Page 39

AMbrOSE

“ T his one might work.” Piper is lying in front of the fire, pointing to a huge book in front of her.

After we got up, I made breakfast, and we both downed a hefty dose of potion to cure hangovers.

I consumed another to help heal the bruise on my jaw, then we spent all afternoon combing through the library for information on how to break Piper’s hex.

I fucked up last night. A few times. Piper’s rightfully upset about the women who keep showing up and throwing themselves at me, but it’s the hurt that I used her hex against her that’s really caused pain. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt like a bigger asshole.

I’m lying on the couch, trying to keep my eyes open. This book is mainly about horticulture, and it’s dull enough to put the most avid gardener to sleep.

I let my book fall to my chest and turn my head to look at Piper. Her dark red hair is piled up on top of her head and her skin is free of make-up. She’s wearing another one of my sweatshirts, and she looks like a goddess. One fallen down to earth to mix among us mere mortals.

“I think I may have found something. It says in order to break a hex of obedience, you must…” her voice trails off and she frowns.

“Don’t leave me in suspense. What must we do?”

Piper sits up and pulls the book into her lap. She hums under her breath. “It says you require the tongue of the person who hexed you.”

“What do you do with the tongue? If you’re able to get it.

” I grimace. We’ve dug up a body before.

Well, we pushed a lid off a sarcophagus.

Piper’s father is the one who cursed her, and he’s definitely buried somewhere in Mystic Hollows.

How long does a tongue survive, though? He’s been dead for over ten years.

Piper clears her throat. Her eyes dart to me and then quickly focus back on the book. “It says the current owner of the hex has to drink a potion made from the tongue of the hex’s originator. Then obey any commands given to them until a new day begins.”

I sit up and stare at Piper, who’s looking at me apologetically.

“You found another way, didn't you? This is punishment for last night, isn’t it. I get it. I deserve it.”

“What? No.” Piper tries to hide her laughter. “I swear, this is the only reference I’ve found in all these books.” Piper waves her hand over the stacks of books on the table and those that overflow onto the floor. I know she’s not lying; we’ve been looking for weeks.

I flop back onto the couch. “Fucking Crone. I’m going to have to drink tongue. Old, shriveled corpse tongue. Will that make me a cannibal?” I shudder.

Piper crawls over to me and lifts my hand off my eyes. “Yes. It will,” she says seriously.

I grab her and drag her on top of me, making her squeal with laughter. “Hey, that’s the guy you married. What’s that say about your taste in men?”

“I have superb taste.” Piper gasps as she wriggles around on top of me, trying to get free from my tickling fingers.

I almost bring up the dickhead from last night that proves otherwise, but I’m already going to be a cannibal. I don't need to be an asshole too.

“When should we do this?” I ask, giving up on the tickling. Piper sighs and sinks into me.

“As soon as possible.”

As soon as possible turns out to be two nights later. It takes surprisingly little time to plan a grave robbery. Or, is it a robbery when you’re not taking the body anywhere? Just a tongue?

“Why do we always have to do these things in the middle of the night?” Ava complains as we make our way through Mystic Hollows Memorial Cemetery.

This is the cemetery where Lumen coven witches have been buried for the past few centuries.

There’s another in the former Tenebris territory, and a third still that is the oldest in town and holds the bodies of most of the founders of Mystic Hollows.

“I really appreciate that you guys wanted to be here.” Piper sighs, with a hint of hesitation in her voice. “But you didn’t all have to come.”

When we realized that we needed to dig up Piper’s dad’s grave, and somehow keep from getting arrested, I knew Piper and I were not going to be able to do it on our own.

There’s no way the two of us could quickly dig a grave.

I enlisted the help of Bram, thinking he could keep his mouth shut, but he proceeded to tell Ava, who then told everyone else.

Now there are eight of us on a jaunt through the cemetery at one in the morning.

“We have to go in the middle of the night, because it would be a little bit obvious during the day that a bunch of people are digging up a grave,” Stellan replies as if his sister is an idiot.

“I’m aware of that. It was more of a rhetorical question,” Ava grumbles and curses as she walks into a headstone.

“Maybe we should keep quiet so no one hears us and shows up to investigate,” Roman says, exasperated.

I appreciate the sentiment, but we’re on the outskirts of town. There’s nothing out here but a bunch of dead bodies. I hope.

“Can we plan an outing where we don’t uncover dead bodies, though?

” Odie signs as we wind our way around the graves in the cemetery.

The moon is bright tonight, and the sky is clear.

I’m grateful that the rain seems to have let up for once this spring.

It makes picking our way through the gravestones a lot easier.

“Maybe someplace warm, with a beach,” Josephine says longingly as she zips her coat up to her chin. It might not be raining, but it’s still windy and cold enough that even I’m wearing a hat.

“I don’t care,” Ava declares. “Just give me a drink in my hand and I’ll be happy. Maybe a nice stack of books to read in a hammock. I do love a good hammock.”

“There it is,” Piper says softly as she stops at the foot of a grave. I step up beside her, stabbing my shovel into the ground. I rest my chin on my hands, holding the top of the handle. Piper stares at the grave like she expects her father to come bursting through the grass at any moment.

“We don’t have to do this,” I say. “We can keep looking for another way.”

Piper swallows thickly and then takes a deep breath. “I want this done with. I want to put this hex to bed.”

She looks up at the moon that’s nearly full.

It’s been almost a month since she got sick.

I don’t know when it will strike again, but it feels like there’s a ticking clock.

Piper has to deal with a hex and a curse, and both of them are fucking horrible.

I can appreciate that at least with this hex, there’s the possibility of freedom.

She can be rid of this burden, once and for all.

If it takes me drinking human infused juice, then so be it. I’ll do it for her.

“All right. Let’s get digging.”

