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  Mina’s lip trembled, and she steeled herself to not show fear. She stood her ground and looked Teague right in the eye. “A thousand sweet words can never disguise the rattle of a viper about to strike. I will not drop my guard ever again. And I will end this curse…by doing whatever…or killing whoever…I have to.”

  Teague’s face turned furious, and his lips pressed into an angry thin line.

  “Then be prepared, my dear Mina, for you won’t be able to ignore this next tale. I’ve made sure of that.” He stepped away from her. A crack of thunder rattled the earth and she jumped, turning in surprise. A second later, pouring rain followed, soaking everyone within minutes. Mina turned back toward Teague, but he was gone.

  Chapter 4

  Mina ran back to the burial site and gently tossed Brody’s rose onto the others. She looked upon the grave and felt her heart rip open anew. Charlie was so young, and none of this was fair: the curse, the constant moving, not having a normal life…all because of their last name.

  She ignored the pouring rain and was actually reveling in its cool touch. The rain hid her tears, and she felt as if it was washing away her guilt, her past. She shuddered and made a vow to herself and her brother. “I failed you, Charlie. I failed to protect you from the curse. I’m so sorry. But I won’t let it take another Grimm. The curse ends with me, I promise.”

  Mina heard her mother call her name, and she looked up and started running for the Wongs’ car.

  It was time to go…but go where? She didn’t think she could go back to living with Terry for much longer. But they didn’t have to, because Terry pulled up right then with a large white van with the Happy Maids logo on the side.

  “Yoo-hoo, Sara! Over here, darling!” Terry waved out the window, ignorant of the rain and the funeral that she’d missed. “I’ve got the most glorious news, so grab your things and hop in.”

  Sara spoke a few words to the Wongs, grabbed her purse out of the back of their car, and opened the front passenger seat of the Happy Maids van. Mina followed suit and opened the sliding door, only to be greeted by all their stuff. Or at least, all the boxes of donated stuff that had been piling up in Terry’s living room.

  “What’s going on, Terry? Why did you move all of our stuff here?” Sara asked, confused. It was obvious from her expression that she was a little offended that they were being packed up and shuffled off without any notice.

  “Shhh, I can’t ruin the surprise yet. Just wait.” Terry waved her hands in the air and directed Mina to a small flip-down seat with an old belt buckle. She strapped herself in and felt odd when she looked at the boxes of food, clothing, and essentials piled in the back. It was like they were being uprooted all over again. She secretly wondered if Terry was going to slow down around a curve and push them out of the moving vehicle.

  Mina turned to look out the window one last time as they passed Charlie’s grave and saw a lone figure standing by the grave, wearing a top hat. Mina craned her neck to see if she recognized the man, who seemed ignorant of the coming downpour. The man with the tall hat was more interested in watching them leave than paying his respects to her brother.

  “Mom.” Mina pointed out the windows, which were quickly fogging up with heat. “Do you know that person?”

  Sara looked in the direction she was pointing, but by the time she turned in her seat, the man in the rain was gone. “What person, Mina?”

  “Never mind. I just thought I saw someone.”

  Mina settled into her seat and listened to the quiet chatter of the women in front and the annoying screeching noise the old windshield wipers made against the glass. Bored, Mina began to inspect the boxes of their belongings and gasped when she saw a bag with her bathroom items in it and the Grimoire thrown in haphazardly on top. She was angry. How dare this woman touch her things and treat them with so much disrespect? Mina didn’t care what stupid surprise Terry had in store. Touching a teenager’s things was just not done. It was taboo. A giant no-no.

  Terry drove away from the cemetery and onto a turnpike. It felt surreal—they had just buried her brother, and now they were getting evicted by their friend and moving on the same day. Mina began to wonder if her mother’s boss had a screw loose. After what felt like hours, but in reality probably was only few minutes, they exited the highway and turned down an unfamiliar road. They must be on the edge of town, because she didn’t recognize the terrain.

