“You and I have touched before, hugged, exchanged handshakes and greeting kisses. Heck, my crush on you was a mile wide back in the days before Lisa.”
She smacked herself in the mouth, and Ceridwen laughed out loud.
“Is this how it’s going to be? Me just blurting things? Because I think I would be better off without this…whatever you call it?”
“We call it the craft. Some call it power. Others—gift. Magic. You can call it whatever you want or nothing at all. It’s magical like that.” The merriment in Ceridwen’s words was keeping the blush on Pru’s cheeks. She could feel it rise all the way from her chest, creep up her neck, and take over her entire face.
“This is so embarrassing, I want to die.”
“You don’t. Not really. You wanted to dance not a moment ago.” Ceridwen’s chuckle was teasing.
“How did you know?” Pru was happy to move the conversation to other topics and away from how ridiculous her existence was. What must this woman think of her? “And how did you know anything about Rhiannon and me? I mean, you were there, but is it a sense? A feeling?”
Ceridwen sighed and tapped a red tipped finger to her lips.
“It’s a knowing, I guess. Yes, we touched afterward, and I felt the residual energy from your… I think we can call it an awakening, since whatever happened between you and Rhiannon was exactly that. She awakened the power in you, craft recognizing its equal. Its mate…” Ceridwen trailed off, the last word clearly not something she was ready to divulge. She frowned, her lips twisting, and then she waved her hand over a green branch, and it wilted in front of Pru’s eyes.
“Oh no!”
Another wave and the leaves unfurled, all lush, and blossoms bloomed among them, fragrant and cheerful.
“Are you trying to distract me? So that I don’t ask questions about the things you don’t want to talk about?”
Ceridwen’s delighted giggle drew a smile out of Pru.
“I like you very much, Prudence, you know that?”
“I had hoped, what with the crush and all.” She almost bit her tongue for bringing up the darn long-gone infatuation again, but Ceridwen extended her hand once more and laid it slightly to the side of her sternum, right over her heart. The warmth was slow and steady, making Pru relax, her mind drifting to the woods behind them, the trails that seemed to beckon.
“I’m flattered, Pru. But you’re not for me. My heart is spoken for. As is yours…”
Pru frowned. Spoken for? Surely not Lisa. When her eyes met Ceridwen’s patient ones, the answer was clear as day. As rain. The rain that was suddenly upon them, warm and slow and steady, and somehow not drenching either of them.
Ceridwen’s voice was soft when she spoke again.
“Magic is not something to be treated carelessly. It’s a gift. And it’s a responsibility. It gives us so much, and it asks for a lot in return. Some people never take on either the blessings or the hardships of the craft. And some are gifted less.” Ceridwen shrugged. “My mother was a very powerful witch, but she took everything and gave back even more. Victoria is amazing at some things and not at others, because that is what she has been given. She doesn’t stand in the circle nor can she cause a monsoon, but she is the family rock. It’s what is meant. No more, no less.”
Ceridwen blew on her fingertips and peony petals drifted in the air, slowly falling around Pru, who listened avidly, hanging on every word. It felt like a fairy tale, like a life-altering prophesy. She was captivated. Ceridwen caught a petal and placed it gently in Pru’s palm, where it lay warm and heavy until Pru blinked, and she was holding the flower in full bloom.
“Pru, power has a way of deciding events. Of dictating choices. For better or for worse. Sure, not everything is destined and not every thread is meant to be a thread cut by the Fates. We do keep our free will, of course, but some things power predetermines. And Rhiannon… She was too free, too stubborn to accept that what’s inside her will command her life. She never was a follower. And so, she never accepted the gift fully.”
“She doesn’t want the craft?” Pru dared to ask, her chest rising and falling faster now under the comforting hand.
“You have to understand, while you can run away from many things, including fate, since it’s not something that is outside of you and not something that lives within, nobody can run away from the craft. She tried. All the way across the country. Halfway across the world. But you can’t escape it. You carry it with you after all. Like blood, like ichor.” Ceridwen moved farther into her garden and to a hidden bench. “Am I confusing you?”
Pru wanted to shake her head, but the past three days were all a mass of confusion, and so she just nodded.
“I think I should start where it all began for us, Crowharts. Maybe more will make sense then.”
She sat down, the seat dry and clean despite the rain falling down in rivulets now. Pru gingerly perched next to her.
“The Salem trials, Pru, is where the story of my family begins in earnest. I don’t have much documentation on how Gwendolyn Crowhart came to be in that town. There is no record of her passage across the Atlantic, no Crowhart of relevance in England or Scotland or Ireland. And believe me, the first place we looked—well, my mother first and then I did much later—was Wales. We were doomed to be disappointed there too. And that was our biggest hope.”
“Because of the names?”
“Yes, and because of some things still remembered, some letters still in the family records from Gwendolyn and her daughter. Wales seemed the most logical place to start our search.” The rain around them formed an alcove of sorts, and looking at the garden blooming so much brighter for the water falling gently on it, the entire experience felt surreal.
“We might not know where she came from, and for all we can guess, she could be from anywhere and the name was entirely made up, based on an appellation given to her by the people who lived nearby. They called her Crow, and she was a woman endowed with a great gift. But also, with great fear.”
