjamas. I pick it up before heading to her dresser and stuffing clothes into it—a few pants and shirts, another set of pyjamas—before opening the bottom drawer, pausing at the sight of her undergarments.

Fucking Christ.

The initial sight of black lace fills my head with a vision of her wearing it—and myself peeling it slowly from her. Swallowing the disastrous image, I grab a handful from the drawer and stuff them into the bag while simultaneously trying to not wonder how many human male ilk have seen her in these. Have undressed her of them.

Suddenly, I have a whole slew of new questions for the witch.

Focus. Shaking my head of useless curiosity, I continue searching for a grimoire, peeking under her bed, scanning her small bookshelf in the corner, before opening her closet and revealing complete chaos, junk and clothing strewn in a waist-high pile.

I rifle through it, moving a few bags aside, peeking into a box that seems to be holding nothing but random items, a hoodie tossed to the side—which I add to the bag, realizing she’ll benefit from the warmth.

There it is. Beneath the hoodie is a black, leather-bound book, Lorraine’s power radiating from the pages like a hot wave.

The book grows warmer when I pick it up and open it. There’s all sorts of witchy bullshit spewed within the pages—poetic incantations, jotted notes about potions, lists of herbs and their uses—so I add it to the bag and leave after a final sweep of the room, heading down the hallway to the other bedroom.

The door is shut, and I wonder if Harlow has been in here since their deaths. Inside, the scent is vastly stale and void of her sweetness. Two other faint scents linger, both smelling like the earth. Dirt, trees, and leaves.

The bedroom is basic and as human-like as one would expect. A bed in the centre of the room, the light-green comforter pulled up over the pillows. A nightstand on either side with lamps much too large. Across from the bed is a large bay window overlooking the front lawn. To the left of the window, there’s a shut door—presumably a closet—and a woman’s vanity and floor-length mirror to the right.

Unsure of what I’m exactly looking for—if anything—my search is quick. The vanity, closet, and even beneath the bed reveals nothing interesting. As I turn to leave, the flooring by the door creaks. A light bounce reveals another creak, so I tap my foot, listening for the hollow kickback.

Would her parents really be so simpleminded to hide something beneath floorboards?

I bend and place my fist along the edge of the floorboard. With a bit of force, it pops up, revealing their secret compartment, and I’m instantly more intrigued by it than the rest of the house.

Inside is a shoe box, once again indicating their lack of originality. I lift the lid, taking in the stack of assorted documents. At the very top is a wedding photo, the fact it’s in this box compelling me to examine it further. Why would their wedding photos be hidden beneath the floor when they have one on display downstairs?

The couple in the photo is the same, but taken when they were younger, if the lack of age lines on their faces indicate so, as well as the dress’s style. But it’s not those details that make me pause; it’s the deep brown of the woman’s hair rather than her signature Sinclair red-orange.

That’s impossible.

It’s impossible because this woman, the supposedly younger version of Emily Sinclair, the one I left alive to be married and eventually birth Harlow, looks nothing like the Emily I knew. Nothing…as in not the same person.

Resting it to the side, I flip through the documents, suspecting what I’ll discover before I do. When the expired identification cards state different names, ones not Emily and John Sinclair, I’m partially unsurprised.

Instead, they say Violet and Arthur Hartman.

“Fuck.”

Tucking the box beneath my arm, I run downstairs to retrieve the other wedding photo. The one involving the same couple, this supposed Violet and Arthur, older than the one in the box, her hair the same shade as the Sinclair red.

Which means the people who raised Harlow were not her biological mother and father.

Which spurns the question: What really happened to Emily and John Sinclair?

* * *

When I return home, there’s the faintest unfamiliar scent lingering in the air, and beneath it?—

That’s when she screams, and I take off.

Because death will be too generous for whoever thought themselves brave enough to go near my witch.