  They turned onto a barely discernable road, and Mina wondered if Terry knew where they were going. Finally, they followed the road up a winding hill, and Mina could see a house in the distance, a very large house. Terry pulled up to a wrought-iron gate, and stepped down from the van and fished around in her wallet for a key card. Finally, she found the right one and slipped it into the security box, and the gate opened. She slid back into the car and drove up the driveway, lined with weeping willows, and stopped in front of a large estate.

  It was antiquated and hauntingly beautiful at the same time, as if the architect couldn’t decide which era to design the house after, so he merged all of them. Or, better yet, as if the house had been there for centuries, and each century something modern was added to it. It was in need of quite a bit of work and a coat of paint. The outside shutters had fallen off and needed to be fixed, the bushes were overgrown, and the front steps were missing a board. A large greenhouse was attached to the house, and even from this distance she could see that quite a few of the glass windows were shattered and overrun with foliage.

  “Welcome home!” Terry chimed happily as she put the van into park. “I made a few phone calls and pulled a few strings, but it’s yours.”

  “What is?” Sara asked.

  “Why, the house, of course! It’s one of the estates that my company has had a contract with…well, forever. It has sat empty for most of those years, and the owners have no desire to sell it and are hardly ever here, either. So it continues to sit empty, which isn’t good for a house. I contacted them and explained your situation and that you were one of my most trusted employees and a dear friend, and they offered it to you and your daughter…on one condition.”

  Sara looked at the large house, her hand jumping to her heart in fear and wonder.

  “You will have to live in it and take care of it. I can recommend a great handyman to help fix up the place, and soon it will be as good as new.” Terry’s head bobbed in excitement. “Don’t get me wrong, I love having you two live with me, but it’s about time for you to start anew. Especially since Mina has to go back to school in a few days—”

  Terry continued to relay her news to a shocked Sara and unlocked the front door and walked them into a spacious entrance hall. What the hey? A spiral staircase? The house looked like it had come out of a movie, all right…a horror movie.

  Off the entrance hall was a sitting room with a library with a very dusty grand piano, while to the right was a formal dining room. In every room there were obvious blank spots on the wall where pictures had been hung and looked like they had been recently removed, because of a slight, barely noticeable discoloration of the wall. They were all prime locations: above the fireplace, in the library above a desk. Each newly discovered bare spot made Mina irritated. Were these priceless portraits removed because the owners thought they would steal them?

  There were multiple wings of rooms to be explored at a later date. They kept going and walked into the largest kitchen she had ever seen. It was a chef’s dream, with multiple islands and granite countertops, but things Mina didn’t really care about. What she zoned in on first was, of course, the dishwasher.

  “It’s all very nice, Terry, but I don’t know how comfortable I am with this commitment. I’ve never even met the owners. How do I know that they want us as tenants?”

  “Pish-posh.” Terry frowned at Sara. Mina had to hold back a grin; she didn’t think people spoke like that anymore. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m telling you, I pulled a huge favor out of my hat, and I can tell you there’s not going to be
another offer out there like this. I did this for you because I think of you like my own daughter. And you deserve this.”

  Just then a weird buzzing sound came from a square box in the kitchen. Terry ran forward and pushed a button. “Yes, who’s there?”

  “It’s meee. We bring Sara’s car like you asked. Now push button and let us in.” It was Mrs. Wong. Terry rolled her eyes before she pushed the button. Mina assumed the big iron gates at the end of the drive were opening. A few minutes later the Wongs entered through the front door, carrying boxes from the Happy Maids van.

  “Eh, nice big house you get, Terry. What ex-husband did you get this from? Maybe you can give him my number.” Mrs. Wong’s broken English made her attempts at being funny sound awkward.

  Mei’s husband placed his hand over his heart with dramatic flair. “Oh, Mei, you wound me. Now stop yammering, and let’s help them settle in.”

