Cursed

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“Why not? You had no problem leaving me before!” she lashed out.

“I did it for you,” her mama’s ghost insisted. “To keep you safe.”

“You left a fifteen-year-old to fend for herself. How was that keeping me safe?” She had been lucky to survive on her own, driving without a license, continuing the scams so that she could put gas in the truck Mama had left her. So she could eat...

She had done it just so she could survive. But she felt sick with guilt and self-loathing as she remembered turning those cards and telling so many lies to the people who’d paid her to tell their real futures.

But that wasn’t all she’d done...

There had been the fake séances her mother had taught her to run. The way of projecting her voice so the ghost said what the person wanted to hear. She hadn’t charged as much as her mother had to summon the people’s lost loved ones, but she shouldn’t have charged at all for a lie.

Unlike her mother, most people passed from one world to the next without ever coming back. So no matter how much she had actually tried, she hadn’t often been able to summon the real spirit for her mark. And then the times she had, the real spirit hadn’t always said what they had wanted to hear. So she’d lied.

And people had paid more for her lies, tipping her generously as they’d cried with relief.

“My leaving you was my way of keeping you safe.” Mama’s reply was one that Maria had heard before. “I knew I was in danger.”

Even though it hadn’t happened until five years after she had abandoned Maria, Mama’s witch-hunter had eventually caught her. He had burned her alive. And that was the first time her ghost had appeared to Maria, warning her to run for her life—that he was coming for her, too.

“I thought that no one knew about you,” Mama said. “So I thought that if I left you alone, I could keep you safe...from my demons.”

Maria closed her eyes, trying to shut out the ghostly image.

But Mama’s voice wrapped around her, filling her head as she continued, “But you always had your own demons, hovering like that dark aura around you, putting you and anyone who would ever get close to you in danger. You were always...”

“Cursed,” Maria said, bitterness filling her with the warning her mother had given her. Too many times. A child shouldn’t have to grow up knowing that she would never know true happiness, that she would always be hunted.

“I should have left you sooner,” Mama said, “like I did the others.” The others were the sisters Maria had never known. “Or I should have given you to your father.”

The father Maria hadn’t even known about until she’d read about him in the letter her mother had left her, along with the locket. She was supposed to go to him if she needed anything. She had needed her mother—not some stranger she’d never met.

“But he wasn’t equipped to deal with you,” Mama continued, “because I saw this in your future.”

In the same cards Maria kept turning over for the others, Mama had seen her youngest daughter’s future, too. Had seen all the tragedy and loss...

“So I had to teach you how to run,” Mama explained. “How to stay ahead of the danger that surrounds you, that goes after anyone who ever gets close to you...”

Was that why Mama hadn’t wanted Maria to have anything to do with her sisters? To keep them safe? Maria believed that Mama had always loved them more than she had the child she had actually kept.

Hurt, because Mama always hurt her, Maria opened her eyes and lashed out. “Were you the right one to teach me...when you weren’t able to run fast enough yourself?”

“I always knew he would catch me one day,” Mama said. “But the witch-hunter didn’t know about you. No one did.”

Not her mama’s killer, and not even her sisters.

She turned away from the door and gestured at the pictures spread across the table over which FBI special agent Seth Hughes had interrogated her. “Your killer couldn’t have done that. He’s dead. My sisters worked together to end his reign of terror. They took care of him.”

And he would never hurt anyone again.

Elena, Ariel and Irina hadn’t known about her, but Maria had always known about them. Mama had talked about them incessantly—about how beautiful, how smart, how sweet they were. And Maria had never felt as beautiful, as smart or as sweet. She had never felt as if she’d been worthy enough to replace everything that Mama had lost, everything that the woman had missed so much that there had been a hole in her heart. A hole that Maria had never been quite enough to fill.

“But the witch-hunter had a son.” Maria remembered what she had learned from all the media coverage of the ordeal her family had barely survived eight years ago. “Could he be carrying on the legacy?” While Maria’s family legacy was witchcraft, his was witch-hunting.

“He may not even know about it,” Mama replied. “Donovan Roarke hadn’t learned about the legacy until long after he lost contact with his son, when he came across the journal of his long-dead ancestor Eli McGregor, who’d begun the witch hunt centuries ago.”

Eli McGregor had chased the first Elena for years. Thanks to his son, Thomas, he had never found her. But eventually Eli’s descendants had found hers and killed so very many of them...

“If it’s not Donovan Roarke’s son, then who’s after me, Mama?” Who hated her so much that he killed anyone who got close to her?

Sadness filled the hollow eyes of her mother’s ghost. “I don’t know, child.”

“Then why are you here?” Maria asked. “I told you to stay away from me. I don’t need you.” Just as Mama hadn’t needed her, hadn’t loved her—not the way she had loved her three older children. “Go away! And stay away from me!”

Mama’s arms reached out, as if she wanted to hold Maria. But her image faded...even as the mist thickened and took another shape: the tall thin figure of Raven.

“She led me here,” the young woman explained. “When I first saw her ghost, I thought she was you. I thought he killed you, too. You look so much alike. She’s your mother?”

“She’s nothing to me,” Maria replied. “She wasn’t there for me when I needed her, like I wasn’t there for you.” Tears stung her eyes and filled her throat. “I didn’t protect you like I promised. I am so sorry...”

