Tiddly Jinx Read Online Free PDF Page A

while she cooked. She hummed to herself as she fried eggs and a piece of ham. “Thank you for helping yesterday,” I said.
    She kept her back facing me. “That’s my job. One that I had been far too neglectful of.”
    I took a deep breath. “I could use your help again.”
    She scraped the eggs and ham onto her plate then sat the skillet in the sink before she faced me. “Come. Sit.”
    She sat down at the table and I took the chair across from her, folding my hands in front of me. She looked like she had aged twenty years in the past few weeks. “I did what the priestess asked and brought back the Pole of Charon.” She nodded. “But I didn’t know what it did and Cheney didn’t get to me in time to stop what happened. Gram, the Pole can tear holes between worlds. Obviously it doesn’t belong in the Abyss. I said I’d deliver it to them and I did, but now I need to take it back.”
    She nodded again, her mouth pursed, making her wrinkles more pronounced. “I cannot help you with that. It is beyond my power.”
    I smiled a little. “That isn’t what I need help with. The necromancer, Frost—you met her, right?—went with me because she felt the dark magic in the Pole and thought I shouldn’t touch it. The priestess told us to take it into the crypt, but Cheney showed up, so I didn’t go in. Frost did, though, and then they all vanished: Frost, the Pole, the priestess, and the crypt. I need to find them before the boundaries between worlds start to crumble.”
    She set down her fork and took another sip of coffee. “How do you propose we find where they went? They could be anywhere, this world or the next.”
    I nodded. “That’s the problem. We have used every method available to us to track them here, and there’s nothing. I don’t think they’re here at all.” I pressed my lips together, trying to organize my thoughts. “The spirits wanted the Pole for a reason. It seems fairly obvious that they must want to come back from wherever they are. I don’t think they’re in the underworld or they could have gotten it themselves, but they must be somewhere that isn’t here. If they’re trying to tear a hole between worlds then that Pole should be putting off tons of dark magic. We should be able to find it, right?”
    “Ghosts are not in this realm or the underworld. They are in an in between,” Gram said. She traced her old wrinkled finger along the rim of her mug. “You cannot find the dark with light. Dark magic is what you came to get help with.”
    “I don’t see another way. I’m only doing it to save people.”
    She gave me a sad smile. “Some of the best witches who have turned dark started down the path with good intentions. They won’t save you. The dark will seek out the gateways in you and feed from them until you do not resemble your former self. It won’t come at you in a single attack. It will be an ongoing struggle for the rest of your life. And you, my child, will live a very long time.”
    My stomach knotted. “I don’t have a choice. I brought the Pole back. It’s my responsibility. If you have other ideas, I’m open to them. Honestly, I don’t want to do this.”
    She sighed. “I wish I wouldn’t have been such an ignorant old woman. There was much I could have taught you over the years.”
    I squeezed her hand. “There’s still time.”
    She nodded. “Come.”
    I followed her up to her secret room in the attic. She slowly lowered herself to the ground, not moving around nearly as easily as she had just a year ago. She pried a couple boards up from the floor and stuck her arm in all the way to her shoulder. She pulled out a white velvet sack with a pentagram and glistening rune burned into the material. It was bound with rope wrapped three times in each direction, forming a cross around it. She held the sack on her lap with both hands resting on the top. As she looked down at it, the wrinkles on her weathered face seemed deeper and more pronounced.
    “Dark magic