Hartley wound up staying the night after all, though he came in quite late from looking at maps of the area and almost immediately dropped off to sleep. In fact, he probably would have immediately dropped off to sleep if Ellie hadn't tapped into her Southern need to feed guests and insisted he have a little supper before he slept. It was good to see him again for a while, too. All in all, Hartley was a good sort of person. Quirky, but nice.

Apparently the rest of the village thought so, too, as Kaz heard his name once or twice amidst the other residents out doing their morning chores even two days after he'd left. According to Ellie, the village didn't get visitors often, and he imagined someone who asked as many questions as Hartley had made a big impression... especially considering he was a full-blooded Other of some kind or another. That seemed to be a novelty of some sort in this place, though he wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

"You know, for somebody travelin' all by your lonesome, it seems like you've got a few friends in high places," Ellie said as they walked. "Hartley made quite an entrance."

"He does that," Kaz snorted. "Friends in low places is more accurate, though. I've had more blackmail victims and bargain partners in high places than friends."

"What about—" but Ellie cut off suddenly as they neared Granny's house, suddenly turning to look in the direction of familiar voices.

It was cold outside, so the windows and doors were closed, but even so he could hear muffled shouting inside the house. Ellie pressed a finger to her lips in warning, catching his eye briefly before she worked her way around to the back of the house. Carefully avoiding errant puddles of mud and slush and muddy slush, she picked her way to the back door and slowly turned the knob. Standing just out of sight, Ellie eased the door open a hair, enough for them to hear what was happening inside a little more clearly.

"—will give us power beyond belief. You have to understand what this'll do for us, momma! It'll change lives!"

"Jeannie?" Ellie mouthed, brow furrowed as she leaned in a little closer to listen. Considering there was no other person in town who might call Granny their mother, Kaz could only assume she was right.

"Yes, and for the worse!" That was Granny's voice, and she did not sound happy.

"For the better!" Jeannie countered, her voice twice as loud as she... Well, it sounded like she slammed her hand on a table.

"Fletcher was insane, and you know it," Granny snapped. "He was out of his mind from blood magic and ten million other things when he wrote that godforsaken ritual, and then he died trying to complete it, along with four other witches."

"Sounds to me like he was just ahead of his time," Jeannie said cooly. "Otherwise, why would Elias have bothered to transcribe it?"

Elias? Kaz caught Ellie's eye, confused. That was a name he hadn't heard before.

"My dad," she whispered.

"Elias wanted to unravel the construction to figure out why Fletcher died, not to repeat it."

"I'm using his notes, don't worry. I won't be dying in the attempt, and neither will anyone else," Jeannie insisted. "But don't think your refusal to participate will stop us."

"Then I will," Granny practically growled.

"I am the lead witch here, not you, 'member? You turned down the job to focus on raising your granddaughter," she spat. "This is my decision."

"This is a mistake, that's what it is. You'll live to regret it."

"I'll live to prove you wrong," Jeannie said firmly.

And at that moment, both Kaz and Ellie jumped back from the door at the sound of footsteps coming towards them. Just before the sound reached the door, Ellie opened it, jumping back with wide eyes as she came face to face with Jeannie. It was a decent impression of being startled, Kaz had to admit.

"Whew, you scared me," Ellie said with a slight laugh. "Hey, Jeannie."

"Hey, honey. Good to see you," her aunt said with a smile, patting Ellie's shoulder as she slipped out the door. "I see the rest of the village hasn't scared off your fiancé?"

"I'll be here for the foreseeable future," Kaz said, letting his smile show his wickedly pointed teeth. He tried and failed to keep his tone from sounding threatening, but after what they'd just heard, he wasn't sure that was entirely possible.

"Y'all stop lettin' in the cold!" Granny cried from inside, thankfully releasing them from their conversation. Ellie ushered him inside, quickly shutting and bolting the door behind them. Granny was in the kitchen— Kaz found her stirring something in a large pot over the fireplace. It smelled like stew, but he couldn't tell what kind.

"Okay, 'fess up. How much of that were you listenin' to through the door?" Granny asked, not even looking up from stirring.

