For a heartbeat, she holds it there.
No rinsing of the cloth, no wasting of the water, she smothers me with it for a full minute.
The exact sixtieth second is up when she pushes the cloth over my face, onto the crown of my head—and only then does she start to saturate me, head-to-toe.
Every inch of my flesh is glistening with the Sacred Waters when she drops the cloth back into the basin, then unfurls rolls of white bandages.
The longer it goes on, the less puffy my face becomes. Yawns don’t arch through me anymore, but I do sway with Abigail’s handling of me.
She wraps the bandages around my breasts and my pelvis, and it somehow feels more revealing than a two-piece bathing suit.
Not like I would ever wear such a thing in front of my parents. Not like they would everallowit.
But this is allowed.
This is mandatory.
And it’s finished off with a black robe that Abigail swings around my shoulders.
I don’t help feed my arms through the wide, long sleeves, or fasten the string at the neckline.
It’s not my place to help the help.
My time for servitude will come in the gardens.
The skies beyond the windows are a black canvas, peppered with glittering stars and stroked with wispy clouds.
Abigail escorts me downstairs to the terrace.
That is as far as she goes.
Now, it’s a family thing.
Acoventhing.
My family is waiting for me on the stone terrace beyond the doors, robed and bandaged like me.
All the other families in the Coven of Europe will be doing the same, at the exact same moment.
Father turns his back on us.
He starts down the stone steps to the gardens.
Mother follows.
Then Oliver.
And, lastly, me.
Father draws his hood over his head—and that strikes the mirrored movement down the line, until we are all hooded in the darkness, guided only by the wash of moonlight.
Our bare feet sink into the cold earth with each step we take deeper into the gardens. Robes billow over the gentle breeze beyond the pond, the fountain, the aviary, and even further, past the blue cottage and the hedge park.
The walk to the runes is long.
Frost glazes the grass and bites the soles of my feet with each step, all the way to the ancient stones.
Toppled over on the dewy grass, the stones are faded—so much that I can’t make out the old runes etched into them. But I know they date back thousands of years and they surround a pit of dirt.
