Chapter 2
TWO
A person could not be entirely erased from memory, not really.
There were rituals that came close. Bottling, for one.
But a bottling required a coven of witches to perform the work—to seize the memory and scald the target from the skin.
It was an aggressive, nasty ritual designed to tuck every last bit of a person away in an unreachable part of the mind, and could only be undone by a touch from the source of the memory.
That Joss had written Blaire, even if she could not send the letters, ruled out a bottling. So a look-away, perhaps?
But Geraldine Braddox was a vinefica, a witch skilled in potions and poisons.
Look-aways belonged to witches with an affinity for illusions of the mind.
An obfuscari could craft images to trick your eyes into seeing what was not there, while an obnubilari could plant those images directly in your mind.
Geraldine might have conscripted an obnubilari to plant false memories in Joss’s mind, but if what she said was true—that her mother had caught her on the way to meet Blaire—the timing did not align.
That, and obnubilari magick lost power over time.
A mind did not enjoy being tampered with, and actively fought against look-away hexes.
Migraines, blurred vision, a prickle at the corner of the eyes, and the uneasy feeling of forgetting something important.
The obnubilari hired for the task would have had to continually cast their magick for the look-away to stick.
Joss had been gone for years, yet here she was in front of Blaire and forgetting the letters in her hand.
Blaire slipped out of her shoes and stepped forward, squinting in the low light as she dug her toes into the dirt. A tremor of magick twitched up her legs, and Joss’s features blurred. Just a little—right around the edges.
“A forget-me-now.” She pressed her thumb to Joss’ temple and swiveled her wrist. Prickly magick whirred through her arm, and for a blink-and-miss-it moment, her memory of the town at the foot of the mountain shuddered. “Over connections to Hexen Holler?”
It made the most sense. A forget-me-now could be administered in one of two ways: as a hex cast by an obnubilari, or as a potion imbued with the intent to forget.
If Geraldine had forced a forget-me-now potion on her daughter, she would have used her own blood to bind the intent, ensuring its longevity as the poison worked through Joss’s veins.
As far as Blaire knew, a vinefica could dispell potions and poisons, but what of those bound to their blood?
But if she approached the problem from the other side, tackling the intent of the magick, rather than the desire…
Blaire was a hedge witch. Her affinity was in the earth and the trees of Hexen Holler.
She did not know much of C.R.O.W.’s distilled magick and only had a vague understanding of how witches like Joss were trained and reared, but she knew the cricks and deer trails of Roan Mountain.
She knew the swimming holes and the country roads, the fields and every ancient oak.
Blaire was a hedge witch of Hexen Holler and, in many old ways, that made her Hexen Holler.
And as well as she knew their holler, she knew root magick and hex-work. If Joss could not dispell a hex bound to her blood, then perhaps Blaire could return her connection to the holler.
She set the tips of her fingers against the side of Joss’s head, pressing lightly. “May I try something?”
Joss nodded, eyes fluttering closed. Her lips parted as Blaire sent magick shooting through the thin connection, from the tips of her fingers to the fringes of Joss’s mind. A gentle but firm touch.
Enough.
Magick surged to meet her, thick as molasses.
It wriggled through the thin connection, into her arm, gathering hot and sticky in her chest and finally puddling at her feet, where it bled into the ground.
She hissed, pulling her hand away, and Joss seized her wrist. Eyes still closed, she guided Blaire’s thumb to press between her eyes.
“Do the rest,” she rasped. Her mouth worked a silent word, and then, “Please.”
“Are you sure?” Blaire widened her stance, hesitating with her free hand hovering beside Joss’s cheek. The position had them close enough to breathe the same air. Close enough that the heat of Joss warmed Blaire’s front.
“The warding ritual”—Joss’s hand twitched toward her potions.
The hewn circle surrounding them—“is about connections. A connection,” she corrected, “between the Witch of the Demesne and the earth.” Eyes closed, she lay her palm to the back of Blaire’s, pressing it against her cheek and removing the distance between them.
Silken robes slid against spun wool, the fabrics hushing together as Blaire’s thicker, softer figure welcomed every lean, limber inch of Joss.
The years of distance could not erase the feel of Josephine Braddox in her arms nor the smell of her lotion and hair oil. The faint perfume that was uniquely hers. Soft mallow, a hint of powder, and the tang of sweat from her climb up Roan Mountain.
