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Chapter 80
“You know, she was born in the middle of a thunderstorm.” Ru looked up to find her grandmother staring out at nothing through the thin white curtains that hung in front of the only window across the room from them. “I took one look at that little mite’s back and knew she was going to be a spitfire. She came out that way, scratching at the world like she was going to tear a new opening in the veil. So, having the markings of fiery wings on her back was no surprise to me.”
Ru was confused; this didn’t sound anything like the happy little cherub her grandmother had described before, and she wasn’t sure of the connection between the markings and the name.
“I was mighty surprised when she was such a carefree little one, never a trouble, never a problem. I thought I might’ve named her wrong. Then, when trouble struck, it hit all at once. And I knew Seraphina was the perfect name for her. I
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Reaper's Hollow Chapter 81
Ru went straight upstairs as soon as they returned to Cutter’s parents’ house, and he couldn’t blame her. She hadn’t said a word the entire ride home, and he couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have so much of her past dumped in her lap all of a sudden when she’d been searching for even a whisper of a memory for most of her life. While he wished she hadn’t taken the picture of Larkin, it did open his eyes just a bit to the possibility that he had yet to completely convince Ru that her Keeper side was more important than her father’s family.Thoughts of where to go with that problem were interrupted by laughter coming from the kitchen, and Cutter realized his mother’s voice wasn’t the only one he heard. He quickly rushed into the back room, delighted to see his sister Cinder innocently tossing handfuls of flour at his mother. Windy was not one to go down without a fight, and Cinder’s hair was even whiter th
Reaper's Hollow Chapter 82
“What is this?”“We found it in Sera’s room,” he explained as his sister pulled the phone out of his hand and closer to her face. “As soon as I saw it, I knew I recognized it, but I didn’t know why. It must be because of the runes engraved at the top.”“This is a Celtic cross,” Cinder explained. “You should be able to decipher the writing now that you know the origin.”Without losing any time, Cutter sent a picture of the cross and Cinder’s sketch to Lyric, along with a message indicating where he thought she should look. “Thanks, Sis,” he said, hitting send. “I think you may’ve done more in the last few minutes to decipher this riddle than we have in weeks.”“Nah,” Cinder replied, waving him off and sliding back on the sofa away from her sketch. “You would’ve figured it out. Eventually.”“The only problem
Reaper's Hollow Chapter 83
“Lindisfarne.” Lyric pointed at the map spread out on Cutter’s parents’ dining room table, an air of confidence about her that made Ru almost believe she was right.“Gesundheit,” Rider replied. He was sitting at the opposite end of the table from Lyric, so Ru supposed he couldn’t actually see the name written on the map, though he likely would’ve had a similar response even if he’d been the one to come up with the foreign word in the first place.“And how did we come to this conclusion, exactly?” Cutter asked. He was sitting next to Ru, his knee bumping into her leg underneath the table, which somehow seemed to calm her otherwise turbulent tummy.“Well,” Lyric began, sitting back in her chair and looking at each of them. “Once Cinder told us we were looking at things wrong, I was able to find the answer pretty quickly.”Cinder was in the room, but she was sitting off
Reaper's Hollow Chapter 84
Ru went over her remarks in her head, unsure what she’d said to get that sort of reaction out of him. Did Cutter not want to be her friend for some reason? That didn’t make any sense. He’d been nothing but helpful since the first time they’d met, back at Thomas Elementary, when he’d fixed the copy machine after she’d unwittingly used her powers to fry the electrical components. Confused, Ru swiveled in her chair and propped her elbows up on the table. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what she’d said wrong.Footsteps entering the room caused her to look up. It was Ivy. “Oh, I thought you’d left,” Ru said, forcing a smile.“I forgot my coat,” the blonde explained, gesturing at the back of the chair she’d been sitting in. “I didn’t get very far in this weather without it.” She let out a small giggle and slipped her arms in the sleeves. “Hey, is everythin
Reaper's Hollow Chapter 85
Ru recognized her location immediately. She was standing in the same garden where she’d met Thanatos not too long ago, a hundred years ago. This time, the bench where he’d sat crying, mourning the loss of a family killed by a woman his Reapers had attempted to claim the day before she stole a car and drove the wrong way down the freeway, losing her own life in the process. Thanatos’s tears had overwhelmed and confused her. Cutter insisted he was a monster, but at the time, he’d seemed anything but.The petals cascaded from the trees as she walked along, making her way with bare feet down a row of flowered trees which rained an endless volume of red, pink, and white flowers down upon her. She glanced down to see she was wearing a long, flowing black dress and wondered who, exactly, was picking her wardrobe for these forays.It didn’t take her long to find him. He was a beacon, after all, much like the portal openings.
Reaper's Hollow Chapter 86
The burning sensation Ru had felt in her stomach when she was in the woods looking for the portal returned. “What do you mean?” she asked, one hand pressing down on her abdomen. “They won’t hurt her.”He scoffed. “What do you mean they won’t hurt her? Rune, you know what she did. They have to punish her for that. They will punish her for that. Be certain.”She was shaking her head wildly. “No, they won’t. No one is angry at my mother. It wasn’t her fault. She was a… a child. They’ve assured me she’ll come back home to Los Angeles, to her mother.” She realized she may have said too much, that perhaps she shouldn’t have given away their plan, but she was fairly certain the Reapers couldn’t do anything to the citizens of the village, and he would probably assume that her mother would return there anyway.“It’s very sad th
Reaper's Hollow Chapter 87
Ru sat at her Nana’s kitchen table sipping warm tea as the other woman worked on rolling out cookie dough. At her feet, Piper played with Nana’s cat, Patches, and Ru absently wondered how Piper even remembered what it was like to have another feline to play with since she hadn’t had any others around since she was a tiny kitten herself. Her neighbor had found the litter in the garage and it hadn’t taken much convincing for Ru to choose one. Piper stood out to her immediately. That was four years ago, back when Ru was a new teacher, and Piper had been her faithful companion ever since.“Cats are our best friends sometimes, aren’t they?” Nana asked, glancing up from her task long enough to catch Ru’s eyes. “My Patches has been a constant companion to me for… years.”“They are,” Ru agreed. She remembered Thanatos’s warning from the night before. The first “person” Ru thought o
Reaper's Hollow Chapter 88
Nana seemed a little stuck on the notion God had sent a divine prophecy on her back. She decided to let that go. At least the idea that her mother had said she ruined everything was cleared up once and for all, or so she hoped. “Do you know why Sera assumed she couldn’t come back here?” Thanatos’s words from the night before, his belief that the Keepers wanted to hurt her mom were fresh in her mind.“I have no idea. I told her both times she called that we just wanted the two of you home. The first time, she said she couldn’t come back. She was still in love with Larkin, still thinking he could be saved, that the world would be saved through their love or some such rubbish.” Ru couldn’t help but think the statement was a little harsh considering her mother likely was sincere with her emotions, even if they were misguided. “I always told her to come home. She wouldn’t. Brighton was out searching for her, you know, whe
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