Page 65 of Raven in Midwinter

“Lorne, I got the good beer,” Eddie called over.

“Thank you,” Lorne managed to choke out.

“You all right?”

“I had a weird day.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” Eddie stated. “Driving in this weather is the worst.”

“Go take a shower,” Amanda ordered me. “There are more people coming.”

“For what?”

She tipped her head and squinted at me. “We’re having a little midwinter chase-the-blues-away party to bring everyone back to the land of the living. You have to visit and eat and laugh and hug so everyone remembers they’re part of a community. You agreed we should have these get-togethers every other week so that even while we’re all hibernating, we also remember to touch base and make sure everyone is good.”

I nodded. “That sounds perfect.”

“All my ideas are amazing, and you and Lorne are hosting this week. Your neighbors are coming, and also James and Cass—they’re bringing some woman who’s staying with them…Theseus? That can’t be right.”

“Thessaly,” Lorne corrected her.

“Still terrible.”

“That’s not nice,” Amanda’s youngest child, JJ, said as they rushed into the room to bring me a snickerdoodle. “Don’t make fun of people’s names.”

“Yes, dear,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“Why do I get a cookie?” I asked JJ, accepting the offering.

“You look like you need a cookie,” they told me. “And you’re kinda dirty.”

“I will go shower now,” I promised, taking a bite and then returning the cookie. “You have the rest and we’ll eat some more of these when I come out.”

I got a big smile and a happy nod before they darted away.

“Uncle Xan, I can’t find Argos’s food, and I think he’s hungry,” Toby, Amanda’s oldest, called over.

“Wait, I brought him chicken hearts—his favorite,” Amanda apprised him, and Argos darted over to her as she got them out of another bag for him.

“Gross,” Eddie commented, shaking his head.

“Uncle Xan, I found this in a box in the attic,” Toby announced, rushing from the kitchen over to me, reaching into the right front pocket of his pants, and pulling out a pendant. “Is it okay if I wear it?”

It was a small silver disc, darkened with age, clearly an antique, and very beautiful. When I reached for it, touching it gently, immediately there came the familiar thrum of my own magic. Taking it from him, I noted that even after two hundred years and counting, it was still a powerful talisman.

“I want to get a chain for it,” he said.

“Or perhaps a leather cord instead,” I suggested.

“Yeah, that sounds better.”

“When did you find it?”

“Yesterday,” he replied cheerfully.

“I said it was fine,” Amanda chimed in, joining us. “I mean the Algiz rune is for protection, right? How can you go wrong with that.”

“You can’t,” I whispered, overcome, for a moment, by the past. “It’s safe, I made it for her.”