Page 38 of The Redd Key (Bone Coven #1)

G lowing through the hazy sky, the sun followed me like a bloody shadow as I stormed into The Wicker Basket. Anabel only slightly inclined her head at my arrival, whereas Bridget and Sarah jumped out of their skin. I passed right by the two girls and threw the locket down onto the counter in front of Anabel.

“Tell me now.” I felt a rage boiling inside of me since I felt the anger of the Witch of Wellfleet in the dream. “Tell me why I see her, why I become her at night,” I demanded from Anabel. Sarah was at my side, but Bridget stayed near the chairs. My throat was tight with emotion and I waited for the old woman to speak. As she said nothing but held my gaze, I repeated, “Tell me,” but this time my voice broke. I then reached back out, snatching the locket in my hand and nearly threw it at Anabel, urging her to take it.

“That is not mine,” she simply stated, and turned to put a book back on the shelf behind where she stood.

“It’s not mine, either,” I said through gritted teeth. I felt like I hadn’t slept in days, and anytime I removed the locket I always discovered it back in my hands or around my neck. I explained as much to the three of them.

“Where did you even find such a thing,” Sarah reached to touch it, but a look from Anabel made Sarah halt.

“It was in the wreck,” Bridget said, matter-of-fact. “Where was it though? And what about the ruby?”

“The locket was in the grenade, and the ruby just seems like a ruby.” I tossed the words over my shoulder. With the chaos of the locket, I almost forgot about the carved stone. I added the ruby to the collection of precious gems in the small wooden chest from the cove.

“You discovered a wreck? Offshore of the island?” Anabel asked, her eyes widening the slightest bit. “Hmm,” she said to herself as she rounded the counter. Her wispy white hair was pulled to the side, the braid rested over her shoulder. “No one has found such a thing here.” She took a wooden tray off the table along the wall and selected a glass bottle with some sort of powder from out of a cabinet. Anabel placed the tray on the counter and dumped the bottle over it. Salt, the grainy contents was salt. She smoothed out the salt into an even layer. “Place it here.” She gestured to the middle of the tray, and I did as I was told. For a few long moments Anabel did nothing but look down upon the locket. Her head slightly tilted as she reached to touch it, but stopped as if she thought better of it.

A pulsing vibrance elicited from the charm and a pull from deep in my chest grew, begging me to grab the necklace back. I resisted. “What are you looking for?” My eyes met Anabel’s which darkened to a stale blue.

“Some things should stay buried, Raina.” Her words. They’ve been spoken before, by her, by Nathan, and they were written in Bellamy’s journal. When Nathan said it, I never thought anything of it, I mean, he’s an archaeologist. He digs and uncovers things that have been buried. But now…

“It burned Griffin. But it hasn’t even singed me as I’ve worn it.”

“So you are still seeing him?” Sarah’s brows rose as a very inappropriate smirk spread across her face.

“It’s really not the time, Sarah.” Bridget looked up from the book she was skimming. She may have looked bored, but I knew her mind was intently working on analyzing every intricate detail she could remember from the night of the wreck, what she has been told about the locket, and the reactions it has elicited. This was a puzzle and she was so desperate to solve it, even if she wasn’t going to show any indication of it. “Did it leave a mark on him?” Her chin tilted upward.

“His skin was faintly pink, but mine was not.”

“So it didn’t actually brand him,” she followed. This got Anabel’s attention.

“Was it supposed to?” I asked and looked between the two of them. Sarah looked to be just as lost as I was. Bridget and Anabel continued to stare at one another as if in silent conversation. “Will someone please explain to me what is going on?”

“I’d like to know too,” Sarah shrugged, pouring tea for each of us.

The sound of a tinkling bell alerted Lydia’s entrance, just a heartbeat before she glided in. “It seems as though I have interrupted something.” Lydia’s words sliced through the tension between the four women standing before her. “I can, go,” she offered, turning back toward the door, freezing the moment she saw the locket laying in the tray. “It can’t be…” Her hand slowly slid to her throat in surprise. I let out a groan.

“Am I really the only person who doesn’t know the significance of this locket? Am I cursed to stay in the dark while you all stare at it and each other, too afraid to actually say anything?” I lost all patience.

