The Curse of Dark Root: Part Two (Daughters of Dark Root Book 4) Read Free Page B

dirty hand and grinned.
    Merry and Eve both tentatively put up their hands as well, smiles cracking their faces. I tilted my head, a smile tugging at the edge of my lips.
    I raised my hand, too. Halfway.
    “Not a moment too soon, either,” Ruth Anne continued, scraping rocks into a puddle with her boot. “I drew up blueprints to make an ark and was about to collect the passengers. Unfortunately, we don't have two of everything. Just one missing cat, a teething infant, four sad women and an annoying religious guy.”
    I laughed out loud. The annoying guy was my baby's father, Michael. And he would literally be the last man I’d want to spend forty days and forty nights on a boat with.
    “Seriously,” Ruth Anne continued, opening the passenger door. “I've never seen so much rain. Wettest spring in Dark Root's history. What was that about?”
    “Coincidence.” I crawled into the back seat beside Eve. Two baby socks and a rattle blocked my way and I scraped them into my bag. “You all assume it was me causing it. We live in a rain forest, for Jupiter's sake.”
    “All's I'm saying is, the rain began the day you had Monty, and then stopped two days ago when you announced you were burying the ring. According to Miss Sasha, there are no coincidences, right?”
    I leaned over the front seat, pushing my head between Ruth Anne and Merry. “First of all, don't call my son Monty. It makes him sound like a game show host. His name is Montana. And second of all––”
    “Secondly,” Ruth Anne corrected.
    “Second of all,” I repeated. “Since when did you listen to Mother?”
    “Hell, I'll quote anyone who'll validate an argument. I once wrote an entire research paper based on something Captain Kirk said.”
    “The cereal man?”
    “That's Captain Crunch. Hey, why don't we ever buy that? I'll put it on the list.”
    “I didn't start the rain and I didn't stop it,” I said before Ruth Anne could launch into a dissertation on Crunch Berries or Star Trek. “The rain just happened.”
    “I hope you're right,” Ruth Anne said. “Because we can't have the weather being controlled by a wilder. I'll be damned if I'm going to wear a parka all summer.”
    “Noted. I'll take that into consideration the next time you try to freeze us out of the house with the air conditioning.”
    “One time! And I wasn't trying to freeze you out. I was testing to see if ghosts materialize more often when it's cold.”
    “And please stop invoking spirits, Ruth Anne. You're going to summon something you can't get rid of.”
    “You're lecturing me on spirit summoning?” Ruth Anne spun back towards me, knocking her glasses into her headrest.
    “I got an idea,” Merry interjected, swerving to the right to avoid a deep chasm of water covering most of the road. “Let's all eat dinner together tonight. We'll keep it light and festive. Celebrate the summer and new beginnings.” She looked to Ruth Anne. “If our darling sister can keep her wing-eating to a minimum, that is.”
    “There's always room for more.” Ruth Anne patted her belly.
    Merry looked dreamily up into a sky as blue as her own eyes. “I'm just ready for us to return to normal. The nice weather is a good sign.”
    “There's no normal in Dark Root,” Eve said. “There's creepy, spooky, and bizarro. Normal split the moment our grandmother built her house in this town.”
    I silently acknowledged Eve's observance as I rolled down the window. I breathed in the clean air. The scent of damp leaves, wet earth, and pine needles overcame me.  
    Goodbye, I thought, waving the tips of my fingers as we left the forest. I knew I wasn't just leaving Shane's ring behind, I was leaving a part of myself there, too.
    “We need a new normal,” I said decisively. “We need to make some changes or we'll all end up in the looney bin.”
    The others gave me quizzical looks but didn't speak as Merry turned onto the road that led to Sister House.

TWO
    Son of a Preacher Man

    WE PULLED