"How the—" Kaz began, but Granny just glanced over her shoulder at him pointedly.

"I know a draft when I feel one, son. Don't matter if it's a crack in the door or a hole in the wall," she said. "Ellie, go get the grimoire. You know where it is, and it's easier for you to look at the bullshit Jeannie wants to try to kill herself with than for me to explain it."

Ellie stood from the table with a nod, shuffling off towards a closet at the side of the house. Only a short moment later, she came back with a massive book in her hands. It was old, sporting yellowed pages and a worn leather cover, the spine obviously patched and repaired many times over, and it had to be at least two or three inches thick.

"Here," Ellie said, plopping the book on the table.

"Page thirty-two. It's the one with all the papers in it." Granny gestured absently with the spoon as she spoke, a little broth sloshing onto the countertop.

It was accurate to say "all the papers." Kaz couldn't even see the writing on the book's pages for the piled of notes squashed in between the fold at that place. The writing was in an elegant, spindly hand, interspersed with questions, crossed out lines, and random extra notes on scrap paper haphazardly clipped to bigger pages.

For his part, Kaz couldn't make heads or tails of the writing. Even at places where he could make out the scribbles, he wasn't sure what they were referencing. He could see words like "catalyst," "sacrifice," and "energetic affinity," but magic had never been something quite so calculated for him. Even on the few occasions he performed spells, Kaz was an intuitive caster. He'd never seen a spell or ritual dissected so thoroughly.

"I've seen this..." Ellie murmured. "It's in my copy, too, but dad's notes are all in the pages after, and there's a big ol' warning at the top of the page."

"Then you're lucky you got the organized version," Granny scoffed. "These are the notes he left me the last time I saw him, and I can't make any sense of it. The one in my book is the original version that my brother, Fletcher, wrote... Before he lost his damn mind, and his life, too, that is."

"Fuck..." Ellie muttered. "I glanced at it before, but I didn't know how..."

"Gruesomely twisted it was?" Granny offered from where she sprinkled herbs into her stewpot.

"That. Yeah," Ellie said slowly, eyes wide as she glanced over the ritual.

Kaz shuffled his chair closer to Ellie so he could look at the book pages, putting the notes to the side for the moment. Sure enough, the script on these pages was different than the notes, in a blockier hand that somehow grew bigger, bolder, and spikier as the spell's instructions progressed. The first page had a title in bold script, a list of ingredients, and a detailed depiction of a magic circle with markers at five points.

"Ritual of Returning," Kaz mumbled, squinting at the title. "Returning what?"

"Fletcher was... obsessive about magic," Granny said with a sigh. "He didn't have much power in him, but he was convinced that all the power that came from generations before had to have gone somewhere. He thought it built with each generation."

"That doesn't sound like a terribly off-base theory, based on what I've heard from Hartley and seen here..." Kaz murmured.

It was only a loose theory. Fifty years was enough time to test some things about witches and Others and magic, but not many. Substantial information would take generations. Granny didn't contradict him, though.

"You're right. And he was right, too, in a way. The older your bloodline, the stronger your magic," she said, moving to look at the book with them. "But some folks always take to it better than others. Or maybe it's the other way around and magic takes to some folks better. Maybe it knows when there's trouble brewing."

"Like Fletcher?" Kaz offered.

"And Jeannie, too," Ellie muttered, fiddling impatiently with her long braid. "Why the hell would she ever attempt anything like this?"

"She wants power, same as Fletcher did," Granny said sadly, and then turned to Kaz. "The Ritual of Returning is supposed to return the powers of generations long past to the casters. It draws on ancestral magic from deep, dark places to pull up power and flood it through your veins."

"And it... took his life?"

"Dead as a doornail, and he deserved it too, as sick as the requirements are," Granny said bluntly, not a trace of remorse in her voice. "His mind was long gone by the time he attempted it. I couldn't see anything left of the brother I knew."

Ellie stood and wrapped her arms around her grandmother, drawing her close in a gentle hug.

