“Moon Mother, hear our plea. Bless our sacred intention. Be our light in the darkness.”
Over and over I chanted the words, the crystal squeezed in one palm, my phone in the other. As the tears began to slow and my inhales and exhales returned to their usual rhythm, my eyes fluttered shut until sleep claimed me.
* * *
Buzz.
Buzz.
Buzz.
I wiped my crusted eyes, looking at the phone.
Unknown
Peering at the time on the kitchen clock, I saw that I’d been asleep for over four hours. I picked up, my heart beating wildly in my chest, wondering who and what would be awaiting me on the other end of the line.
“I know I said it didn’t have anything to do with Hazel…” Saros’s deep timbre drifted through the phone.
“What is it?” My heart dropped like a heavy stone in my gut.
There was a long pause. “We found her.”
Found.
“Is she okay?” I asked, part of me too afraid to know the answer.
“Yes. But we wanted to make sure to get her monitored and gather any evidence before it could become compromised.”
What evidence? “What happened to her? Where are you?”
I peeked my head out the window, looking around the neighborhood. From what I could see of it, everything still looked quiet.
“We are at Devereux Hospital with her right now. We still need her account of what happened but—”
“Can I see her?”
“Not just yet, but she should be done here soon. You are welcome to wait for her at the hospital while we finish up. Hopefully not much longer.”
If he said anything else, I didn’t hear it.
Hazel has been found, and she’s okay.
I hung up the phone, throwing random things into the diaper bag. Rummaging through Hazel’s clothes, I grabbed a few things in case they had taken hers for evidence, trying to recall any procedural shows I’d seen and what kinds of items they might collect.
Scooping Aspen out of the crib, I snapped him into the car seat, hands shaking the entire time. Tapping the steering wheel with my fingers, nerves in overdrive, I sped to the hospital, cursing like a wrath demon each time a stop sign or red light got in my way. All the while, I begged the Moon Goddess that once I got to my sister everything would be okay.
* * *
Hazel sat in the bed,wrapped in a fleece blanket. Her brunette hair fell in matted strings around her face and there was a vacantness about her eyes as Lynx, Saros, and another witch in a gray suit stood in the room, talking to her. I bounced on my heels, Aspen feeding beneath my shirt while I watched, ready to get her home.
To see for myself if she wasactuallyokay.
The gray-suit man had his arms crossed, eyes narrowed at Hazel while Lynx seemed to ask her a few questions. She shook her head, and I could read her lips sayingI don’t know, but otherwise it was hard to see what was going on. The unfamiliar witch said something to Saros that made him frown, replying sternly with his brows knit before stalking out the door.
The man in the gray suit followed him out. “Now is not the time to pull back when we are this close to answers.”
“Not like this,” Saros fumed. “Give her a few more days to see if anything else comes to her. To regain her strength.”
