Blood Moon (Book Three - The Ravenscliff Series) Read Online Free Page B

my mother.”
    Crazy Lady began to laugh again, low and tittering. “Your mother … why, she has always been right here, Devon, all along!”
    He stared at her. “What do you mean?”
    “All along,” she echoed.
    “You can’t mean—” Demon stammered as an idea took shape in his mind. “Not her—”
    The mysterious sorceress just laughed.
    “You can’t mean— Mrs. Crandall ?” Devon asked, his voice a bitter croak.
    Crazy Lady clapped her hands together, letting out a long hideous cackle, thrilled to have finally revealed the deepest, darkest secret of Ravenscliff.

The Beast
    Devon couldn’t respond. His voice—all thought—was gone.
    He said nothing, did nothing as Crazy Lady turned and ran off back down the corridor into darkness.
    “No,” he finally said.
    It can’t be.
    Not Mrs. Crandall—
    He reacted suddenly to a noise. A scraping sound. The wall beside him began to move. A panel opening. Devon readied himself, as a sorcerer should, for an attack.
    But it was Cecily.
    “Devon,” she said, scrunching up her face as she peered into the darkness at him. “What are you doing inside my wall ?”
    Behind her a soft light glowed from the side of her bed. Devon just stared at her, unable to speak.
    “I heard voices from inside here,” she said. “They woke me up.” She examined the sliding panel. “I haven’t used this old secret door since I used to play on this staircase as a little girl.” She looked back at Devon and frowned. “You still haven’t answered me about what you’re doing in there.”
    He couldn’t seem to form any words.
    “What is the matter with you?” Cecily took his arm and coaxed him forward into her room. He followed numbly. She shut the panel and then turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked especially pretty in the soft light from her lamp, her red hair down around her shoulders. She was wearing a pink flannel nightgown.
    “Oh, I get it,” she said, smiling. “You were sneaking up to see me. Didn’t want my mother to know. Oh, Devon—”
    She reached out to take him in her arms but he recoiled.
    “No!” he shouted, pushing her away.
    She made a face. “What’s up with you?”
    “Nothing. I mean, everything. I mean—”
    He covered his face with his hands and staggered away from her.
    “What is it, Devon? Tell me.”
    He dropped his hands and stared into her eyes. “We can’t—we can’t be—I mean, we can’t—we can’t see each other any more, Cecily!”
    “What?”
    “I got behind the wall in the basement,” he said. “I met the woman we’ve heard behind there. I was right. She did know who I am!”
    “You met the sobbing woman?” Cecily’s eyes sparkled with interest. “The one I’ve heard all my life? Who is she?”
    “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter right now.”
    “Doesn’t matter? Of course it matters, Devon. Mother’s always denied her existence. Claimed it was a ghost. If she’s real —”
    “Didn’t you hear me, Cecily? She knew who I was! That’s what matters here!”
    “Oh,” Cecily said in a small voice. She looked at Devon with sudden fear in her eyes. “What did she tell you?”
    “That—that my mother is—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He finally forced the words out. “My mother is your mother!”
    Cecily covered her mouth with her hand.
    “I can’t see you any more, Cecily. You’re—you’re my sister.” The words burned his lips. He felt sick.
    “No way,” Cecily said, her eyes holding his in horror.
    “That’s what she just told me,” Devon said.
    Cecily suddenly gripped Devon by his shoulders. “Are you sure? Is that what she said? Are you absolutely sure?”
    “Yes! She said my mother had been here all along and when I asked if she meant Mrs. Crandall—”
    “What did she say, Devon? What did she say then?”
    “She laughed,” Devon told her.
    “So she didn’t confirm that’s what she meant. She didn’t actually say Mother was your