“I wish I had known her better.” I bite my lip, debating on whether it’s better to not come off as awkward just yet or take a chance at getting some more answers. “Actually, I’ve been trying to understand this memory that came back to me. I’m assuming you heard about the memory spell.”
“I have.” She shakes her head. “Estelle…she had her own ways of doing things.”
“It seems so. But, um, I remember being at her house when I was a kid and she had a friend come over. A man with dark hair and his familiar took the form of what I thought was a wolf at the time. I now know it was probably a husky or malamute. Do you happen to know who that could be?”
Margret’s face grows serious. “Your aunt was a friend and I miss her dearly, and I never wish to speak ill of the dead.”
My stomach twists and I inhale, awaiting her to keep going.
“I do know who you speak of, but I will not speak his name. He not only brought out Estelle’s dark side, but encouraged it.”
ChapterTwenty
Encouraged it.
What the hell does that mean? I could say Rene is a bad influence because she always convinces me to order an extra drink when we go out together. I don’t make the best choices when I drink—who does?—but to say someone encouraged a dark side.
“I don’t even know,” I whisper to Hunter. Two summer school students came into the library and Margret got busy helping them, which allowed me to slip away. As much as I want to talk more about Aunt Estelle, I’m here on a mission and I need to stick to it.
The tags on Hunter’s collar jingle as he trots down the hall next to me. My mind is whirling with what a witch’s dark side could entail. Maybe Aunt Estelle used her powers to cheat her way to winning the lottery.
Or it could be something much more sinister.
“Almost there,” I say out loud, looking at photos of graduating classes on the wall. Marissa and Allison were both twenty-three when they were murdered in 1988. Assuming they graduated when they were eighteen, that would put them around 1983, give or take a year. I stop when I get to the graduating class of 1985, looking through each and every name. This was a big year for Grim Gate Academy, and thankfully the names are all listed in alphabetical order.
I check the portraits all the way down to 1980, and they’re not listed on any of them. I keep checking, going back to when they could have first attended the academy just to be sure.
“Well, they weren’t members of the coven,” I tell Hunter. “I almost feel disappointed. But not being in the coven is a good thing? I think?” I shake my head. It doesn’t matter, really. The groundskeeper, Stuart, killed them because he believed they were witches.
Whether they were actual spell casting witches or just tree-hugging Wiccans, they were murdered in a violent hate crime.
“Want to see if Ruby is in her office?” I ask Hunter since we’re nearby. We go up a set of stairs, down a hall, and then up another curved staircase. If it wasn’t for Hunter, I would have gotten lost in here when I started coming more often on my own.
Ruby isn’t in her office, but Devon is in his. He also teaches a few summer school classes as well as helps manage the library since the academy librarian is partly retired. I knock on the door frame before entering.
“How can I—oh, hey, Anora.” Devon leans back in his chair and smiles.
“I’m not interrupting you, am I?” Hunter sits at my side and I reach down, running my hand over his head.
“No. I’ve been grading papers all morning and am going cross-eyed. I’m due for a break. How have you been?”
“Good. Busy trying to solve a cold case from the 1980s.”
“You know, I can never tell if you’re joking or not.”
I laugh and push my hair back over my shoulders. “I’m not. My friend’s aunt bought that big old house in Paradise Valley where two girls were murdered in 1988. He asked me to check it out and see if it’s haunted and boy, is it! Anyway, I picked up on some really negative energy so we did kind of a stake out last night and I was able to taunt said dark energy into coming out of the woodwork. Those girls were killed by the groundskeeper who buried his trophies in a coffee can on the property and died before he could move it. Now I have to figure out how to tell the police without coming off as crazy.”
Devon lowers the pen in his hand, eyeing me with a mixture of amusement and concern. “You’re sure you’re not joking?”
“Hah. I almost wish I was. I guess that house has been rumored of being haunted, but, uh, the right person never investigated.”
“Those murders are still brought up today. Two young women brutally killed and their killer never caught…so tragic. It caused a debate inside the coven if we should let our clairvoyants help. Ultimately, the Grand Coven wouldn’t allow it. We don’t get involved in non-business that would risk exposing us. The subject came up again when vampires came out. Some thought nons would be more open to accepting us without wanting to burn us at the stake.”
“Oh, wow.” I lean against the doorframe. “That’s really shitty.”
“Yeah. Most of the coven will agree with you. Especially since cops work with psychics and it would be easy to pose as one and not go in there summoning energy balls or talking to your familiar, ya know?”
“Yeah,” I say as an idea starts to form in my head.