She threw eggs for the shame she kept like little jewels inside, inexplicably precious to her.
We do that with shame; gather it close like it's worth something, afraid that if we jostle or shatter it, its shards will cause even more damage.
And for thirty-two minutes their entire world was stuffed into that medium-sized barn where bombs of pink sparkles acted as metaphors for whatever they needed.
"That was fucking awesome," Bess said as they looked around in a daze of floating glitter. Her young heart was pounding and there was a renewed sense of self shining in her eyes as she had expelled the pain she was holding in, the rage of feeling heartbreakingly small lately.
"Language," Ursula said. Then she smiled slowly. "But yeah. It was."
Jessica had finished her bout of throwing by peeling off the pictures of her ex-husband and wadding them up into crumpled balls.
"Bonfire with divorce croissants?" She asked.
"What are divorce croissants?" Eloise shook her head. "You don't even need to answer that. I'm in."
Kindling and paper were lit aflame as the sun said goodbye drawing dark indigo down like curtains as the last light pink of the sky hovered over the horizon. Honey wine was passed around, taken away from Bess, and almond croissants were devoured.
"Wedding cake and divorce croissants," Jessica said with a smile.
While a coven of women were coming together in a celebration of new beginnings, someone else was creating a new beginning for themselves.
This one much darker and without the shoulder-to-shoulder support of friends.
No matter, community was overrated to this soul and they found they rather liked the importance of their own self and company. A hand ran over the top of a black headstone.
"Shelby Peridot," the voice said, reading from the newly engraved rock. Akik-kikbefore a high-pitched whistle sounded from above pulling their attention up into the trees.
"Shut up. I will trap you and then roast you over a crackling fire," they cursed.
The hawk sat steady, unmoved by the threat.
And then the evening settled over the graveyard where the trespasser lingered leaving behind a darkness that they had brought in with them.
The magic in the ground rumbled and shifted, trying to find its footing to hold itself steady and firm against this kind of darkness.
But that was the thing about magic and its shadow side, harnessing enough darkness could mean its abuse.
And the souls, though no longer lost, understood that all too well.
16. It's Getting Worse
The night ended with eight women, covered in a fine dust of pink glitter, lounging near the bonfire talking about their favorite childhood memories. There was something about pulling glitter out of each other's hair while feeling a new lightness that beckoned them all down memory lane.
And after a few croissants each, they hugged each other goodbye and left the pink glitter farm to go to their own homes. A walking cloud of pink confection, happy and exhausted.
Eloise and Ursula dropped Bess off. Eloise waited awkwardly on the front porch while her best friend said goodnight to Jenson, which was more action than words. And then it was just the two of them, walking back to The Lost Souls House. It was perfect out. Sixty-four degrees and the crickets were making their first appearance for the season as the stars twinkled above them.
"Do you think the stars are jealous of our glitter?" Eloise asked as she looped her arm through Ursula's.
"Absolutely. We outshine them gloriously," she said in a voice dripping in old money.
"I need to tell you something," Eloise blurted. She shook her head when the words came out like they were jumping frogs, shattering the dreamlike aura around them.
"Okay. I'm listening," Ursula said.
"I had something happen in Florida." She breathed in freesia and lily of the valley to calm her nerves. "No. Something happened to me. It happenedtome."
And then she told her best friend of over twenty-five years her story. The thing that happened to her. The thing she thought, and had been made to believe, she had manifested. Because that was the thing about being hurt and assaulted so severely. Our brains can hardly accept that the world, that an entire human, could be so cruel; that they could care so little about another's life. And so we do funny things.
