Morrigan by Jonathan King (cat reading book txt) 📕

“No, you’re not.” Morrigan put her hands on his shoulders. “I told her and I’m telling you, you’re under my protection. I’m not letting you die on my watch.” She tapped the side of her head. “Besides, if you were going to die, I’d have seen it. Premonitions, remember?”

“Like the eyepatch guy,” said Abel.

“Exactly.”

It did sound reasonable—at least, as reasonable as anything sounded these days. She’d know his life expectancy better than anyone.

But as he put on his dried clothes and walked out into the rain and the soggy leather car seats, the banshee’s wail still rang in his ears.

10

“No, Mrs. Willoughby,” the Reverend said into the phone. “I appreciate you calling, but Abel was here all night. It must have been someone else you saw out driving with that girl last night.” He waited a minute as the woman on the other end of the line railed on about something Cora couldn’t hear. “I understand completely. That’s why I’d never let my son do anything of the kind. You have a blessed day now.” He hung up before Mrs. Willoughby could say anything else.

“This is getting out of hand.” He used his handkerchief to dab the sweat from his forehead and offered it to Cora to dry her eyes.

They were in the Whittaker’s living room. Cora had come to him first thing in the morning and told him everything she’d seen the night before. And by everything, she meant the children running away, not the bloody Red Cap remnants or the wrecked bedroom. And she painted herself as a bereaved mother wandering about, weeping and wondering what to do. Not one mention of the preparations she’d been making to get her daughter back.

“You’re sure it was my son you saw?” the Reverend asked.

“I assure you, it was him,” said Cora. “The image of him and my daughter driving off together is burned into my brain. I’ll never forget it.”

The Reverend’s teeth ground together. “How could he do this to me? Running off with some strange girl like the prodigal son, off to fornicate and carouse. What will the congregation think of me now, raising a son like that?”

A sharp intake of breath across the room caught Cora’s attention. Dorothy Whittaker had been bringing herbs planted in mason jars downstairs and arranging them in the living room window. They were probably Abel’s—Cora would want to be close to her daughter’s possessions too. But now Dorothy clutched a jar of rosemary so tight her knuckles whitened, and she glared at her husband. At least one of them is concerned about that bastard of a son, Cora thought. As any good parent would be.

Aloud, she said, “I still don’t see why we can’t go to the police.”

“No!” The Reverend was at her side in an instant, clutching her hand. “Absolutely not. What Abel did was against the law, but if we get the police involved, and they aren’t discreet, and my congregation finds out…”

“I’m not pressing charges.” Cora threw in a deprecating laugh. Juvie would be too good for Abel.

“It doesn’t matter.” The Reverend looked around and lowered his voice to a whisper as though his congregation were listening through the walls. “People talk.”

“Of course.” Cora put a hand on his shoulder. “The last thing a man in your position needs is a scandal.” Not that she’d ever wanted the police involved; too many people poking around, too much chance that Morgan would be taken from her again. But she had to ask or risk suspicion.

The Reverend swallowed hard, but smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Hammond.”

“Please, call me Cora.”

“It’s funny.” Dorothy spoke for the first time as she set the tea down on the table beside Cora. “Stealing a car seems so unlike Abel.”

“Oh, bless your heart, dear,” said Cora. “We never know what our children are capable of. No matter how lovingly we raise them, they may still stray down the wrong path in life. I never expected my darling Morgan to run away from me.”

“I can’t imagine why she would,” Dorothy muttered.

Cora didn’t like very many people; in fact, she liked almost no one. But she kept a mental list of all the people she hated anyway, in order from most hated to least. After that snide comment, she moved Dorothy several spaces up that list, the smile still plastered to her red lips.

“I don’t understand why either of them ran away,” said the Reverend. “We had a fight, sure, but it was nothing to leave over.”

Dorothy laughed. “You really think it was just about last night?”

“Dorothy,” the Reverend warned, nodding subtly in Cora’s direction. “Now isn’t the time—”

“No, not while one of your precious flock is in the room,” Dorothy snapped. “If you’d paid less attention to them and more to your family, maybe he’d still be here.”

“That’s enough!” The Reverend stood and grabbed Dorothy by the arms. The rosemary jar dropped from her hands and shattered on the floor, spilling potting soil everywhere. His voice quieted, but it lost none of its intensity. “You will not question me in front of Cora or anyone else in this church. I am their leader; I can’t be seen failing to lead my own family. Abel’s already shamed me. Don’t you start.”

Dorothy stared down at the remnants of Abel’s herb garden and then lifted her gaze to meet the Reverend’s. The look in her eyes was one Cora had seen many times over her long life, from her victims, from knights and druids and saints, from the truly righteous looking on what they saw as tainted and twisted. It was pure disgust, and it was so often directed at her she’d thought it was made for her. But this time, it was aimed at the Reverend, a wife seeing her husband as lower than the lowest worm.

“Maybe Abel had the right idea.” Dorothy wrenched free of the Reverend’s grip and stormed out of the house.

The Reverend watched her go, shock on his face,