"It's okay, baby," Granny whispered, but she didn't pull away. "I had my time to grieve, just like we all do. I just can't let the same thing happen to Jeannie."

"So we stop her," Ellie said simply.

"We do."

Kaz raised his hand like a child in school. "How would you suggest we do that?"

Granny rolled her eyes, but he could see she held back a laugh, and counted that as a victory.

"It's definitely not somethin' they can be subtle about doing," Granny admitted. "I don't know when they're plannin' it for, but if we start thinkin' about how to throw a wrench in it now, we can be ready when the time comes."

Kaz opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, an envelope appeared in the air in front of him with an audible pop, hovering for a moment before it flopped down to the table in front of him. Ellie and her grandmother stared as he opened it, finding a brief message in familiar handwriting.

I'll be on the 3PM train. Pick me up. Bringing the hounds.

"How does that even find you?" Granny asked.

"Think of it like a magic telegram." Kaz shrugged. It was decently common for quick messaging, though as Ellie pointed out before, most people needed a tag lock to make it work. Hair or nail clippings were best, but most Others knew various work-arounds to the rule.

"Convenient," Ellie conceded. "Weird, but convenient."

"Kids these days," the shorter woman muttered.

"I'll be back by dark," Kaz said, tucking the letter in his pocket. "I need to pick up Harper at the station. She's the vampire I sent a message to about investigating the crime scene for us."

"I can go with you—" Ellie started, but Kaz just shook his head.

"Stay here and read up on that ritual. Figure out whatever we need to do to stop it from happening— I'll be back soon," he said softly, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

Granny raised an eyebrow and Ellie blushed.

"I think I'll just... um... lemme go check my copy. Might be somethin' useful in the notes," Ellie said quickly, standing from the table as she flipped the book cover closed. She kissed Granny goodbye on the crown of her head and scooted out the door as quickly as she could.

"You ain't gettin' outta this talk, youngin!" the older woman called.

"Have a good day, Granny!" Ellie said cheerfully, as though she hadn't even heard. Now it made a little more sense where she'd learned the basics of acting.

"Psh, at least ya know she trusts you to leave ya here," Granny said with a chuckle. "Prob'ly thinks I tore you a new one last time, and there's not much else to say between us." 

"Is there more to say?" Kaz asked, almost nervous.

"I'm an old woman. There's always more to say," Granny said bluntly. "I'm not gonna detain ya if you've got things to do, though."

"To be honest," Kaz said slowly, "before I go, I had an idea to run by you."

"Oh?" She didn't look up from the soup.

"Ellie had mentioned it's difficult for a witch to buy land," he said carefully, "and that Miriam needs to move. She said she wanted to get a place for all of you set up in the mountains. I'd like to help with that, if I can."

"Help how, exactly?" Granny's eyebrow raised, but the fact that she didn't immediately write off the idea was enough encouragement.

"Trust me when I say that money is hardly an issue for me," Kaz said. "I've been drifting for fifty years and I've stockpiled large sums from bargaining fees—"

"We don't want your blood money, boy," Granny said with a huff. "An' Ellie's too proud to take it, especially when y'ain't even married yet."

"That's why—" Kaz stopped suddenly, the full extent of Granny's words hitting him. "Yet?"

"I ain't so old I can't tell which way the wind blows. I know when somebody's attached. Don't matter if it's been three weeks or three years," she said with a shrug. "Now, what did ya have in mind?"

"Can you get me Miriam's address?"

"I can. Why do you need it?" she asked, stirring the soup slowly.

"I have a plan that I think will get around Ellie accepting anything she feels like charity, but should also be able to get her out of the village."

"Okay," Granny said, turning around and placing the spoon on a dish by the stove. Pulling out a kitchen chair to plop down next to him, she adjusted her glasses a little. "I'm listening."

The Ritual of Returning was one of the sickest things Ellie had ever read.

Granny raised her as a witch, yes, but a witch with a strict code of ethics. Meddling in other people's lives without their consent was absolutely prohibited. Love spells were beyond taboo. Don't do rituals that seem too good to be true. Turning lead into gold might be possible if you tried hard enough, but it would also fuck up the local economy and probably the rest of your life with it. Magic was an aid, not a solution.

