Cursed. Lisa Childs

was why she rarely stayed anywhere for long—why she kept running, as Mama had always been running. It was why Maria tried to not get too close to anyone or let anyone get too close to her...

      She never should have hired the young woman, and she definitely never should have agreed to teach Raven to read. Her fingertips tingling from the energy from the cards, Maria regretted ever touching them again. Why hadn’t she left them behind...as she had so much else in her life?

      Like Raven, she needed to run now. The girl had been right about the aura of darkness hovering over Maria. But besides the cards, Maria had left something else behind in the shop—something that she couldn’t leave without. Her fingers trembled as she lifted her hand to her bare neck. During her scuffle with Raven, the chain must have broken.

      Her lungs burned as she breathed hard, fighting the panic at the thought of what she’d lost. It had to be here. It couldn’t be gone...

      The hinges of the old pickup truck squeaked in protest as she flung open the driver’s door. She jerked the keys from the ignition and tried to determine by touch which one would open the door to the shop. But as she stumbled in the dark, across the gravel, she noticed the faint glow spilling out of the barn—through the open door. She had locked it behind herself when she’d left to search for Raven. And the only other person with a key to it was her employee.

      “Raven!” she called out as she hurried through the door. “I’m so glad you came back!”

      She reached in her pocket for the amulet of dried alyssum, rosemary and ivy, and anise and caraway seeds, eucalyptus and huckleberry leaves, and a thistle blossom. She’d cinched the sachet with a leather thong on which she’d fastened a jet stone, a piece of obsidian and a tiger’s eye. “I made something for you—something to keep you safe.”

      Then her eyes adjusted to the faint candlelight, which wavered back and forth—not because the flames flickered but because a shadow swung back and forth in front of them. Like the herbs, Raven hung from the rafters.

      Maria was too late. Again.

      Or was she? She glanced around, searching the shadows for another image—an orb or mist, some field of energy that indicated Raven’s ghost. But nothing manifested from the shadows.

      And the girl’s body swung yet. “You’re still alive. Stay with me. I’ll help you.” But how?

      Panic pressed on Maria’s lungs, stealing her breath. She righted a chair and clamored on top of it, but then jumped down again when she realized she had nothing to cut the rope that wound tight around the girl’s throat. She fumbled for a knife and scrambled onto the chair again. Summoning all her strength, she hacked at the rope until the girl fell, her body hitting the worn wood floor with a soft thud.

      “Please be alive,” Maria murmured as she scrambled down beside her. She’d seen others do CPR on television, so she tried breathing into Raven’s mouth and pushing on her chest. But the girl didn’t breathe. She didn’t move. Probably because Maria didn’t know what she was doing. She knew how to heal with herbs and crystals, though. But she had never pulled anyone back from the brink of death before. What could she use? What would it take?

      She ran back to the table where she cut herbs and grabbed up some dried hyssop and licorice. Both were used to treat asthma because of their anti-inflammatory powers. Maybe they could reduce the swelling in the girl’s throat. She added some tincture of arnica that was used for bruising. Her hands shook as she mixed it together. Then she hurried back to where the girl lay limply on the floor of the old barn.

      She pressed the mixture to the girl’s swollen throat and slipped some between her open lips. Then she chanted a prayer, begging the higher power to heal the wounded, to reverse her cruel fate.

      “Raven?” She leaned over the girl, listening for breathing. No air emanated from the girl’s black-painted lips as her mouth lay open. Maria looked to her chest to see if any breaths lifted it, but a shadow fell across the room—blocking the light from the candles.

      “Don’t move!” a deep voice ordered.

      Maria glanced up at the hulking shadow blocking the door. Only his eyes glinted in the dark—and the metal of the gun he held. Was he who had done this to Raven? Who had killed all of the other ones?

      She tightened her grip on the handle of the knife and slid it beneath the folds of her long skirt. If he came close enough...

      “What the hell,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble in his muscular chest. He glanced from her to the body on the floor. His brow furrowed in concern and confusion as he stared down at Raven. “What did you do to her?”

      Maybe he wasn’t the one who had hurt the girl.

      “I tried to help her,” she told him. But her herbs weren’t working. “Please, do something! Save her!”

      The man knelt beside Raven, and his fingers probed her wrist. “She’s dead.”

      “No, not yet.” If Raven were dead, Maria would have seen her ghost because she always saw the souls of the recently departed. And sometimes of the not-so-recently departed. “She needs a doctor.”

      He shook his head.

      “Why won’t you help her?” The answer was obvious. He had tried killing the girl; he had no intention of saving her. Or of letting Maria live...

      If she had any hope of surviving—and getting help for Raven—she had to act. Just as she had swung the knife at the rope noose with all of her strength, she pulled it from beneath her skirt and swung it at the man leaning over Raven’s body. She didn’t want to kill him; she just wanted to hurt him badly enough that he dropped the gun.

      But as she neared his body, her momentum slowed—and she hesitated before burying the blade. She closed her eyes and pushed the knife down, then gasped as strong fingers locked around her wrist. Something cold and shaped like a circle pressed against her chin.

      She drew in an unsteady breath, and the gun barrel pinched her skin. Maybe she should have read her own cards. Maybe then she would have seen this—would have seen this man. She opened her eyes to study him because his was the last face she would probably ever see.

      He stared at her, his grayish-blue eyes as cold and hard as his gun. The candlelight flickered, picking up red glints in his thick brown hair. Even kneeling on the floor, he towered over her, broad shouldered and square jawed.

      She tugged at her wrist, but his grasp tightened. And the knife dropped from her numb fingers onto the floor. “Let go of me...”

      His mouth curved into a faint grin. “I’ve spent too long tracking you down to let you get away now.”

      Her heart slammed against her ribs. He was the one. The person who’d been hunting her for all these years and had taken all those other lives...

      A gasp broke the eerie silence of the room. But it hadn’t slipped through her lips. Or his.

      She glanced down at Raven as the girl’s eyes fluttered open and she stared up at them, her eyes wide with shock and horror. The girl had survived a hanging—maybe because of Maria’s healing, maybe because she was stronger than she looked. But Maria doubted Raven was strong enough to survive whatever else the man had planned for her. For them.

      She should have driven the knife deep in his chest while she’d had the chance. So that she wouldn’t die as the others had—as Raven nearly had.

      Like a witch...

       Chapter 2

      Red-and-blue lights flashed and sirens wailed as the ambulance pulled away from the Magik Shoppe. Rain streaked down Maria’s face and soaked her sweater and skirt as she stood in the gravel drive, watching the ambulance speed away with Raven. That gasp for breath had been her only one, and then the man had done CPR on her.

      Except