Cursed. Lisa Childs

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      “She does,” a raspy male voice said as Ty McIntyre opened his front door to his sisters-in-law. He was a muscular man with dark hair, dark blue eyes and a jagged scar running through one eyebrow.

      “Maria is not dead,” Ty said as he gestured them inside the two-story foyer of his grand house. “She knows what the two of you are thinking, though. She hears you.”

      Ariel’s face heated, and Elena’s flushed bright red in the glow of the chandelier hanging over their heads. “Of course...” Irina could hear the thoughts of others—especially those with whom she was connected. “We can’t block her like she can...”

      “Maria isn’t blocking her right now,” he said, and a muscle twitched along his clenched jaw.

      “But you wish she was,” Elena said as she reached out and squeezed his arm, offering support and comfort.

      “Maria can’t block her when she’s really upset,” he said. “When she’s really scared. Her emotions are so strong that Irina feels them, too.”

      Ariel’s heart rate quickened. “Maria is upset and scared?”

      Maybe that was why Mama had come back to her—to get her other children to help her youngest. While Ariel had always been able to see ghosts, she couldn’t always hear them. She had struggled the most with her mother’s ghost—probably because of all the emotions her mother’s appearance always summoned in Ariel. The pain and regret and resentment.

      Ty grimly nodded. “That’s why I asked you both to come over tonight,” he said. “Irina wants me to go find Maria.”

      “You’ve been looking for her for eight years,” Ariel said with frustration and resignation. “We all have.” And with the six of them working together, they had more resources than most—financially and supernaturally.

      “So you’re giving up?” It wasn’t Ty asking; it was Irina, standing precariously at the top of the stairwell—her legs wobbling.

      Ty vaulted up the steps and caught his wife up in his arms, lifting her as easily as if she were one of their seven-year-old twins. “You’re not supposed to be out of bed.”

      “I could hear you all,” she said. But probably only in her mind, since they hadn’t awakened either one of the twins.

      Ariel and Elena hurried up the stairs and followed Ty down the hall as he carried Irina back to their bedroom. “We didn’t mean to upset you,” Ariel said.

      “We came to help,” Elena said, her usually soft voice heavy with guilt and regret.

      Ty gently settled his wife back onto their king-size bed. Irina sat up against the pillows and stared at them all, her brown eyes even darker with hurt and accusation.

      She looked so much like the ghost of their mother—so much like the picture she’d shown them of their sister Maria. The three of them looked like gypsies—like witches—while Ariel and Elena didn’t look related to any of them or even to each other. But their abilities united them—the Durikken blood that flowed in all their veins. Or had once flowed in their mother’s...

      She hovered near Irina. Maybe she had come back because Irina needed her more than Maria did.

      “We’re going to find her,” Irina insisted.

      Or maybe Maria would find them—after she died.

      “Ty will bring her back.”

      It might not be possible. All they had found of their mother’s remains had been her ashes.

      “She’s not dead,” Irina said. “I can sense her feelings. I can hear her thoughts. She’s anxious and scared. And very much alive.”

      For now. But if she was anxious and scared, she must be in the danger that Elena kept envisioning. And none of those visions had ended well for Maria...

      * * *

      She was gone. Maria couldn’t even feel her anymore. There had been so much panic and fear and now...

      Nothing. Maybe she was just too far away. Maybe she wasn’t dead...

      The wipers swished the streaks of rain from Maria’s windshield, but still she could barely see—the headlamps of her old pickup truck were not strong enough to penetrate the thick black curtain of night in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tires bounced over the ruts of the drive leading to Maria’s little round barn at the end of the gravel lane. No cars were parked next to the shop.

      Maria should have known that the girl wouldn’t come back here. But she’d checked for Raven’s car at the motel in town where the girl had been staying since her move to Copper Creek. She had also checked at the house of the guy Raven sometimes dated. But his windows had been dark, the driveway empty of any cars—even his.

      Maybe they’d left together. Maybe he could protect the girl since she didn’t trust Maria to do that.

       I don’t blame her, though. I don’t trust myself.

      That was why she rarely stayed anywhere for long—why she kept running, as Mama had always been running. It was why Maria tried to not get too close to anyone or let anyone get too close to her...

      She never should have hired the young woman, and she definitely never should have agreed to teach Raven to read. Her fingertips tingling from the energy from the cards, Maria regretted ever touching them again. Why hadn’t she left them behind...as she had so much else in her life?

      Like Raven, she needed to run now. The girl had been right about the aura of darkness hovering over Maria. But besides the cards, Maria had left something else behind in the shop—something that she couldn’t leave without. Her fingers trembled as she lifted her hand to her bare neck. During her scuffle with Raven, the chain must have broken.

      Her lungs burned as she breathed hard, fighting the panic at the thought of what she’d lost. It had to be here. It couldn’t be gone...

      The hinges of the old pickup truck squeaked in protest as she flung open the driver’s door. She jerked the keys from the ignition and tried to determine by touch which one would open the door to the shop. But as she stumbled in the dark, across the gravel, she noticed the faint glow spilling out of the barn—through the open door. She had locked it behind herself when she’d left to search for Raven. And the only other person with a key to it was her employee.

      “Raven!” she called out as she hurried through the door. “I’m so glad you came back!”

      She reached in her pocket for the amulet of dried alyssum, rosemary and ivy, and anise and caraway seeds, eucalyptus and huckleberry leaves, and a thistle blossom. She’d cinched the sachet with a leather thong on which she’d fastened a jet stone, a piece of obsidian and a tiger’s eye. “I made something for you—something to keep you safe.”

      Then her eyes adjusted to the faint candlelight, which wavered back and forth—not because the flames flickered but because a shadow swung back and forth in front of them. Like the herbs, Raven hung from the rafters.

      Maria was too late. Again.

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