Chapter 12
SIRONA
Tuesday is another long, hard day at work. I feel like every day I spend more and more time telling people I can”t help them. Twice in the past month I”ve double checked the company website and waiver to make sure we aren”t promising things we can”t deliver.
But no, it”s that many people who have no other hope come to us. Thinking maybe they”ll be the exception, that even though I can”t cure anyone else”s terminal cancer, maybe I can cure theirs.
By the time I pull my bike up to the house, I”m exhausted. Grant and I had planned to hang out and watch a movie—and undoubtedly make out some—but I canceled on him. All I want to do is lie in my hammock, relax, and meditate for a bit. Maybe garden later, if I have the energy.
But that feels daunting right now. Even the idea of reading seems like it would take too much effort.
I got a few texts during my ride home, so I check them as I conjure a quick change into a loose-fitting sundress and bare feet, sending my work clothes to my hamper and my shoes to the closet.
Grant: Sur u don wnt me 2 cm ovr mk u dnr? Rb ur ft?
It”s followed by the purple devil smiley-face emoji. Yeah, he wants to do more than rub my feet. Mentally, I do too. But physically, I need to crash.
Me: Wonderful as that sounds, I”m beat. Tomorrow? Besides, my mom sent home leftovers with both of us. Gotta eat them before they go bad.
My other message is from Morgan, in our sister group text.
Morgan: OHMYFUCKINGGOD sister meeting tomorrow at 6 my house
I”m typing my response when Bronwen”s comes through.
Bronwen: OMFG what?
Me: What she said.
Morgan”s reply is immediate.
Morgan: too much to explain in a text just be here at 6
Bronwen: I”m bringing punctuation.
It”s a longstanding annoyance of Bronwen”s that our sister doesn”t use proper punctuation or capitalization in text messages. She”s kind of a grammar nerd. Another text from Grant comes through.
Grant: Tmrw?
Me: Thursday. Sister stuff tomorrow.
I have serious doubts I”ll have energy for either occasion, but it can”t be helped. I”ll do an energy spell or something. And maybe talk to Mom again about adding more questions to our screening questionnaire that would eliminate people who aren”t appropriate for our services.
Grant: Cm ovr aftr wk I mk u din.
Me: Perfect.
I set my phone to Do Not Disturb and lay it face down on the grass. Then I climb into my hammock, stretch out, and stare up at the sky above me. It”s after five o”clock, but it”s still sunny, with a few fluffy clouds.
Solstice is this weekend. And my birthday on Sunday. The town Solstice Festival is also this weekend, two days of festivities. Sponsored by Goode Witches, of course. Though for the first time this year, OmniGenQuest Technologies is also sponsoring some of the events. They actually convinced my cousins to play the festival. Getting Celestial Alchemy is something Goode could never do. Probably because the band is made up of my three cousins and one guy, the drummer. They always turned down my Aunt Sarah, their mom.
Aunt Sarah”s kind of pissed that they agreed to play for OGQ. My sisters, other cousins, and I find it hilarious.
Family dinner this week will be Monday instead of Sunday, and will include my cousins Garnet, Sapphire, and Amethyst for the first time in months. They”ve been touring for what feels like forever. It will also be my birthday celebration.
The hammock tips to the side and wobbles. Tiny feet walk across my legs, then Koko”s little body settles in next to my hip.
I stroke her soft fur. It”s not nearly as sleek as it used to be when she was younger. ”Coming to nap with me?”
Something like that. And stop thinking about how old I am. You know familiars live longer. I”ve got plenty of good years left.
”I hope so.”
I was fifteen when my last cat-familiar died. It was devastating. I don”t know if it”s just as painful to lose a pet who isn”t your familiar, I just know it broke my heart. And it won”t be any easier when it”s Koko.
I said stop.
”Sorry.”
Meditate or something. Leave me alone.
”You”re the one who sat on me.”
Still, I follow her suggestion—directive—and close my eyes. Do my best to clear out all the stressful thoughts from the day. I focus on my breathing, deep inhales and long, sighing exhales.
I don”t know how much time passes before I feel myself in that floaty, detached state. Where I”m aware of my body, but it feels separate from my mind. It”s not the same as an out-of-body experience. I”ve had plenty of those too. It”s just an awareness that my mind operates both with and apart from my physical body. It”s a connection to the spirit of the Universe, the energy that surrounds us all.
