In my room at Lightkeep Cottage, I had my own altar that I had curated over the months with Xiomara’s guidance. It was crowded with objects that grounded me in my power for all the different elements that my magic was tied to. When it came to spirit, though, I didn’t know where to begin.
“Our spirit gifts come from our deep connections with those who have gone before us,” Xiomara had explained. “We are tethered to them in life by blood, and in death by the magic that lives in that blood. If we can learn to tune in to that connection, to harness that magic like… well, like one of those phones you young people are always glued to, then you can communicate with those spirits to whom you are connected.”
“So, spirit witches can only communicate with their own relatives?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved. On the one hand, I had absolutely no desire to be a ghost magnet, with random departed spirits harassing me everywhere I went. On the other hand, only being able to connect with spirits I was blood-related to felt… limiting. I thought about the spirits I’d already come into contact with, like Sarah Claire. Wouldn’t it be helpful for me to be able to communicate with spirits like her, even if only to stop them from whatever nefarious plot they were ensnared with?
But Xiomara shook her head. “It is a door, remember. Your ancestors act as your spirit guides. They wait for you on the other side of that door. But they can help you connect to others who dwell with them on the other side of the door, if you become proficient enough in your gifts.”
If. How could such a tiny word feel so insurmountable?
Xiomara recommended placing a photograph and perhaps some belongings of my closest ancestors on the altar to help ground me in my spirit gifts. That made sense, but I didn’t have nearly the close connections to my Vesper family that Xiomara had to the many Marins who went before her. I asked my mom and my aunts for help, and they produced some old family photographs of aunts and great-grandmothers and cousins I’d never met, or even heard of. Once they had been arranged on my altar, like I had seen Xiomara do, I looked at each of the faces, willing some kind of connection between us.
I spent hours willing myself to feel something—anything—as I studied those relatives one by one. I noticed many throughlines, like threads run through a tapestry. I spotted my mother’s piercing, heavily lashed eyes, Rhi’s wildly curly blonde hair, Persi’s sharp cheekbones and full lips, all appearing in the various faces of these people I’d never met. I even saw, to my surprise, my own narrow, freckled nose and wide eyes sprinkled into a distant cousin’s features. I tried to focus on just these things as I relaxed my mind and imagined a tunnel opening, expanding, with me waiting at one end and all those familiar yet unfamiliar faces waiting at the other.
We’re the same, I spoke into the empty air.We’re connected. Please. Please reach out.
It was hard not to take their silence as a personal affront, a commentary on not only my power, but of myself. Was I too much of an outsider to connect to my own family?
Only when I focused on Asteria’s photo did I achieve any sense of connection, and it was so fleeting, so inconsistent, that I could barely trust my own senses. Had I really gotten a whiff of her perfume, or had I imagined it? Was that really her voice I heard whisper on the breeze, or was I fooling myself because I wanted to hear her so badly?
The most frustrating thing about it all was that Ihadcommunicated with Asteria. She had been able to reach me. I’d even seen her last spring several times. So why the silence now that I was actively trying to reach out? I began to wonder if I had created a mental block for myself—was I trying so hard that I was sabotaging myself? It was like when I had first started in theater, and I was trying to learn lines. I knew I could memorize things—I’d done it a thousand times with songs and memorable dialogue from tv shows and movies. But those lines wouldn’t stick in my head no matter how often I repeated them. It was my fear, throwing up roadblocks.
But I wasn’t afraid to connect to my spirit abilities. Was I?
Now, as I sat across from Xiomara, I was ashamed that I felt something akin to relief. She was struggling, too. Of course, I didn’t want that for her—I didn’t want it for anyone. But it was somehow comforting to know I wasn’t the only one facing this problem. For the first time, I considered the fact that it wasn’t just me.
“When did you first notice you were having trouble?” I asked tentatively.
“Consistently? For the past two weeks. But the very first trouble I had was right after we discovered the source of the deep magic.”
I felt my breath catch in my throat. I hadn’t heard anyone from the Conclave talk about what we’d discovered under the Sedgwick Cove Playhouse since the initial days after we’d found it. I’d asked, of course—but no one seemed to think I needed to know any more than what I’d gleaned from our time under the Playhouse—and I hadn’t understoodmuch of what happened that night. I held that breath, waiting to see if Xiomara would elaborate.
“As I told you when we first discovered it, I think the Source—if that is indeed what it is—is connected to spirit somehow. There is a strange energy around it, a constant psychic game of tug of war. It repels you even as it draws you in. I found it disorientating. And I heard…
“You heard what?” I asked eagerly. I knew what I had heard—Asteria’s voice, warning me against danger.
“I heard voices… spirit voices,” Xiomara admitted.
“Did you… recognize them?”
Xiomara shook her head, and I noticed with alarm that her eyes were brighter than usual—like she was holding back tears.
“I cannot say for sure. But they were… calling for help.”
“Calling for you?”
“No, simply calling out. I tried to respond, but it was as though they could not hear me. And that troubled me, Wren. That troubled me greatly,” Xiomara said. She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes as though she was suddenly exhausted. “I have been back many times. I have tried all the methods I know, and still, I cannot answer those cries. My words cannot reach them. And so I have done what I always do in times of confusion—I have sought out the guidance of my ancestors, of the spirit witches who have come before me, from whom I have inherited my gifts. And now they, too, are silent.”
“What does it mean?”
“I wish I knew,mija. I wish I knew.”
I sat there, looking into Xiomara’s lined face, roiling with indecision. Xiomara’s difficulties had nearly pushed my own desperate desire to communicate with Asteria out of my mind, but now it came flooding back. My mother and her sisters were determined to keep the discovery of the Vesper grimoire from the Conclave, and that included Xiomara. In this, at least, I agreed with them. I didn’t want anyone else to get their hands on that book before I had a chance to understand why it had been delivered to me. So if that meant lying to the Conclave, I was on board. On the otherhand, this wasn’t just about the book anymore. Asteria had said that Jess Ballard was connected to the Source. The Source was connected, somehow, to the element of spirit. And now, the most powerful spirit witch in Sedgwick Cove couldn’t seem to communicate with spirits at all, just as Jess shows up on my doorstep. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. Was there a way to find out more, without completely giving everything away, and possibly losing the book to the Conclave? I chose my next words carefully.
“Xiomara, you remember the night we found the Source, that I came to you in the middle of the night?”
“Of course.”
“You remember Asteria came to me?”
