They talked over carefully poured drinks, throwing around hope and fear, not knowing what would become of them or their place in a town that they loved.
What if too much of this place rejected them?
What if the culture where they once found acceptance and invitation turned on them, demanding that they leave?
They could go together, start over.
Away from their beloved, quirky town.
Those words, too, were spoken. Half fear and half hope that there could be an after that ended well, even if it was an unwanted end.
They decided on tomorrow. Going to their homes and eating, resting, sleeping, until they woke and faced the war drum.
While everyone went their own way, Crystal meandered to the graveyard where she sat with a heaviness she hadn't felt in years.
She pulled a long tapered candle from her flowy pocket, of black wax with rosemary and rose petals, digging a holding hole in the ground where she stuck it. A strike, a plume of fire in the dark.
And then Crystal sent a message to her old friend. She whispered it into the wings of Cleo, who sat herself on the ground next to the burning candle as an offering.
Cleo left on a burst of flight into the darkness of night, where the moon kissed and guided the sharp-eyed bird.
"So, he ate the peach shortcake at the festival, and now he thinks he's in love with you?" Tilly asked. It was Tilly, Eloise, Ursula, and Bess around the kitchen island eating Eloise's latest early autumn-inspired food: buttery croissants with whipped maple cream. Chamomile tea was poured into their spooky mugs, which were suddenly in season.
Bess was feeding Lady a piece of croissant when she nodded. She felt heavy, ashamed.
"And you want to break his curse?" Eloise asked with a tilted head, watching the beautiful young woman struggle. She could see her struggle like it was a solid thing.
Tilly could feel it.
It was tangled necklaces, thin silver chains wrapped around and knotted. She wanted the hex to not be real, to be wanted the way that this young man wanted her because of magic.
And she wanted to end the hex because, in the honest depths of her, she knew its continuation would ruin her.
"I'm sorry, honey," Ursula whispered against the side of her head as she pulled her into a motherly hug.
Bess cried.
Casper lay his head in her lap and Lady reached out a little black hand to wrap around her pinky finger.
Before she stole the rest of Bess's croissant, making the teen laugh through her tears.
"Tomorrow is a big day. Let's get through it and then you can do the unfathomable and break your heart," Eloise's words were wrapped in bubble wrap. They were honest, though. Bess knew it would break her own heart to end this curse. To break what had become something that she looked forward to every day. To face reality.
To do the right thing.
She sat in the window seat of her room at The Lost Souls that night, looking out of the window and thinking. Her window had white roses formed from stained glass along the top. Some were only buds about to bloom and the others were halfway-bloomed pieces of glass. She asked the moon that one day she would find someone who would look at her the way that Jeremy Bracker did.
He looked at her like hehadto. He couldn't help himself.
He smiled crookedly at her when she said something odd or sarcastic.
He gave her Tom Hanks, who was curled in her lap now, the purring a calm to her pain.
She, like many young women, spent time wondering if they would ever be seen, or have an experience like this - hoping that they will, fearing that they will not.
She went to bed later than usual that night, and just as her eyes gave under the heaviness of sleep one of those stained glass buds gently opened, slowly and with hope.
32. This is Where We Rise