This is how I usually get my downloads from the deities. What did witches call these knowledge impartments before computers?
They speak to me best when I”m in this receptive state. Sometimes they”ll even answer questions I ask. But only when they want to. They”re fickle beings.
I”m certain the reason I was able to receive the knowledge last weekend was because I was in a such a relaxed place with Grant. My mind was clear, and I was just feeling.
I”m not specifically meditating today hoping they”ll give me more information about his hand, or some guidance on what to do with the information, how to tell him. But I”m not not meditating for this reason.
Just because surgery won”t fix his hand, doesn”t mean his hand is unfixable.
It comes to me in Koko”s voice. Maybe it”s her, maybe it”s a deity speaking through her.
”Koko?”
She gives a soft meow like she often does in her sleep. So it”s not really her.
”But then, how does it heal?” I ask, eyes still closed. Mind still floating.
That”s all I can give you.
”But I don”t have the skills. I don”t know of any spell that will rearrange bone and tissue like that.”
That”s all I can give you.
Fucking deities. They can”t just say what they mean, or tell me where to find a spell that would work.
I count backward from 100, bringing myself back to my body. By this time, Koko is snoring.
I stare up at the sky, tracking a cloud as it drifts lazily through my vision.
Mom and Nana taught me all the healing magic they know. All the spells. They wouldn”t have left this out if there were a way for me to help people in Grant”s situation. Because this could be bigger than Grant. He”s certainly not the only person who has shattered bones irreparably.
They”d tell me if I could help more people. If I didn”t have to end days like today feeling drained and defeated and impotent.
Wouldn”t they?
Talk to your grandmother.
This is a voice I don’t recognize. It isn”t Koko, or even my own inner voice. Nor is it a deity I”ve spoken to before, so it couldn”t be the goddess Sirona.
Honestly, it doesn”t matter who it is. They”re right.
If anyone has answers, it”s Nana.
GRANT
Friday night I manage to convince Sirona”s grandmother that they can spare her for a few hours of preparing for this weekend”s Solstice Festival. My birthday is tomorrow—I never realized it was only a day before Sirona”s—and since I”ll be at the Festival all weekend, with my (pretend but a little bit real) girlfriend, my mom is having a family dinner tonight.
Not that family is anything big. Mom is an only child, my dad”s only brother lives in Florida, and my grandparents have all passed. So it”s just Kelsey, her husband Hank, Aileen, Sirona, and me at my mom”s house. The house where Kelsey and I grew up.
A house that feels almost comically small after so many dinners at Sirona”s mom”s huge Victorian. Or, hell, just hanging out at Sirona”s own large house. I think she has five bedrooms, all about the size of all three of Mom”s bedrooms combined.
Somehow, the little bungalow I grew up in even feels smaller than my cabin. Which definitely has fewer square feet.
I picked Sirona up, and when we walk in, Kelsey greets her with a hug, Aileen holding onto her mom”s legs and peering up at the stranger. Hank shakes her hand and seems a little awkward. After a moment I figure out it”s probably because he works for her family.
Maybe I shouldn”t have brought her. Maybe this was a bad idea. Whatever is truly developing between us is still new and fragile. And not really on a meet-the-family level.
But I”ve been immersed in her family, so it seemed right to bring her tonight. We might not actually be at this level, but we”re pretending to be. The whole point of pretending to date her is so my family will stop worrying about me quite so much. Stop thinking all I do is sit at home and mope about my hand.
That”s only most of what I do while Sirona’s at work.
”Mom”s in the kitchen,” Kelsey says, swinging Aileen up on her hip. The toddler buries her face in my sister”s shoulder, then peeks out cautiously.
Sirona smiles at her, but doesn”t say anything else.
”Sorry she”s being rude,” Kelsey says as we make our way down the short hall to the back of the house.
”No worries. My niece is the same way with Grant.”
”Oh, sure, Sabrina. They go to daycare together.”
”Of course. At Goode.”
Mom is at the stove, stirring something in a saucepan. She turns and gives a hesitant smile. ”Hello. You must be Sirona.”
Sirona”s smile is warm enough to heat her mom”s entire house in the cold of winter. It does things to me. Things that shouldn’t happen in my mother’s kitchen.
”I am. It”s so nice to meet you.”
