Chapter Twenty-Six
The bell above the tea shop door jingled, and I didn’t even have to look up to know it was her.
Nova moved like a breeze through tall grass. Her movements were light, certain, and like she’d always been there. She stood in the doorway with her scarf half-wrapped around her head, little crystals woven into the ends like they had minds of their own, catching glints of light that weren’t even touching her yet.
“You came back,” she said, smiling.
My stomach flipped like it always did when Nova looked at me like I’d finally caught up with time.
“How did you know I was at the tea shop?”
“I felt you,” she said, shrugging off her scarf. “You’ve got that buzzing energy again. It hit me near the riverbank like a spell, chattering my teeth.”
Stella poured her a cup of something without asking and passed it on a saucer. “She’s been glowing since she walked in.”
Nova raised an eyebrow. “Glowing?”
“She saw someone again,” Stella said, with her usual casual drama. “Shadowy figure in the Butterfly Ward. Might be a ghost. Might be a long-lost relative. Might be a suitor.”
I nearly choked on my tea. “Stella.”
Nova turned to me, her eyes sharp now. “Wait— you saw something again ?”
I nodded, setting my mug down with more force than I meant to.
“More than once, but tonight,I was heading out. Took the path through the Butterfly Ward. It was there. It felt like it didn’t know whether it wanted to be seen.”
Nova was already setting her untouched cup on the nearest table. “Come on.”
“What?”
“Now. I want to do a seeing while it’s still fresh.” She waved toward the window. “The shop’s just there. You’re coming with me.”
I glanced at my mom, who gave me a little nod, not surprised at all.
Stella just called out, “Tell the crystals I said hi.”
Nova opened the tea shop door and stepped into the cool air with me scrambling after her, heart thudding again, not from fear but something else. Anticipation, maybe. Or relief that someone else might help me make sense of the clues I couldn’t quite hook together.
We crossed the cobbled street, and Nova unlocked her front door with a murmured word and a twist of her fingers. The crystals in the window jingled softly, the sound low and welcoming. Inside, the air smelled of lavender and lemon balm and a hint of something metallic, like starlight and memory.
She flicked the lock behind us, then drew the shade over the glass. It was quiet. Still. The way it always was before something important.
Nova turned to me with an unreadable expression. “Let me see your hands.”
I held them out without thinking.
Her fingers were warm when they wrapped around mine, firm but gentle. She looked down at my palms like she was reading them, but this wasn’t palmistry. This was something else. Something older.
“You’ve been close to something,” she murmured.
“I know,” I whispered. “I just don’t know what.”
She closed her eyes, still holding my hands. Her breath slowed, and the stones on the shelves around us began to hum.
Soft. Low. Like they were waiting too.
And then she said, just above a whisper, “Let’s see what the shadow has to say.”
Nova’s fingers tightened just slightly around mine. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady. I could feel its rhythm in my palms, which was slow and deep, like the pull of tidewater. The shop had gone even quieter. Even the street sounds beyond the shuttered window seemed to hush, like they knew something was starting.
The crystals on the shelves began to glow—not bright, not showy. Just enough to make the shadows dance. The ones near the ceiling pulsed in soft color, like candlelight filtered through sea glass. Green. Then blue.
She didn’t speak at first. Just let the magic settle.
A soft rose crystal lit softly, and Nova brought her eyes to mine. “That one signals when something ancient is listening.”
A breeze, not air exactly, but something like it, brushed past my cheek. I caught the scent of sage, sharp and dry, then underneath it something older. Wet moss, stone warmed by time, a trace of old leaves.
Nova opened her eyes. They weren’t her usual clear green. They’d gone cloudy, like storm clouds had rolled in behind her pupils.
“You’ve been marked,” she said.
The words weren’t a surprise. But hearing them aloud settled something cold into the pit of my stomach.
“In the garden,” I whispered.
“Not just the garden,” she said softly. “It goes deeper.”
She let go of my right hand and reached behind her, drawing a dark blue velvet cloth embroidered with twisting silver thread from a nearby basket. She laid it between us and gestured for me to sit cross-legged.
I obeyed.
She gathered a small dish from a low shelf, three clear stones, a candle in a copper holder shaped like a leaf, and a tiny jar of what looked like ash. She placed each item with care around the velvet in a crescent shape.
“This is a spirit press,” she said, kneeling across from me. “Not for summoning. Just listening. It’ll show us what’s been left behind. Who’s brushed against you. And whether it was the living… or something else.”
Her voice had dropped into that strange calm she got when she worked magic—softer than a whisper, but stronger somehow like the words were falling straight into the room's bones.
The candle flared as she lit it. The flame curled sideways before settling into a steady burn. She tipped the ash into the bowl and murmured a word I didn’t recognize. Smoke rose…not gray, not white. Silver. Thin and curling in odd patterns, like it couldn’t quite decide where it wanted to go.
Then she picked up one of the stones and placed it on my chest.