We brought a handful of shovels, knowing that we couldn’t all dig at the same time.

In my head, I viewed this similar to how I think of painting a room.

It always sounds like it’ll be fun in theory, but once you start painting, you realize what a giant pain in the ass it is.

Between us, I figured we’d dig up this grave in no time.

Turns out, six feet is fucking deep, and they use backhoes for this shit for a reason.

I rip off my stocking cap and take off my coat, throwing both on the ground as I work up a sweat.

“How do none of us have earth magic?” Bram grumbles as he wipes his brow. Ava rolls her eyes, grabs his shovel and pushes him out of the way.

“No one said you had to do it alone.”

We take turns, but by some unspoken agreement, none of us let Piper do any digging. I don’t want her to have to dig up her father’s grave. I don’t want her to be anywhere near here, but the reality is that this needs to happen in order to break her hex.

Odie’s shovel strikes the ground with a loud thunk. We're surrounded by the smell of damp earth, worms, and natural things that crawl beneath the surface. I have no idea what it’ll smell like when we open a coffin.

Odie lifts her gaze to each of us and then finally looks at Piper. She nods and we work to clean off the edges of the coffin.

“Just so I’m clear, is someone going to have to cut his tongue out?” Ava grimaces.

“This is so gross,” Bram rasps, pulling himself out of the grave. He reaches for Odie and helps her out, leaving me by myself.

“I made a spell,” Piper says and hands me a vial. It’s hard to see what color it is in the dim light. It looks pink.

“And what exactly will this do, Pipes?” I gaze up at her from the hole and she hands me a Ziploc baggie. How very mystical.

“It will force him to expel his tongue.”

“Oh no,” Bram groans, backing away from the hole. “I can’t.” He makes a heaving sound.

“You’re such a baby with dead bodies.” Ava jabs his side.

“Would you rather I be comfortable with them?” Bram hisses at her.

“Fair point,” Ava says in return.

Piper’s fists are clenched and her shoulders tight. I know Ava’s trying to keep the situation light, that’s just what she does, but we need to wrap this up for Piper’s sake.

“Let’s get this over with,” I say, and everyone grows quiet.

“Who’s going to open it?” Ava asks.

“I’ll help with the lid.” Roman jumps back down into the grave and nods at me. Looks like it will be the two of us.

“Wait, is it, like, going to explode when you open it up?” Ava asks, and we all turn to stare at her.

“I did some googling.” She shrinks back, looking sheepish.

“I don’t think his casket was sealed like that,” Piper says. “It should be okay. But that might mean decomposition is further along.”

“Oh God.” Bram gags and disappears from sight. Ava mumbles something and follows after him.

The casket is one of those modern lacquered affairs.

There’s nothing but a latch on the side, keeping the top half of the lid closed.

It’s rusted and sticks when I push on the metal.

The latch digs into my fingers, but it finally moves with a light screech and clicks open.

There’s a soft hiss of pressure as though a seal is being released.

I step back and take a deep breath before I go back in and throw open the lid to the coffin.

“Piper, maybe we should go over here,” Josephine says, but Piper stands at the foot of the grave, peering down at the half-desiccated body of her father.

“This is really gross,” Stellan says. Ava reappears by herself in time to smack her brother. Who knows where the hell Bram went.

“It’s fine,” Piper murmurs. “Ambrose, pour the potion over his lips. It’s okay if his mouth isn’t open.”

I’m pretty sure they sew the mouths of dead bodies shut, and I’m not about to whip out my scissors and snip them open.

Although, it looks like I don’t have to.

The sutures must have disintegrated over time, because his mouth is open in a macabre gape.

Stellan is right, this is really gross. Even more disgusting than that time we reanimated one of the founders of Mystic Hollow’s skeletons and made him tell us about our curses. That was fun in comparison to this.

I try not to look at the leathery shrunken face in the casket as I pour the potion into his mouth. The body shudders and begins to cough. Roman and I shout, scattering back to the muddy edges of the grave.

“What the fuck!” Roman yells.

“Sorry, I guess I should’ve warned you,” Piper cringes, wringing her hands together.

“Should’ve warned us about what?” I gaze up at her. “What exactly is going to happen?”

“He’s going to expel his tongue.”

“Oh, hell no,” Bram shouts from somewhere far away. But obviously close enough that he still hears what’s happening.

I can’t watch. I'm not delicate by any means, but this is too much for me. There’s a sound as if a cat is hacking up a hairball and then everything is quiet.

“Ambrose, can you please collect the tongue?” Piper’s voice is quiet. Even the night birds are horrified into silence after that.

I look back at the corpse and find a dried, shriveled prune of a thing that used to be Piper’s father’s tongue on his chest.

“Fuck, I’m going to have to eat this.”

“What?” Roman says, sounding horrified. Me too, my friend.

“Nothing,” I say, a little bit too loud and flick the shriveled tongue into the plastic bag. The juxtaposition between modernity and the ancient art of witchcraft. Nothing like carrying your spell ingredients around in a Ziploc bag.

“Let’s get this grave filled in and get out of here.” I release a groan as Stellan helps pull me out of the grave. Turning, I do the same for Roman. We pick up our shovels, ready to bury this body and never think about any of this again.

“Actually, would you mind giving me a minute first,” Piper says. Everyone freezes. Piper’s still tense, her eyes focused on the now closed casket.

“Yeah, we’ll just be over by where Bram is cowering.” Ava pats Piper’s arm.

“I’m not cowering,” Bram says. “I’m just catching my breath.”

“Yes, from all that running away you did,” Ava deadpans. Bram grabs her around the waist and swings her around, threatening to throw her in the grave.

“Let’s give Piper a little bit more privacy.” I shuttle our friends away, keeping Piper in sight, but giving her the space to do whatever it is she needs to do.