Under His Spell by MINK

Author:MINK [MINK]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MINK
Published: 2020-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

11

Sienna

After laying out several of the books, I take a deep breath and begin. “This book is Sarah’s diary. She wasn’t particularly good at keeping up with it.”

I hold up a finger. “Or so I thought.”

Royce looks at me with a hunger I’ve just experienced, and it sends a thrill through me. Plan first, I remind myself.

“All right.” He shrugs and peers at the handwriting in the brittle pages. “I’ve skimmed through a few of these looking for clues about what really happened, but I didn’t find a thing. Mostly reports Sarah made on the mines or the food supplies. Nothing about her husband or Carlan.”

“That’s because the diary isn’t really a diary. It’s a cipher.” I pull out the piece of paper I’ve been scribbling on for hours. “The beginning letter of each entry corresponds with the words in this book.” I point to what seemed like a handwritten book of total nonsense.

He runs a hand through his dark hair. “How’d you figure all this out?”

“A feeling.” I can’t explain it much more than that. “I don’t know. I was drawn to these books, and then I saw this.” I flip to the front of each leather-bound tome and point to the small pentagram insignia burned in each of their corners.

He leans closer. “I’ve never even noticed that.”

“They just … caught my eye somehow. So I messed around with the words and then realized the diary was a cipher that unlocked this book.”

“Okay, so what’s in there?”

The hallway floor creaks, and I look up as Royce tenses.

Then Henry walks in with some sandwiches on paper plates. “Fried bologna with a pickle. Nothing better.” He hands one to me and another to Royce. “He worked up a sweat in the basement, and it looks like you’re doing the same thing in here.” He squints at the handwriting on my scribbled cipher. “What’s all that?”

“She’s discovered that Sarah had some sort of hidden code.”

Henry’s salt and pepper brows bounce. “Really?” He whistles and sits on an ancient sofa, sending up a small plume of dust. “First bricks that won’t break and now secret codes that need cracking. Will wonders never cease?”

I take a bite of my sandwich. Not bad. “Okay, so here’s what I figured out. These three books bear the symbol. This one”—I point to one with a cracked leather cover—"is the most worn, so I started with it. And get this.” I lift a sheaf of papers. “It’s a spell book.”

“What?” Royce takes the first page from me. “Holy shit. This is a—“

“Prayer to Hecate. There’s more. So much more. Turns out Sarah was a witch, but she wasn’t the only one.” I flip to the middle of the book where notes are scribbled in the margin. “Look what this says.” I rifle through my papers until I find the right one. “The notes were in code, too. She was hiding her spells, but not from her husband.”

“Carlan, the warlock bastard, has come again demanding I forsake my mortal marriage and become his eternal bride.

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