2. Chapter Two
2
CHAPTER TWO
ELODIE
“ E lodie, are you listening?” Nanna Alba’s voice broke through my consciousness, interrupting the flames that had been winding their way up my legs as I blinked back at her in surprise.
“Of course!” I shot back, chancing a look at my legs just to check they weren’t actually of fire. The fear I had just felt so vividly slowly withdrew from my body as I took in my surroundings, though my heart continued to race as I glanced over at the fireplace, scooting the armchair away from it a few inches and hoping she wouldn’t notice.
Grateful that they were no longer buzzing with energy, I flexed my hands in my lap, twisting the golden bands that I wore on my wrist.
“No, you’re not. You fell asleep,” she said, a knowing look on her face as she watched me rearrange her furniture.
“It’s the fire, it makes me sleepy. Plus, I’ve been up late working the last few nights.”
By the way her eyebrow arched, I knew I hadn’t fooled her, but I’d long since given up telling her about any of the things I saw. I shoved all that down inside pretending it didn’t happen. She preferred it that way, and life was easier with Nanna thinking any ability I may have exhibited as a child was long gone. I took some subtle deep breaths hoping my heart would return to its normal rhythm so I wouldn’t have to break out hyperventilating techniques, which would have definitely proved that I was way more shaken from a daydream than I should have been.
The truth was, when I did fall asleep, my dreams had become so horrifically vivid that I wasn’t getting much rest, which meant I would drift off during the day at every inconvenient chance possible. I’d read that eating cheese too close to bedtime could cause bad dreams, cutting it out for two whole days before I decided that I just wasn’t going to punish myself in that way.
Like fuck was I going to live without cheese.
“Those dreams have been keeping you awake again, haven’t they?” She narrowed her eyes slightly, studying my face before reaching to pick up her dainty cup decorated with delicate blue flowers and taking a sip. I knew what she was holding back, what she wouldn’t speak out loud, unlike the final part to our crazy trio. Briar would have proclaimed my dreams as visions and convinced me to recount it in excruciating detail so that she could interpret the future.
Nanna would have absolutely none of that.
Neither would she want to hear about how I had spent the last two weeks at home, not risking the heart-wrenching glimpses of the deaths of complete strangers that crossed my path that had started up again. I could only handle being around Nanna, Polly and Titan right now.
Nanna’s hair was pulled into a messy ball on top of her head, braids weaved through it and whisps escaping in a way that mirrored my own. Though where her hair was a mousy brown, mine was bone white.
Leaning back in her wooden rocking chair she pushed with her toes, the curved bottom creaked against the patterned rug that covered the wooden floor in front of the fireplace. The mantle was high, almost the height of a person, though she kept the fire low. Bundles of herbs and flowers hung from it, drying out of reach of the flames, and the rows of candles she would light at night which lined its edge, their waxy drips forming intricate patterns as they cooled.
Her eyes were bluer than the sky on the clearest day, capable of seeing through all my bullshit and currently intently focused on mine. I schooled my features into indifference as I gave her a slight shrug, picking up my own cup and forcing myself to gulp down the rapidly cooling liquid. I was more of a coffee girl.
Maybe if Nanna had made me a cup of that, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep.
She planted her feet, halting the rock of the chair, more than aware of my attempt at indifference as she locked me in her gaze. My hand rose automatically to the chain I wore around my neck, my fingers finding the intricate gold and rose quartz pendant she had given to me many years ago.
Never take it off , she had warned me, and I hadn’t—ever.
Apparently deciding to let me keep my secrets for now, she turned her focus to the dregs of tea at the bottom of her cup, swirling it gently. I wondered if she was thinking about Briar, how she would have jumped at the opportunity to read the message clumped at the bottom.
Briar claimed that reading tea leaves could tell you all you ever needed to know about a person, had warned me many times how easy it was to take the first thing you saw as the only message they held. Nanna said that was down to intuition and not divine intervention. I had to admit Briar had a knack for it, but believing she could see into the future by staring at some soggy leaves was just a step too far for me.
She was into it all—tea leaves, palmistry, tarot cards—and she was good at it, though for me I felt that was just down to luck and having a good knowledge of the person she was reading.
