Sheknewit would have been smarter to wait, but at that moment, Harper didn’t particularly care about being smart. She was being pulled like a magnet, the same witchy core within her that had trembled at Holt’s first visit was positively vibrating now. This washergreat-aunt’s library, the same aunt who had been ostracized by her peers.At least, some of them. The same type who have always ostracized you.Aunt Pernella had been a powerful and popular witch, at least with a small handful of fellow weirdos, Harper liked to think. The girl from the grocery store parking lot, Lex, was right. There weren’t nearly enough weirdos around.
She was relieved to find a banister, worn smooth under her hand as she gripped it tightly. Using her cell phone as a flashlight, Harper rationalized that she could always ask her phone to call for help if she fell. She made it to the bottom of the staircase without incident, her mouth dropping open as she cast her phone’s light around the room. The cellar held the exact same dimensions as the cottage above, effectively doubling her living space. Harper could see shelves and shelves of books, an endless amount of books, a long work table, a dark hearth where a cauldron hung . . . And there, in the corner, a lamp. Not a candelabra, nor a stump of a hand-dipped beeswax candle, like she’d been imagining, but the kind of lamp one might’ve purchased in a department store.What is wrong with you? Why are you acting as if your grandmother and her sister were indigent medieval villagers? This is the suburbs and it was the 80’s!She swung the flashlight to the wall, finding the light switch easily.
A plump, overstuffed armchair recliner sat beside the lamp, a television tray beside it. The television itself was against the wall — small and old-fashioned, looking as if it weighed three hundred pounds, and Harper grinned. She had been imagining some creepy gingerbread cottage-in-the-forest witch’s lair, full of cobwebs and ancient grimoires of dark magic, and possibly the bones of some children in a cage suspended from the ceiling, but it appeared her great aunt used the space to put her feet up, watch television, and eat snacks.You are literally a witch. Why did you think this was going to be some revisionist fairy tale human nonsense?
Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. She pulled her shirt up over her nose and mouth, attempting to breathe in as little as possible, always having suffered from a dust allergy.If Holt wants to buy any of these books, he’s going to hire a cleaner for you first.Harper tilted her head, approaching the shelves, reading what she could of the spines. The bookswereancient. It was an impressive collection of spell books through the ages, seemingly on every discipline under the moon.The perfect place for you to continue your studies.
She bounced on her toes, face heating, realizing she was very near tears. But, for the first time in nearly two years, it was happiness that overwhelmed her, a sense of purpose finding her at last.
The cleaning crew arrived the very next day, watched over as they worked by a black cat sitting in a high window well. Harper was surprised over the speed in which the familiar acted, requesting that he be granted first refusal of any that she wanted to sell, with the special request of one particular volume from the shelf.
“I’ll pay you cash for that one today, as long as I can take it with me.”
Locating the book he requested, she examined the cover closely.When You See Tomorrow Today; Divination For The Modern Sibyl. Flipping the book open, Harper felt her ocean rock.From the Library of Willow Brackenbridge.The knocker at Ladybug’s house. Holt’s words the very first time he’d shown up on her doorstep —They’re all safe at the Brackenbridge house.She wasn’t sure why tears threatened at the corner of her eyes, reminding herself of her dust allergy as she rubbed them.His witch was a Brackenbridge.
“You don’t have to pay me anything.” Harper was hoping her tone was casual and disaffected, unsure of whether or not she succeeded in her aim. “This didn’t belong to my aunt in the first place.” Her voice thickened, all hope of unbothered going out the window.You possess zero chill. “It’s going home to where it belongs.”
OOTD: A-line crepe dress with embroidered bib and white collar. Black tights and knee-high boots, because it’s motherfucking spooky season. Smokestack eye palette and suede jacket lip veil. Satin hair ribbon, jeweled ear cuff, and AUNT PERNELLA’S BAT PIN.
“It’s been a while since I was last here. But . . . things are going really well. My daughter is thriving at school. She loves her teachers, she loves her classes, she has a million friends. She’s a little social butterfly, so she’s really in her element every single day. I’m in the process of expanding my business which is thrilling and terrifying.” Gentle laughter from around the circle, as the woman pulled a face. “I’m in a new relationship, and . . . I can see him in our forever future. Everything is charmed right now.” Abruptly, her eyes filled with tears.
Ava, Harper reminded herself. She made an effort every month to commit to memory the names of the other folks around the circle.
