“How? Was that always here?” Cat says, not removing her eyes from the doorway.
I shake my head. “No, it was hidden behind wallpaper. Then, when I uncovered it, the door handle was missing. But…” My voice trails off as I try to figure out how to explain it just showed up.
“But?” Colt urges.
“But then one day, I was led to it.”
“What?” Cat mutters, her eyebrows flying up to her hairline.
“Come on, I’ll show you the rest and you can decide for yourself if I’m nuts or what,” I say, bending down and entering the stairwell.
Soft light filters through the little window, but we only have another hour or so before it really gets dark. Pulling out my cell phone for more light, I shudder away the draft and lead the way.
Their footsteps behind me echo down the staircase as we creak our way to the bottom. A gnawing sense of guilt washes over me because Wade would be so upset that he wasn’t the first I brought down here. He was with me when I found the doorway, after all.
“Whoa, this is creepy,” Cat whispers.
As we turn the corner at the bottom of the stairs, she pulls up short and gawks.
“Did you light those?” Colt asks, ever the pragmatic one. He raises his hand and points to the candles on the little table.
I shake my head.
His dark eyebrows tug in and he takes a step closer to inspect them. “This is an altar,” he says, running his fingertips over the pentacle.
“I figured,” I say.
Cat steps forward, picking up the frame. “Is this…this is the one you were talking about, right?”
I nod.
Cat passes it to Colton without saying a word. He holds onto it, his expression as stoic as a statue.
“You have to understand…” Colt says, setting the frame back down on the altar, “our families have been here a long time. All of us—the Gilberts and the Blackwoods, not to mention Dom’s family, we have a certain history.”
“I get that. But what about this?” I say, shaking my head and opening my arms wide to suggest the whole space.
Cat steps forward. “Who do you think left this behind? What are your guesses?”
I flit my gaze to her and shrug. “How should I know?”
“You should, because I’m pretty sure… Ugh, I’m pretty sure it was you,” she says, her eyes refusing to stray from mine.
I snort indignantly, “What?”
“This was your bedroom before, right?” she offers. “Upstairs?”
“Yeah, but so what?” I say, clearly not following her.
“And you also said you found the doorway—and that you’re seeing ghosts,” she whispers, looking at me from under her eyebrows.
It still sound so ludicrous when it’s said out loud.
“Yes, I’ve seen Abigail,” I nod, wishing she’d just spit out what she’s getting at. “She’s not super happy about being dead.”
Colt inhales sharply, and they share another significant glance.
“And…I take it you found out more in the library today,” she continues.
I roll my eyes, circling my right hand in the air to urge her to hurry up.
“What Cat’s trying to say is, we think it’s time to tell you more about the Blackwood curse,” Colton says, his eyes suddenly dark and serious. “At least, what we know of it. Maybe this time it will stick.”
My heart races. This isn’t the first time a family curse has been brought up. Walking away from them, I blow out a puff of air and run my hands over my face. I take a beat before twisting back around. I first look at Cat, then Colt. Splaying my arms out, I tilt my head to the side. “Okay, let’s do this. I’m ready.”
“Maybe we should go upstairs so you have a place to sit down?” Colton suggests.
I shake my head. “I’m a big girl. And I’ve waited long enough. So spit it out.”
“You know the Vodník? The last time this happened, a girl went missing,” Cat begins. She glances down, fiddling with the bracelet around her wrist. “A Blackwood girl.”
My heart races as my mind flips back to those pages at the library. This is it. This is exactly information I was looking for…
“You were the missing Blackwood girl, Autumn. You don’t have a long-lost sister or a twin, okay. We believe—well, we think the Vodník took you and somehow, you managed to get away,” Colt whispers.
“Okay, now I know you’ve lost your ever-loving minds,” I say, shaking my head and backing away. “If I were kidnapped and escaped, I’d remember. I’d remember something as monumental as that.”
“Your bloodline has a long history of pissing off the wrong supernatural beings—angels, demons, maybe even gods. But your ancestry is so powerful. Think about it. You see Abigail, you connect with spirits like they’re real people, maybe you even call them to you and don’t even realize… Whether you know it or not, you have the power of resurrection and spirit summoning. It’s your birthright. But you don’t know how to harness it because...” Cat’s voice trails off.
“Because your mom took you away from us,” Colton finishes for her.
I try to make sense of what they’re saying. Part of me wants to tell them they’re absolutely mad. The other part of me, a deeper, more innate part—is scared that they might be right.
“She what?” I finally whisper, narrowing my gaze.
“After your…accident, she wanted to protect you. Who knows what was really going on in her mind? No one really knows except maybe your dad. The point is, you should have had the tools you needed long before now so you could understand the powers you really possess. We were all in the process of training together before, but you don’t even remember,” Cat says, her voice trailing off. “You were learning how to summon spirits, while Colton and I were learning to manage our elemental magic. We’ve seen what you could do firsthand—”
Blinking wildly, I back away. “This doesn’t make
