When Gail’s daughter, Ayana, came to relieve Sadie of her shift, she followed Gigi home, her old Subaru whining to keep up with her grandmother’s PT Cruiser. The woman drove like a bat out of hell.
Sadie changed into loose linen pants and a soft cream sweater, sweeping her hair into a messy bun. The coils had finally loosened to soft waves. By the time she got back downstairs, Gigi was already watching TV, with Bambi at her feet and Abby on her lap. Sadie poured a glass of red currant wine and took it outside, sipping the symbolism of a fresh start, listening to the chatter of the television mixing with birdsong. A breeze blew from the west, and Sadie followed it with her eyes, to the tree line, the forest, and the direction of Rock Creek house.
Kicking her shoes off with a sigh, she dug her toes in the pea gravel, just as she did every evening, and closed her eyes. The dwarf orange tree was just blossoming, and its sweet citrus scent felt more like summer than the cold weather she knew was coming. The garden rustled thickly despite the gentleness of the breeze, as though it were calling to her.
“Shh,” she hissed at them, and the plants gently settled.
She played the day over in her head and slowed when she reached the part where Jake entered it. She unwrapped the memory bit by bit, savoring it like a lemon drop.
Her stomach dipped deliciously as her mind brought up every detail that she’d tried so hard to forget. His hair, still the same summer honey-wheat blonde, still completely free of gray. Fine lines crinkled around his eyes when he smiled, and told stories of his easy laughter. And his shoulders … obviously, he hadn’t given up on the gym, which made sense since he was finally living his dream of being a firefighter. She could practically feel the smooth expanse of his stomach as she trailed her fingers across it.
But those were memories. She’d make sure they stayed that way.
It used to be a dance with Jake. Around desire and convention. The curse made her fear, but in the end, love cast it out, and she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she would sacrifice her magic for him if it came to that.
That’s what scared her the most.
On a smoky summer night when she was eighteen, she’d made chrysanthemum biscuits and slathered them with wildflower honey. As he ate, the scales fell from his eyes, and the truth was unveiled. With his heart laid bare, he told her he loved her, and with sticky fingers and a voice made pure with honesty, he made a vow by the lemon tree that they would be together forever. That he would never leave her.
But in the morning, when the magic had worn off, he left. Breaking every promise in his wake.
For years Sadie had blamed herself for tricking him into the truth. But despite the guilt, her anger grew like chickweed. He was a coward. Knowing the truth and not accepting it. Denying it and lying to himself, but worst of all, denying Sadie the love she had been willing to sacrifice her magic for. Sadie held onto the past like a drunkard clutching his whisky. Vices like that were a comfort blanket when you feared the future. If she could hang onto her bitterness toward the past, in a way it protected her heart for the future. At least, that’s what she told herself.
The garden started to rustle again, swaying restlessly, trying to get her attention.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she muttered, finishing her wine and grabbing the clippers. But as she made her way past the climbing sweet peas and saw the patch of garden dedicated to herbs, her stomach churned.
“No,” she whispered. Her fingers trembled and her throat clogged as she fell to her knees. More than half of the small space had been burned. She could coax it back to life, but the fear of who would do this—and, more importantly, why—had her shaking.
Did anyone truly hate the Revelares enough to risk breaking and entering? To destroy something so beautiful? Her chest ached from the sight of so much destruction. The heartbreak of wasted beauty.
She turned around to tell Gigi and stopped. She couldn’t worry her grandmother with this. She’d have to figure it out by herself.
Her throat tight, she mechanically dragged a rake over the burned patch as she talked herself down. But it was getting hard to breathe. Swallowing was becoming more difficult as the urge to cry almost overpowered her.
She threw the rake down and, instead, cut the healing herbs that hadn’t been burnt. Bay leaves and fennel. She even dug up a garlic bulb and picked some blackberry thorns from the bush at the edge of the garden that always threatened to overtake everything.
She crushed the thorns with an amber stone and then laid them, along with a stick of selenite and the herbs, in a copper bowl and filled it with water. They would need to charge under the moon for six days before she could use them.