And, on top of all that, there were prayers before mealtimes, prayers before bed, and prayers in the morning. She had Bible lessons along with her witch lessons, and all of that had only impressed an additional layer of a very, very strict moral code upon Ellie. She learned how to walk the fine, fine line her ancestors walked before her at a very early age.

Fletcher... Clearly never learned anything about lines.

Even if it hadn't involved multiple ingredients harvested from living sacrifices, Ellie could have clocked the red flags in the process from a mile away. The ritual called for five casters, but the language in the Latin incantation only grammatically referred to one practitioner. Her father's notes mentioned this in detail, and his theory was that Fletcher's awful grammar caused the power from the other four casters to flow into his body. The state of his corpse afterward suggested something of a magical allergic reaction, like the power summoned from those ancestral witches simply wasn't compatible with Fletcher on an innate level.

Specifics were important in magic, right down to the word choices. It was a large reason that Granny was quite firm that Latin should never be a primary language choice for spellwork unless you were very, very familiar with it.

Ellie was not. She wrote her spells in English like a normal mountain-dweller.

Outside, the sun was setting. It was about time she started cooking her supper, even if it was something simple. Kaz could fend for himself if he wasn't back soon, she thought, though as soon as she stood from her chair to get started, her front door swung open and a familiar demon swept into the room, a bright smile on his face.

"Where you been, stranger?" Ellie asked wearily as she closed the book. There was little point in looking at those awful pages any longer, and seeing Kaz was like a balm to her frayed nerves.

"Like I told you, I picked up Harper at the station. She needs a little extra escort effort because of her sun sensitivity, so it took some extra time," he explained. "I do have another surprise for you, though."

"A surprise...?" Ellie raised her eyebrows, uncertain if she should be nervous or not. She wasn't typically fond of surprises. They usually brought too many bad things with them.

"Remember how I said I thought it would be helpful if you had a friend with the Sight?"

"... Yes," she said carefully.

"You're in luck." Kaz smiled in a way that showed his sharp teeth and opened the front door wider.

Ellie wasn't quite sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't two utterly enormous dogs followed by five small balls of fur. They trotted into her house and sniffed the air, as if looking for something.

"Smells good," a feminine voice said.

Except... it wasn't a voice. It wasn't a voice in the sense that she heard it in her ears. Instead, she heard it in her mind.

"Did you... did you just talk?" Ellie asked carefully, looking back and forth between the two dogs.

"We're perfectly capable of communicating, yes," a masculine voice said as the largest of the dogs turned towards her. "Hold out your hand."

Shocked into obedience, Ellie held out her right hand. The dog sniffed it, nudged her with his nose, and then went back to sniffing around the house.

"This is Charlie and Luna, and of course, their new pups. I sent them a message about a week ago," Kaz explained. "I knew they were arriving today, so I went to town to meet the train. They're old friends."

"Y'all just came here all on your own?" Ellie asked, dropping to her knees to talk to them at eye level. "You must be tired."

"Our person is in town. She'll be up once the sun sets," Charlie said, the masculine voice rumbling through Ellie's mind.

"No need to worry, though. We travel often, and the pups are full of energy," Luna said as she nuzzled her mate.

One of the tiny balls of fluff that Ellie now recognized as a puppy tripped its way up to her where she knelt on the floor, sniffing carefully for a moment before putting a paw on her lap. The little brown and black puff of fur seemed to be more curious than their siblings, ready to sniff at Ellie specifically rather than investigating the room with the other pups.

"Hey, sweet pea," Ellie murmured, holding a hand out for the little one to sniff. The puppy nosed at her fingertips for a moment before it slipped under her hand and climbed into her lap. Ellie's heart practically melted into a puddle as the puppy curled up on her thighs, batting at her long braid.

"Play nice," Charlie said sternly. The little one barely flinched.

"Are y'all planning to stay in town?" Ellie's eyes were still on the baby.

