Chapter 14 #2
The wind picked up, swirling the salt. I tasted it on my lips, sharp and old. “Why here?” I asked. “Why now?”
Mama looked at me, the smile fading. “Because it’s time. They’re coming, Aspen. And you need to be ready.”
I swallowed, the chill in my feet climbing up my legs. “The wolves?”
She shook her head, sad. “The wolf is your salvation, your completion. I’m so proud that you found your wolf. But you know that already.”
I still needed answers, so I asked, “Why did you make me leave?”
Her gaze softened. “Because if you’d stayed, you’d be dead already.
Or worse.” She touched her collarbone, where the grimoire pendant used to rest, and I saw a flash of firelight, a memory that wasn’t mine.
“I did everything I could to keep you safe, but it was never enough. You were meant for more than that little coven. Meant for more than being a dud.”
The word stung, even from her. “Then what am I meant for?”
Mama’s face grew distant, like she was watching something play out in the sky behind me. “Your strength is in the making, Aspen. In what you create, not what you destroy. The world needs more of that. More of you.”
The stones began to pulse, faint at first, then stronger, until I could feel it in my teeth.
The spiral at my feet glowed, each grain of salt a tiny sun.
My heart beat faster. I thought of Papa, of Oscar, of the way I felt baking in the early hours—how sometimes, just sometimes, I felt like I was bending the world into sweetness.
I stepped closer. The salt should have burned, but it felt warm and clean, like stepping into the shallow end of a summer river.
Mama watched, proud and sad all at once.
I wanted to ask her everything—the truth about my father, the reason I could never make magic work the way the others did. But what came out was, “Why did you lie about him?”
She winced, the lines in her face deepening. “To keep you safe. If they knew what you were, they’d have torn you apart before you could walk.” She looked away, then back, her eyes fierce. “You have the blood, Aspen. You have the book. And you have a heart stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”
The stones began to hum louder. My skin prickled with power.
Mama stepped forward, the spiral closing behind her. She reached out and took my hand, her touch warm and solid. “They will come for you,” she said, voice shaking. “But you are ready. You can do what I could not.”
I gripped her hand, refusing to let go. “What about the grimoire? It won’t let me in. Not really.”
She smiled, a secret in it. “Because it’s waiting for you to be brave. To bleed for it. It’s not about the words, Aspen. It’s about the will.” She traced the back of my hand, where the sigil had appeared. She tapped it, gentle. “Blood remembers, love. Blood forgives.”
I tried to hold on to the moment, but already the world was fading at the edges, the colors running together like wet paint.
“Mama, wait—”
She pulled me close, hugged me tight, and whispered into my ear. “The book won’t give you everything. There are things too dangerous to know. But it will show you all you need to learn. Trust yourself. And trust the wolf, too. He loves you more than he knows.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but the world went white.
When I blinked again, I was back in the kitchen, the smell of bacon and coffee washing over me like a wave. My hands still rested on the grimoire, but now the cover was warm, almost pulsing under my touch.
Oscar stared up at me, eyes wide. “Well?” he prompted, voice trembling with excitement. “What did you see?”
I breathed out, slow and shaky, and told him everything.
He listened without interruption, tail curled around his feet, and when I finished, he nodded once, solemn as a judge. “You must open the book with blood,” he said. “I suspected as much. It is the only way.”
I laughed, surprised at the relief that flooded me. “You have quite a flair for the dramatic, Oscar.”
He puffed up, offended. “Witchcraft is always dramatic, Miss. It’s rather the point. I don’t make the rules.”
I looked at my hand, and a faint outline of the sigil that matched the one on the grimoire glowed faintly.
Oscar saw where I was looking. “Use the same hand, Miss. It will remember you.”
I looked around the kitchen, searching for a knife, but thought better of it. Instead, I rummaged in the junk drawer for a safety pin. After moving around some batteries and a roll of tape, I found one.
Oscar hopped onto the table, watching with rapt attention. “Go on, then.”
I took a deep breath, held the pin to my thumb, and pressed. The pain was sharp and bright, but quick. A bead of blood welled up, dark and perfect.
I smeared it across the clasp of the grimoire.
Nothing happened for a second. Then, with a soft click, the lock slid open.
Oscar gasped, paws covering his mouth. “By the Queen’s whiskers,” he whispered. “You did it.”
I grinned, tears in my eyes, and flipped the book open.
Every page was different—some thick with pasted flowers or faded herbs, others dense with tiny handwriting or explosions of color, ink so old it blurred at the edges.
The first entries were in a hand I didn’t know—slanted, stern, and old.
They spoke of harvests and hard winters, of names I’d never heard, of bargains struck at moonrise and secrets paid in coin or tears.
I turned the page. My mother’s script danced across the paper; familiar, warm, a little rushed, always running out of room before the margin. The first line was dated just months before she died:
If you’re reading this, it means you survived.
I blinked back sudden tears. Oscar, seeing my struggle, gently nudged the crook of my arm.
“Go on,” he whispered. “She’s waiting.”
I paged through, mouth dry, heart drumming.
There were pie recipes and curse-breaking rituals jumbled together, diagrams of plant roots and star patterns, lists of enemies and their weaknesses, lists of friends and their true names.
Some pages were sealed with wax, some folded into pockets, some blacked out entirely with heavy strokes of charcoal.
Oscar scanned each one over my shoulder, muttering small approvals. “Ah, yes, that’s elder thorn, rare these days… Oh, and here, the healing draft—useful if you’re poisoned or merely heartbroken… Oh, look at that, she added her own notes to the Wyrdmother’s Sleep!”
I kept turning pages faster and faster, growing dizzy with the sheer wealth of it. My mother had left a map for every possible disaster, and the further I got, the more I understood: she’d been scared, but she’d never been powerless.
I wanted that, too.
Oscar finally hopped onto the book itself, tapping the page with a tiny claw. “Here,” he said. “This is where you must begin.”
I read aloud. “Protection circle, bloodline variant. For use against those who mean you harm. Best performed at full moon, but potent if performed with true intent.”
I looked up. “We can do this, right?”
Oscar’s little mouth curled in a knowing smile. “Of course, Miss. With your wolf to guard you, and me at your side, there is nothing you cannot face.”
I grinned, reckless and alive. “What next?”
Oscar considered, then nodded at the grimoire. “We must research the symbol. The one the man left on your bag. There is power in it, and a message for you. But first, we strengthen your shields. No more running, not for you.”
I nodded. “No more running.”
Outside, I could hear the distant sound of Papa wrapping up his call, boots crossing the porch. The sky beyond the window had gone full gold, the day bright and hard and real.
I looked down at the open book, then at Oscar, who adjusted his tiny glasses and regarded me with the pride of a hundred generations.
“What do we need to look for first?” I asked, my voice steady now, my hands ready.
Oscar grinned. “We begin with protecting your bakery, then we continue to learn, to grow, and then—we fight.”
It felt like a switch had been flipped inside of me, and I was coming alive.
The grimoire glowed between us, warm as hearth light, waiting for me to write the next chapter.