I didn’t reply because I didn’t know what to say. Like Ashley, I felt conflicted about Catherine. The woman was a manipulator and a murderer; she’d taken the lives of both my parents and had been ready to sacrifice my friends and my love in order to control my magic. Yet despite all the horrific things she had done, there was still a part of me that missed her.
When I was alone in the world, my grandmother had given me a home, made me feel I belonged. When I woke up screaming from a nightmare, it was Catherine I hoped to find sitting by my bed, telling me I was safe. Without her intervention, I might never have found my magic – a fate I couldn’t begin to comprehend now. And I knew that, even in her darkest moments, she’d truly believed she was doing the right thing. In her eyes, she wasn’t stealing my magic but defending the Bell legacy from someone she saw as unworthy.
Ashley flipped her long brown braid over her shoulder, letting it slice through the tension in the room.
‘You’d think those ancestral ghosties might be more helpful,’ she said. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate them saving your life and all, but it’s bad manners to swoop in and spirit Catherine away without giving me a chance to ask where she keeps the credit cards.’
‘Typical long-lost relatives,’ I replied. ‘Show up for your birthday party then vanish into thin air when it’s time to clean up.’
‘Speaking of polter-gran, still no sign of her?’
I shook my head.
‘No sign of any of them.’
Pressing her lips together into a tight line, Ashley’s chest swelled with a deep breath, as though she was preparing herself for something unpleasant.
‘I’m going to suggest something but, before I do, I would ask that you don’t punch me in the face,’ she said, holding her hands out to defend herself.
I nodded for her to go on.
‘Maybe the formerly-alive members of the family might feel more chatty if you took a trip down to Bonaventure to visit?’
Something fragile snapped in my chest, letting loose that dark sequence of images. Bonaventure Cemetery, Catherine, the archway, a wolf, the moon, black sky, red-haired women and so much blood …
‘Really?’ I replied, taut and tense and forcing the scenes to the edges of my mind. ‘You want me to go back to the place where I almost died to ask a ghost where Catherine keeps her Mastercard?’
Ashley sighed theatrically and turned to sift through the assortment of brightly coloured T-shirts and tanks piled on her bed.
‘I don’t know what this world is coming to,’ she said. ‘If you can’t trust the ghost of your three-hundred-year-old original witch ancestor, who can you trust? But honestly, if it’s a choice between risking my life in the cemetery or spending another day bartering with those fools down at the bank, I’d happily choose the cemetery – ghosts, gremlins, wolves and all.’
‘And you could pick up Randy’s BBQ on your way back,’ I said, a half-hearted joke. ‘If you come back.’
Softening slightly, Ashley abandoned the pile of clothes and smoothed my hair away from my face. We’d come a long way in the last few weeks. It felt like only two minutes since I’dbeen dumped into her life, the aunt I didn’t know existed, the niece she’d never asked for. Now I couldn’t imagine my life without her.
‘You’re spending altogether too much time cooped up in this house,’ she said. ‘Trust me, I should know. Why don’t you call Lydia? Surely that little monster will find the time to come over and keep you company while I’m out at this dumb meeting.’
‘Really?’ I replied with wonder. ‘You’re really suggesting I invite Lydia Powell into this house?’
‘As long as she’s gone by the time I get back.’
Former enemies, my aunt and my best friend had forged an unspoken truce, finding a way to tolerate each other ever since Lydia and her twin brother, Jackson, had been dragged into our family drama. And by ‘dragged into’, I did mean ‘were almost killed by’.
‘As much as I know you would love to see her, Lyds has something planned with her grandmother,’ I said, pretending not to notice when she let out a small exhale of relief. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.’
‘A likely story,’ she replied. ‘What about Wyn, have you heard from him?’
I bit into my bottom lip, pressing down until I tasted blood.
I had not heard from Wyn.
‘That’s it, you’re coming to the meeting with me,’ Ashley declared. ‘And don’t you try to talk your way out of it because if I have to sit through another debate about whether or not Mr Ellison can paint the front of his townhouse fluorescent pink, then you should suffer too. And I just know Mr Chisholm would love to educate you on the history of the Farewell Ball at City Market. I swear, if that man tries to show me the photos of his grandmother dressed as a slice of cantaloupe one more time—’
‘While that sounds incredible,’ I said, interrupting her andbacking away towards the door, ‘I have way too much to do around here. This place is a mess. There’s laundry to take care of, my bed needs to be made – just so much stuff.’
Ashley stood scrutinizing me as I spoke. The hollows under my eyes, the lank red waves that fell around my face, the grey shirt I’d been wearing for the last two, maybe three, days.
‘Em, you need to take a pause,’ she said, firm and decisive. ‘If you carry on like this, you’re going to burn out – and no one in this family wants to hear the word “witch” and “burn” in the same sentence.’