"Depends," Luna's voice echoed in her mind. "It isn't easy for animal spirits to be independent in this world, so we choose homes together with a human-shape for safety."

"Human... shape?" Ellie repeated slowly.

"Harper. She's an Other with a human form, so... technically, she's not human," Kaz said with a shrug. "She won't be here till after sunset to help with the investigation, but I wanted to bring her canine friends by to meet you."

Ellie's attention went back to the puppy in her lap, who was happily snuggled up and snoring.

"Does this little bean have a name?" she asked.

"We've been tossing some around, but our kind don't often have names in humanoid tongues," Charlie said.

"Your... kind?" she asked hesitantly, finally looking away from the puppy and back to the much larger parents. They just looked like... dogs, albeit very large ones.

"They're hellhounds," Kaz said like he was saying the sky was blue.

Ellie's brain seemed to short circuit for a moment as she processed the massive size of the animals, the puppy in her lap, and the telepathic communication. It made sense, it did, but hellhounds were rare to come by. She'd never seen one before in her life, and she wasn't expecting... well...

"I... um, I thought hellhounds were... not this cute, honestly. Or nice," she mumbled, words spilling out before she could process them. However, she did have the good grace to blush when she realized what she'd said. "Sorry 'bout that."

Luna chuckled. "We'll take that as a compliment. Hellhounds can manifest in many sizes and shapes. We like these best."

"So you can... I'm sorry, I'm still not connecting this with Spirit Sight." She shook her head helplessly, looking to Kaz for assistance, but he just smiled.

"It's our job to escort souls to the afterlife," Charlie explained. "We make sure to take them where they need to go. If they're lost, we can guide them there, both good places and bad."

"You see 'em, too," she said softly, processing.

"Kaz says you're trying to help someone stuck in the middle." Luna plopped down on the ground beside Ellie as she spoke, nosing at the little pup in her lap. The baby gently nipped back at her mother, but stayed on Ellie's lap.

"I am," she said softly. "He's... someone I love very much. I want him at peace."

And for the first time, saying she loved Ben in the present tense while knowing she was on her way to developing those same feelings for Kaz didn't feel like a knife in her chest.

"Why don't you let us help you?" Charlie suggested.

"You... don't know me. I'd appreciate it if you can settle him, but I don't expect you to."

"We consider it something of a sacred calling, as far as we're concerned," Luna explained. "It is our duty to help those who are lost or wandering. I'm sure you understand."

"... Yeah," Ellie said slowly. "Yeah, that makes sense." She carefully petted the puppy in her lap, pleased when the little fluffball rolled over for belly rubs. The other pups continued to explore the room, sniffing and nosing at objects, and a couple of them came up to sniff Ellie as well or to sit for a quick scratch behind the ears, but none of the others clambered onto her lap.

"When Harper gets here, we can check out the scene together," Kaz suggested. "Ben's spirit may or may not appear, correct?"

"Yeah, it's never a guarantee," Ellie admitted.

"We have time," Charlie said with a canine huff, and Ellie thought that might be the equivalent of a shrug. "Harper likes to stay places for a long time, and we stay with her."

"I'm sorry if it's rude to ask, but is it just you two who... talk? Not the babies?" Ellie asked, raising an eyebrow as she glanced at the litter of pups clambering around the room. Though their mental communication wasn't quite rhe same as talking, she wasn't sure there was another good way to describe it.

"Not rude. Our pups aren't old enough to communicate in human languages yet," Luna said, nudging the sleepy little dog in Ellie's lap with her nose. "She likes you, though."

"She's a cutie," Ellie said, smiling brightly.

"Our kind sometimes bond with human-shapes," Charlie said, tilting his head to look towards them from his position near the warm stove. "We shall see if there is time, but this bodes well."

The puppy yipped something in a language that Luna apparently understood.

"We'll be here a little while, and you can see her tomorrow, too," Luna said. "If that's alright with you?"

"Of course," Ellie said, nodding. From the side of the room, Kaz absolutely beamed as he watched her interact with the pup, and she wondered if this was what he'd hoped for all along.