Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
The hike back to Oaklin’s house passed in a horrified blur.
Around them, the magic of the forest, the land, the fungi and insects, suffocated them, clinging like cobwebs that couldn’t be brushed off.
It had taken hours to get to Dara’s camp, but the way home seemed to ebb and flow in bursts of time lived half in the present and half in the nightmarish past.
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Oaklin’s memory was damaged. They were jumping to conclusions. They were…
They were home.
Oaklin paused, propping themself up straight-armed on the back corner of the house as they fought down the roiling in their stomach.
Daffodil was at their side. They didn’t even remember seeing her approach.
They didn’t remember crossing the field.
Their head felt glitchy and half-empty, with vast chasms of missing time, and their hands were covered in scratches they didn’t remember getting.
Oaklin’s connection to their body felt tenuous and slippery, barely tethered, ready and willing to abandon them altogether and serve another. Too familiar, too—
“KILL THEM! Kill those who would take your magic from—”
With a rip, Oaklin’s mind tore back to the present, Daffodil’s sloppy kisses on their arm bringing them back, still hazy but aware.
They rubbed the spot behind Daffodil’s ears automatically, and that small bit of comfort gave them just enough stability to recover their breathing.
They had to get to the front door. They had to open it. They had to know.
They opened the door.
The ghost was sitting beside the hearth, her back to the door, staring at the cold coals and ash.
It took Oaklin three tries to get words out, and when they finally managed, it was barely a whisper.
“I killed you.”
There was a long beat of silence. Then the ghost patted the stool next to her.
“Come sit.”
Oaklin recoiled. “No! Gods and grains, I…I killed you! How can you stand the sight of me? How can you teach me about this farm? Your farm? How can…how…”
Oaklin shook, pacing wildly, breathing faster and faster, and only Granny’s sharp tone could break through the high-pitched whine filling their brain.
“Pause. Press. Breathe. Speak.”
The words triggered an automatic response in Oaklin by now.
Granny had them well trained. They stopped their pacing, pressed both hands over their heart as if physically holding it inside their chest, took in a deep breath through their nose, and blew it out slowly.
But the final few counts of the breath were broken up by a sob.
“I don’t deserve to be safe,” they said, breaths frenetic.
“You do,” Granny said, her tone like a cold hammer striking metal. “Again.”
“I can’t, I—”
“Again,” Granny snapped.
Oaklin went through the exercise again. And again. Finally, on the last cycle, they managed to say it.
“I am safe,” they said, voice hoarse and thin.
“Yes, you are,” the ghost said gently. “Now, make a cup of tea and sit down with me. The chamomile, I think.”
Oaklin shook their head, wrapping their arms around themself to slow their shivers. “No, no, I’m sorry, I can’t just… I need to know—”
“Make the tea, Oaklin,” Granny said. “Lots of honey, I think. Go on, now.”
Oaklin made the tea. They let the soothing routine take over, blanking out into a sort of numb haze while they lit a fire in the hearth, boiled the water, and got out the tin of tea.
One spoonful of dried yellow flowers tipped into the mug, the sound barely audible over the crackle of the fire.
Once the water was hot enough, Oaklin poured it over the little flower heads and watched the liquid turn a pale gold as they steeped.
When it was finally done, Oaklin settled onto their stool and stared into the fire, calmer, but wrung out and empty.
“You’re Emiline Eire,” Oaklin said.
The ghost nodded. “I am. I lived on this farm for most of my adult life. And my son was a cultist of the Enchantrix.”
Oaklin gasped, whipping their head around to look at the shadow of Emiline Eire, whose voice was firm without being harsh.
“My son was a lonely man, idealistic, and desperate to belong to something,” she said, and her pause was crushing with the weight of that past tense.
“I blame myself for that. After his father died, I…well, I’m afraid I didn’t relearn to be the mother he needed until it was too late.
I always hoped we’d reconcile, one day. I was getting old, and sick, and I wanted to see him one last time, even though he was a cultist by then.
I had to know that I’d at least tried to reach him. To free him.”
Her voice began to fade and crack. She paused, then continued, back to her normal stern self.
“So, I put my affairs in order. I worked the magic to ensure the sale of the farm to a new magical owner. I sent the deed to my brother-in-law. I set up a deal with my young friend Sister Talla to visit once per week and renew the spellwork that cared for the farm until it could be sold. And then I left. You know the rest.”
That bit of surprise finally broke through enough of Oaklin’s grief to prompt a balking response. “Sister Talla? But…she’s horrible!”
The shadow of Emiline’s head tipped side to side, considering. “As of late, yes. I hope you’ll take the time to get to know her someday. She needs healing too.”
Oaklin nodded hesitantly. “I…don’t know what Lior would think of that, but sure. I’ll try.”
The house was quiet but for the crackle of the fire for several long minutes. Oaklin’s mind played the scene of the murder over and over, their hand plunging the dagger in and the sound it made and…
“Aaaugh!”
Her scream is cut off with a gurgle as they rip the dagger free, letting the woman fall to the ground.
Kill all intruders.
No, Oaklin thought. That’s not right.
The scene played again.
Oaklin rips the dagger free, no robes hiding their face, letting the body of Emiline Eire fall to the ground.
I did that. It was me.
“I can hear you spiraling over there,” Emiline said.