Briar said it was because of the magik that ran through our veins and while she was right about that, nothing she said would convince me she had the gift of precognition despite her insistence I did, too.
They had both taught me the magik and folklore that they claimed was our history growing up. I learned at Nanna’s knee, dark nights spent sat before one of the many fires that would be lit here, wrapped in blankets as her voice soothed me to sleep with the stories she could weave; even as a child, sleep had never been easy. I still held a fondness for the crystal magic and folk tales she had shown me, but reading people's future held no interest to me. Something Nanna was pleased with.
The one thing I did hold onto— that I decided against telling her —was that I drew a tarot card every day. Mostly dismissing how scarily accurate they were.
It’s just wish fulfilment; you could make any reading fit into your life if you really wanted to.
Gathering both our cups, Nanna stood, interrupting my thoughts for a moment as she moved to the counter. A soft clink of porcelain followed as I settled deeper into the armchair, the heat of the fire now a soft caress on my skin as I breathed in the incense burning in the room.
To keep the fairies away, Nanna always said.
Whatever that meant.
And just like that my mind flashed to the dream; it had been so clear, so vivid. I’d felt that fire as if my body really was burning in those flames, the heavy smoke choking me. Different to the dreams I had been trying to keep a track of recently. They were just snippets of things, faces, voices, a darkness so thick it felt like its own entity. Gone before I could get any real idea on what they were. I thought sleep was getting easier, but I guess I had been wrong.
It didn’t matter because that’s all they were — a dream.
Certainly not no vision, no telling of the future.
My fingers stayed closed around the pendant, calming my nerves as Nanna retook her seat, eyes locked on mine as she reached her hand out towards me.
I let her take mine, recognising the touch of her finger on my palm for what it was, a small sigh escaping my lips at where this could end. Her distance to all the things Briar loved was something I always accepted though I knew she could do it all, too. It was rare that Nanna would read my palm, and when she did, there was always something that would blow us off course for a while.
Like when I had been suffering from migraines in secondary school. According to her, my palm told us we needed to leave the manor house and live in a freezing log cabin that was so close to the arctic circle, the aurora borealis was visible at every hour of the continuous night we had found ourselves in. It was beautiful, and I had enjoyed my time huddled by a fire with Nanna’s attention solely on me for the weeks we were there, but it was things like that that made me a little wary when my hand was in hers and she was frowning down at it.
Gods she was dramatic at times.
Though she was right, my migraines did stop.
I waited, again, as she ran her eyes over my palm muttering to herself, brows creased in confusion. The energy in my hand raced forwards to meet with hers, the familiarity of it soothing to my still-frayed nerves.
“Something’s different, something’s changed,” she muttered to herself, as her eyes travelled over my palms before they snapped up to mine. “Have you been keeping up with your wards? Keeping them charged?”
I rolled my eyes, pulling my hand back. I may not believe in the ability to see into the future, but I did pay attention to all those tales she had told me growing up. Of Faeries and monsters and things that go bump in the night. I believed in the magik she taught me that flowed through the world even if I could not wield it in the same way she did, no matter how much she tried to teach me. And I’d seen more than enough things that just could not be explained to doubt her.
Over the years I had chosen not to dive more deeply into it, but I knew the importance of protecting myself. I’d kept every talisman she had made me—made my own when necessary. Mostly I chose to trust in the wards we would cast together and continue life as normal.
“Has there ever been a time that I haven’t? Anyway, what were you saying to me before I fell asleep?” I waved off her questioning hoping she would accept the change of subject, but I didn’t miss how her eyes flicked to my necklace.
The look in her eyes told me this wouldn’t be the end of it but for now, she would let it go. “I was trying to tell you that Briar should be arriving at some point tonight, most likely late enough that you’ll be long gone by then. You obviously need your sleep what with all your work keeping you up late.”
I perked up at that despite the sarcasm she delightedly tacked on at the end. Briar was Nanna Alba’s dearest friend, and I had grown up with the two of them taking me along on their adventures. She would breeze into our lives at a moment’s notice, her and Nanna whisking us away on some trip or to spend a week in an isolated cabin somewhere. She would be gone as fast as she had arrived, her energy lingering in the house for a day or two after she left. A small comfort considering we never knew when she would reappear again.
