“I was getting to that.” Riley walked them over to stand right in front of the wall that now stretched well beyond the original board—that Sellotape was going to peel off the wallpaper when she took it down, no question—but she blocked the part with his face on it with her body.
“The board is divided into different sections arranged chronologically.”
Yes, Clark could see that. To the far left was the curse-origins section he’d seen the first time he was here, now filled out with corresponding information.
It read a bit like a game of Cluedo. “Philippa Campbell （who） in June 1779 （when） at the cave by the cliff （where） because a blood feud had wiped out her family and threatened her home （why），” though instead of a weapon Riley had listed that Gaelic sentence they found in the cave: “an end to enemies （how）。”
“Not much progress on that first section, aye?” He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Didn’t you suss all that out ages ago?”
Clark wanted to make sure she knew that just because they’d had a laugh and he’d removed her onions didn’t mean he’d gone soft for her again.
“Yes,” she deadpanned, “thanks so much for pointing that out.”
The next bit said Curse Evidence with a section tagged Artifacts and an instant photo of the dagger underneath.
Doesn’t respond to fire, cleansing, or charms, she’d noted in the photo’s white space. Beside it, a Post-it read, belonged to Philippa?
While Clark scanned the next few items on the wall, Riley grabbed a pad of fresh notes off the nightstand and scribbled manacles before throwing it up beside the dagger.
“Oh, good. If you hadn’t written that down, we might have forgotten about them.”
Riley drew a cartoon penis and promptly stuck it to his chest.
“Very mature,” he said, removing it and shifting his gaze to the section labeled Events.
“When did you encounter stinging nettles?” he asked in the same moment that a phantom itch manifested on his hand. Clark scratched at it mindlessly. He still had some of her salve left . . . “Oh, you wily minx.”
“Are you talking about me or the curse?”
“You.” He’d known it hadn’t made sense for the dagger itself to have caused the rash, since Riley had never developed it despite handling the artifact plenty over the last week and a half.
“Just checking.” She smiled.
The rest of the events he recognized—fire, snake, ladder, storm.
Riley said the castle didn’t like it when they were chummy, but looking at the list again, Clark wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was because he physically couldn’t escape her at the moment, but another observation jumped out at him almost immediately.
“You realize that every one of these disasters resulted in us putting our hands on each other in some fashion.” He tried to sound calm about it, even though inside he was railing.
Riley had assured him the curse couldn’t impact free will, but his attraction to her certainly felt otherworldly, almost mandated. It would be a relief to blame the way he couldn’t resist her on something, anything, other than his own terrible taste in who to trust.
“What?” Riley practically croaked. “No. No way. Come on. We haven’t touched that much.” But she stared at the list too now, likely playing it all back in her head the way he was.
Riley backing him against the wall with the dagger pointed at his throat, him throwing her to the ground when her clothes caught flame, the way she’d grabbed his hand to run from the snake, him catching her as she fell from the ladder, their rain-soaked bodies in his bed.
“The opposite of enemies,” she said slowly, and then much faster, “Holy shit. I have to call my mom.”
“Pardon?” He barely had time to read the name of the last section, Attempted Strategies, and see that she had notes under Charms, Cleansing, and did that say Sacrifice?
Clark leaned forward trying to make out the words—the woman had abominable handwriting—he thought it said something about away—when she pulled him aggressively toward the desk where she’d deposited her mobile upon their entry.
“Mom,” she said when someone on the other line answered. Riley turned her back to Clark as much as she was able and kind of cupped her hand around the mouthpiece.
Why had she gone red all of a sudden?
If he hadn’t been intending to eavesdrop before, Clark certainly was now.
“Hi. Um, so this is kind of random, but you know those romance books you’re always reading where one person, like, killed the other person’s family and at first the protagonist is like, ‘Watch out. I’m gonna bathe in your blood,’ but then when they end up in a sword fight a few chapters later it’s suddenly extremely erotic?”
Excuse me?
Her mother must have answered in the affirmative because Riley nodded her head.
“Okay, yeah. What’s that called, again, like the trope or whatever?”
After another murmured sentence, Riley’s high color drained. “And just to clarify, when you say lovers that can mean like sex, right?”
Sex?!
“Shoot. That’s what I was afraid of.” Riley bit at the thumbnail on her right hand. “All right. Thanks, Mom. Yeah. I gotta go. I’m actually a little tied up right now.”
She made eyes at Clark like, What? The joke was right there!
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Love you too. Bye.” She put down the mobile looking shell-shocked, almost afraid.
“What was that about?”
Walking them awkwardly over to the nightstand, Riley opened the drawer and removed a faded leather journal. “I, uh, just need to check something.”
Clark bet that was the book from her gran. It looked well loved, and he noticed Riley’s note-taking method—the pages so marked by Post-its that the padded width stretched the heavily creased spine.
“You know, you don’t have to worry about this,” she said as she flipped through the pages with increasing speed. “It’s just some silly curse-breaking stuff. In fact, why don’t you look at your phone for a little.” She eyed his pocket meaningfully. “Maybe watch a funny video on YouTube?”
Please. The only things he watched on YouTube were archaeology seminars and season recaps of CSI.
He arched his neck to see what she was looking at.
“Listen.” She chewed her bottom lip. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
“The wrong idea about what?”
He finally spied the page over her shoulder, and . . . Oh.
The title was Sex Rituals, and the opening began, Like all bodily fluids, semen can be a potent part of . . . Clark stopped reading, looked up, faintly seeing stars.
“Is that . . . are you . . . er, doing that, much?”
“No. No, no.” She shook her head for good measure. “I’m not. I wouldn’t with a client. That would be inappropriate. And like I said, I work by myself, so no. I’ve never.” She moved her eyes meaningfully toward the book. “In fact, I’ve never even read this section before. Not exactly something I really wanna think about Gran exploring, ya know?”
Clark did. His nan had plenty of beaus in her retirement community in Kent. He certainly didn’t linger on their extracurricular activities.