“We’re going to be coming up on ten years soon.” Her voice broke, and it took several moments before she composed herself enough to continue. “Ten years, which means he’ll be gone longer than we were together. And I know wherever he is, he’s just thrilled with the way things have turned out. I mean, he’s tickled pink watching us, I know it. But I have this weight on my chest, and I feel so guilty. I know it shouldn’t. I know we’re doing exactly what we are meant to be doing, but sometimes it chokes me.”
Harper had learned that her emotional responses were not limited to her own unhappiness. The group met twice a month, and with each person’s story — Ava had lost her husband. A moth couple had lost one of their young children. A middle-aged goblin talked about losing her college-age son to addiction, and an exhausted-looking troll had recently lost her mother, after caring for her through a long illness — Harper could barely keep from sobbing.
Even though it probably didn’t seem like it on the outside, when she came home with red-rimmed eyes and her head pounding from congestion, she was certain the group was helping. These were her neighbors, people in the community, right here, and they were all going through the same thing. The same endless ocean rocked within each of them, and it made her feel less alone.
Grief is a gift.
She had repeated Holt’s words the first time she’d spoken at the group she now attended, after learning that Morgan had been seeing a grief counselor sporadically for the past year.
“Why didn’t you tell me?!” she’d gasped in shock when her sister casually mentioned the video call she needed to go in the house and take with her counselor.
Morgan had shrugged. The school had set it up automatically, she explained, long before they moved.
“You weren’t living at home, remember? And it wasn’t something mom did, the school guidance counselor arranged it. After we moved, I switched to remote appointments with her, and now we only meet once a month. It was weekly before. After. It . . . it really helped having someone to talk to, you know. You should see if there’s a support group you could go to.”
Harper was furious. She had stomped around the neighborhood that evening, wanting to scream in rage until her throat was raw. The public high school her sister had attended had set up counseling, had ensured she had a support system in place, had made certain she would not drown. The expensive witches’ Collegium, fully aware of the circumstances, by contrast, had done nothing, even after it was clear she was struggling — they had shown her the door, had sent her packing to deal with one more blow to her fragile composure, throwing her away as overtly as if she were, in fact, a sack of trash placed outside the minimart’s door.
She would not be returning. She might have been undecided up until that point, waffling between not especially wanting to return and still not wanting to disappoint her mother, but now her mind was made up and her conscience clear. She would continue her study alone. She had a veritable library in her basement and Holt could help her fill in the gaps.And Ladybug is literally just around the corner. Holt said a new coven is coming, and you can join that when it does. Youarea witch.
The grief support group met twice a month at the community center, and Harper was certain if she had found it a year earlier, she might not have slipped as deeply into that glass-like sea as she had, but there was no more room for what ifs and regrets.
She came home that night with her normal red, puffy eyes, and went straight to the basement. That was where they found her, as they did most evenings when she did not meet them at the tea shop, especially on the nights of those meetings.
“I pulled a card for you today, my sweet one. The Seven of Wands. Holding your ground against adversarial influences. Perseverance. I can think of no card that represents you better, at the moment.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Harper laughed, opening her arms to be enveloped in their filmy darkness. “That’s really good to know, though. I have an appointment tomorrow at my witch doctor’s house to find out if it’s normal for me to be feeling like I am a werewolf on the cusp of the full moon, or if you have been roofieing me with the tea.”
She was mortified over her appointment with Ladybug the following morning, but Harper reminded herself that self-care meant actually taking care of herself, not merely cocooning herself in bed and shutting out the rest of the world. When she woke in the middle of the night, sweat dotting her brow, feeling tangled in her sheets as a fire of desperation burned through her, she reminded herself how lucky she was. Lucky that her mother had sold their childhood home, forcing their move to Cambric Creek. Lucky that her great-aunt had been an eccentric with her own cozy witch’s cottage. Lucky that she preferred tea over coffee.
As the shadows wound around her, stretching her legs open and filling her with the thickness they had determined she responded to best, her head dropped back, a breathy moan escaping her. It pleasured them to pleasure her, Azathé reminded her constantly. She felt guilty how often she needed to be pleasured lately, but that was the point of her appointment in the morning.
Lucky the shadows had talked to her, and that she had talked back.
“Hmmm, I understand. Well, let’s see . . . that’s probably the ashwagandha. And the ginseng. Oh, and the saffron! And probably the mood enhancers in general . . . Is it becoming a problem? We can scale back on a few of the —“
