“Pot, kettle,” Scylla said lightly. “You are nothing but secrets in a well-cut suit, P.”
“Oh, fine. We need a plan, then.” Prospero sighed. “I don’t see how I’m to be responsible for keeping everyone alive, though.”
“Well, step one was having your wife here. That’s done.”
“You know it’s not that simple.”
“We have to talk to Walt.”
“And Sondre,” Prospero added. For a moment, the weight of it all slammed into her. She felt like she’d lived for Crenshaw since she became a witch well over a century ago. When would it be her turn to live for something else?
For love.
For happiness.
Scylla lifted the bottle, tilting it to clink gently against Prospero’s glass. “To none of us dying.”
2Ellie
Ellie stood in her room in the castle, not entirely sure what she was supposed to do now. She’d not made friends with any of her classmates since she had been focused on her new relationship. Honestly, Ellie was embarrassed by how little she remembered of the school and her time in it. She knew no names, although she did know her way around. She remembered hobs, wee magical beings who popped in and out of existence. She remembered the infirmary and the doctor there. She recalled snippets of classes. She had a hazy memory of voices in hallways.
And a car… going… somewhere.
Was that the accident when her magic awakened? Or something else?
Ellie scowled. She was worried about how jumbled her mind seemed. Had she not slept enough? Was this a side effect of magical usage? Was it just the lack of the internet, smart phones, or even newspapers? How was she to keep track of time without the constant reminders on a device that never left her reach?Or television or streaming shows or a job?Everything that had been commonplace in establishing a linear sense of time within her life was gone. Her routines were gone. Her technology was gone.
Ellie made a mental note to talk to someone—she wasn’t sure whom yet—about whether or not there were calendars in Crenshaw. At the least, she wanted a sense of tracking time. Once she knewwhenit was, maybe her memory would get back in order.
Atap-tap-tapon the door interrupted Ellie’s musings.
“Ellie?” Hestia’s voice identified her arrival before she opened the door. She sounded strong, and Ellie was grateful that she’d decided to come to Crenshaw, too.
Ellie paused, staring at her aunt. “Why did you come here?”
“To visit you…?” Hestia stepped past her and made her way into Ellie’s rather undecorated, nondescript room. For reasons Ellie couldn’t explain, she knew that all the rooms looked like hers initially. She couldn’t recallwhoseroom she’d visited, though.
“Yes, but why did you come to Crenshaw?” Ellie clarified.
“To be with you. Lady Prospero thought it was important.” Hestia scowled. “Maybe to heal up my body after that surgery…? I remember surgery, and then being here. Again. I think Prospero is…wasmy friend. She rescued me, sent me back to you a long time ago.”
“You gave up magic to raise me.” Ellie felt her eyes fill with tears.
“No regrets about surrendering my magic, El, but I will admit that I feel a little sad now that I remember that I used to be a witch. I dreamed of being here, you know. Considered seeing a talking doctor because of the dreams.” Hestia dropped a small twig on the floor and looked at Ellie. “I want a rocker like at home.”
Ellie let her magic roll out of her body and started to reshape that bit of wood into a chair with elegant spiral rockers. In a few moments, a bentwood rocking chair sat gleaming in the low light filtering into the room. Instead of the cane back and seat on the one at home in Ligonier, this one had lightly woven twigs, as if they had been soaked and thatched together.
Hestia let out a deep sigh and settled herself into the chair. “I want to go home, lovey. I’ll miss you, but… let me go home.”
“What?”
“I can visit you. I know witches can’t stay over there in the regular world, but if they’re letting me come here now, they’d let me visit you.” Hestia stared at her, rather reminiscent of arguments over the years that had sometimes erupted into loud words. “I don’t want to live here.”
Ellie flopped onto her bed, feeling like someone had just taken her down at the knees. “Did something happen?”
Hestia stared out the locked window briefly before saying, “I don’t belong here, Ellie. I remember enough about magic to miss it, to miss Crenshaw, to miss the witch I got to having feelings for once upon a time.” She met Ellie’s gaze and added, “But this isn’t my place now any more than my old farmhouse wasyourplace.”
“So what are you going to do? Just… live over there alone?” Ellie had made so many decisions to avoid that very thing. She rememberedthatquite clearly. “I planned to take care of you.”
