Page 118 of Spirit Storm

In Wiccan culture, white candles are burned for protection, cleansing, and breaking curses. Black is burned for banishing and repelling negative energy.

And around the candles, in a wide, white ring, is a solid line of salt.

"Did you bring the contract?" Lily asks.

I did. She knows I did. She asked me twice on the way over.

I pull out the blood-bound contract I gave to Vale when I first signed it. It's a scroll of parchment with scarlet ink, and three drops of my blood dried on it. I set the scroll in the shallow iron dish.

Lily and Violet take their places on one side of the rectangular altar table, and I stand opposite them. I let my fingertips rest lightly on the edge of the table, draw a deep breath, and then meet their gazes. "Ready?"

Violet nods without hesitation. "Yeah, let's do this."

Lily lifts her chin. "Yeah."

S'Nark flicks an ear. "Try not to set the crypt on fire. Historic stonework and all that."

I light the black candle first. The flame catches immediately and flickers steady and tall. The warmth it gives off lands on my cheeks and chases away a bit of the chill.

"Spirit Endures.

Blood remembers.

Those who came before,

Hear your daughters' call.

Mothers. Fathers. Guardians.

Rise, and stand with us once more.

If your strength yet lingers, lend it now."

We speak the ancestral call, slow and even, our voices weaving into a harmony of our intention. Lily's cadence is careful and deliberate. Violet's voice carries clear and bright. Mine falls somewhere between them, and the three of us find a rhythm that belongs to no one of us individually.

"They're close," Lily says softly. "I feel them."

She's right. I feel the shift in the air before I see anything: a thickening, a gathering weight, like the room is filling with breath. The temperature drops a few degrees, and the candle flames all lean inward at once.

Our ancestors arrive gently. Not all at once, and not with drama. They arrive the way memory does, one impression at a time, familiar and quiet.

I feel them more than see them, a great grandmother whose face I only recognize from her portrait, a great-uncle who was a hedge witch of some renown, further back than that, the names and faces remain fragmentary and faint. Still, they are present.

Then I feel her.

I know our mom has arrived before she fully forms.

Zoe Hallowind-Forrester steps forward from the gathered light and looks strong and healthy, her blue eyes bright, her long blond hair loose around her shoulders.

Violet's smile breaks wide. "Hi, Mom."

"Oh, my beautiful girls. Look at you."

Lily presses her fingers to her mouth and blows her a kiss. "Wow, you look better."

She does. And as much as I love that she anchored herself to Hallowind House, it's not good for her soul to be separated from the ancestral pool. It's been hard not to call her more often, but the three of us agreed that her well-being was more important than us missing her.

She looks at each of us in turn, slow and steady, and the pride in her eyes means everything. "Why have you called us, girls?"