Stepping closer, I scanned my palm over the stones myself. “Here. This area feels different.”
“Yes, exactly. That is the spell,” she said.
“When Luke used one of the passages when we first got here, he pressed his hand against the stone and had to bleed a little to get it to open,” I said, unsure if I wanted to be punctured in such a dirty place.
“Yes, that is how the vampires must access the passages,” Fia said. “Whatever magic they contain for their long lives, it exists in their blood. You and I, however, can conjure at will.”
She explained the spell to me and gave me the space to try and open the secret door. It took me a few minutes, but eventually, the stone gave way, and we stepped through the opening into a darkened room.
Fiametta put her finger to her lips. “There is probably a security guard who patrols the hallway outside,” she whispered. “Be sure you don’t make any noise.”
“Ok,” I mouthed back. “Thank you.”
She winked and responded with a quiet, “Good luck.”
As she left through the same passageway, the wall closed behind Fia with a little kerchunk, and I held my breath, waiting to see if somebody on the outside had heard it.
If Fiametta hadn’t told me about the discovery of the room after I’d been there, I would have expected to find papers strewn about and anything not tied down to be scattered all over the place. But someone had tidied the place again and put everything back where it belonged. Risking a little of my magic, I lit several of the candles still standing to give me a little light to see by.
The token around my neck pulsed, and Granny Jo appeared next to me. “Ruby Mae Jewell,” she said at full voice.
I shushed her, and she flinched a little before wagging her finger at me. “Ruby Mae Jewell,” she started again much quieter. “Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’ve been up to. If I had been in your fiancé’s position, findin’ out you were showing off just to spite that hateful woman, I would have tanned your hide.”
Not wanting to spend even a second thinking about if Granny Jo and Luke switched places, I attempted to get her to focus. “We don’t have much time here, and after our last visit, I don’t even know where to start.”
“Why are you so obsessed with solving something that happened ages ago? Why can’t you let the past lie like sleeping dogs?” she asked in exasperation.
I cocked my head to the side and stared back. “Really? Is that what you would do? Or is your last name not spelled J-E-W-E-L—”
“Oh, hush,” Granny Jo cut me off. “I can sense the sister’s restless spirit is still hangin’ about, and yes, I agree we should help. I just don’t want you to get into any more trouble. But that might be like wishing for the sun not to rise every mornin’.”
I ignored her cranky retort and filled her in on everything I’d found out so far, especially from the letters that Fiametta shared with me.
“If we can find the other half of that correspondence, I think it might have the name written down of a person who directly objected to her marriage to Paolo,” I said, walking over to the desk.
“You clearly don’t have any kids of your own. The last place a girl like that would put some secret letters is somewhere in the desk.” Granny Jo hovered as she turned about the room. “She has a special place she kept things that she didn’t want found.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, still wanting to dig through everything in or on the desk.
Granny snorted. “What, did you think I was born this old? I had my own stuff I wanted to keep to myself. Plus, I raised my own kids.”
“And me,” I admitted, hoping she never found the loose baseboard in my room at the big house. “Okay, so if she did have a hidey hole, how would we find it?”
As if my left hand didn’t belong to me, it shot straight up in the air with such strength that it pulled me onto my tippy toes.
“Why are you raising your arm up like that?” Granny Jo asked.
“Uh, I’m not.” With all my strength, I tried to lower my hand.
Instead, it changed positions and pointed forward, twisting to the right. I had to move with it to keep my shoulder from popping out of socket.
“I feel like one of those spinners on the board games we used to play. Like someone’s flicked my arm and I’m moving around in circles,” I said, a little perturbed to not be able to control my own body.
A strange force stopped spinning me and tugged me forward. I stumbled to keep upright and allowed whatever compelled me to guide me forward. My left wrist twisted up, and my palm rested in the middle of a painting.
“I think this is the spot,” I said, the ring on my finger still tingling but control of my hand returning to me.
Grabbing ahold of both sides of the painting, I lifted it off of the wall. With care, I set it down on the floor and leaned it against the wall. I took a nearby candle and ignored the drip of hot wax on my skin as I inspected the stone surface.
One of the stones appeared different than the others, and I stepped a little closer to look at it. There was nothing special about the rock, but the cement sealant had been chipped away.
“I wonder,” I mused, gripping the stone by its side and pulling on it.
It gave way with minimal effort, but I lost my hold on it, and it clattered to the floor and skittered somewhere behind me.
“What’s inside?” Granny Jo asked, hovering closer to me.
If I tipped the candle to be able to see, I’d drip wax everywhere and leave evidence of my
