Even the souls who were no longer lost gathered it in their fingertips and felt themselves more whole.
A great bonfire was made and they shared carefully prepared food and Tilly's honey wine that she infused with violets and butterfly sweet peas coloring it the most lovely purple.
Flower crowns were sitting on heads of flowing hair making them look to outsiders like fairy princesses playing tea time.
And when Crystal invited the summer months of growth and prosperity into their land, they listened dreamily and cheered to the warm sky and the new season.
"I feel like I could conjure magic," Tess whispered to Bess and smiled widely at her. Her blonde hair was nearly touching her shoulders now in a lovely mess of waves and with the crown of small roses, ferns, and daisies, she reminded Bess of a character in a book she once loved as a child, the name of which escaped her memory.
"I think I feel that way anytime I'm with them," Bess replied looking around where they all sat and talked and laughed.
Bess didn't know it, but something was weaving together inside of her friend as she sat next to her, braiding together flowers with long grass and green sprigs of fern. Never before had she been invited into something like this; a gathering of women with intention, but without agenda or that sneaky thing that can often happen when women come together - comparison born of insecurity.
She wasn't sure that she could have named it before this night, but it was too often that she had felt weighed and measured by others, and in turn, she had learned to also weigh and measure.
To what purpose, she wondered now as she tucked a stark white daisy into a braid of fern and grass?
For here she felt simply, here. She might not have considered that a potent feeling before, but now having experienced it?
She sat among women who were different and interesting and cared for each other without pause or stipulation; there was an alchemy here.
She had been to The Lost Souls House for three movies, one bonfire, one dessert night (which she didn't know could be an event until these women), and now this Midsummer celebration.Something that she had come to realize was that with them, she didn't feel the usual silent chaos inside of her that often accompanies those who are lonely. There was a peace with them that she felt in her silence; a feeling she never experienced in the quiet on the many nights she sat in her large empty house.
She liked talking when she had the chance, like she was bursting to say all of the things no one bothered to stick around to hear. Coins in a dryer, her thoughts and ideas rattled around her loneliness.
The first movie night she spent with Bess and her crazy aunts had been uncomfortable. She didn't know what to do with their wide welcome. She was unsure about their questions aimed to get to know her; aimed to invite her to exist a little bit more with witnesses.
But when Eloise had pulled her into the most natural hug, like time and chance had written that moment, and handed her a mug of apple cider with charming homemade maple marshmallows and said to her, "It's about time you came around," as if they were waiting for her? And how lovely is that? To feel like someone is waiting foryou.
Tilly felt a kind of kinship with her. She understood the battle that waged inside of her young mind, though she hadn't spoken of it. Tilly's mind recognized it as a familiar reminiscence. How often had she felt like an empty chamber of echoing thoughts and fears growing up, not knowing how to quiet the voices or how to feel seen?
She, too, recognized the wide look of uncertainty on Tess's face every time she came around. How did one go from trying to dig out parts of themselves to find their worth to this, where there was no digging only enjoying the flowers?
They turned the most mundane parts of life into meaning because they took the time to celebrate more often than usual.
When she arrived at that first movie night they had glass dishes full of fresh marshmallows that they used cat, moon, and bird-shaped cookie cutters on.
And now she was here, in the graveyard soaking in this odd but lovely celebration.
The two youngest women joined Kelsea and Jen in a conversation, as the constellations above them watched knowing they would understand when they were older just how precious a gift it is to breathe so easily with other women. To be told with action and peace that they were important.
It was late, and while Crystal and Kelsea sang a song from the sixties, Tilly was curled up with Jen, looking up at the sky.
She felt safe. The past few days had been turbulent, her mind not a place she wanted to settle. But right now she was where she had worked hard to get herself. Peace.
But there was something niggling at the edge that she needed to hand to her friend.
"Jen?""Hmm?"
"Ronnie asked me to dinner."
Jen snorted. Tilly remained silent.
Jen shifted so that she was looming over where Tilly lay in her lap, unable to escape her expression.
"It's just dinner. And it's platonic."
Another snort accompanied her look of skepticism. She looked ethereal with her black hair braided into a crown and ferns and roses.
