But this outpouring of nurturing, while a little uncomfortable, was also healing.
"Wait!" a voice broke into their circle. An out-of-breath Tess jogged into view holding a raccoon and a plate of brownies. Her hair was pulled back, though wild, wavy strands were falling around her flushed face. Bess smiled widely, waving her in.
"Hope you don't mind. I invited Tess."
"Of course not." Eloise was the first to welcome her, then the others followed as Tess joined their circle.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, still a little winded. "Bess said you guys need to fight the dark forces or something? I was making brownies, and I was like, what goes well with dark chocolate? Fighting evil."
"Obviously," Bess agreed.
She was given a rum-free mojito.
"This coconut rum is particularly good," Tilly observed of the smooth drink.
"Coconut rum gifted to me by a good friend."
Jen slid Crystal a sly look and asked, "A gentleman friend?""Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Yes," she replied without hesitation, the word blurted from a place that seemed as though the word had been behind bars and now set free. "Yes, I would. You've withheld so much from us already, like how you were one of the most important witches in the world at one point."
The snap of Jen's words immediately created the kind of tension that changed the feel of a place.
"Jen," Tilly warned gently but Jen held up a hand, her eyes still on Crystal.
"You know about The Covenant. You know how they work and what they are after. You are a powerful witch." With each word she got louder, stronger, her feet seemed to plant against the ground more soundly.
"Jen," Ursula interrupted. "Give Crystal some grace.""Grace?" Jen whipped her gaze to Ursula. "This isn't a time for grace, and just because you're not willing to stand in front of Crystal and ask for answers does not mean you're the peacemaker. You're playing the peacekeeper, keeping everything fine and the temperature just right," her voice dipped low, the intonation leaving behind their meaning and power.
Ursula stayed silent.
"This is not a time for peacekeeping," she continued. "We are very much on the edge of a battle that we will have to fight, and you want to stand on gentleness."
"I want to stand on calm ground," she finally rebutted.
Jen laughed. "If you think for a moment that passivity and calm are interchangeable, then step aside now."
Ursula's face fell, and hurt flashed in her eyes.
Eloise stepped forward, breaking their circle. "Okay, listen." Her hands were up as she looked between Jen and Ursula, then looked to Crystal. "We do need answers. And you have been close-lipped, for whatever reasons you felt you needed to be," she added quickly when Crystal lifted her chin. "And we can respect that," she said slowly as her eyes bore into Jen's fiery stare. "However," she added and looked at Ursula, her dearest friend, who she knew had a habit of not taking on the hard parts, smoothing them out when sometimes you needed to forge your way through them to get to where you needed. "To Jen's point, this is not the time to be lukewarm. Things are off. Even the weather is wrong," she raised her arms, looking around. "Smells are burned and chemical," she described with closed eyes. Everyone watched as she paused, then shook her head and opened her eyes again, the amber color flashing. "Ursula, you said the plants are doing odd things. The raspberry vines are growing sour strawberries, and the roses are dying the moment they bloom." Ursula nodded. "And especially now that Rob is taking on our town again, we are under attack, and there is one thing we know for certain. The world would see us divided because we are then easier to move."
Heads nodded in agreement. Eloise and Ursula had a moment, eyes connecting as they communicated. And then her dark head nodded in resolution.
Tilly stood among the women, emotions roiling and colliding, her brain confused as to which ones to hold onto, which ones to give attention to. It was overwhelming. "I feel weird too," she said. She looked to Jen, who nodded her encouragement. "In the last few weeks, I have felt crazy," her hands lifted, bracing her head. "And like voices that I got rid of years ago havebeen given a key back in. I feel things, people's emotions," she frowned, trying to articulate what she had been experiencing. "I see things." A shake of her head.
"And you can transfer your emotions to others, too. An empath with a magical twist," Tess chimed in. Everyone's eyes turned to her. When she saw their look of confusion, her eyes widened.
"No? Is that not right?"
A few of them considered Tilly, thinking back through moments with her.
"I...don't know a lot about this stuff, and I admit I was a skeptic before, but the other day at the inn, Tilly touched my hand and her emotions, like, slid into me?"
Tilly's eyes were wide. "Is that what happened?"
"I think so. I mean, one moment, I was feeling lonely and sad about my dad, and then you touched my hand, it was like those feelings were siphoned out of me and I was calm."
A moment of contemplation and thoughtful looks before all of them looked back at Tilly with a collective ooooooh.