Mom”s shoulders relax a little. She”s always been awkward around witches. She told me once, shortly after Kelsey met Hank, that she”s just never sure how to act around them. We”ve tried to reassure her she should act like she would any other person. At the end of the day, they”re people too. Just a specific type of person, with different skills than we have.
Kelsey likened it to being a professional athlete; they have skills we never will. But Mom said she wouldn”t know how to act around a pro athlete either, so that didn”t help much.
She”s gotten a lot more comfortable with Hank over the past five years, but she still seems a bit hesitant with Sirona. Not much I can do about that, though.
Hank steps in and takes a deep sniff of whatever Mom”s cooking. ”Smells great, Jolene. As always.”
Mom”s cheeks flush pinker than they already are from the heat on the stove. ”I”m sure it”s nothing like Sirona is used to. I”ve heard your mom can conjure up amazing meals.”
Sirona gives me an amused look.
”I said they were good. I never said they were better than yours, Mom.” They are, but like I”d ever admit that to her.
Mom turns down the heat on the pan and uses her hands to shoo us toward the living room. ”Go. Sit. Grant, get everyone drinks.”
I get beer from the fridge for all of us. Of course Mom has all Witches Brew in the house. A local brewery run by—you guessed it—witches. I grab four bottles of Summer Solstice ale and struggle to twist off the tops. I’m frustrated by the time I toss the bottlecaps in the recycling, and head after everyone else.
Kelsey is on the floor with Aileen, Mom”s in her favorite armchair, Hank is on the couch, and Sirona is alone on the loveseat. After handing my sister and brother-in-law their beers, I sit next to my pretend-but-also-kind-of-real girlfriend.
”Thank you.” She accepts the bottle from me. ”You have excellent taste in beer, Mrs. Humphries.”
Mom sips from her ice water. She used to drink wine every day, but since my dad died, she”s stopped drinking alcohol almost entirely.
Which says something about my dad.
Mom waves away the compliment. ”Are they related to you too?”
”No, they”re not family.”
”And please, call me Jolene.” This smile is a little less hesitant. Mom”s getting there.
We chat a bit, and Mom pops in and out to check on the food. Aileen frequently interrupts to tell stories I can only understand about twenty percent of. Sirona casts a confused look at me during one of the longer babbles and I shrug, shaking my head.
”Kids,” she mouths.
Focusing on her lips sends a spike of lust through me and calms my earlier frustration. I want to kiss those pink lips. For hours, like we did last night. For appearances, I slept in her guest room again. But we kept our making out to kissing and a little over-the-clothes groping. If I don”t get this woman naked and coming soon, I might lose my mind.
But I do not need to be thinking about that in my mother”s living room.
”Am I remembering right? You were in that play with Grant? Senior year?” Kelsey hands Aileen a bright pink block with the letter A painted on it in bright green.
Sirona nods. ”The Fantasticks, yes. I was Louisa.”
”Oh, you were the girl Grant fell in love with.”
I sputter on my beer at my mom”s words. ”I... she didn”t fall in love with me. Louisa fell in love with Matt.” Sirona isn”t going to fall in love with me now, and she said it was a crush back then.
Mom waves her hand like it”s inconsequential. ”Yes, yes. Matt and Louisa. And Tyler, he was in that too. The Mr. Gallant character.”
”El Gallo,” Sirona and I say together.
”Did you do any more plays in college, Sirona?” Kelsey asks.
Sirona shakes her head ”No, the drama department at UW-Madison was way too big for me to do shows there. But I did do the play and the musical my junior and senior years, after Grant graduated.”
”I didn”t realize you weren”t the same age.” Mom stands. ”So then you aren”t going to the reunion in a few weeks.”
Sirona slides her hand into mine. ”I”m going with Grant.”
Mom studies us, a pensive expression on her face. Then she nods and leaves the room. ”Dinner”s about ready!” she calls over her shoulder.
”What was that about?” Kelsey asks as she gets up and picks up Aileen.
Hank reaches for their daughter and takes her from Kelsey. ”Just your mom being your mom.”
I put my hand on Sirona”s back as we walk through the dining room and out the sliding glass doors to the back patio. ”Is there something weird about me going with you?” she asks softly.
”No. I”ve just never brought a partner home with me before. I”m pretty sure she”d decided I was a monk. So she”s weirded out by the whole me having a girlfriend thing.” At least I hope that”s all it is.
