“We were just starting to get anxious that you hadn’t come back from the Shadow Tree, but we figured you had probably done the full walk to the Manor,” my mom said. “What happened, Wren? Can you tell me?”
I heaved a shuddering sigh. “I stayed behind,” I admitted. “I know I shouldn’t have stayed by myself, but I knew the way back and I felt really… comfortable there. I thought… my spirit powers… maybe it would be easier there. To connect, you know?”
“I certainly do. We’ve all felt it at the Shadow Tree,” my mom assured me. “Go on.”
“I… well, I didn’t have any luck with a clear connection, so I was about to leave, and then my candle—oh, my candle!” I cried, suddenly realizing I wasn’t holding it anymore. But then I spotted it in my mother’s hand, the tiny flame still leaping about.
“I’ve got it, sweetheart. It’s okay. Go on.”
“The candle suddenly extinguished,” I said, and then when I spotted the look of alarm on my mother’s face, added “well, not really. I thought it had, but actually the flame just sort of… reappeared in the clearing. Somehow I knew it was the same flame, so I followed it, and it led me here.”
“To the Playhouse?”
“Right to the edge of the woods there. When I reached that spot, the flame jumped back onto my candle. And then I tripped, and when I looked down to see what I tripped over—” The lump came back into my throat, and I choked on the rest of the sentence. Luckily my mom understood without my having to say it out loud.
“The flame led you right to her,” she whispered, wonderingly.
I nodded.
“And she was already?—?”
I nodded again, feeling another wave of sobs trying to shudder their way up.
“And you’re sure it’s Jess?”
“Y-yes.”
“And you don’t… you don’t know how she?—?”
“No,” I said, my voice strangely high pitched. “I didn’t see… there wasn’t anything obvious. She looked like she… like she just laid down and went to… to sleep.” At this point the sobs took control again, and I had no choice but to give myself over to them. I had no idea how long we sat there, until Officer MacFayden came back over and leaned into the car.
“Kerri, you can take Wren home. We can send someone over to ask questions tomorrow,” she said.
“Thanks, Maeve,” my mom replied, sounding relieved.
I shuffled out of the police cruiser and into my mom’s waiting Subaru on numb feet. My mom put the candle wordlessly into my hand as she slid into the driver’s seat. I no longer wondered at how it burned on without depleting the candle or dripping wax all over my fingers. I didn’t wonder how it produced no smoke that discolored the upholstery on the interior of the roof. I kept my eyes fixed on the flame as a sort of anchor that kept me from spiraling back into the moment, and the place I’d just left behind. I watched it until we pulled into the driveway, and my mom opened my door and helped me out.
I felt like a ghost floating up the walkway and into the house. I moved toward the stairs, aching for the calm and peace of my bedroom, and the warm weight of my cat, but my mother applied just the slightest pressure to my elbow, steering me away from the staircase and through the living room to the kitchen, where Rhi and Persi were sitting at the table. When they saw us come around the corner, they jumped to their feet, their faces so white and drawn that I didn’t need to wonder if they knew what had happened. My mom led me over to the big beehive oven in the corner of the kitchen. I’d only seen the fire lit there a handful of times during lessons, because the weather had not cooled enough for us to use the hearth. Now, a glass lantern hung in the arched beehive oven that nested above the fireplace. I understood without anyone explaining it—they had hung it there in anticipation of the flame still flickering in my hand. This lantern would be its home until Samhain came and went.
I stepped forward and tilted the flame to a waiting candlewickinside the lantern. It flared and sparked to life with a whooshing sound, the flame leaping through a rainbow of colors before settling into a steady golden glow. As I watched it, I could feel my mother’s hand give my arm a gentle squeeze. A small, slightly dry hand slipped into mine—Rhi, standing beside me. Then I felt long fingers entwine with mine on the other side—Persi, letting me know she was there. We stood together in a knot of sisterhood, connected by hands, by blood, by hearts, all beating along to the same rhythm that led the steps, and minds, and hearts of all the witches who came before us. For the first time since seeing Jess’ body laying there on the ground, I felt just a tiny portion of the horror melt away.
No matter what, we had this. We had each other. I could weather the rest.
Within minutesof this quiet moment of connection, the dinosaur of a landline phone on the kitchen wall began ringing shrilly, shattering the kernel of peace we’d managed to find. As Rhi spoke in hushed tones to whoever had called, my mom’s cell phone started buzzing. The inevitable chaos had finally descended.
When my mother hung up the phone, her expression was grave. She sat down with me at the table, and gestured for Rhi and Persi to join us.
“We need to decide what to do,” my mom said.
“We already decided what to do,” Persi said, her expression and posture truculent as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “We all agreed we wouldn’t tell the Conclave about the grimoire.”
“Yes, I realize that, Persi, but that was before the woman who delivered it to us turned up dead,” my mom said, through clenched teeth. “Call me crazy, but I think that changes the situation just a tad, and requires a reassessment of our earlier decision.”
“Okay,” Persi said.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, you’re crazy.”