  With only a few more failed attempts to talk themselves out of the house, Sara finally gave in and helped haul the last cardboard boxes into the foyer. The Wongs and Terry tried to keep some light chitchat going, but it was obvious from the rings under Sara’s eyes that it was time for them to go. Once everyone was gone, the house was eerily empty.

  Sara stared at one of the blank walls covered in striped wallpaper in puzzlement. “This house. There’s something about this house.” She reached out a hand to touch the wall and then shook her head as if to clear the troubled thought from her mind. “I’m sorry, honey, I’m exhausted. Let’s find a room and unpack and talk tomorrow. It’s been—” she started to sniffle but held it back, “—a long day.”

  Mina agreed. Was the funeral only a few hours ago? The rain was still coming down outside, and the occasional lightning illuminated the night sky. The second floor was filled with more turns, wings, and darkened rooms. Sara found a room to her liking and settled in by immediately crawling onto the bed and not moving. Not wanting to leave her mother alone, especially tonight, Mina crawled onto the large king-size bed and lay next to her mom.

  Sara’s eyes were shut, and Mina could see the barest glimmer of tears sliding out of the corners. Her mother’s long hair had fallen out of its bun, and a hint of gray could be seen mixed in with the brown. Had this tragedy aged her mother years in only a few days? Mina took a deep breath and quivered with pain and sadness. She slid her hand into Sara’s hand and squeezed gently, comforting her mother without words. Sara’s breathing evened out, and she squeezed her daughter’s hand back. A few minutes later, they were both asleep.

  Chapter 5

  A thudding noise woke Mina in the middle of the night. She sat straight up in bed and looked around the darkened room in fear. Nothing stirred, and nothing moved. The rain still poured outside, and the night sky lit up, followed by the delayed sound of thunder. The brief flash of light proved that nothing was in their room.

  She turned to look at her mom, who was still curled up in a fetal position and was sleeping very deeply. She knew that Sara had been worrying about their lack of housing situation, and now she looked like she could sleep for days. Mina lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling, then the walls. She rolled over and tried to sleep on her stomach, but it was no use; she was wide awake. Her mind kept trying to catalog all the possibilities of what could have made the noise, and her paranoid teenage brain wasn’t going to let her go back to sleep until she found out what it was. She was still fully dressed, so she tiptoed out of the room and closed the door with a soft click.

  The hallway had never looked more foreboding than it did in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm. Mina didn’t care who owned the place or what the utilities would cost; she was going to bring light to the darkened mansion. She felt along the walls until she found a light switch and clicked it on. The electric candelabras on the wall flickered on, and nothing jumped out at her.

  Phew, she thought, one down, only a hundred more to go.

  She turned the corner in the wing and was once again greeted with another darkened hallway. She repeated the process and almost panicked when she couldn’t find the switch, because it was hidden behind the drapes. When the hallway was illuminated, she didn’t move on to the rest of the house. Instead, she decided to tackle every room. How could she sleep if she didn’t know what lurked behind each of those ominous doors?

  The first door she flung open wildly and jumped back into the hallway, expecting something or someone to jump out, like a bat. It was another empty bedroom. The next door revealed another empty bedroom. The next door—a bathroom. The next door—a game room, complete with foosball and a pool table. She was becoming braver with each door and stopped turning on the lights after the lights in the hallway illuminated the empty rooms.

  The second-to-last door was a storage room, filled with extra chairs, tables, fake plants, vases. One section of the room had less clutter, as if all of the offending junk had been pushed away from the central object. It was an easel, and on the easel was a painting covered with a sheet. Leaning against the wall were stacks of what looked like more paintings. Were these the paintings that had been removed from each of the rooms? If so, and they were removed because of fear of theft, then it was stupid for the owners to place all these priceless paintings here in one room. Or maybe they had forgotten to lock the door. Nevertheless, this was what she’d been looking for…answers.

  Maybe it was a Monet? Or a Picasso? How cool would it be to actually see one in person? Or what if they were moved into this room so the owners could say that Mina and her mother had stolen the paintings after they’d moved in? She was flooded with a host of different reasons why the owners might have moved the paintings here…and all of them ended up with Mina and her mom in jail.

