town.
“Town or country?” Chance asked after we’d confirmed Regis’s departure.
I sighed. “Hell, I don’t know.”
“I think it’d be harder for someone to sneak up on us out at the farmhouse, and it’s easier to ward a house than an apartment inside an office building.”
“You don’t want to stay in town,” I guessed.
“I’m not crazy about shoe box flats, and I don’t want people to be able to mark our movements so easily.”
“The house it is,” I said. “Though I’m none too excited about the prospect of a ghost and the proximity of those woods.”
Chance grinned. “We’re safe unless Birnam Woods marches on Dunsinane?”
“Funny,” I grumbled. “The yard will be better for Butch, anyway.”
By the time Regis returned, we were sitting quietly, hands folded. The rich, slightly bitter scent of coffee wafted from his Styrofoam cup as he rounded his desk. He set it down on the edge and regarded us expectantly. “Did y’all decide?”
“The house,” Chance told him. “But Corine is a little nervous about the prospect of staying where someone passed away. I’m afraid I can’t offer more than five fifty. If you can’t help us, I’m sure there’s another little town down the road.”
Even when he had plenty of money, Chance was always a businessman. I could hear him saying it now:
“Now, let me run the numbers again, sir. Don’t be hasty.”
I stifled a smile as Chance offered his impassive look. “If you think it would help.”
“Six hundred,” Regis finally said, sweating. “Final offer. I pay the utilities on the house, you see. The power is still on, though I had the phone cut off. And if you’re out there, using up the juice, I just can’t afford to—”
“That’ll be fine,” I cut in. I didn’t want to stroke the man out.
“The cook stove is gas,” he went on, “but there’s a propane tank out back. You should be fine for a month. I’ll need one hundred down as a damage deposit. If you want to write me a check, I won’t cash it. I’ll just hold it until the month’s out.”
Regis seemed to think, probably based on my messy, disheveled appearance, that we were strapped for cash. Well, I defied
“Cash is fine,” Chance said. He drew out his expensive leather wallet and counted seven bills. “Here’s the deposit and one month’s rent.”
I could see Regis revising his initial impression of us, but Chance didn’t have much ready cash left, between the bed-and-breakfast, and these alternate lodgings. I didn’t know what we were going to do with the stinky powder we’d found there, or what had become of Booke. When I checked my cell phone, I was a little worried we hadn’t heard from him yet, considering he’d intended to scout the place.
“Is there an ATM in town?” I asked.
The real estate agent looked blank for a long moment. “You mean a money machine? I don’t think so. People just stop by the bank during business hours or write a check. Some folks get a check-cashing card from the supermarket, I guess, if their paychecks aren’t too big.”
He had to be shitting us. I felt like we’d slipped through a gap in time, or taken a wrong turn to wind up in May-berry.
“Okay,” I said, feeling dazed. “Thanks.”
“We’ll have to make this last,” Chance murmured, tapping his wallet.
Damn, that absolutely meant grocery shopping . . . and cooking. I sighed. Kilmer didn’t seem to have a limit in the ways it would torture me.
It was almost, almost enough to make me turn tail and run.
Almost.
I accepted the key while Chance signed some paperwork for Mr. Regis. He drew us a map on a yellow legal pad, giving good directions on how to reach the place. “You’ll pass Ma’s Kitchen on the way out of town. That’s how you know you’re on the right track.” Then he began outlining all the twists and turns. It sounded like the house was really in the middle of nowhere, like a witch’s cottage in a fairy tale. He hadn’t been kidding when he said “deeply wooded and private.”
“Shall we?” Chance asked.
“I guess.” We thanked Mr. Regis and stepped out into a heavy, purple twilight. The horizon seemed oddly dark and devoid of color, with none of the usual fiery streaks. I shivered as I got into the Mustang. “Let’s see if Ma does takeout. We’ll need something to eat while we go over that file.”
Butch popped his head out of my bag—I needed to reward him for sleeping through the meeting with Regis —and yapped once in agreement. He could always eat.
Alone in the Woods
There were no lights for miles. Everywhere I looked, there were only the trees and the dark. In daytime I could tell you the names of them and what medicinal plants grew in their shadows. My mother meant me to be a witch when I grew up, and she had been preparing me for it. I still had my grimoires back in Mexico, but I had no magick.
The house we’d rented sent a cold chill through me. Most likely, it was the light slanting through the trees that gave the place such a desolate, devilish look. It could also be the way the rough gravel drive snaked through the woods, rounding a corner and opening into a cleared field, like a witch’s cottage from children’s stories.
This house was bigger than a cottage, of course, and more run-down than it had been in the photo. The roof over the porch sagged a little, but it appeared structurally sound. I hefted my purse as I got out of the car. Call me a coward, but I immediately set Butch down and let him go sniffing around the exterior. I trusted him to find anything we should know about, like, say, a reanimated corpse crawling around the perimeter.
He trotted around the side of the house and out of sight. I clutched the paper bag full of takeout from Ma’s Kitchen, waiting for the dog to reappear on the other side. When Chance touched my shoulder, I almost threw our dinner at him.
“Whoa,” he said softly. “We’re okay, Corine. We can handle this. I admit, the place is a little creepy, but we’ve been in worse spots.”
I didn’t know whether he meant this house in particular or Kilmer in general, but I was worried about our stupid dog. To my vast relief, Butch came trotting around the other side with nothing to report. He climbed the stairs and sat waiting beside the front door.
Chance smiled. “Our security expert has approved the place, it seems. Let’s go see what seven hundred dollars bought us.”
I gave him the keys, and he led the way, carrying both his duffel and my backpack. Trailing behind, I cast a nervous glance over my shoulder as I went into the house. We stood inside a sitting room, furnished only in the most basic sense. All the pictures had been stripped from the walls, but they’d left a flowered sofa and matching settee. The place smelled musty and damp with a hint of old-lady lavender. Butch poked his head beneath a chair and sneezed.
“Is there a lamp or an overhead light anywhere?” As I said it, a dim circle of gold dispelled some of the shadows. Chance had found a side table with an old-fashioned glass lamp. It must not have been worth anything, or it would’ve been removed along with the paintings. A fine layer of dust covered everything, so it had been a while since anyone cleaned.
“It has a hairline crack,” he told me over his shoulder.
It was scary how well he knew me.
Learning the layout didn’t take long. The downstairs was arranged in a semicircle, connecting parlor to dining room to kitchen. A hallway branched from the parlor, forming the other side of the circle, leading to the bedrooms.
