"And we are ushering autumn in properly, as it seems this year is going to be a year for the history books, where Salem welcomed autumn in July," Ursula said.
"And seeing as The Oak King is not so charitable to let go of his season so soon, we've made a summer-to-autumn dinner."
Bess looked over the themed tables. One table was for summer: appetizers of grilled peach slices with honey and chili flakes on little squares of puff pastry, a summer salad with berries, shrimp skewers with roasted squash and cherry tomatoes, and a cherry pie with butter sage crumble.
For autumn, there were bites of brie and date-stuffed mushrooms, a butternut squash soup with pancetta and homemade butter and garlic croutons, red wine braised short ribs, and bourbon pecan pie to finish.
Iced tea and pitchers of Tilly's coconut mojitos sat at a smaller table under a drooping willow.
"I like the jean jacket with the skirt," Eloise said. "You look like a miniature Ursula."
They all had the same long, blueberry chiffon skirt that each had styled a little differently. Eloise had a cream cable knit sweater with her auburn hair up in a long ponytail and a matching blue bow. Tilly wore hers with a long-sleeved polka dot sweater. Both Jen and Carol wore blazers: Carol's blackand Jen's goldenrod. Kelsea and Jessica both had matching sweatshirts with "Salem Witch" embroidered on them. Crystal's thick cream wrap sweater showed off her slender shoulders and chandelier earrings that looked like falling stars. And Ursula had on a jean jacket, the one that Bess envied and liked to borrow on occasion. While Bess had her combat boots, Ursula had her nice leather oxford boots she wore every cold season.
She liked looking like a younger Ursula; she thought she couldn't pick a better woman to emulate.
When Freida showed up, she was a little tentative at first. But when Tilly hugged her, she loosened her shoulders and let out the breath that every woman is familiar with in her life - I'm welcome here and I'm wanted.
Tess showed up in a matching skirt that she had found on her bed in a perfectly wrapped parcel with the largest blue ribbon she'd ever seen. She paired it with a green cropped sweater. That night would be her first Lost Souls sleepover.
There were fifty women gathered around the porch and spilling into the back. They talked and laughed, music played from nowhere that anyone thought to ask about. Food was eaten, drinks were poured, some danced. The bushes were picked clean, and Tilly had that tired happiness energy of a party beautifully worn out.
And by the end of the evening, the Lost Souls women were sitting on the front porch of The Lost Souls House, exhausted and happy. All of the animals had wandered to where they spoke softly about nothing.
And Tilly gracefully exited with smiles, a few smooching sounds from her friends and a jar full of moonlight. She followed the path she knew would lead her to the patch of forest that lay claim to a gothic house and a vampire who had laid claim to her.
34. Not Goodbye
She felt him before she saw him, and she closed her eyes against the feeling that swept through her. Home.
There had been a few times and a few places she could truly say she felt at home.
One had been with her childhood friend on those Fourth of July days, sticky with the season and the feeling of freedom she so rarely felt in her own home.
Another was when she was with the Lost Souls Coven. It could be at The Lost Souls House or it could be with a few of them at The Black Cat or the wide porch of The Crescent Inn, but when she was with them she felt at ease. Often, she could look around their group of women and think,oh, this is it. This is the point.
She'd avoided Theo since the night he dropped her off on the porch. He called and he stopped by the inn, but she'd needed a couple of days to breathe.
She wrote him a note asking him to give her some time to sit with herself. She was coming to terms with her magic thatgrabbed onto others' emotions and sifted through them, looking for treasure. What was hers and what was not? Anxiety had found its place in that messy garden of growth; weeding it out was a skill she had learned and now had to hone once again.
It was an evening sunset on the wide porch of The Crescent Inn with the weeping willows blowing softly as the autumn sky turned from blue to gold where she found her voice. It was quiet and it was gentle, but it was firm. She closed her eyes, breathing in the smell of burning leaves and lifting her face to the last rays of dipping sunlight, reorienting herself.
She knew herself. That had never been taken away. Lost for a while, but here she was picking it out of the garden that she had taken the time to tend to.
Oh, how the heart of a woman knows how to grow flowers. It was the weeds planted by careless hands and ill intent from the world that they had to uproot.
When a blanket was draped over her lap, she opened her eyes to watch Freida sit next to her with a glass of wine, her glasses hanging on her chest.
"The tenant in room eight said the apple wine," she raised her glass of gold, "was perfection and asked if she could buy a case. I told her it would be two hundred and forty dollars."
Tilly's eyes widened. "That's twenty dollars a bottle! Freida!"
The woman gave her a raised eyebrow and shook her head. "It's worth that. Calm down, psycho."
Tilly stared at her in shock.
"What? She forked over the cash, and I bundled it up real nice. Happy as a clam." She took a sip of her wine, and Tilly shook her head, smiling.
"You are," she laughed softly. "Probably going to drive me crazy."