Blaire bit her lower lip, swallowing the sigh that rose to her tongue. Four years and this still felt like that last day whispering secret plans in the dark, designing a ritual for two.
A joining ritual. A connection.
“Our ritual?”
Goddess, could she dare to hope?
“I was coming straight here,” Joss said, warm breath puffing against Blaire’s lips.
“Grandma Charlotte named me heir in her last breath, and the demesne called, telling me to go, to climb.” Her words came out rapid, panicked, and Joss sipped a tiny breath before pressing on.
“I had my candles in the bag, the potions ready to boil, and my athame was freshly sharpened. I was coming to you.” She opened her eyes, the dark, liquid pools darting from one of Blaire’s to the other.
“C.R.O.W. never should have claimed the holler. The title, the power granted to my family as Witches of the Demesne, was stolen from yours.”
“No, Joss—”
“We need to bring the magick back home. Together. My mother hexed me”—her face scrunched, the panic receding for a half second—“to keep us from performing this ritual. She knew, and she hexed me to keep the power in the Braddox line. That ends tonight. Please, Blaire. I wrote you so many letters trying to explain, and I don’t remember the words. ”
I’ll read them to you, Blaire promised silently. Every word, every lost moment.
Four years and no time had passed at all. The warmth of Joss’s body, the soft tremble of her voice, the depths of her eyes.
“You will,” she promised, hauling Joss’s mouth to hers.
There was no hesitation, no flinch, no stillness. Joss melted into her, crashing against Blaire like water from a dam.
It was the ritual, after all. Designed as a giving over of oneself to another. The ultimate connection and joining. Witch to earth, earth to witch, and who held a stronger connection to the earth than Blaire?
The Hedge Witches of Hexen Holler predated the Braddox line.
They had settled on the backside of Roan Mountain before Joss’s coven, C.R.O.W.
, stretched its claws across the Atlantic.
The hedge witches had welcomed their sisters in the Ways but had refused to join them, and over the years, C.R.O.W.
took control of the holler and hills, leeching power from the earth and making it their own.
But this ritual, designed by two silly eighteen-year-olds, would solidify and cement an unbreakable connection between the Braddox and Carver lines, creating not one Witch of the Demesne but two.
Blaire Carver and Josephine Braddox, as it should have been all along.
She mumbled against Joss’s lips, driving her thumb between her brows, and a sticky, sour taste filled her mouth, the stale remnants of a four-year-old hex.
Blaire focused on her work, not wanting to think about Geraldine forcing her daughter to drink whatever horrible potion had held the forget-me-now.
They were here in the now, and Blaire deepened the kiss, sweeping her tongue in Joss’s mouth, imagining she was sweeping the last of the nasty magick away.
On a gasp, she pulled away and spat—once, twice—and Joss grabbed her cheeks, tipping their forehead together. Their short, quick pants mixed and melded. Joss trembled against Blaire, her heart thundering beneath thin silk robes.
“Did I get it?” Blaire ran her hands up and down Joss’s arms, and the taller witch dropped her head against her shoulder. She nodded, letting out a shuddering sigh.
“I think so.” She raised her head, gazing at Blaire with wide, dark eyes. “I’m thinking of you, and you’re all I want to think about.”
“I know how that feels.” The admission slipped free before Blaire could stop it, and it was all the invitation Joss needed.
She cradled Blaire’s cheeks, scanning her face and lingering on her eyes, the tip of her nose, her mouth as if trying to remember every tiny detail.
Sweetly, she ran a thumb over Blaire’s lower lip, dragging the flesh down.
Her heart flipped over, chills running through her limbs at the touch. How often had Joss done that in the time before? Teasing Blaire or sweeping away a crumb. Captivating her with a wild desire she was all too keen to act upon.
“Joss—”
“Say we can do it, Blaire.” Her thumb fell away, fingers pinching Blaire’s chin and lifting her head. “Say you never want me to leave.”
“Do you?”
“I never did.” Tears welled as their lost years played over Joss’s face. “I never wanted to leave you, I swear on the Triple Goddess.”
“Then that’s enough for me.” She widened her stance, envisioning her legs as tree trunks, her toes as roots, reaching deep, deep into the earth. “I heed your summons, Witch of the Demesne.”