“No, for real, I don’t have a clue what’s going on either,” Sarah offered. I tried to give her a sympathetic look, but she wasn’t the one plagued by a rage she didn’t own, ailed by nightmares every time she closed her eyes, waking in terrible places like the frozen docks. Sarah was lucky to not know the burden of the beautifully deadly locket. Even now, my skin was humming to be reunited with the trinket.

“Where did that come from?” Lydia’s mouth hung open, still at the threshold of the shop. “It can’t actually be real? It was just a story,” she whispered, finally taking a step and placing down the small stack of books she was carrying onto the coffee table in front of Bridget. She moved toward where Anabel had set the tray.

“This is the locket that once belonged to Goody Hallet, which you seem to already know,” Anabel said. Of course I knew. The memory of that woman played in my head exhaustingly often. “The locket was given to her by Black Sam Bellamy. In exchange, she had given him a lock of her hair tied in lace ribbon. The stories vary over the centuries, but it is believed that she threw the locket into the sea after calling upon the storm that sank the Whydah and destroyed most of Bellamy’s fleet. History shows some escaped her wrath, but Sam did not. It is said the locket holds Goody’s power, her Aecor .” Anabel paused, a pained look shadowed her eyes. “Her rage, heartbreak, the stabbing pain of betrayal. Locked away and buried at sea, to drown alongside Bellamy and his men.”

A wick of a candle popped with an angry flame, the only sound in the small shop. Lydia sank down into a chair next to Bridget as Sarah held two cups of tea in the air, forgetting to serve them.

“The locket hasn’t opened for you, has it?” Bridget asked quietly. I turned to her, my eyes gave away my answer. “Raina,” her voice dipped, and Lydia gasped.

Anabel stepped closer to me. “If the locket opened for you, it had a reason. All the stories, all the lore, says Goody will curse the blood of the past, to be a beacon of love and light, to shine through the storm so Black Sam Bellamy could find his salvation. That to end his own suffering, his heart must be torn away from him as Goody’s heart was torn away from her when he left the Cape. That he will find his love, unleashing the full breadth of her magic onto us all. The Nor'easter she summoned in 1717 will be insignificant compared to the three hundred year wrath she buried deep in the sea.”

“And the Blood Coven wants this to happen. Can you imagine how much Aecor they could wield if an island full of Salem witch descendants were killed in a mass sacrifice?” Bridget’s voice was cold, emotionless. “It would be the most treacherous storm in centuries. Redd Hills would drown.”

Ice cracked down my spine, starting at the nape of my neck and consumed each vertebrae one by one. The locket had opened. “And the Blood Coven would be indestructible, having unlocked what they believe to be the key to everlasting life.” Anabel’s voice was raw.

“It’s just a story, Gram.” Sarah tried to laugh, handing tea to the white haired woman. “I mean, not one single story agrees with the next. There are a thousand different versions, with barely any parts in common. We can’t possibly believe any of that is true.” But I knew her optimism was misplaced.

“I’ve seen it.” I said quietly, taking the tea cup from Sarah. Her dark eyes looked into mine, begging for me to yell just joking! “In the nightmares…” I trailed, but then it clicked – the vial! “I used his blood, my baby’s, Bellamy’s baby, to seal the curse. I was just so angry, so enraged that he’d leave me alone to face the shame of a child out of wedlock. The entire town shunned me, exiled me–.”

Bridget was suddenly standing beside me, her hand closed around my wrist. The locket hung in my clenched knuckles. I didn’t realize I grabbed it from the tray.

“Goody,” she said, quietly to me. “Not you.” Her green eyes were no longer filled with that bored expression, but now showed deep concern.

“How did you find the wreck?” Lydia’s voice was hoarse. “Your mother and I spent so many summers trudging through low tides for any signs of it.”

“You knew the locket was in the wreck? How?” Sarah placed two more cups of tea on the coffee table.

“I mean, I didn’t really think it was real. It was just a story. My family had this book,” Lydia paused. “Recipes, traditions, poems, that were passed down through each generation,” she paused.

“A Book of Shadows,” Bridget stated, looking at the woman over the cup as she sipped her tea.

“All of our families have one,” Sarah smiled reassuringly, but gave a quick glance toward Bridget. If it was a sore subject for Bridget, that she hadn’t found her family’s Book, she didn’t show it.