After my parents had died when I was young, I’d gone to live with Nanna. Living a life loved and happy. With adventure and magik. A life by her side hanging on every word she said. A connection that ran deeper than the blood we shared; it was in the magik that ran through our veins. I had just been a little girl eager to be all her Nanna wanted her to be, until I grew up.
I didn’t remember much of my parents before they died, probably because I had been so young. When I had questions about them, she would answer. She never kept anything from me, but mostly I found I wasn’t interested in my life before Nanna. She must have sensed that as she never offered information, either.
Sometimes, I felt all I could remember was the time since I had been with her. As if my life had only started once I was by Nanna’s side. There had never been a man in Nanna’s life; there must have been at some point for me to even exist, but she had never mentioned him, and I hadn’t asked.
Briar was part of the family we created together, and I may not have known when she would pop up next, but I did know that she loved me deeply. Like Nanna and I, she also could manipulate the energy that flowed through the world, but where this gift we shared came from, I had no idea. We just had it.
Don’t question the gifts you’ve been born with Elodie, Nanna would say.
Nanna pushed me to hone my magik, to memorise every crystal, learn the properties of every plant that grew in the woods around us and braided wishes into my hair before school. She would tell me stories about the old gods that most of the world had forgotten, that were worshipped deep in the countryside around us.
Briar showed me how the heartline runs parallel to the headline in the creases of my palm, brought me trinkets I treasured beyond words from her times away, and taught me the meaning of every single tarot card in every position she could think of. Making me promise to keep practising even when she was gone. She would listen when I spoke of the things I had long learnt to withhold from Nanna, being utterly convinced I held the gift of prophecy with every word I spoke.
One birthday— once Nanna was busy clearing up the confetti party Briar had thrown for me —she had given me a set of second-hand tarot cards that she said had belonged to someone she loved very much. She said the cards had told her it was time to pass them on, and although I had rolled my eyes when she started her speech about them, I couldn’t deny the way they had called to me the first time I held them in my hands. They felt like family, like safety, like warm blankets and hot tea. Or coffee . They quickly became the only deck I used, never failing to interpret something going on in my life whether or not I wanted to listen. Briar never told me who they had belonged to, but I got the feeling they were someone who would have been important to us all.
Together they taught me everything they knew.
“I take it we don’t know how long she's staying again?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Maybe I should wait until she arrives.”
“No, sweetheart, you know what she’s like. There’s no telling what time she will turn up. I’ll probably be in bed myself.” I knew she was lying; she would sit in her chair all night and wait for her like she always did. She glowed brighter when Briar was around, as if something once missing had been returned.
“She isn’t going to go anywhere before she sees you, you know that. Stay at yours tonight, try and get some decent sleep. Take home some tea, it will help. Work can wait until tomorrow, too,” she countered, one brow raising as she looked me over.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed heavily. I really did need to sleep. The tea definitely would help and work could wait until tomorrow. But with the sleep came the dreams, and drinking the tea would send me off deeper into them and weaken my ability to pull myself out. Work, however, would keep my mind occupied.
I had turned my passion for making jewellery into a business, running it from my spare room. For as long as I could remember, I had been obsessed with jewellery, so it was only natural that I started to make my own. I would spend hours on a single piece, days on bigger ones. I sourced and cut all the gemstones myself, inlaying them into their delicate gold settings. It was always gold, never silver. I just didn’t seem to have the same connection. Work could keep me busy until I was practically falling asleep, that way I wouldn’t be tossing and turning for hours, unable to fall asleep for fear of the night ahead.
I should just admit how much this was affecting me, I knew Nanna would do her utmost to help. But I couldn’t bring myself to accept how rattled the dreams had me. Admitting it to her would make it all too real. I would wait this out. They had to stop at some point.
Unless I was going crazy. Fuck, I hope not.
“Yeah, I’ll go home and get some sleep. Who knows what we’ll be up to in the next few days now.” I wouldn’t be drinking the tea, but I’d let her think I did with no guilt whatsoever. I didn’t need to end up stuck in a dream.
