TWENTY
Lauren
Damien left at five-thirty in the morning.
Kate had set her alarm for four-thirty. She’d moved through the dark suite quietly, not wanting to wake me, but I was already awake — had been for an hour, listening to them murmur their goodbyes through the thin wall between our rooms. I didn’t hear words, just the low steady sound of two people saying something to each other that doesn’t need to be said out loud.
When Kate came back in at six-fifteen, I had coffee waiting.
She sat down at the small table by the window, wrapped both hands around the mug, and looked out at the Starlight River turning gold in the early light. Neither of us said anything for a while.
“Three months,” she said finally.
“Three months,” I agreed.
By ten o’clock, she was ready to be distracted, which is how we end up walking slowly down Cypress Grove’s main street — me on the walking cast, Kate with her hands shoved in her pockets and her sunglasses on even though the morning is overcast.
The Haunted Hearth is halfway down the block, tucked between a used bookshop and a woman selling hand-pouredcandles from a folding table on the sidewalk. The sign above the door is a cheerful cauldron with a curl of steam rising from it, and inside it smells like coffee and something baking with cinnamon.
“I’ve been wanting to bring you here since you arrived,” Kate says, steering us toward a corner booth. “Best chicken salad in Florida. Maybe in the world.”
“Don’t oversell it.”
“It’s totally deserved.” Kate has a small canvas bag with her that clinks gently when she sets it on the bench.
“What’s in there?” I point.
“Tinctures. I’m dropping some off at the Hearth after lunch — Mira behind the counter has been having trouble sleeping since her mother passed in January. And there’s one for old Gerald at the bookshop next door. His arthritis has been bad. I’m making them in bulk now.” She says it the way someone might say they’re running ordinary errands. Which, in Cypress Grove, I’m realizing it is.
“When did you start making those?”
“Since I've been back.” She shrugs. “Mom taught me. Her mom taught her. It's just — what we do here.”
“I meant to ask you. Natalia said something about covens. Plural. Are there covens in town? Like actual groups of…?”
Kate gives me a look like I've asked if Florida has humidity. “This is Cypress Grove, Lauren. Yes, there are witches.”
“Wow.”
“There are more covens per square mile here than anywhere else in Florida. Maybe the country.” She picks up her coffee. “You've been walking past their shops all week without knowing it.”
“The crystal shop.”
“Among others. There's a woman, Iris, who photographs the springs every full moon. Has done for thirty years. I keep meaning to introduce you.”
Something tugs at me. “I want to meet her.”
“You will.” Kate says it simply, like it's already decided. “She'll love you.”
“Have you joined one? A coven?”Kate would have told me if she had, right?
She shakes her head and relief floods my body. “I didn’t know if I was staying or going. I guess that question’s answered now.”
I look at the little bottles lined up in her bag. Something about the sight of them, the matter-of-fact way Kate talks about it, makes me think of the tea she brewed me on my first night at the wedding. How the pain had moved to the background. How that hollow feeling had eased without my permission.
How this was better than going with her to a luxury retreat. Here, in the Haunted Hearth, which smells like cinnamon and herbs. It’s all so comfortable.
We order — the chicken salad for both of us, obviously — and for a while we just sit with our coffees and let the morning move around us. A couple comes in with a dog. The woman at the counter greets them by name. Somewhere in the back someone laughs.
