Page 42 of The Bone Witch
“Yeah, her name is Tilda,” he confirms.
I nod and continue. “Well, Tilda was chewing on a venison rib bone when she watched the ashes being moved into the house and the berry circle drawn around them. You’ll find a different piece of her burnt collar on the ground around the grill.”
“Did she see who did it?” Rogan asks, grabbing my arms as though he’s ready to shake the answer out of me at the first sign of resistance.
“That’s the thing,” I hedge as anxious butterflies riot in my stomach. “It was your brother.”
15
“Tell me again what you saw,” Rogan grumbles, the engine of his SUV growling ferociously as he stomps on the accelerator.
I try not to roll my eyes at the request or the maniacal driving, but I lose the battle. “I saw your brother dump the ashes from the grill into his living room. I mean, I saw it through Tilda’s eyes, but you know what I mean.”
Rogan’s hands clench around the steering wheel, his knuckles going white, and I grab onto the armrest on the door when he takes a turn a little too fast. Good thing we left Hoot at the house earlier. That furball would be a windshield pancake otherwise.
“Then I saw Elon hooking a halter around Tilda and leading her out the front door. She stopped to drop some deuces on the lawn, and because your brother doesn’t pick up after his familiar, I saw in the bone matter she left behind, that he had on a big pack, the kind you use for camping. That’s all I got,” I repeat...for the third time.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” he whispers angrily for the thousandth time, and I swallow down an exasperated sigh that wants to punctuate my annoyance.
I should feel bad for Rogan. I know he’s going mad worrying about his brother and what happened to him, but I’m finding it hard to reach my soft empathetic side through all the hurt and bitter anger I feel surrounding it.
“Then who the hell is Nik Smelser?” Rogan questions...again.
“Like I saidbefore, I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’s relevant to anything. It’s just the name the bones gave.”
“Fuck!” Rogan snarls, slamming a hand down against the steering wheel. I jump at the unexpected outburst, and my fight or flight instincts get ready to take over the show.
“I get that you’re pissed, Rogan, but I don’t want to die. So slow down and chill out or pull over so I can safely get us somewhere where you can execute the epic tantrum that’s clearly crawling under your skin.”
He doesn’t say anything, but the car gradually starts to decelerate, and I inhale and then slowly release a relieved breath.
“Like I said back at Elon’s house, there’s no point jumping to any conclusions until we have more information. Marx is looking into things now, and he said he would let us know when it’s clear to go look at the other Osteomancers’ houses.”
“But why would he willingly leave?” Rogan argues, and I run my fingers through my curls in frustration, pleading with my ancestors for patience.
“Dude. Pay. Attention!” I growl, clapping three times to punctuate each word. “We don’t know that he did. It’s hard as hell to interpret the world through a dog’s eyes. I’m literally reading information from bone matter in shit. Maybe Elon left on his own. Maybe he was spelled. Maybe he was coerced some other way. There could be a logical explanation for all of this. Or maybe the Osteomancers are all working together to bring out the cult in occult. We just don’t know yet.”
A yawn forces me to pause. I need to up my caffeine intake, or I’m about to pass out.
“I need coffee and a massive grilled cheese, oh and pie, or something pumpkiny. But not pumpkin coffee, that shit just tastes like burnt Thanksgiving. If you can get me somewhere that has grilled cheeseandtomato soup in the next ten minutes, maybe I’ll stop being as pissed as I am with you...maybe.”
The car accelerates again, but this time, my stomach and I welcome it. I’ve definitely entered the hangry phase of my exhaustion cycle, and it’s not being helped by everything that Rogan and Marx revealed back at Elon’s house. I replay the conversation, picking apart things that I feel like I still need answers to. I lean back in my chair and turn to face Rogan as he races to make things up to me.
It dawns on me that I should probably appreciate that he’s trying, that he cares enough to attempt to make things right in some small way, but we’ll see how I feel after I get done grilling him.
“Why did you and Marx suspect my grandmother?” I ask, ticking off my first question on the list I made in my head.
“What?” Rogan asks, looking over at me for a moment before focusing back on the road.
“You said that when you found out that my grandmother was gone, you thought maybe I had something to do with the disappearances, and that was why Ruby couldn’t read or sense anything. But after that, you said that you suspected her too. I want to know why.”
“Suspected is probably the wrong word. Marx and I were just trying to look at things from all angles. Ruby was the strongest Osteomancer alive. So it could be argued that if someone was trying to meld the branches, she’d be the only one powerful enough to do it.”
“So when you came to see her, if she had been the one in the shop that day, you would have made her your familiar, wouldn’t you? It wasn’t a last minute Hail Mary decision, it wasn’t an insurance plan that kicked in because of me,” I clarify.
Rogan studies me for a moment, but I see the answer in his eyes before he voices it.
“Yes. Marx and I thought it was the best and fastest way to gain control over the situation.”
