21
"Are that…" Seth's voice trailed off, his hands coming up to cross himself.
Bella reached into the pile of artifacts, her fingers pushing past piles of tangled rings, bracelets, brooches, and necklaces. She paused, her stomach turning over when a small, shriveled lump surfaced, a gold ring still attached to the digit.
Behind her, Bella heard one of the boys turn away and heave.
She ignored the finger, her body burning with rage and disgust. Not at the corpse, who had clearly been torn apart, but at the thought that dozens of corpses had been violated.
Had these thieves no humanity?
Bella recognized some of the items, and she knew they had come from coffins her husband had made, hidden compartments she had designed.
Her confusion only grew deeper.
"Mistress?" Jasper's voice was raspy, and she looked up at him, standing upright once more. "We shouldn't stay here. What if whoever has been squatting here comes back?"
Bella let out a tight breath. "Let those scoundrels come back," she snarled.
Jasper winced. It would do no good to leave her here to face what inevitably would be a fight, but he wasn't sure how to convince her to leave, either.
"Do you see evidence of your husband, mistress?"
Bella surveyed the glen, its beauty now marred by the secret it was forced to keep. Her heart felt tight, frightened, for the truth was, aside from the artifacts that she knew had passed through her husband's hands at the time of their burial, there was nothing else here to suggest he'd been this way.
Her clues were thin, scattered, and unreliable.
But in her heart, she knew there was more. There was some sort of trace of him, invisible to the eye, only detectable by her instincts. She couldn't explain to the boys why she knew Edward had been here; she just knew.
"We shouldn't be here when they return," Seth added. "We're sure to be outnumbered."
It was a fair point, one Bella conceded to reluctantly. She surveyed the land once more before turning to the lads watching and waiting for her.
"We'll slip into the trees," she decided. "Seth, when you saw the witch come through, she came to this glen? You're sure of it?"
Seth looked pale as he nodded. "Aye, mistress. I'm sure."
There was something there, some sort of thought she couldn't quite latch onto. She was missing something that was right in front of her face.
"She's only shown herself at night," she murmured. "Perhaps if we return tonight."
Both boys looked petrified at the idea, but neither spoke up against it.
Bella paced, circling the campsite once more, hoping to uncover any sort of clues.
Tonight, her mind told her. All will become clear tonight.