“Don’t move,” she said gently. “And if anything speaks to you, don’t speak back. Not yet.”
That did nothing to steady my heartbeat, but I nodded.
The room changed.
Not suddenly. Not with a jolt. But like water warming by degrees.
The edges of everything softened. The shelves bowed in ever so slightly. The walls leaned closer. The glow from the crystals deepened, but the light didn’t reach me. I felt as though I sat in the eye of something watching, something ancient and quiet, something waiting and bending my reality.
Nova’s eyes fluttered closed again.
Her voice dropped into chant, not song, not language either. Just sound. Shapes carried on breath, old as roots. The candle pulsed in time with her words, and the smoke thickened.
That’s when I felt it.
Not outside me.
In me.
A pull. A pressure. Like someone brushing their hand against my shoulder from the inside. Not malevolent. Not yet. But not kind either.
I stiffened.
Nova’s voice didn’t falter. She took my hands again, and suddenly her eyes snapped open. Still clouded. Still distant.
“Maeve,” she said softly. “It’s near.”
“What is?” I asked, but the sound of my voice felt too loud. Like I’d cracked something delicate.
“Not a spirit,” she murmured. “Not a ghost. This isn’t memory residue or a lingering sorrow.” Her gaze bore into me. “It’s curious. ”
The air behind me shifted. Not wind, exactly. Just space… moving.
I didn’t turn.
“I’m not alone, am I?” I whispered.
Nova shook her head. “No. And I don’t think you have been.”
Something passed between us like a ripple of water when a stone breaks the surface. The candle flame flared sideways, smoke twisting in a sudden arc. One of the crystals overhead cracked softly. It is not broken; it is just a thin split and a hairline fracture through amethyst.
Nova leaned closer, still holding my hands. “I’m going to pull it forward. Just enough to see it.”
I swallowed. My throat felt dry as old parchment. “Is that safe?”
She didn’t answer. Just pressed her thumbs to my palms and exhaled.
Then the velvet beneath us pulsed. Just once.
The stones glowed faintly. The candle sputtered, then steadied.
And suddenly I wasn’t looking at Nova anymore.
Something else looked through her eyes.
It wasn’t a possession, not exactly. She was still there. But layered like someone had slipped on her skin for a moment to say something without speaking.
And what I felt from that presence wasn’t evil.
It was wild.
Untethered.
Cold in places, hot in others. Curious, like she’d said. And watching me not from across the room, but within the folds of the magic surrounding us.
Nova’s fingers twitched.
“Show me,” she whispered.
Not to me. To it.
The smoke from the dish curled again, then stretched, rising higher. It formed a shape…narrow, indistinct, but not human. A long neck, thin shoulders. A suggestion of limbs.
No eyes.
Just awareness.
It hovered between us, then leaned toward Nova.
And that’s when she gasped.
It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t dread.
It was delight.
Pure, sharp, startled delight.
Nova’s head tipped back slightly, eyes wide, a smile flickering at the corners of her mouth like a secret she’d never dared to hope might be true.
“I can’t believe it,” she breathed.
When Nova’s breath left her lips, the velvet beneath us went cold.
Not cold like winter air or a breeze from the window, this was older, deeper. Like the air remembered something it hadn’t felt in a long time. I could feel it through the soles of my boots, then my knees, then up into my ribs. It hummed there, low and strange. Not painful. Just… foreign.
The smoke from the little copper bowl began to twist tighter, spinning inward like it was winding around an invisible thread. The glow from the crystals dimmed slightly.
I blinked, but the shadows stayed. The shop walls bowed around us the way a dream shrinks the edges of a room. The space grew smaller, not claustrophobic, but concentrated. Thick with something unseen.
Nova’s grip on my hands shifted. Her fingers locked tighter around mine. Her mouth moved again, whispering words brushing against the air like threads tugging loose.
The candle flame jumped, flared, then narrowed.
And that’s when it happened.
The smoke shivered and pulled away from the bowl. It folded backward, drawing itself into a shape. I didn’t recognize it right away. It wasn’t a person, not exactly. Not a creature either. It was more like the suggestion of a shape, barely there, outlined in the shifting edges of the smoke itself.
It stood between us. Tall, but not towering. Too slender to be solid, too heavy to be air. The shape leaned forward, head tilted, as if listening or smelling.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I didn’t dare move.
Nova’s voice cut off.
The shape turned, just slightly, and I felt it.
It noticed me.
A feeling bloomed in my chest of pressure and hush, like a dozen leaves falling at once. Like something brushing past in a forgotten hallway. Not evil. Not kind either. Just aware.
The lights flashed around us, and I felt a warmth slither over me.
I could feel the weight of it, ancient and curious and… alive.
Then Nova gasped, sharp and sudden.
Her head tilted back slightly, and her eyes flashed wide, silvery in the flickering light.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered.
And the candle blew out.
The room fell into shadow.
And she didn’t say another word.