I tried to dig down under the surface of my newfound contentment to find my real thoughts. “I… well, it works. I definitely feel relaxed. Kind of… lighter, too. Like I’d had a lot of things weighing my thoughts down before, but now they’re gone.”
Rhi brightened at once. “Oh, I see! Okay, that’s helpful!” she chirped, and bent at once over a leatherbound book beside her, where she began to write feverishly. “Anything else?” she asked, as she finished her scribbling and eagerly looked up to meet my gaze again.
“Uh…” I felt the pressure of her expectation, but I tried not to let it bother me too much. I focused on what I’d just experienced and hit on something worth mentioning. “When the feeling first hits…” I began.
Rhi leaned toward me, practically giddy with expectation. “Yes?”
“Well… it comes on kind of strong, sort of like the whole intention hit me in the face at once, instead of creeping up on me slowly. Relaxation doesn’t just hit you that way. It takes time.”
Rhi was nodding vigorously as she dropped her gaze to the book and muttered, “…less… chamomile…” Then she set her pen down and grinned. “That’s very helpful feedback.”
“What’s that book?” I asked. At first, I’d mistaken it for a cookbook, but once Rhi had started writing in it, I realized that the pages were actually blank except for Rhi’s minuscule handwriting and some rough, hand-drawn sketches of some plants.
“Oh, this is my kitchen grimoire,” Rhi said. “My working version, at least.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, I’ve gone through at least a dozen of these volumes over the years. Someday, I’ll sift through it all to find the winners and compile them all into one volume,” she clarified.
“No, I mean…” I swallowed, feeling that shame that can only come from asking for an answer you know you’re already supposed to have. “I mean, what was that word you said:grimoire? What does that mean?”
Luckily, Rhi didn’t scoff at my ignorance. “It means a witch’s book of spells,” she said with a little shrug. “It’s as simple as that. An individual witch will often work on her own grimoire throughout her life as she experiments and grows in her craft. After all, spells and recipes are a helpful jumping-off point, but all magic requires some personalization.”
“Does every witch have her own?” I asked as, with a sudden stab of panic, I pictured my own grimoire, completely blank inside except for a series of increasingly messy and frantic question marks.
“Not at all,” Rhi said, and her knowing smile made me think I hadn’t masked my panic very well. “Many covens have a family grimoire that belongs to the whole, and they all work out of it. Some of them are very old, compiled by generations of witches, each adding her own spells and advice.
“Does our coven have one?” I asked. It still felt so weird to say “coven” in reference to my family, the word awkward as it stumbled off my tongue.
“We do,” Rhi said, and reached into a cabinet behind her to pull down a heavy, leatherbound book. She placed it on the counter between us, brushing some flour out of the way as she did so. “You can see the more recent spells and entries are all in Asteria’s handwriting, and before that my aunts, my grandmother, my great-grandmother.”
“Wow,” I said. “How old is it? It looks like it’s in pretty good shape,” I said.
Rhi smiled. “This one is only about a hundred years old.”
“Only?”
“It’s not the original Vesper Coven grimoire,” Rhi said. “Family legend says that the original grimoire, the one brought to Sedgwick Cove by the First Daughters, was lost in the battle with the Darkness. It was said to contain some of the most powerful magic ever set to paper, magic the First Daughters would not even dare to perform.”
“Lost how? What happened to it?” I asked.
Rhi dropped her voice to a spooky whisper. “No one knows. It’s a mystery.” Then she grinned. “Personally, I doubt it ever existed.”
“Why?”
“Well, in the first place, it would have been madness to keep such a book back then. If it fell into the wrong hands, it would have been conclusive proof of our magic, and we would have been burned at the stake. And secondly, it seems like the kind of legend our foremothers would have perpetuated to bolster our magical reputation. No one would mess with us if we could truly perform the kind of magic that grimoire is said to have contained.”
I nodded. “I guess that makes sense. But don’t you ever wonder what?—”
“Rhi? Persi?”
My mom’s voice, coming from the direction of the living room, sounded sharp with anxiety. She came around the corner and stopped short at the sight of me.
“Oh! Wren! I didn’t realize you were back, honey. I was just about to text you.”
“Why? What’s up?” I asked.
“If you’re looking for Persi, she’s still over at Shadowkeep,” Rhi said, as she replaced the grimoire in the kitchen cabinet.
