“What are we doing?” she asks excitedly. “Does Mom know about this?”
By way of answering, Romina settles a crown of purple flowers over Aisling. “Gladiolus,” she tells her. “The flower of your birth month. This will bring new beginnings, charm, and mystery.”
“Ooooh.” Ash stands very still while we pin the crown in place. “I love mystery!”
I turn her palm over, dropping the silver-coin-like pods of the honesty flower into it. “You’ll need to put these in your shoes.”
“Why?”
I lean closer, smiling conspiratorially. Tonight is not about the truth, what is real or not real. Tonight is about making Aisling feel as if she’s in a story.
“So that you can see them,” I whisper.
She peers at me with big, round eyes. “See what?”
Romina and I take Aisling arm in arm, hustling her into her shoes and out of the house. Beyond, Vallis Boulevard is suitably more magical than usual, a full golden moon turning its face toward us to follow our movement. It lights up the glow-in-the-dark-painted footprints on bricks in the road that, if we were to follow, would lead to the Moonville tunnel.
“Where are we going?” Ash loud-whispers, craning to get a glimpse of The Clockery, a shop that specializes in keeping the time, from which juts a tall clock tower embossed withelaborate silver scrollwork and a radiant white face big enough to rival the moon. “It’s eleven o’clock.”
“You know what that means,” I say lowly.
Romina tugs playfully on Ash’s arm. “In an hour, you’ll be older and wiser.”
“Andyou’ll turn into a toad. Sorry. It’s simply how all witches spend their twelfth year.”
Ash pretends to brace herself. “I’m ready.”
We laugh, rushing down the empty street, no sound but the chirruping of crickets and cicadas, theswish-swishof tree branches overhead. Ash doesn’t watch her step, her head tipped back so she can watch the moon and stars in gaps between tree canopies.
We pass windows with the muted blue of television sets within, banners showcasing Moonville’s veterans hung from lampposts. The heat isn’t as pressing as it was earlier, air light and skies clear. At this time of night, I notice details I ordinarily wouldn’t, shops that seem to have poofed into existence following sundown. The decommissioned turn-of-the-century trolley in its Christmas colors, the Holly Jolly Trolley, rests now beside the post office, spotlit like a memorial, and come November will be decorated in festive lights, piney garland, and holly.
It’s a quick walk to our destination, and soon we reach a rounded red bridge, Foxglove Creek rushing below. On the other side, brightened by a path of lanterns, Luna waits in a scarlet cloak with a gold hood pulled low over her forehead. Hands joined, from them dangles a necklace with a sparkling red pendant.
To the southwest of us, bells heave in The Clockery’s tower, their melody like gongs rolling down a hill.
Ash is all amazement. When she approaches, Luna brings the jewelry around her daughter’s neck and secures it. “Red goldstone for boldness, ambition, and ingenuity. Deflects unwanted energies. Magnifies happiness.” She kisses Aisling’s forehead, all smiles. “Happy birthday, my love.”
“Am I being sacrificed?”
We all laugh.
“We’re taking you to the wolves,” I tell her, tweaking her nose gently. “They’re going to raise you the rest of the way, since we’ve run out of things to teach you.”
She dances. “Hooray! I’ve always wanted to run on all fours.”
Luna turns and walks into the trees. The rest of us follow.
This area isn’t proper forest, not as thick and foreboding as it gets in the south of town. This is more of a light, spritely wood. The shagbark hickory trees are my favorite for their peeling appearance; they’re spaced apart, and where Luna stops and waits, moonlight pours into a pretty little clearing, with a circle of brown mushrooms growing at the very center. More lanterns of varying shapes, sizes, and colors are clustered here and there at the base of trees, their light throwing long the shadows of three men dressed all in black.
When they begin to play their instruments—flute, violin, and hammered dulcimer—I recognize the song immediately as Aisling’s favorite, “The Skye Boat Song,” which has trilled through The Magick Happens every day for the past forty to fifty years along with other music connecting Dottie to her Irish and Scottish heritage.
One by one, people who love Ash step out from behind trees and present her with trinkets. Trevor’s girlfriend, Teyonna, slips iridescent wings over Ash’s shoulders. Trevor gives her a bottle of nail polish, which has tiny gold star confetti in it. From Romina’s boyfriend, a pocket-sized copy ofAlice in Wonderland. Alonzo Mozzi and his grandson, Cannon, bestow on her a chunky pen filled with pink liquid and many-colored beads. And from Great-Aunt Misty and her granddaughter, our cousin Nitya, a pack of Lenormand divination cards drawn by Nitya herself.
“Does the Fairy Queen accept our tributes?” Luna inquires, curtsying deeply.
Ash raises her chin. “I do.”
We cheer. The musical trio plays a lively tune, and everyone bursts into dance except for Alonzo (who does bow very gentlemanly, however). Romina, Luna, Ash, and I link our hands, twirling around the fairy ring. “Do you see the fairies?” I ask Aisling. “That’s what the seed pods in your shoes are for. They enable you to see them.”
