“I thought that Celeste … Essie …” I tried to find my words in case Gertie was trying to pull something over on me. Or more likely, this was some sort of test, and Celeste was watching on a secret camera somewhere.
Gertie waved the names off. “Don’t worry about them. You worry about you right now. You deserve to. More than that, you deserve anything you want and that comes to you. You’re listening now, correct?”
“To you? Always.”
Gertie rolled her eyes again. And she wondered where I had gotten it from. Still, my voice was now far less joking than it had been a moment ago, tea forgotten in my hands.
“Oh, girl, you have a piece of soul that I couldn’t place in anyone else, I don’t think, if I tried these days.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean …” Gertie sighed, gathering herself. “I mean—let me try to explain. Do you know why I have this house, Luella?”
I shrugged. I assumed she had bought or inherited it at some point, and it was perfect for a coven to gather. Picture perfect as well as charitable to lost souls, like my own.
“A very long time ago, when I first ever trusted that the world held a little more magic in it than anyone else thought, my life was also not so great for a bit when I was young, like you. I’ve told you about that.”
I nodded.
“I had nothing and didn’t know what to do when I was your age and even older,” Gertie said simply.
“I know. I should be grateful.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to tell you. Not at all. You get to be who you are and feel how you feel, no matter how anyone else does. I’m telling you a story. Not a good one, mind you, but a story of when I was nothing. But somehow, I was pulled away to a house of women, run by a single woman and usually her daughter.”
“Like a cult?”
“Not at all.” Gertie smiled fondly. “More like a haven.”
“A safe haven,” I provided.
“Better. More than just that. I looked up one night, and suddenly, I was there. A home full of women in similar situations as me and women who still had a bit of hope. All of us had magic tucked away inside of us that we didn’t realize we’d been searching for all this time until we were able to get back on our feet. How we all found it, I don’t know. I doubt I would ever be able to find it again if I tried. We all had the same story, however. We had all been lost, in pain, and in upside-down situations. So, we’d followed the stars, and we’d stumbled upon a home with an open door and tea always on the stove.”
“Like magic.”
“Exactly—magic. That house and that place found me, tucked away somewhere in the world. When I left, I still had little clue what I was going to do,” admitted Gertie. “But I knew who I was. I created this house similarly—for anyone who needed to find this coven here, where people least expected. That house was a place that I believe was meant for women like us when there was literally nowhere else to go but downward. Only … you looked up one night.”
I remained silent as I listened, looking up at our own dark sky. I couldn’t see any stars.
“Here, this house, is another place. You get to choose. You did choose,” said Gertie.
She was right. I had chosen this house. I had chosen her and the rest of the coven the moment I came to Barnett, searching for them. Following my own metaphorical stars perhaps.
“You have the power to change lives however you decide to. Whichever way life turns you. Here or otherwise.”
“Sounds like a lot when you put it like that.”
“It is.” She nodded thoughtfully. Her eyes glittered with delight when she turned to face me straight on. “It’s also a lot of fun.”
A small smile puckered the corner of my mouth.
“I’ve always had a feeling that maybe this house needed you as much as you needed this space since you arrived. You might not have noticed it, but our meetings have developed, as have our members, since you came in and encouraged them to find their magic in whatever form they pleased without guidelines. This place has blossomed with you even if you seem intent on making yourself wilt these days.”
“I am not—”
Gertie stopped me, putting a hand to her chest. “I’m just telling you. You want this? I can think of no better person, nor would I want to. Perfection is boring after all, especially in people.”
Well, at least I could live up to that statement. Imperfection was my middle name. In all things. Still, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around all this. The idea of staying here forever had crossed my mind. I would spend mornings with tea on the porch, afternoons in the garden, evenings with the coven, drinking rose hip wine and sitting right where I was now, staring at the moon through the trees and listening to the full river roar as it passed. I thought about it all like a vision more than a few times and yet …
