“Magic?” The word feels heavy and thick on my tongue. “Not real magic.” My words lift, like a question, but I’m not sure there is one. I’m not a child anymore. I don’t believe in such things.
A slow, grim smile touches her lips, but there’s no warmth to her expression. She leans back in her chair and closes her eyes. “Love is magic, my darling. Hope. Trust.” Her eyes open. “Hate. Speaking your wishes out loud to the trees, that’s magic. The way your Gran planted rosemary in the garden, the way she spoke to the plants to nourish them. The way I weave flowers into your hair to make you feel brave. Magic isn’t always fairies and magic spells. Sometimes it’s just choosing to believe in something. Sometimes it’s just knowing.”
I swallow, my throat itchy. “What happened to the men? The ones who wanted Foxglove? They died?”
“Sometimes.” Her voice is as dry as the leaves in the fall. “But there are fates worse than death. Foxglove does not allow her secrets to be stolen, Mary. I don’t tell you any of this lightly. I tell you this because, someday, you will need to know. Someday, you will pass this knowledge down to your daughters. And someday, I may not be here to tell you myself.”
A strange, cold weight settles in my chest, and I think of Gran. I wonder when she told this to my mother. Wonder if Mama wishes she were here now.
“Is there love without trust?” I ask her softly. “Can you really love Papa if he doesn’t know you? Doesn’t that just make you ache with sadness?” A soft pain fills me as I think of my friends who won’t share this burden. Who will marry men who love them and who will not be forced to keep secrets. It makes me feel dreadfully alone.
Mama stands from her chair, crossing the room to look out the window at the forest. The moonlight outside illuminates her face, the cool blue cast warring with the orange reflection of the fire on her cheek.
“I love your father, yes. The way I hope you and your sister will love your husbands someday. He has been a good man to me. A good father to you. But you must never forget that Foxglove is your true love, Mary. She will never betray you. Never hurt you. Never lie to you.”
“But Papa hasn’t hurt you.”
Her hands go to either side of the window, to the stones holding our house together. “If you let her, my love, Foxglove will teach you the most valuable lesson any woman could ever learn. One that neither I nor your gran could ever teach you alone. It is not a lesson in being a wife or a mother, but a woman. A woman existing in a world that will do everything to control you. No matter how much you wish it so, Foxglove will never share its full self with a man.” She looks over her shoulder at me, and I hold my breath, waiting for her next words. “And neither should you.”
I nod as her words sink into my bones, chilling me. I don’t understand. None of this aligns with everything she has told me about love and marriage. I am supposed to find a husband who will love me, who will take care of me. Who will protect me. Still, because she is my mother and because I know it’s important to her, I hear myself saying, “I understand.”
She reads me like always, like the primer from which I learned in the village school. “No,” she says, turning her back to me again to look out the window. “No, you don’t. But you will. In time, I’m afraid you will.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CORINNE WILDE - PRESENT DAY
We spend the rest of the day cleaning and organizing, and Greta strings a clothesline across the house to dry most of Taylor’s things. We blast music and dance around while we unpack, but the mood is less than happy. Taylor is angry over her ruined belongings and frustrated by the lack of answers, while Greta worriedly chews the skin around her fingernails when she thinks I’m not looking.
I’m just trying to keep them both calm.
The next day, Greta stays until the new lock arrives so she can help me install it.
“You two should really come back with me,” she says again as I stand back, admiring my handiwork.
My hands on my hips, I look at her. “What? You don’t think I installed it well?”
“No.” She shakes her head, hands in the air. “It’s not that. I just…with all of this going on?—”
“You know we can’t come back with you. We live here now.”
Her incredulous gaze scans Foxglove, and I’m almost offended. “Even if you can’t stay with me forever, just come to ride out the storm tomorrow. It’s supposed to get really bad.”
“Hey, at least we have a cellar now.” I shrug one shoulder, teasing, but it’s true.
She puffs out a slow breath. “Maybe you should call him.”
It takes me a second to realize what she’s said, a second longer to decide whom she means.
“No.”
“I’m worried about you both out here. I don’t like this.”
“We’re going to be fine,” I promise her. “I’ll keep her safe.”
She bumps my arm with hers, her eyes going soft and filled with worry. “Sure, but who’s going to keepyousafe?”
Her concern makes my chest ache. Throughout the divorce, it’s been easy to feel as if I’m alone. That I’ve lost the person who was supposed to care about me, to protect me. But here Greta is, once again, reminding me that that person has always been her.
