Spectral Evidence by Gemma Files

Author:Gemma Files [Files, Gemma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Trepidatio Publishing, Gemma Files, JournalStone, collection, female author, horror, Spectral Evidence
Publisher: JournalStone
Published: 2018-02-16T20:39:13+00:00

—

Standing on the flats where that swamp used to be, my prison shoes crammed down inside poor Tad the driver’s boots like insoles and their tight-laced tops rubbing a blister on either ankle, I narrowed my eyes and swore outright: “Well, I’ll be God-damned for sure if I ain’t already, which I damn well know I am.”

“That’s what I’d heard, all right, if you’re who I think,” a voice replied. “So...are you?”

I turned, and there was a girl standing under a lightning-struck locust tree with her puffy jacket’s hood up and hands dug deep in both pockets. From what-all I could glimpse of her she struck me as blonde, or maybe just mouse with possibilities; her eyes were the same sort of blue as her thousand-times-washed men’s jeans, worn high and belted tight. Except that they were hard instead of soft, as imperturbable as cross-cut stone.

I nodded. “And who’d you be?” I asked.

“Doll Tearsheet.”

“A good old name. Would that be of the Step-Stair Tearsheets?”

“The same, though we ain’t been out that way since six-six or six-eight, to hear my Grandmomma tell it. I was looking to find my brother in there—Harlan Tearsheet.”

“When’d he pass?”

“Now, that I don’t know. But I dreamed of water three nights runnin’, dark and mucky and still, with poison oak roots all through it. So I figured this might be where he was laid, probably staked down with ash.” She looked down. “He was a cunning man, or tried to be.”

“You don’t say.” I shook my head. “No man born who likes it when there’s something they don’t get to touch, is there? But those of Adam just ain’t fit for what we do.”

“I know it. He didn’t.”

“You got the Mark on you yet, Doll?”

“No ma’am, and I don’t look to have one, either. I don’t need that sort of trouble.”

“Sound right knowledgeable, though, for someone ain’t interested.”

“I got some grammarye from an aunt of mine had Hoppard blood. ‘Nough to know not to mess with it, anyhow.”

“For fear of the Fire?”

“Naw, not as such. Just seems to take a toll, is all.”

“It does that,” I agreed. “Still, this here’s a hard world for them got given a gift, and don’t use it.”

“True, but this here’s a hard world regardless, ain’t it?” She gave me a sly look, from under pale lashes. “Does seem like we’re bound in the same direction, though.”

“Does, at that. Care to travel in company awhile, Miss Doll?”

“If you do, sure.”

“Well, then.”

We walked a while in silence; I thought hard on what to do next, and she let me.

“To move a whole tract of land like that...” I said, trying the idea of it out aloud. “Take a full coven, to start with, and one of the Fallen to help. But that leaves traces, and I don’t see none.” I frowned, reminding myself how not everyone was quick as my Momma’d been to lie down wide-legged for anything had horns; some young witches, in particular, found the thought of it demeaning. “So—witchery

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