The Witch and the Dead Read Online Free

carefully set the box back on the bookshelf. She carried the picture over to Harper and me. “This was Miles, apparently on the day we married, in front of the New Hampshire courthouse where we eloped.”
    I had planned a few spur-of-the-moment elopementsthrough my business, As You Wish, which was a personal concierge service, so I knew why Ve and Miles had crossed state lines. Massachusetts had a three-day waiting period from the time the marriage license was issued until the wedding could take place. New Hampshire did not, making it much more elopement-friendly.
    Harper eagerly snatched the picture from Ve’s hands, and I leaned in to study the photo as well.
    The man in the image certainly hadn’t dressed for a wedding. He leaned against a brick courthouse column, wearing ripped blue jeans, a white V-neck T-shirt, a black leather choker with a round white pendant, and worn biker boots. A tattered straw fedora with an emerald green band sat high on his head, while the ends of long curly brown hair brushed against his shoulders. He was broad chinned, with a long, crooked nose that had obviously once been badly broken. Intense eyes peered out from beneath the brim of the hat, and his half smile revealed a chipped bottom front tooth.
    He wasn’t what I’d consider to be attractive necessarily, but he wasn’t hideous, either. There was something compelling about his looks. Something that insinuated he hadn’t had an easy life. It was as though his outward appearance told me a story about what was going on inside of him. A story that didn’t have a happy beginning . . . .
    Next to Miles glowed a bright white starburst—Aunt Ve, I presumed. Until recently, Wishcrafters appeared only as white auras on film. Fortunately, we now possessed a wonderful spell that allowed our images to be captured. Though I imagined Ve was probably plenty grateful that she couldn’t be seen in this particular picture.
    Harper shook her head. “This man is . . .”
    We all waited.
    â€œHe’s . . .”
    It was unlike my sister to be unable to come up with a word. Any word. Her vocabulary was impressive and extensive.
    â€œHe’s . . . haunting.” She handed the picture back to Ve. “That look in his eye . . .”
    â€œHaunting” fit for both his appearance
and
the shadows in his eyes. If the old saying about eyes being the windows to the soul was true, then we were looking into a very somber place.
    â€œI agree.” The buckles on Ve’s overalls clanked as she plopped onto the love seat with a hearty sigh. “His broken spirit appealed to a lot of women. Women flocked to him whenever he was here, lusting after him as though he was some kind of sexual Pied Piper.”
    I absolutely hadn’t needed that image in my head.
    But as she spoke, I was a little surprised Ve hadn’t liked him right off the bat, considering she had a tendency to be drawn to men who needed fixing.
    And Miles Babbage looked like he was a fractured mess.
    I asked, “When was all this?”
    â€œThirty years ago.” She frowned. “Oddly, it was thirty years ago this very week. It feels like it was a lifetime ago, really.”
    Aunt Ve would have been in her early thirties. I’d have been a year old, and Harper hadn’t yet been born.
    Ve glanced out the window in the direction of the garage. “Do you think he’s been out there this whole time?”
    We sat in silence for a moment, pondering that scenario.
    â€œThe bones certainly looked as if they’d been there for a while,” I finally said, “but wouldn’t you have stumbled across them by now?”
    Ve lifted her shoulders in a who-knows kind of way. “I can’t remember the last time I was in that corner ofthe garage. Most of the stuff that’s back there belonged to your grandparents. I’ve never had need to move