The Curse Keepers Collection (152 page)

I took it from him, gasping. The box with Daddy’s pocket watches. It was coated in a layer of dust, but he was right—it was completely undamaged. I ran my fingers around the edges.

David sat upright. “Is that what I think it is?”

“What is it?” Collin asked, leaning closer.

I lifted the lid, exposing the contents. “It’s from Daddy.” The timepieces were in perfect condition, nestled in their velvet beds. Obviously, the watches had survived for a reason. They still had an important purpose.

Did Daddy have anything to do with this? Was this his way of offering his love and support? If someone had suggested it two months ago, I’d have called them crazy. But a scent of leather and cinnamon hung in the air. He was with me right now.

I looked up at Collin. “It’s a sign of hope—that we can do this. That we can conquer the demons and make everything right again.”

A cocky grin spread across his face. “Hell, we already have that, Ellie.”

I chuckled. “Why? Because
you’re
on board?”

“No. Because we’ve got the best weapon we could possibly have.” He leaned closer, turning serious. “We’ve got
you
.”

I only hoped that I was enough.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to thank 47North for their hard work and dedication to the Curse Keepers series. My acquiring editor, David Pomerico, heard the worst pitch in the history of pitches and still asked for a proposal. My first developmental editor, Alison Dasho, came with me to 47North, then left me after the line edits of
The Curse Keepers
to become an acquisitions editor for Thomas & Mercer. Her excitement at helping me create the Curse Keeper world, starting from the very beginning with the proposal, was contagious and inspiring. I was sad to lose her but excited to see her fulfill her dreams. Thankfully, I gained Angela Polidoro, whom I absolutely adore. She jumped in with both feet, not only with the Curse Keeper world, but my Rose Gardner Mystery series as well. She’s an absolute joy to work with and puts up with my moments of insecurities. (I’m convinced the poor woman usually sees me at my worst.) And finally, I’m lucky and thankful to have worked with the same copy editor for all three books. Jon has been an absolute joy to work with. I love how he understood me and my style, offering suggestions that were nearly always spot on. I can honestly say I’ve never enjoyed working with a copy editor as much as I have with him.

This series has had many highs and lows for me, and I’m forever thankful to Heather Pennington, Stormy Udell, Christie Timpson, Emily Pearson, and Rhonda Cowsert, who always believed in Ellie, Collin, and David, even when I doubted. I couldn’t ask for a better set of beta readers and friends.

I’m blessed with amazing readers, who not only read the book in their hands, but devour it and ask for more. You inspire me to keep this crazy pace. You inspire me to keep going even when I’m filled with doubt.

To those of you who have grown to love Ellie, Collin, and David—not to worry, this isn’t the end. Their journey has just begun.

C
ONTENTS

C
HAPTER
O
NE

C
HAPTER
T
WO

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

C
HAPTER
S
IX

C
HAPTER
O
NE

Two months before the curse broke

The waves slapped the side of the boat, but instead of the usual peace I experienced while alone on the water, irritation flooded through me. The damn engine was dead again even after the two grand I’d just dropped into it, and I suspected this time it was gone for good. Add on to that the fact that my haul of soft-shell crabs had been pitiful tonight—a far cry from the past four nights, which had netted me almost enough to pay off my latest loan from Marino. Now I was still in debt
and
about to fall even deeper into the hole. A new engine for the
Lucky Star
would cost me thousands of dollars I didn’t have.

Tossing the wrench across the deck, I sat back on my heels, cursing, as a sick feeling of dread washed over me.

It was like the universe was conspiring against me. I was good and truly fucked.

Kicking my legs out in front of me, I scooted back and rested my spine against the side of the boat, then reached into the cooler next to me, pulled out a bottle of beer, and popped the top. I took a long drag and stared up at the cloudless, starry sky. At least I could salvage something from this sorry excursion.

I sucked down the first beer, then took longer to drink the second. When I was finished, I grabbed another even though I knew having three so quickly was a bad idea. But I’d take whatever comfort I could get. Echoes carried over the water and I was close enough to the shore to hear the sounds of civilization, but the night was disarmingly quiet. I found it ironic that Collin Dailey, son of the land, was most at peace while on the water.

On nights like this one, when I wished I could be anywhere but here and anyone but me, I sometimes wondered about the other Keeper. Did she have the same bad luck that seemed to follow me around like a homeless dog? Did being a Curse Keeper mean we ourselves were cursed?

My grandmother was the greatest and wisest Manteo Keeper who’d ever lived. She was a Croatan conjuror, a converser with the spirits. Every Manteo Keeper before her had been a priest, so it stood to reason that Grandma Opal should have been one too. A female Curse Keeper was a rarity. But one who was also a conjurer? There had been no recorded conjurors in our line—male or female—since the descendant who’d carved out our fate so long ago.

There had been whispers about my grandmother when she was a little girl. Friends and family had thought her strange, and it was said that shadows followed her. But when she was older, she revealed that the shadows actually
spoke
to her. At first her father insisted it was impossible since all the gods and spirits were locked behind the gate of Popogusso, but even as a girl, my grandmother had possessed an intimidating presence. Besides, she wasn’t conversing with gods, but with lost souls—those who had died and not yet crossed over to the spirit world. Soon her father was a believer, and he declared her a conjurer.

My family had waited for centuries for a Dare Keeper to find us and break the curse. It had been foretold. It was expected. My great-grandfather was sure my grandmother would be the one to see it happen.

Here’s how the story went:

Over four hundred years ago, my ancestor Manteo befriended the Englishmen who landed on the shore of what is now North Carolina. He sailed to England twice and returned on the third English excursion to the New World. While the previous two ventures had been composed of explorers and geologists looking for treasure, the third included settlers—men and women and children who would make the New World their home. But the Native Americans were embittered by the previous atrocities that had been carried out by the English, and they vowed to wipe out the colony, going so far as to threaten the Croatan tribe because of Manteo’s traitorous behavior.

Ahone, the creator god, sensed Manteo’s growing desperation for his people and used it against him, convincing him to create a curse that would bind the gods and spirits of the warring tribes, weakening them. But Ahone insisted that Manteo needed the help of his English friend, Ananias Dare, son-in-law of Virginia governor John White, to do the deed. Since Ananias’s wife had given birth to their first child on Roanoke Island, he bore a desperation of his own.

So Manteo led Ananias into the woods one cold winter night and followed the instructions Ahone had given him, performing a ceremony to open the gate to Popogusso—hell. Ananias followed along, unaware until the very end that there would be a price for his participation. All he knew was that he was stopping the hostile tribes.

Ananias raced back to check on his wife and infant daughter, horrified to find nothing—every building, object, man, woman, and child had disappeared from the Roanoke colony. While Manteo’s sacrifice had been the life of his own son, Ananias had unwittingly trapped the entire English village behind the gate to hell along with the Native American gods and spirits. But Manteo had been tricked as well. The gods and spirits of his own people had been ensnared along with the deities of the neighboring tribes. The only god to escape was Ahone.