22. Magnolia
FOR THE FIRST time in my life, I’m scared to go in the apothecary shop.
A woman walks up and stares at me expectantly, and I realize I’m blocking the door. Jerking into motion, I open the door and gesture her inside, then follow, confident that Mom is waiting for me. She always knows when I need her, and even though I’ve needed to talk to her for a week, it’s taken me this long to finally get up the nerve to do it.
The bell above the door chimes as we walk in, like it always does, and as I look up, lavender tendrils of sound flow out of the metal.
I startle. That’s…new.
A hand touches my arm and I jump.
“Whoa there,” Aspen chuckles. “Nervous this morning? Need some tea?”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Depends on who’s making it.”
Her mouth tips up in a secretive smile. “You’re looking for Mom.”
“She in the back?”
“She is,” Aspen confirms, then tilts her head. “What are you up to?”
“A lot. Actually, I need your help, too. Is Catherine working this morning?” I ask, referencing the high schooler who works after school and on the weekends.
In answer, Aspen threads her skinny arm through mine and we head to the back.
“How’s Riggs?” Aspen asks conversationally.
I whip my head to her, unsure what to make of her inquiry. “He’s…fine?”
“Good. I like him. He’s…how to put it…” she muses, her steps slowing. Finally, she nods. “Good. He’s good.”
He’s good all right. Good with his tongue and hands and other body parts, all of which I’d experienced several hours’ worth of last night. It’s a wonder I made it through school today. The one bonus of being so tired was that my magic seemed to be sleepy as well—no random horny teenagers thanks to my misplaced daydreaming.
Aspen grins. “Where’d you go, little sis?”
I blush. “Sorry. Yeah. Yes. I mean yes, he is. Good. Very good.”
“Is he, now?” She smirks, then pulls me tighter against her and picks up the pace.
When we get to the tiny stockroom in the back, we find Mom on a stool, stretching to pull a box from a shelf that is way too high for her to reach. She doesn’t bother turning around as she says, “Well, don’t just stand there watching me. Come help.”
“I don’t know why you don’t just move it,” Aspen mutters, waving her hand at the box.
The box shifts forward, and Mom grabs it. Turning and stepping off the stool, she purses her lips at Aspen. “Because I prefer to use my magic at home only.”
Aspen snorts derisively. “Sounds like a you problem.”
Mom rolls her eyes. “I’ve lived long enough to know that some people are rather…unnerved by us. So I?—”
“Hide,” Aspen finishes. “Which I refuse to do.”
It’s an argument these two have frequently. Mom is only twenty years older than Aspen, and they bicker like sisters half the time. I think it’s because they’re so much alike. I’m only three years younger than Aspen, but she always gravitated toward Mom instead of me.
Then again, maybe that’s my fault.
Mom opens the box. “We’re waiting,” she prompts, keeping her focus on her task. One after another, she pulls out dried spices in thick, flat plastic bags.
I can’t get the words to come. Worrying my lip, I step around her to pull another box off the shelf, then turn to set it on the table next to her. I open it and inhale the star anise that wafts into the air, its licorice-tinted scent so powerful that no plastic can hold it back.
Seems I could take a lesson from the spice. Taking another inhale to gather my courage, I finally get the words out. “I need help.”
Mom gives a soft hum. “I was wondering how long it’d take you.”
I glance sharply at her. “How much do you know?”
She sighs. “Enough, but not everything.”
I roll my eyes, already lighter at giving up the weight of the confession. “That is the most Mom answer you could possibly give.”
Aspen laughs and agrees, “It really is.” She sets a fresh box next to Mom and runs the scissors down the seam.
“Then start talking,” Mom says. She trades Aspen for the new box and begins to unpack it, pulling out more bags of spices and herbs.
I breathe deeply, letting the familiar, yet muted, scents ground me. Bergamot, lavender, lemon, coriander…the list goes on and on. “I need help getting rid of a curse.”
Mom stills.
“On who?” Aspen asks.
“Me.”
The scissors clatter out of Mom’s grip as Aspen’s voice, sharp and acidic, cuts through the air. “What?” I swear spikes of dark yellow fly out of her mouth. Her whole body tenses, and I get the distinct impression that she is utterly and completely ready to kill someone on my behalf.
It’s…oddly comforting.
“Kera cursed me at our Sixteenth Gathering.”
Mom nods, as if that makes sense, and that tiny gesture seems to hold an entire world of explanation in it. A spike of heat, swift and sure, courses through me as I whirl on her, every instinct on high alert, and before I do something I will deeply regret, Aspen’s hands are on my arms, pulling me tight against her chest. What is happening? Some base instinct screams to take her down, but I won’t do it. She is my mother. It’s only when Aspen has me fully wrapped in a bear hug, my back to her front, that I realizing I’m shaking uncontrollably.
“Shhh,” Aspen soothes. “Hang on. Let her talk.”
I want to calm down. I want to let Mom talk. I don’t even understand my reaction right now, and all I can do is try to push it down as I breathe through it.