“Well, yes, a Book of Shadows. Except…” She paused again, sliding her gaze over to me. “Your mother couldn’t find the Burrows’ book. We searched everywhere for it.” She looked down into her cup, her lashes catching a tear. “I miss her… so much .” Her voice was thick with emotion. “I told her not to leave, I was so scared for her, and then the last time we spoke, she told me about your dad.” Lydia tried to smile. “I am so sorry for the loss of them both.” My chest swelled with heaviness, and I swallowed a mouthful of tea to push the knot back down to my core.

“Why were you scared for her?” Sarah blurted before I found my voice.

“It’s silly really.” Lydia’s cheeks flushed. “We were young. We didn’t really understand anything.” She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “A long time ago, we explored some of the tunnels, the caves, between tides. It was our own world. We practiced some of what was written in my family’s Book. It was all for fun.” She took a deep breath, and nervously looked up at Anabel. “There was an incantation, about binding one’s soul to a place.”

“No,” Anabel interrupted, her head tilted and brow raised, warning Lydia.

“It wasn’t anything serious,” she reassured us, shaking her head toward Anabel in explanation. “At least, it wasn’t to us. Like I said we were young, maybe fourteen. One of the caves was our favorite, and we set up a space to practice. We were never able to cast real magic, we couldn’t even light candles. Though, we felt it in us, the constant lapping of Aecor in our blood like the waves on the rocks beyond the cave. The spell sounded frightening though, and it had been written in a different time, in Olde English. Some parts were indecipherable. We improvised. We used the written prose as a guide, found a black shard from the rock face, and made a blood pact, in the cave, and let the droplets fall onto the obsidian wall. We wanted to stay tied to Redd Hills forever, to immortalize our friendship, our dreams…our future.” Lydia placed a hand over her mouth as her chin quivered. “But she left. Bronwyn left me.”

He left me. Goody’s voice echoed in my mind. The locket warmed in my hand, and I slipped it over my head.

“I was afraid that even though it had been years since the pact, the magic would hold, even without any proof of our power. We didn’t speak.” She swallowed hard. “For many years, I ignored her calls, I didn’t know what to say to her. I was so hurt when she left me. Finally, I answered the phone one night, and I could barely hear her voice when she told me your father died. I hadn’t known she even found someone to love, at the time. We spoke for hours about the time we lost between us, and my heart hurt even worse than when she left Redd Hills. I wasn’t there for her. The knowledge of your father’s passing reignited the fear in my heart.” Her eyes shone with tears. “Our pact was to bind us to the island, and she chose to leave. Magic has consequences. She owed the debt to the cave. Your father passing felt like just the beginning to me.” She sniffed. “When I saw you in the library, my heart dropped. You look so much like her, it felt like a ghost from my past came to haunt me. I only learned of her passing that morning, I didn’t realize it had been months. And seeing you walk in…” She dropped her gaze. “I fear that even without realizing our abilities, our pact, the ritual, worked, and Bronwyn faced the consequences of severing that tie.” A sob escaped her. “It’s all my fault, I made her do it with me.” Her shoulders shook as she cried.

“You didn’t know.” Anabel’s voice softened and she swept across the shop to kneel beside Lydia. “You didn’t know your family’s power. Neither of you. All of us,” Anabel gestured to herself, “us elders, we kept the truth from you, as I had with my granddaughter, and here we are. I clearly never learned from my mistakes. None of us did, but the others…” Anabel trailed off.

“What others?” I asked.

“You haven’t noticed?” Sarah’s wide eyes were void of any judgment. “Anabel is the oldest resident on the island by at least a decade. Over the last twenty years, the older generation died, one by one. At first, there wasn’t a connection, there still isn’t, but in their seventy-first year, they died, whether from illness or a freak accident. Anabel is the only one untouched.”

“That’s not without effort,” Anabel smiled, gesturing to her magical apothecary surrounding us. “Now, most people retire elsewhere. Snowbirds , they call themselves. To avoid aging on the island. It seems to work”

“I definitely did not notice that.” I searched each of their faces, as I thought of the old fisherman, who must not be as old as I thought. “So what exactly is going to happen?”

“First, we’re going to start believing every version of the fairytales Anabel told us when we were little,” Bridget said.