My mom can be very closed off and reserved when she wants to be. I assume it comes from years of marriage to a domineering man like my dad. I used to resent her for not standing up for me, not calling my dad out on how he harassed me and favored Kelsey. But somewhere over the years, that feeling faded. What”s the point? We can”t change it. And my dad couldn”t have been an easy man to be married to.
She”s opened up a lot since he died, but she”s still who she is. And that”s a person whose internal world is largely a mystery to me. But she doesn”t put intense pressure on me to succeed at everything, the way my dad did. For that, I”m eternally grateful.
The five of us sit around the round iron patio table, red umbrella tilted to shade us from the sinking sun. Aileen”s in a highchair between her parents.
Mom”s made chicken marsala with steamed asparagus in a lemon butter sauce, and the food is pretty good, even if I know Sirona”s mom could probably conjure the same menu and it would be incredible, not just pretty good. But that”s hardly a fair comparison.
I asked Hank once why he doesn”t conjure meals for them, but he said not all witches have that skill, and his conjured food is worse than his cooked food. Which is passable at best.
Does Sirona have food skills? We always eat at her mom”s or go out. I”m suddenly antsy to know. She”s told me that both Chessie and Honey conjure some of the foods they serve in their respective food establishments, but do almost all the cooking themselves, because they enjoy it.
Culinary skills, both magical and mundane, seem to run in the family, so it would make sense if she”s good with food. But for some reason, I don”t ask her now. It feels like something a boyfriend would already know.
Conversation flows around me, largely Mom and Kelsey asking Sirona questions, with Hank and me interjecting on occasion. Aileen is busy making a mess of her tiny bits of the food Hank cuts up for her. More seems to get on her clothes and in her hair than in her mouth. It makes sense to me now why toddlers get a bath every night.
Much like I was at the campground last weekend, I”m struck with how easy and comfortable my life is in Owl Cove. How much I like spending time with my family, and how much I miss it when I”m in Chicago.
I”m almost starting to be... glad about this forced sabbatical I”ve been on. Which is ridiculous. I don”t want my injured hand. I”d be a few weeks from finishing residency if it weren”t for the accident. About to start a fellowship who knows where.
No, I”m not glad about this time off. I”m simply enjoying it as much as I can, since it”s been forced on me.
”Hey, man, you want to go biking on Sunday? Me and a couple guys are going on the 400 Trail.” Hank turns toward me from Sirona”s other side. My mom and sister are discussing something about Aileen.
”Oh, we”ve got the festival all weekend,” Sirona answers for me. “And it’s my birthday.”
Why do I get a flutter in my chest when she speaks for me? That”s just absurd.
Hank looks confused. ”You”ll be there all weekend? I mean, we”re going tomorrow, but isn”t it the same thing both days?”
I take Sirona”s hand. ”Since it”s her family”s big thing, she”s gotta be there both days. I was lucky I could steal her away tonight.” I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles. Not because it”s something a smitten boyfriend might do—though it is—but because I need to kiss her. Because I”m a smitten fake-but-a-little-real boyfriend.
Shit, this is complicated. And weird.
She squeezes my hand. ”It”s OK if you want to go biking for a few hours. You don”t have to hang around all weekend. I”m sure my mom will keep me plenty busy.”
”I...” I look back and forth between the two of them.
Truth be told, I haven”t ridden a bike on a trail since my accident. Mine was mangled beyond repair, and I”ve bought a new one. But it was winter, so I didn”t ride it. And then it was spring, and I didn”t ride it much. And now it”s June and I still haven”t ridden it on a trail; I haven’t ridden it more than a mile or so, on paved roads.
Is part of that fear? Probably. But at least in some part, I just haven”t gotten around to it. Also, braking is extremely painful.
Sirona”s gaze searches my face. ”Maybe it would be good for you.”
The 400 Trail isn”t a rough trail. It”s nothing like the off-roading Tyler and I did in Colorado. And I”m a skilled rider. There”s basically zero chance of me having another accident.
But damn, just the mental picture of getting on that bike again has my throat closing off and my pulse speeding up.
Which is all the more reason I should go.
”Yeah, sounds good. What time?” I say before I can change my mind several times over.
”Meet at ten.”
Conversation goes on again and I zone out for a few minutes. Sirona doesn”t let go of my hand, since we”re both done with our food.
That touch is what brings me down from my panic and back to myself. Being with her grounds me.
And that”s as scary as getting back on my bicycle.