Page 45 of Witchy Chick

“He’s…” I couldn’t say it.

She gripped my shoulders and stared into my eyes, her own green ones almost glowing. “He’s what? You need to tell me so I don’t accidentally get someone killed.”

“Your father,” I finally said as the words were wrenched out of me. I frowned and pulled out of her grasp. “You controlled me. You shouldn’t do that, it’s unethical.”

“What do you mean he’s my father? You had an affair? I thought⁠—”

“He’s Clark. Don’t ask how that’s possible. I’m still struggling with the impossibility of it.”

“He’s Dad? But…” She got a weird look on her face. “Wow. He’s so pro at deception. A fifteen-year game? So, how do we kill him?” Her eyes flickered, and black flecked all over her skin.

I rolled my eyes. “And that’s why you let me tell you things when it’s time, not without setting up some kind of prep work first so you don’t lose it. Don’t compel me to talk again. Do you hear me?”

“You said you raised the cemetery? What does that mean?” The black faded and flickered while she stared at me like she saw something horrifying and new.

I shrugged. “Necromancy? That’s what it’s called, right? I should read a book about it. He won’t leave until I’m capable of defending us.”

She blinked at me. “He thinks you could actually get, like, powerful?”

I shrugged. “Or he’s just saying that to be annoying. He’s really, really annoying.”

“But hot, even with the face tattoos.”

I shook my head and went towards the stairs, wrapping the cuffs of the black sweatshirt over my cold hands. I used to wear his sweatshirt all the time, back when we spent so much time in his loft near my school, getting pregnant. Was this the same one? He’d left it in my room by my bed? Why would he do that? What kind of psycho was he? Stalker? But fifteen years? That was a long game. Sociopath?

I went upstairs and got dressed in a long black dress that matched my hair and made me look like one of those dippy goth ladies who made lotion to sell at the organic markets. I was there for the organic vegetables. What was I going to do with a sorcerer in my front yard? Was he still there? I went to a window overlooking the front yard, and there he was, sitting cross-legged in the dirt in his jeans, in the rain. When had it started raining? It made it feel like autumn. Didn’t he need an umbrella? He just sat there with his pale hair slicked against his skull, a tail of water over his dark, long-sleeved shirt so you couldn’t see his chest tattoos.

Never mind. I had things to do.

“Where did the piano go?” Sage asked while I was polishing all the woodwork in the front hall.

“What do you mean? It’s in the parlor.”

“It was in the parlor. Now it’s missing.”

I stepped down off the chair I was standing on and glanced towards the front door, where a sorcerer was still sitting on the muddy ground in the rain. It was still raining. Was he trying to make me feel bad for him? Forget it. He could die from pneumonia for all I cared. He wasn’t sorry for lying to me? Seriously?

I followed Sage into the parlor and stared at where the piano had been. “It’s gone.”

“I know. Where did it go? I want to play out my rage. I did the exercises to make a bubble of rage that doesn’t escape. I can’t believe he lied to all of us for fifteen years!”

I frowned and checked the next room, the library, but it had books, more books than it seemed to have had earlier. “How do you lose a piano?”

“Maybe someone broke in and stole it?” she said, looking over my shoulder.

I wandered around and then stopped at another door between the library and the front hall that hadn’t been there before. I turned the handle and it was stuck for a moment before it creaked, groaned, then flung itself open, releasing a cloud of noxious scent that had both of us falling back, gasping and coughing.

“Who let off a stink bomb?” Jerome cried, coming over to check it out. Smoke-tinged neon green was floating out of the room.

I hurried over to the front door, flinging it open and gesturing the kids outside. They followed. “Where’s James?” I asked.

“Here!” he called, where he sat in the mud in the rain next to Clark/Peregrine/Teeth.

Clark/Teeth opened his eyes from his apparent meditation and frowned at the smoke behind me. “You opened a sealed room? Do you have a plan with how to deal with it?”

I glared at him. “Of course I don’t have a plan! I’m looking for a piano, not a mystery.”

“The room stole the piano? Do you want me to help?”