Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
I would need to show JJ a picture of him to know for certain. This was when pictures on my phone would have been helpful.
“Wait, do you mean the man who works at the florist?” Amanda asked JJ.
“Is a florist a person who sells flowers?”
“Yes.”
“Like Mrs. Bauer?”
“Exactly,” she said, smiling. “The man who works at her store with her. Was it him?”
“No,” JJ told her, shaking their head. “It’s where you took us to see the bamboo.”
Amanda looked at me. “Bamboo?”
“Yeah,” I told her. “At Sanctuary. Malachi Gant has that whole area in the back. Is he the plant guy?”
JJ nodded. “He had Sylvia put the besom on a paper towel.”
“Okay.”
“He told her he was allergic too, and then he took it away.”
I squinted at JJ. It never occurred to me to question their memory because JJ remembered everything. Sometimes too much.
“I’ll have to ask Mr. Gant about the besom, JJ,” Amanda said.
They nodded. “And if he still has it, he could bring it back.”
“Yes,” she granted, her gaze meeting mine.
“But we should make a new one now,” Toby insisted. “So the office stays protected.”
“I agree,” Amanda told him.
“I’ll go get the other stuff, okay?” he asked me.
“Yeah. Go get whatever you think is right.”
“I’ll help,” JJ said, scrambling after their brother.
Alone at the table, Amanda and I both took several sips of tea before she said, “Sylvia was not allergic to that besom.”
“I’m guessing you would have mentioned that to me so we could have made one that didn’t give her hay fever.”
She nodded.
“That’s weird, right?”
“Very.”
My eyes filled quickly.
“Xan?” Amanda asked, sounding worried. “What is it?”
“I like Mal. He’s a nice, kind man, and I consider him a friend.”
“I know. I feel the same.”
“But he took a protective piece out of your office, and that’s bad, but then he didn’t tell you, which makes it worse.”
“Yes, it does.”
We both sat there quietly, thinking, and then I made a besom and Amanda showed JJ how to weave a sweetgrass braid into a daisy crown. She had learned all these things living with me all those years ago.
When Lorne returned three hours later, we were all outside. JJ, wearing their crown, was foraging for pieces of antler on the other side of the stream. Toby was across the yard, sketching Argos, who was lying in the sun beside him. And Amanda and I shared a big blanket in the shade, sipping lemon and lavender iced tea while discussing Malachi Gant and Lorne’s theory.
“Catch me up,” Lorne said, lying down beside me, stretching out, looking the most relaxed I’d seen him in days. The old, faded jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers were so much better than the police uniform he’d been more or less living in.
“Why did you have to go in today?” Amanda asked him. “You’re practically working all weekend. Do you never get a day off?”
“Not when crazy shit is going down,” he apprised her.
“True.”
He glanced at me. “What’s wrong?”
Amanda answered him for me. “He’s just sad. We both are.”
“Why?”
“Because of Mal, of course. It’s very concerning that he took the besom.”
Instant scowl from him.
“What’s with that look?” I asked.
“Pretend I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh shit, that’s right. I’m sorry,” Amanda said, smiling sheepishly. “I was thinking you knew about this already.”
“I know nothing.”
“Okay, so, here’s what happened.” She proceeded to catch him up.
After a few minutes, he said, “Lemme see if I have this right. Mal took a talisman from your office, and now the two of you are convinced he’s possessed, or at least in league with the demon. Do I have that right?”
We both nodded.
“Explain.”
“When you remove wards,” Amanda began, “you leave spaces in your protection. So, for example, even though in your brother’s house, your old house, the bells Cass chose from the ones Xan made are doing ninety-five percent of the work to keep the ick out, the witch’s ladder Cass made with Xan is doing the remaining five percent.”
“Are you serious?”
She turned to look at me.
“Of course she’s serious,” I told him. “And at her office, those bells are working really hard, and so the demon was bothered by the wards but unable to remove them.”
“But he got rid of the besom as quickly as he could,” she added.
Lorne turned to me. “I know we’re all emotionally and mentally wiped out, but I think we should talk with Mal before we convict him.”
“Of course.” I nodded, brushing away the tears I’d been weeping since we heard what he’d done.
“This could all be a misunderstanding,” Lorne offered, hand on my cheek, brushing his thumb under my eye. “Or, of all places, the demon is hanging out at Sanctuary with Mal.”
“Okay, Xan told me you two were trying to figure out where the demon could be, but would a lovely place like Sanctuary even be possible?” Amanda asked.