Chapter Twenty-Four
The hum of the Maple Ward still moved through me, long after we stepped out and let the door fall closed behind us. It wasn’t just a sound. It lingered beneath my skin like sunlight after the clouds had passed. Warmth and motion. A low current that steadied the pulse.
I stood still for a long breath, hand resting on the wall, and let myself feel it.
Everything I wanted to feel after my divorce, this moment carried.
The freedom, the hope, and the challenge of a fresh start.
But then, like a drop of ink in water, a flicker of dread crept back in.
That silhouette.
The garden.
The way they’d slipped into the Butterfly Ward, silent and unseen. The way they’d fled when they realized they’d been spotted.
It hadn’t felt right. That kind of secrecy carried weight. And yet, standing there now in the hum of something ancient beginning to heal, I couldn’t help but wonder.
What if it hadn’t been a threat?
What if it were someone trying to come in… but unsure how?
The thought surprised me.
But it didn’t feel wrong.
“Maeve?” Bella’s voice was quiet, just behind me.
I turned. “What if it wasn’t Gideon?”
She tilted her head.
“In the garden,” I said. “What if it wasn’t him? What if it was someone else, someone trying to help?”
Bella frowned. “You saw how fast they ran.”
“Maybe they were scared,” I said. “Not all fear is guilt. Some of it’s just… fear.”
She looked like she wanted to argue. And then she didn’t.
“Could’ve been someone looking for shelter,” she said finally. “Or trying to see if the Wards would let them in.”
“They did,” I pointed out.
She nodded. “Which means something.”
My grandma was quiet through all this, walking ahead of us with her fingertips brushing the wall as she often did, like she was reading the Academy’s mood through stone. When she heard what we were saying, she didn’t interrupt. But she slowed a little, waiting for us to fall into step beside her.
“I don’t know who it was,” I said, keeping my voice low. “But I don’t feel that same weight anymore. That pull of something wrong.”
Elira gave a faint nod. “The Academy responds to intent. You know that by now.”
“Then if it let them in…”
“It’s possible,” she said. “That it didn’t see them as a threat.”
We turned down a hallway I hadn’t walked in weeks, maybe longer. It smelled faintly of lavender and timeworn wood. The sconces along the walls flickered as we passed, a little brighter than usual.
I caught Bella glancing at them too.
The three of us moved in a kind of rhythm—quiet, steady, alert.
The Maple Ward was healing. We’d seen it with our own eyes. But that didn’t mean everything else had suddenly righted itself. Wards don’t hum unless they’re working. And they don’t stop humming unless something else needs your attention.
We were still listening.
Still waiting.
And then it happened.
We turned a corner near an old potion storeroom, where I saw colorful bottles of liquid, dried herbs, and bright crystals. But next to it, a door stood where no door had ever been before.
Not just any door.
A tall, narrow one, the color of dried rose petals and weathered beach wood. The kind of door that looked like it belonged to another time or maybe had been here the whole time, just unseen. The trim around it was carved with symbols I didn’t recognize, and the handle shimmered faintly, like it had been touched recently.
All three of us stopped short.
My grandma’s hand dropped to her side. Her shoulders stiffened, and I saw the flicker in her eyes. Not fear.
Shock.
Real, deep, bone-deep shock.
“I can’t believe this,” she said.
She looked at me. Then Bella. Then back to the door.
“I can’t believe this.”
That’s all she said.
But something had just changed.
I stared at the door, its edges softly glowing now, like the Academy was letting the enchantment slip enough for us to truly see it.
My grandmother hadn’t moved.
I glanced at her. “What is it? Do you know what’s behind it?”
She was still watching the wood grain, as if it might change if she blinked. Then, slowly, her mouth curved into the smallest smile I recognized. She gave it right before revealing something she'd kept close for a very long time.
“Open it,” she said, her voice light. “You’ll see.”
Something about her tone made my skin prickle. Not with fear. With something else. That just-on-the-edge feeling. Like standing at the threshold of a room you forgot you’d locked away inside yourself.
I stepped forward. The handle felt cool under my fingers—smooth, but not unfamiliar. Like a hand you hadn’t held in years but once knew by heart.
It turned easily.
The door swung inward.
And my breath caught.
The room wasn’t dusty or dark or cloaked in cobwebs like I might’ve expected after all this time. No, it was bright. Not with sunlight exactly, but with magic, soft and ambient, filling the space like warmth from a hearth.
And it was alive.