If I really have to, I’ll make myself some warm milk and listen to whale noise.
I waited as she went to gather the herbs needed for the tea from the large wooden armoire that spanned the length of the wall, its shelves filled with everything from recipe books to jars of questionable liquid I learned young not to open. Humming a tune under her breath, she worked with ease, and I watched with the same awe I had as a child. It never ceased to amaze me the wonders she could do, the sheer amount of knowledge she held and did her best to pass onto me. My life was filled with the results of her wisdom, and I knew I was more than capable of putting together something to help me sleep, but she enjoyed doing it for me.
I wasn’t like Nanna, I didn’t hold the need she did to help everyone I come across. Nanna Alba collected the needy like it was her hobby. The house she lived in was large and stately and had far too many empty rooms for her liking, so she often let them out to those in need or who just needed a little time to themselves. She would help them in whatever way she could, and those who came left feeling better than when they had arrived. I still had my room here from growing up, stocked with what I needed if I ever stayed the night.
I wasn’t a people person. I kept a small circle around me which consisted of Nanna and Briar, my best friend Polly, and Mrs Piper, my closest neighbour who brought me her home-made cakes every few weeks in exchange for a tea that alleviated her arthritis. Being around too many people was always difficult; my mind became a confused, fuzzy mess. I preferred to be at home with Titan, my ridiculously large wolf-like dog.
Titan had been a tiny black ball of fluff when I found him one night while out collecting yarrow in the woods around my house. I had no idea where he had come from, but after he had followed me home, little legs happily running beside me, I spent hours walking around in the dark with him trotting along beside me looking for his owner or some mama dog.
I hadn’t encouraged him to follow me home but that’s exactly what he did. I got the feeling he thought he was the one adopting me and not the other way around. Walking right into the house, straight through the wards that were placed around it, he took a running leap up onto my sofa and promptly fell asleep. That was when I decided he could stay.
It amused me how such a little thing could have been happily sniffing around in the mud on its own, and I decided this teeny pup needed a big name.
Ironically, Titan had grown at an alarming rate over the next few years and soon the small puppy I found in the woods stood taller than me on his hind legs. He still curled up on the sofa with me, but it was definitely more of a squeeze, despite the fact I’d upgraded it twice to accommodate his bulk. He came most places with me and was usually stretched out in front of one of the fireplaces dotted around Nanna’s house, making everyone step around him as he napped. Despite the size of the house, I never had to look for him, appearing whenever he was needed or when it was time to go. More than once I found myself wondering if he could read my mind before I reminded myself that was definitely crazy.
Titan had stayed home today, not moving from his space on the sofa when I left earlier. I glanced up at the large clock on Nanna’s wall realising it would soon be his dinner time and if I didn’t make my way home soon, I would be dealing with a sulking, hungry, monster dog. As if sensing my train of thought, Nanna turned to me with the sleeping tea, holding it out for me to take.
“Take this tonight, Elodie. Honestly, you look awful with all this lack of sleep. Briar will think I’ve not been looking after you.” A grin curled one corner of her lips, clear blue eyes sparkling with mischief. I could feel her excitement at seeing her oldest friend pouring off her as I took the tea, tucking it into my pocket with a smile on own lips. I stood, pulling her into a hug, the familiar smell of herbal tea and her floral perfume instantly relaxing the parts of me that had still been tense.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Probably best you don’t stay up waiting for Briar—judging by those wrinkles you need your beauty sleep.” I stepped away from her as she laughed, lightly cuffing me on the shoulder as I made my way out of the room. I could still hear her laughing as I headed down the hallway to the front door, opening it and feeling that familiar fizz of energy rush over me as I passed through the house wards.
I lived close enough to Nanna’s that I could take a short walk through the woods to get here, but I’d been tired enough this morning that I’d driven. Pulling out of the driveway I followed the winding roads that led back home, planning on feeding Titan and then working until I was stumbling into bed. Hopefully falling asleep quickly, without the help of Nanna’s tea.
Yeah, definitely without the tea.