Raven’s ghost stepped closer, the energy of her spirit warming Maria. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“No.” Maria reached out, trying to envelop the girl, but her hands and arms passed through the mist. “It’s my fault. I never should have hired you. I never should have let you get close to me. Everyone who does winds up dead. It’s all my fault.”

“It’s not you,” the girl said, her eyes shimmering with tears she would never be able to shed now. “You’re not the killer. I’m sorry that I thought you were. If I hadn’t run from you...”

“You would probably still be dead,” Maria said as regret filled her. “We would probably both be dead because we would’ve been together when he came to the shop. Did you see him?”

Raven’s image wavered as she shook her head. “I never saw him at the Magik Shoppe. He came up behind me and started strangling me. Then I thought it might have been you. But at the hospital I saw him.”

Maria gasped as realization struck her. “He was at the hospital?” Why would he have gone there...unless to finish what he’d started?

“He killed me there,” Raven explained. “He drowned me...”

Maria shuddered in horror. She could have asked how. But she had a more important question. “Who is he? Is it Agent Hughes?”

Raven’s ghostly brow furrowed. “I don’t know who he is. His face was in the shadows, but I could see the outline of his jaw and his hair. And his voice...” The ghostly image flickered, as if she was trembling with terror. “Something about him was familiar...”

So it might have been the FBI agent...

Maria wanted to ask more questions about the killer, but her heart ached over the senseless loss of her young friend. And guilt overwhelmed her. “It should have been me. I’m the one he’s after. I just wish I knew why...”

Was it as simple as Mama had always said? Because she was cursed?

“Because he’s a witch-hunter,” Raven replied. “That’s what he calls himself.”

“Did you recognize his voice?”

“No, it was just this weird whisper. He said that he thought I was a witch.” The ghost’s lips curved into a faint smile of satisfaction.

That was all she had ever wanted—to be a witch like the older sister she had told Maria about—the older sister she had felt she would never be as smart or as beautiful as. Her sister had refused to teach Raven the craft. Maria should have refused, too, but she had identified too much with the girl.

“You are a real witch, Maria,” Raven continued. “Your knowledge and powers are legendary. I heard about you before I ever met you. That’s why I came up here. It’s why I wanted to learn from you.”

Maria would never forgive herself for hiring the girl. Even though it had been a year since a murder, she should have known the hunter was still out there, still watching her.

She shivered as the girl’s image grew fainter. Maria reached for her again, trying to hold her in the room. “Don’t leave...”

Her voice a mere whisper, her image just a wisp, Raven warned her, “You’re in the most danger from him now. He’s going to try to kill you.”

“Don’t leave me!” she begged. She had to apologize more, had to try to make amends, to assuage the guilt that cramped her stomach in knots. “Come back!” she cried.

Keys rattled in the lock, startling her into shocked silence. She should have been relieved that the door was opening, but terror gripped her.

Even without Raven’s warning, she’d known he would be coming for her. Soon.

The door opened, and a deep voice asked, “Who are you talking to?”

“You’re back,” she said, turning to where Agent Hughes filled the doorway; he was so tall, his shoulders so broad. His square jaw was clenched, his handsome face grim. Was his the face Raven had seen in the shadows of her hospital room?

“You weren’t begging me to come back,” he surmised. “The deputy said you were in here yelling.”

“Because I wanted to get out,” she said, rubbing her hands over her arms. Her sweater had dried from the rain earlier in the evening. But she was still so cold—even her blood chilled and pumped slowly and heavily through her veins. And that pressure was back in her chest, squeezing her lungs and heart with panic. “I need to get out of here.”

“The deputy was watching you through the mirror and listening through the intercom,” Agent Hughes divulged. “He said you were telling someone else to get out, that you were talking to someone in here.”

She lifted her hands and gestured around the tiny room. “Do you see anyone else in here?”

“I don’t see anyone,” he said, glancing around the small space. “But do you?”

She drew in a ragged breath. Even without the DNA, he already knew who and what she was. She had already admitted to trying to heal Raven, so she might as well admit to the rest of her abilities. “Raven’s ghost. She’s dead.”

That muscle twitched along his jaw. “How could you know that?” His gray-blue eyes narrowed with suspicion. He obviously had some ideas...

Some ideas that cast his suspicion on her again...

“I just told you that I saw her ghost.” Hers wasn’t the only ghost she had seen, but she wasn’t about to tell him about Mama. That brought out even more pain and vulnerability than seeing Raven’s ghost had.

“She was here,” Maria replied honestly even though he would probably think she was lying. Or trying to con him. “Her ghost was here...until you came in.”

Was he the reason that Raven had slipped away so quickly? Because she didn’t want to see her killer again?

“Why was she here?” he asked, speaking slowly and softly as if Maria were a young child...or mentally unstable, which was probably what that poor deputy thought of her, too.

“She came here to warn me. I’m in danger, too. That’s what all this is about,” she said, gesturing at those photos he’d left on the table.

He cocked his head as he continued to scrutinize her through narrowed eyes. He was probably trying to determine if she’d lost her mind. “What is all this?”

“All these murders,” she said impatiently. Why wasn’t he following her? “This is about me. Someone’s trying to kill me.” Because she was the real witch.

Images flashed through her head of the murders of everyone who’d gotten close to her. But in her mind she was now the victim. It was her head being held underwater, her neck the noose wound tightly around, her body the brick-laden board crushed...her skin the flames burned.

Not only could she see a vision of what would happen to someone, she experienced every feeling that person did when it happened. Every moment of terror. Every stab of pain. When they died, it was as if she died, too.