  She had no choice; she was going to have to look at the paintings, and she would start with the one covered on the easel. Just when she was about to remove the sheet, she had the intense feeling that she was being watched. She dropped her hand to stare around the room, and the barest reflection of movement in the glass drew her attention to the large framed window. It was still raining and dark, but she thought she saw something on the lawn when the lighting flashed.

  Being careful to not be seen, she crept to the side of the big window and curtain, and took up a lookout. She held her breath in anticipation and waited until the next burst of lightning. There it was, a quick flash! And sure enough, there was someone in the middle of the yard, staring at the house. It went dark again, and she began to panic. What was that? Who was that? She lay in wait for the next minute until the storm illuminated the yard again.

  Boom! The crash was simultaneous with the thunder, and he was there! Right there! Thirty feet from the window, and he was looking right at her. It was the man from the cemetery! He had stopped right outside what looked like a ring of white rocks, and he was beckoning to her.

  Mina screamed and crashed backward into the paintings behind her, her fear causing her to subconsciously call for Jared.

  An instant later Jared was by her side, steadying her and trying to keep the picture from falling over. “Clumsy, as always. I think you could use another lesson from me.”

  “There’s someone…outside!” she choked out. Her fear paralyzed her, making it hard for her to speak. She pushed him toward the window to look for himself, but he didn’t need to.

  Jared took one look at her scared face and ran out the door into the hallway, leaving her alone in the darkened room. The silence of the spooky house, mixed with the intruder outside, was too much for her nerves. They were shot. She did the weak thing. She curled up on the ground by the sofa and wrapped her arms around herself, and tried not to fall to pieces. Minutes later Jared appeared in the room with her, soaking wet and out of breath.

  “Mina?” Jared called out when he didn’t immediately see her.

  “Who was it?” she asked from her hiding spot by the couch.

  Jared saw her and knelt in front of her, being careful not to touch her.

  “I don’t know, but they’re gon
e.”

  Mina shivered. “You believe me, though, right?”

  “Of course I do. There was someone out there—I could smell them. I just didn’t recognize the scent.”

  “You mean they were Fae?”

  “Most definitely. I just don’t know what kind, and that worries me.” He stood up and brushed off his knees, and turned as if heading out the door again.

  “Wait, Jared, don’t leave me.” She felt silly at being so scared, but this was real. At first she didn’t know who it was and didn’t know how to fight it, but now, knowing it was a Fae gave her the knowledge that she could beat it. But she needed the Grimoire; she needed Jared.

  He stopped and turned to look at her with an irritated frown. “Oh, so you didn’t need me all summer, and now all of a sudden you want me around more? Look around you. You don’t need me when you’ve got all this. Besides, whoever was out there couldn’t get past this house’s defense, and I doubt that they will tonight, or any other night. Call it a special gift that comes with the house.”

  “Then how did you get in here?”

  “You summoned me, dummy. Where you go, I go. Unless it’s the women’s bathroom.” He made a face at her. “Or you leave the book somewhere really far away or lose it, and then that can cause problems, like you already learned.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” she scoffed. “But what do you mean, ‘he couldn’t get past the house’s defenses’? What defenses?”

  Jared moved across the room and plopped down on the dust-covered sofa. A small poof of particles floated into the air before settling around him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as if he was taking a nap, purposely ignoring her question.

  She stood up and stormed over to him, fully prepared to hit him on the shoulder, when she noticed how tired he looked. His stormy gray eyes were closed in a feigned sleep, and she couldn’t help but fixate on his looks. It wasn’t apparent at first, but if you looked closely at his angular jaw and the way his skin shimmered, it was quite clear that he wasn’t from this world. He was too handsome. His hair was getting a little long and looked like it could use a trim, but it was still messed-up and very stylish. Standing there next to him, she couldn’t help but compare him to Brody. The Fae prince could very well take on her high school crush.