Page 92 of The Witch

“Nothing too exciting.” He shrugs apologetically. “Did a short stint in jail for theft. She paid her dues to society, and her first job afterward was at Pemberton.”

It is certainly an interesting fact about Celia Caine, but it doesn’t help me much. And presumably, Celia kept herself out of trouble after learning a hard lesson, or else Henry would have known about it.

“Did you get that hair sample?” he asks me.

I dig into the pocket of my jeans and pull out two sandwich bags—one with my hair and one with Ethel’s. I had dug through her hair to find some of the best samples, so I wasn’t just handing Henry a huge hairball. “I hope this will work.”

“I’ll get it for you as soon as I can,” he promises.

“I appreciate that.”

“And whatever happens,” he adds, “I hope you do consider taking me up on my offer to stick around Woodhaven. I think it would be great.” He takes my hand and pulls me closer to him. “For a lot of reasons.”

“Yes,” I say. “It would.”

67

I’m not entirely sure what to do with this bone.

I need to bury it back where I found it ASAP. Or should I say, where Gram found it. But Mick has been spending a lot of time in the back grounds lately, throwing mulch randomly all over the place, and it’s hard to carve out a solid block of time when I’m fairly sure he won’t be around. It’s near impossible during the daytime hours.

So practically, the only time I can do it would be at night. And there is no way I am going into that backyard with part of a skeleton in the middle of the night. Not after what I’ve seen out there.

In the meantime, I’ll have to find a place to stash it in my room.

I’m not going to lie—I’m worried that if Caroline is angered by her skeleton being dug up, having the bone in my room could make me a target. Then again, according to Henry, there’s a good chance this bone doesn’t even belong to Caroline’s skeleton.

If that’s the case, is there some other spirit whose wrath I might incur?

When I get back to Pemberton from the museum, I’ve got the specimen bag tucked away in a museum tote Henry gave me. He also promised he was sending the DNA test out right away, and he said he could probably get it back within a week.

The first floor of the house is empty when I walk through the door. I head up to my room, and when I open the door, it looks like a tornado hit. There are clothes strewn about everywhere. Everything I own is lying on the floor of the room or on the bed. My shirts are turned inside out, and my socks have been unballed.

What the hell happened here?

I clutch the tote bag to my chest, wondering if the disarray in my bedroom has anything to do with exhuming the grave in our backyard. I’ve been wondering that ever since my visit from Dixon.

But if Caroline or another spirit did this, it would mean a huge escalation in her behavior. This is far worse than a flash of peacock-blue in the attic or a grandfather clock that stops every night.

Then another thought occurs to me.

I yank open the top drawer of the dresser. The clothes have been ripped out and strewn all over the floor. Nothing is left in the drawer at all.

Including the two letters from the attic.

I lean against the dresser, my head throbbing. Somebody ripped apart my room, looking for something, and I have a feeling they may have found it.

But I don’t think that somebody was Caroline Eldridge.

68

1692

CAROLINE

It is fortunate that the moon is full.

Without the light of a torch, it would be difficult to find our way, but the moonlight is enough for us to disappear into the woods without fear of getting lost. Jonas knows the woods even better than I do, navigating without hesitation, even in the darkness.