Chapter 8 - THE NAME BENEATH THE INK
They reached William’s house before sunrise. Lilith took the contract page from the cabinet and held it over a candle. Heat brought new writing through the ink.
Bella read her own last name.
MERCER.
Her father had died five years ago. He’d been a mechanic who fixed neighbors’ cars for free when they couldn’t pay. Bella couldn’t imagine what he had to do with an ancient curse.
Lilith sat down at the kitchen table. “His family kept the other half of the contract.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I didn’t know his daughter was you. The name disappeared from the records centuries ago.”
William pulled up every document he could find on Bella’s father. Before long, Bella found something tucked inside an old photo album she had brought from her apartment: a letter he had written but never mailed.
If anyone asks about the Mercer name, don’t give them the silver locket. It belongs to you, and no one has the right to take it.
Bella touched the locket at her throat. Her father had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday.
Lilith held out her hand. Bella opened it herself. Inside was a tiny drawing of a doorway.
“The Mercers were witnesses,” Lilith said. “When William’s ancestor made the deal, one of yours insisted it could be broken.”
“Then why curse every child who came after him?” Bella asked.
“Because the people who gained from it kept renewing it.”
William looked toward the wall of Norman portraits in the hall.
“My family knew,” he said.
May you like
His phone rang. The caller was his cousin, Adrian, who had spent years trying to take control of the company.
“I hear you’ve found the Mercer girl,” Adrian said. “Bring her to me before she learns what your father did.”
