Rushing back outside, she held it out to her mother, who nodded without asking questions.
Seth was already there, holding a silver ring that Sadie hadn’t seen in a long time. It wasn’t a complete circle, but ended in two wolf heads, jaws open, ready to consume each other with only a hint of space between their teeth. She opened her mouth to ask him what it represented, but he shook his head, only slightly, and Sadie knew he was saying now wasn’t the time.
Simon snaked around her feet and followed them to the garden. Sadie and Florence walked through the gate first, but just as Seth neared it, it slammed shut. Simon meowed, and Sadie swore it sounded like a laugh. The cat slipped through the wood slats and then paused to look back at Seth with a “you incompetent human” look.
“Be nice,” Sadie told the garden in her sternest voice.
Seth tried the handle but it wouldn’t budge.
“I hear store-bought fertilizer does wonders,” Sadie said, and the handle opened with ease, and the gate let him pass.
Seth opened his mouth with what Sadie knew would be a scathing retort, but before he could get anything out, she stopped him with a hand.
“I wouldn’t,” she advised him. “Unless you want a peach to the head.”
“This is a delicate magic,” Florence said when they were all in the garden with the ring and the bottle nestled on a small mound of dirt. There was a ring of salt around the items and four candles on the outside of the circle. “It requires concentration. A lot of it.” She held out her hands. They each took one, and then Seth and Sadie clasped hands to complete the circle around the mound of dirt.
“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down,” Sadie thought.
“Close your eyes,” Florence instructed them.
They did.
“Focus on your breathing. Tune out all the noise. Climb into yourself. And go deep. Call on the ancient power that lives in us.”
Sadie peeped one eye open to look at Seth. He’d usually scoff at that kind of talk, but his eyes were screwed tight.
“Close your eyes,” Florence reprimanded her.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, cheeks burning as she returned to focusing on the air passing in and out of her lungs. The rise and fall of her chest. Seth’s hand in hers, anchoring her to the earth, to this moment. But she’d always been terrible at meditation. At stilling her mind. The moment she tried to clear her head, an avalanche of thoughts slammed in. For some reason, she thought of Gigi’s chocolate pecan pie. She’d always said it was for healing strength, which Sadie could certainly use about now. And the chocolate was meant for calming. She could practically taste the sweet marriage of chocolate and karo, butter and vanilla.
“Sadie,” her mother said. “You have to focus. Imagine a river. Every time a thought comes in, acknowledge it, then send it down the current.”
She willed the taste of pecans away, and for several long minutes Sadie envisioned the river under Two Hands Bridge, sending every thought into the rapids until her breathing slowed.
“Good. Now, reach out with your mind and connect to your object.”
Sadie’s fingers grew warm, and her forehead broke out in a sweat. A moment later there was a hiss as all four candles lit at once. Sadie smelled the damp air, a hint of patchouli from her perfume bottle, the melting wax. She could almost hear the flames flickering and swaying.
“Yes,” Florence whispered. “Keep going. Take that ember and stoke it, pour it down the connection. Let your magic free and into the object.”
There was silence. And then a soft humming.
“Kanali Symbalo. Kanali Symbalo,” Florence began chanting, low and intense.
A gentle breeze stirred around them, making Sadie shiver as her mother continued reciting those same words. She idly wondered what they meant but tried to keep focused on the task at hand.
The breeze turned to wind, the plants in the garden trembling.
And then the wind stopped abruptly. The leaves stilled. Silence echoed through her bones. There was only the connection, warm and honey filled, that connected her to that crystal bottle. And there, if she reached out, she could feel Seth’s magic, pouring down to his ring.
Sadie felt stuck inside of a moment. She thought if she opened her eyes that the world would have stopped.
A crack of thunder roared from the sky, making her jump.
Her mother stopped chanting.
There was a sizzling sound coming from the mound of dirt and then what sounded like a small explosion. She jumped back as an ember popped and hit in her in the shin. She opened her eyes and watched as their totems burned, the candle flames rising two feet above the wick. And then, just as suddenly as it had started, the fire went out. Sadie smelled rain and the heavens opened. Big, fat drops that drenched them in moments, scattering the circle of salt and obscuring the smell of ash.