26
EVIE
T he hairs on the back of my neck stood in high alert as I entered Celeste’s four days after my magickal explosion. A distinctive wave of warning washed over me from the otherworld, a disturbance in the field of the unseen.
I paused in the doorway, ears straining, eyes tracking for movement amid the tables and shelves of goods and plants.
“Evie,” someone hissed from behind me.
I turned just as a hand clamped down on my shoulder and pulled me back outside the shop.
Cecil released me. His wife Jill held his arm with a worried expression. He placed a finger to his lips and pointed to the left with a jerk of his head. I followed them around the corner.
“There’s a born vampire in there, dear, speaking with Marietta,” Jill explained from the side of the building.
Cecil eyed me carefully.
“Marietta won’t tell them shit. But if they come for you, just explain that you’re a green witch with the gift of healing, okay?” Jill said with a tight smile.
The blood drained from my face as her words sunk in.
“I need to go make sure Marietta is okay—” I said.
“No,” Cecil said. “You need to go home.” Pity swam in his wrinkled features. “In fact, I no longer think it’s safe for you to be selling anything more than plants and natural healing medicines. Some of the spells… they’re attracting too much attention. Green witches shouldn’t be able to affect the world like you do.”
Jill nervously looked at me, quickly shushing Cecil.
Something inside me broke. My face heated with shame, a sickening feeling twisting my guts. The morning light was suddenly too revealing, leaving me vulnerable and exposed.
These dreams and aspirations that had been propelling me forward the past months were crashing down all around me.
I was growing. I was getting better, more comfortable in myself and my destiny.
The thought of being left without a purpose—without a way to prove to the world that I was a force for good—was like a knife straight to the gut.
“I’m sorry, Evie,” Cecil said. “You’re still welcome at our home, always. Please be careful. These are strange times.” He paused, mumbling something to Jill, who now pulled on his arm. “But the world has a way of finding balance again. The same push and pull, the same shifts and patterns, repeating over and over again throughout the centuries. The world will right itself again, by Helia’s grace.”
Balance .
I thought of him.
Grief had my heart in a death grip as I walked in the opposite direction of my ex-client and my ex-employer.
A sharp pain drove into my chest over and over. Inside my head was this terrifying nothingness, with only the cruel, haunting whispers from the past to keep me company.
In a span of a month, nearly everything I loved had been stolen from me, piece by piece. Everything I thought I knew was wrong—about myself, about my future, about Etherdale, my home.
The only certainty now was the monster who followed me from the shadows.
I’d never despised anything more.
Mena made me tea as I stared numbly out the kitchen window.
“This world hates strong, powerful women,” Mena said, raising her fist as she spoke.
She wore a flowy, tunic-style leopard print dress with the brightest red lipstick. She wasn’t going out—she merely believed that she wasn’t her best self without color on her lips.
The late morning sunlight illuminated the space in a white glow. The smell of bread and herbs tickled my nostrils. By all appearances, it was a lovely summer day.
I crossed my arms. I was having none of it.
“None more so than witches.” She slid me a mug of lemon balm and elderberry tea. At the look on my face, her theatrical display of anti-masculinity fizzled into something more somber. “I’m terribly sorry, Evie. I know how much your craft means to you. Our work is our lifeblood.”
She reached for my hand on the marble countertop, her touch soft.
My lip trembled. “I keep waiting to hear word that it was all a misunderstanding. I can’t—” My voice cracked, and I faltered. “I can’t let this go. I won’t .”
Mena lifted my hand in both of hers, her amber eyes sparking. “Then you will find a way.” A wave of emotion fell over her features before they tightened back up. Her smile was sad, soft, and wise. “There was a time I was much too protective of you and your brother.”
She released my hand and sipped her tea, staring off into the past.
“My friends thought it most peculiar,” she continued. “No one believed I had a single maternal bone in my body— I didn’t think I had a single maternal bone in my body—until you showed up on my doorstep with Idris.”
I seized up, my heart pounding.
“And when I saw…” Mena trailed off, shaking her head as water pooled in her eyes. “Well, from then on, I was ready to bludgeon anyone at all for you kids.”
The idea of Mena committing acts of violence allowed the tiniest relief to my tense muscles and tight chest. I might’ve smiled if I wasn’t still stuck—stuck on what Mena saw when I knocked on her door.
“You weren’t the only one deathly afraid of leaving the house, you know,” she said. “Any time we went to visit Wendy in those early days…”
I thought of Wendy’s kind, knowing face—the eyes that saw too much of me, the voice that made me want to run. Wendy was Mena’s friend, the retired psychology professor and part-time emotional healer I’d begged to stop seeing until Mena finally relented.
“… or even when you two would go outside to play, in the gardens or, gods forbid, at one of those spoiled brat neighbors’ homes, I felt the most awful dread. It consumed me. When you were out of my sight, that was the worst. I feared you wouldn’t come home. That my life would be forever dimmer without the beautiful light of your bravery and resilience.”
A tear slid down my cheek, and Mena wiped at her own eyes.
“Gah!” she exclaimed. “You know I hate to cry.” She took a dramatic breath and grinned. “The point of that sappy love fest is that my protectiveness reached a limit. And that limit was the desire to see you and Idris in full bloom. When Idris flew the nest to study at university, my soul knew peace. You coming into acceptance with your gifts and becoming a fierce little businesswoman… that growth became so much more important to me than my selfish fears.”
“You’ve never been selfish with us,” I said. “Never.”
A warmth spread through my chest, this beautiful maternal connection that I’d been starved of for half my life. What a gift to have found it in someone who was once a stranger.
I savored another sip of tea. “We owe you everything.”
Mena waved a hand dismissively. “Pshaw.” She looked at me with a certain ferocity now. “Don’t you dare give up on your life’s work, my dear. It would break my heart.”
“Mine too,” I murmured. Anger simmered beneath the surface every time I thought of that beautiful, dangerous vampire’s stupid face. The man who was taking everything I loved away from me.
“You must find a way,” Mena said. “Even if your dreams must take new form, do not let them die. Don’t close yourself back up just when those petals were finally beginning to unfurl.”
Whispers tickled my ear drums, a low buzzing sensation at my throat and heart centers.
But I didn’t— couldn’t lean in. I couldn’t bask in the sunlight and believe that everything was going to be okay.
“It’s more complicated than that,” I whispered. I studied Mena’s face, her regally beautiful features accented with tasteful makeup and glasses low on her nose. “If I’m not careful, I’m not the only one at risk.”
Mena had dedicated over a decade to us—these wounded, fearful children she’d never asked for. I would never put her in danger. Just as I would never draw attention to Idris while he lived his beautifully human life studying architecture.
I could never be so selfish.
They were already at risk enough. Because of him.
Because of me.
Mena rubbed my shoulder, her reassurances doing nothing to penetrate my walls—not when my selfish, naive actions had endangered my family.
And when I made it back to the cottage and saw the note left on my door, it was a combination of guilt and anger that propelled me forward.
Kylo was claiming his first coerced date. He wanted me to wear the dress he left in a box inside—a reminder that I was his pretty little doll to dress and order around, that he could enter my home whenever he wished. I was merely a silly mortal for him to torment and entertain himself with until he inevitably grew bored.
I put on the wispy, faerie-like lilac dress and laced up the shiny new white sneakers. And when I made it to the exact spot in the sprawling city gardens he’d requested, a presence at my back sent a wave of shivers down my spine. Hands reached for my waist.
I didn’t hesitate. I spun around and threw a punch.