Grim and Bear It (Stay a Spell, #6)

by Juliette Cross

When I was little, I often escaped to the garden behind my father’s sprawling fifty-acre estate. Like everything else in his life, he kept pristine gardens. Toward the center, there was a long bed of wildflowers that attracted a particular kind of butterfly. The wings were yellow with delicate black trim. Beautiful. For some reason, this happened to be a place where I was never disturbed by the dead. I’d watch the golden-winged insects flutter about happily, mindlessly, and bask in their effortless beauty. Certain Native American tribes said that a yellow butterfly was a spirit of hope and guidance. I wasn’t so sure about guidance, but they’d always lifted the weight of my gift as a necromancer. For a short while. I’d found solace in the butterfly garden far too many times to confess to anyone. When I’d had to leave my father’s house, I went into a period of mourning, bereft of my yellow butterflies. Then one day, while I was standing outside of Ruben’s bookstore on Magazine, a woman stepped out of a shop and walked down the street, her lengthy blond hair streaming down her back. I’d felt it like a punch to the gut. I remember sucking in a painful gulp of air the second I laid eyes on her, knowing at long last I’d found my butterfly garden again. Only, she wasn’t a garden. She was a woman. A witch. A breathlessly stunning, beguiling one who began tormenting my dreams with aching frequency from that very day. As I watched her now, I wondered, not for the first time, if she ...