Winnie’s on the porch already, her daughter balanced on her hip in a pink wool hat with pom-poms the size of fists. Cheeks flushed, curls haloing out, she squeals when she sees Isla, wriggling to be let down, and Winnie sets her on her feet with a laugh.
“Is this a pickup or an ambush?” Winnie calls as we climb out of Isla’s Jeep.
“Both,” Isla says. “We want flowers, but also your dazzling presence.”
“You want me to come along?”
“Elspeth always did enjoy a party,” Isla says. “Four’s company.”
Winnie tilts her head, considering. “I suppose I could be persuaded to join you.”
She disappears inside for her coat, leaving Goldie toddling across the porch and straight into Isla’s arms. The little girl chatters something about bees still sleeping. Isla kisses her nose.
“Goldie, honey. This is my good friend Elsie,” she says. “She lives up the ridge at the big blue house.”
“Blue house,” Goldie echoes.
“Hi, Goldie,” I say, giving a small wave.
She grins so wide her dimples show, then promptly hides her face in Isla’s scarf. I’m good with kids when I have a lesson plan, puppets, flash cards—occupational safety nets. Without them, I feel like I’ve shown up to a tea party as Godzilla.
I take a careful step back, hovering uselessly, until Winnie reemerges with a basket. There’s plum wine wrapped in a scarf, a loaf of bread, and a jar of honey tucked inside.
“Offerings,” she says, passing it to me. “Don’t tell me Elspeth won’t appreciate a little sugar in the afterlife. I’m Winnie, by the way. I think we met once or twice as kids, but I was homeschooled and weird, and my mother didn’t let me run feral with Isla’s crew.”
Isla grins. “You didn’t miss much. Just a lot of scraped knees and me bossing everyone around.”
“Please,” Winnie scoffs, fastening her coat. “You still boss everyone around.”
We pile into Isla’s Jeep. Goldie’s strapped into her car seat, singing nonsense, Isla’s humming along, and Winnie’s watching the sky in the passenger seat. I tuck myself in the back with the basket and the blankets.
The cemetery isn’t far. It’s right past the bend where the road narrows and the ridge dips low. I could have walked here quicker from the inn.
It’s old—stones leaning, moss creeping up the bases, names worn soft by weather. But it doesn’t feel eerie. Not today. The sky is streaked peach, the sun like a pale coin pressed against the horizon.
We spread quilts across the frozen grass, pile up blankets, and Isla strikes a match to the small bundle of kindling she brought in a tin. The fire pops and hisses to life, smoke spiraling into the fading light.
Goldie dances around the flame like it’s a bonfire at midsummer, clapping her mittened hands and singing a half-made-up song about bees and birds. Her giggles echo off the stones.
“What else is in bloom right now?” I ask, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders.
“Witch hazel,” Winnie offers. “Some hellebores, if you know where to look. My aunt swore she once saw snowdrops here in January, but few and far between. That’s why I raided my pantry instead. Bread, wine, honey. The staples of any decent Blue Willow ritual.”
She uncorks the plum wine with practiced ease, pours it into tin cups she must have snagged from her kitchen, and hands one to each of us.
“To Elspeth,” Isla says, lifting her cup. “And to Aunt Daphne.”
“To Elspeth and Daphne,” we echo.
The wine is sweet and syrupy, and it slides easily down my throat. For a second, I can almost taste jam on toast—my grandmother humming in the kitchen, the smell of her cedar chest.
Then, layered over it, another memory rises: Wells and me in the alcove, weeks ago. The same wine between us, dusk pressing at the windows, our knees pressed too close. That quiet pull I tried to ignore, before everything between us unraveled and rearranged.
Winnie tears off hunks of bread, passes them around. Goldie toddles back and forth, climbing into my lap at one point, sticky fingers pressing into my coat as she hands me a crumb she insists I eat.
I do, and she beams, curls bouncing.
“She’d like this,” I say, surprising myself with how certain I am. “Elspeth.”