Oaklin covered their face with their hands, trying to smother the terrible images.
“Why shouldn’t I spiral?” they asked from behind their hands, then let them fall away. “And why are you here? Really?”
Emiline turned to fully face Oaklin, elbows on her knees, hands clasped in between.
“I would have wanted to say this to him, but I can’t.
He was killed in the war. So I’m saying it to you,” she said, her voice firm and sure.
“It was not your fault. Your body was used as a tool by someone else, and it committed acts that you had nothing to do with. You, Oaklin Nettlewood, did nothing. You were not able to do anything. You could not have fought it off. There is no ‘if only I’d tried harder.’ You were in an impossible situation… and you survived. I’m glad of it.”
Her voice caught, but she forced the last few words out anyway. “My son was not so lucky.”
Oaklin’s eyes welled up, and they shook their head, automatic denial.
“But I’m the one who joined the cult,” they said. “I may have been mind-controlled when I did…all that. But it was me in my full right mind that joined the cult. I put myself in that position. I just don’t think I can ever forgive myself for that.”
Emiline clucked her tongue. “Did you know it was an evil world-dominating death cult at the time?”
Oaklin blinked. “I mean…no, but—”
“Teenagers do stupid things, Oaklin,” Granny said, exasperated.
“People think it takes so much darkness of spirit to fall into something like that, but all it really takes is a teen with a rebel streak. Or a desperate, lonely adult. It doesn’t take evil.
Child, why do you think cults work so well?
They are literally designed to entrap people.
They lure you in under false pretenses and wait to reveal their truth until it’s too late. How did they get you?”
Oaklin wrung their hands. They didn’t want to make excuses. “A new magic guild. Free magical education for all.”
“And what was it really?” Emiline asked.
Oaklin hesitated a beat, then admitted: “A way for the Enchantrix to gather people with magical talent all in one place for them to…use.”
Emiline nodded and leaned back, satisfied. “You were tricked and taken advantage of. That doesn’t make you evil.”
Oaklin cast about for something, anything, to refute Emiline’s words, but came up empty.
They’d only be repeating themself. It still felt wrong, though.
It wasn’t right for them to get away with this…
this horrific thing, this most heinous crime, that they could clearly remember committing, still feel every motion of the deed in their muscle memory. They had done it.
“I see what you’re doing,” Emiline said. “Why are you so desperate to argue with me?”
Oaklin stared down at their hands, then closed their eyes and let their shoulders slump, shaking their head in silence.
Emiline huffed one of her trademark not-quite-sighs. “Oaklin, getting forgiveness from your murder victim isn’t something that happens ever, so don’t be so grudging about accepting it. I am in a unique position to tell you this, and so I am.”
There was a pause, and Oaklin looked up. And there she was, clearer than she ever had been. Emiline’s pale, lined face, sharp eyes, and curling bob of gray hair were fully visible…so Oaklin could see the love in her eyes as she spoke her next words.
“You deserve a good life, Oaklin. It’s okay for you to be okay.
It’s not insulting to my memory,” she said, slow and precise, as clear as possible.
“You have no obligation to be miserable as a way to atone for something that was not your fault to begin with. That removes responsibility from the person who truly bears it. That you do not have the right to do.”
Emiline stood and went over to kneel in front of Oaklin, laying her ghostly, semi-shadowed hands over theirs.
Just like that one time in the fields, Oaklin could feel her touch, an almost-thereness, featherlight but definitely present, along with the faint, sweet scent of clary sage. Emiline smiled.
“Though you do not need this, I give it freely anyway,” she said. “I forgive you. Please…let yourself heal.”
Oaklin’s heart split open like a ripe tomato after too much rain, too full to contain the immensity of grief, of love, of regrets and denials, and finally, slowly…
acceptance. They turned their hands over in Granny’s grip and squeezed back, feeling her presence in her thin fingers, struggling to find the right words.
“You too,” Oaklin said finally, voice rough and barely contained.
“I can’t speak for your son. I didn’t know him in any sort of true way.
But I do know that if someone had come for me, had done what you did, despite what I’d become…
It would have meant everything to me. No matter what came before, what you did at the end—that matters. ”
Oaklin paused to get hold of their brimming tears, then finished. “I’m sorry he’s not here. But I truly believe that he would forgive you too in the end.”
Granny gripped Oaklin’s hands even tighter and gave them a little shake, pursing her lips as they began to quaver. With a tug stronger than Oaklin had ever felt from her, Granny pulled Oaklin in and wrapped them up in a hug, swaying from side to side in a soothing dance.
“What was your son’s name?” Oaklin whispered.
There was a long beat of silence before Granny answered: “Callum. His name was Callum.”
Oaklin committed the name to memory and held Granny tighter. “Callum. I’ll remember.”
“Thank you,” Emiline murmured, her voice barely there. “You and me… We’ll be okay.”
“We’re okay,” Oaklin breathed, and then crumpled to the ground, exhausted and clinging to Emiline as she repeated her gentle comforts, her own ghostly tears falling without ever hitting Oaklin’s shoulder.
Eventually, Oaklin fell asleep next to the hearth with Emiline’s soothing words washing over them, full of more love than Oaklin had ever felt in their short life.
***
When they awoke the next morning, the ghost of Granny Emiline was gone.