At the room's far end, tall windows arched high overhead, ivy curling along the outer panes in soft, dancing patterns. The light filtering through them came in warm, golden tones, thick as honey, pooling in the corners, brushing over the long tables and shelves filled with curious objects.
And in the center of the room? Desks. Not the stiff, narrow kind from my school days, but wide, warm wood tables with thick legs and chairs that looked built for comfort with padded, rounded, welcoming seats.
Quilts draped over the backs. Worn mugs sat at some stations, steam rising from tea that must’ve poured itself the second we opened the door.
Everything in the room felt held.
Cared for. Like it had been waiting, not abandoned.
Bella moved past me first, jaw slack as she walked down the center aisle, touching the back of one of the chairs. It wiggled slightly and hummed in response.
I blinked. “Did that chair just... greet you?”
She laughed an actual laugh, the kind I hadn’t heard in weeks. “It hummed! Like a cat purring.”
My grandma stepped into the room, slower than us, her hand trailing along the doorway as if committing the threshold to memory.
“This…” she breathed, “this was the first room we designed for midlife witches. The ones returning to magic after decades away. The ones who thought life had passed them by needed a refuge more than most.”
My gaze swept the room again, slower now. I began to see more.
A shelf along the wall was filled with half-knitted scarves and what looked like enchanted needles, still working quietly on their own. A chalkboard shimmered with writing that faded in and out, offering phrases like Enchantment After Burnout and Healing Spells for the Spirit, Not the Ego.
And overhead, hanging gently from the beams, were mobiles made of pressed herbs, crystal clusters, and what looked like old earrings, mismatched, shimmering, clearly loved.
“This is beautiful,” I said. “It’s… It’s more than a classroom.”
“I’m getting all misty-eyed.” My grandma nodded. “It was meant to be a refuge for women who had lived lives, marriages, children, careers, heartbreaks, and needed to find that spark. This Academy has always known that magic doesn't age out. If anything, it deepens.”
Bella touched a side table, running her fingers over a set of tarot cards. “It’s like the room already knows us.”
“Maybe it does,” I said softly.
We all stood for a moment, letting the silence stretch…not awkward, not empty. Just full.
The room wasn’t quiet, exactly. The air held a hush, yes, but it was stitched through with motion. Little things. A feather drifting mid-air that never seemed to land. A teacup refilled itself when the steam ran low. A low thrum of ambient energy, like the room was breathing.
“It never opened before,” my grandma said, half to herself. “Not once, not since the doors first sealed.”
“But it chose now,” I said, looking at Bella.
She moved toward a desk near the center, the largest one, carved with constellations and twirling vines. She didn’t sit. She merely hovered nearby, eyes searching the grain like it might offer her a story.
My grandma smiled. “The women who learned here before the doors closed achieved great things. They became teachers themselves, grew their families, passed down traditions…”
I thought of my life, the years of quiet aching, of pushing away something unnamed until it grew heavy in my chest.
“But this,” I said, sweeping my hand toward the space around us, “this room… It’s hope. ”
Grandma Elira smiled, not her usual knowing one, but something gentler. “It’s an agreement.”
“Agreement?”
She turned toward me fully. “The Academy doesn’t open its rooms lightly. Not just because a door is unsealed or a hallway shifts. It listens. It waits. And when it senses readiness and feels the balance begin to shift, it answers.”
“So it’s saying yes.” I looked around the beautiful room.
“To your work,” she said. “To your presence here. To the changes you’ve started. The curse hasn’t lifted, no. But the Academy isn’t sleeping anymore.”
Bella let out a slow breath, then finally dropped into one of the chairs. It adjusted beneath her with a wobble and a soft, musical chime. She laughed again, that unguarded laugh that made the corners of my mouth lift even though I hadn’t meant to smile.
I crossed the room and pressed my hand to the side of a thick book floating off a shelf. It landed at the nearest table. It didn’t open. Just waited.
“Do you think more rooms will appear?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” my grandma said. “But the first step has always been trust. And today… the Academy took a step toward us.”
I sat beside Bella. Neither of us said anything for a bit. We just breathed the scent of old wood and dried mint, the hush of magic alive again.
A candle flickered on the table between us. I hadn’t seen it light itself, but it had.
I looked at the flame, small and steady.
“We’re closer,” I said.
“Yes,” My grandma replied from behind me. “Closer than we've been in a very long time.”
I stood and wandered over to the teacher’s desk, noticed a bronze nameplate, and gasped.
Turning to Bella, I smiled and said, “The wait is over, Bella. This is your classroom.”