In front of me, Mom’s eyes are wide, her hands held up as if…as if to fend me off? I shake my head, unable to fathom what my body is doing. Deep in my consciousness, something blinks awake and stretches.
“Mags? Are you okay now?” Aspen asks.
I grit my teeth and focus on my breathing. In for three counts, out for three counts. Aspen’s arms squeeze harder. The parquet floor pops beneath us in the silence in the room. Finally, I manage to banish the urge to dominate, to control and punish, and I swallow thickly as the tension drains from my body. “I don’t—” I look up at Mom, then choke out, “I don’t know what just happened. I’m, god, I’m so sorry.”
She holds her arms out and Aspen releases me. In two steps, I’m in my mother’s arms, surrounded by her despite her tiny stature, and I crumple.
As she holds me, she speaks quietly. “I didn’t know, Magnolia. I did know something happened. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and after a couple of weeks, my memory around the Gathering got very fuzzy.” She lets me out of her embrace and I sit on the stool, unable to make sense of, well, anything. She continues. “In fact, you got a little fuzzy, and stayed that way.”
“Fuzzy?” Aspen and I say simultaneously.
“Fuzzy,” she repeats. “Quite literally. You went out of focus to me. No one else noticed, of that I was certain, and I couldn’t do anything to counter it.”
I gape at her. “You’re my mother. How could you not at least try?”
She walks to me and grabs my hands, looking up at me with her bright blue eyes. “My darling, we tried many, many times to counter it.”
“We? There was no we,” Aspen says, her tone incredulous.
“Where was I in all this? You didn’t think to loop me in?”
“Or me?” Aspen adds.
Mom looks at both of us. “You don’t remember? Neither of you?”
I tense. “Remember what?”
Mom grips the table, her knuckles white with the effort of keeping her upright. “I did the spells with both of you. For two years. The three of us tried all manner of spells. Willow wasn’t sixteen yet, and since she’d not had her Gathering, I knew she couldn’t help. And obviously the others couldn’t help—they were way too young.”
The world spins around me. “This doesn’t make sense. None of it.”
“I think you both need to start at the beginning.” Aspen’s voice is strained. “Because neither of you are making any sense, and I’m about to lose my shit.”
Sure enough, I look around and see that many of the boxes and jars around the room are vibrating, and some of them are close to tipping onto the floor. On instinct, I reverse the move she’d done to me only moments ago, closing the distance to Aspen and pulling her into a tight hug. She stiffens, her body taut and unfamiliar in my arms, but after a moment, she relaxes. “Thank you,” she murmurs, her voice thick.
Eventually, I let her slip from my grasp. “I think it’s me who should be thanking you.” When was the last time we held each other? A memory floats into my consciousness, of us holding hands and running to Sacred River, the sun beating down on us, our feet bare and dirty, without a care in the world. It nearly knocks the wind out of me. I stare at her. “Aspen,” I ask quietly. “Were we—Did we used to be close?”
Her brown eyes fill with tears instantly, and she looks up and away as she blinks them back.
My heart swells. “Oh god, Aspen. This is all my fault.” I pull her to me once more. My prickly pear of a sister, who’s never let anyone get close to her—was that because of me?
She squeezes my waist, which is all she can do because of how I’ve pinned her arms to her side in my embrace, and shushes me. “No, it’s not.”
“I think it might be.” And I tell them what I found in my journal, about Kera’s jealousy, her curse, my absolute despondency about it. My unwillingness to ask for help, which was utterly ridiculous in retrospect, and how I’d not bothered to look at my journal since I wrote my final intentions in it. And I tell them what those intentions were.
Mom and Aspen are quiet as I relay the story, their hands clasped against their chests. Mom seems to get more and more pale, while Aspen’s porcelain complexion turns into an impressive shade of mottled red.
“That bitch,” Aspen seethes. “Selfish, self-centered, egotistical, unworthy of being a witch…bitch.”
Can’t argue with her there. “I forgot that the journal existed, too. I mean, I’d see it, but it would immediately fall out of my head, if that makes sense?” They nod. “And it wasn’t until—” I stop, trying to make it all make sense.
“Until what?” Aspen prods.
“Until Riggs. It wasn’t until Riggs that things started…happening.”
Mom hums thoughtfully. “When did you meet him—really meet him?”
I swallow. “Over a year ago. At karaoke.”
Aspen looks at me quizzically. “Karaoke?”
“I hadn’t gotten to that part yet. I have to sing or it makes me?—”
“Sick,” Mom finishes. “So that’s what it’s been all these years.”
I nod. “I found I could go to this bar once a week and sing, and I’d be okay for a little while.”
“You started getting clearer last year, when you met him,” Mom says.
“Clearer? I’ve been out of focus to you this whole time?”
She gives me a sad smile. “I can almost see your eyes clearly again.”
My heart breaks. “Oh, Mom.”
Then I realize what she said—really realize. I started getting clearer when I met Riggs. And at that, it feels like the world grinds to a halt. “Wait.”
And despite me holding my hand up, despite me not wanting to hear what she’s about to say, she says it anyway. “He’s the one.”