Two girls. Two secrets.
Only one can survive.
Years before Nelle Wychthorn plans her escape, Tabitha Catt may unearth something in a Horned God's lair that is the key to freedom.
Desperate to save her beloved aunt from a dark curse, Tabitha is out t...
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A cold feeling twisted my insides. I needed to Aunt Ellena to the cave fast. Yet I couldn't help the desperate need to say, "My father...you said that he landscaped gardens." Landscape designer—quite a fancy title for a gardener. I liked it, even if it wasn't true. "But he was a footsoldier, an enforcer, for House Malan."
My aunt blinked and suddenly sucked in a deep breath that expanded her chest. Her features became more animated as her gaze sharpened and her pupils expanded. "Yes, he was," she said carefully, more mentally present, which eased my fears. "But he wanted to try something different. Your mother told me that he had a green thumb and whenever he had spare time he spent it out in his own special plot of land in the Malans' garden."
I wiggled my fingers, grinning. Exactly what I loved to do too. Excitement bubbled beneath my skin. It thrilled me that I had some small part of me in common with my father.
The cotton fabric of my aunt's sweatpants wisped together as she trudged up the incline. I hurried to catch up, shining light ahead. An icy shiver washed down my back and raised the hairs on my arms, as we skirted around an old gnarled oak with jutting roots. It seemed as if sinister faces were carved within the furrowed bark and they leered at us, staring with dark intent, as we passed by.
My aunt spoke again. "You know how it is in our world. It's hard to shift what you're naturally good at, into what you love to do, what you have a passion for." She reached out to pluck a small serrated leaf from a tree and rubbed her thumb over its rough surface. Her voice was much quieter and a touch despondent when she said, "He loved gardening. Turning his hands to the earth to grow and nurture plants."
Of all the photographs I had of my mother, Asta, she barely smiled in any of them. "My mother's heart must have broken after he died."
"It shattered..." she breathed.
She blinked rapidly as if trying not to cry. She squeezed my hand, smiling warmly with pride as she stopped walking to face me. "But she had you, and you were the brightest light in her world. She loved you so much, so very much, Tabitha." She tucked a loose tendril of hair that had come free from my ponytail behind my ear. "She took great care of you. Sang to you. And as a babe, she'd held you in her arms all night long and told you the stories of our Gods. Skalki was her favorite. She'd rock you to sleep while telling the tale of how the goddess had braved Nine Hells for her mortal lover. When you grew a little older she took you on grand adventures, and at night, sat you on her lap and read to you until you fell asleep."
I didn't remember those things but it felt nice and comforted my soul that my mother had been devoted to me. And then my smile slipped from my mouth as I remember that one night, when I was seven years old, everything changed and I lost my mother and gained my aunt.
"What happened to her? What were we doing out here in the Hemmlok Forest?"
