Chapter 8
EIGHT
Geraldine’s silver SUV vanished around a turn in the drive, dust flying up behind the wheel. Joss watched her mother’s departure with a cold indifference, just as she had when instructing her to pack a week’s worth of clothes. Only the necessities.
“I’ll have Chester ship the rest to wherever you land,” she had said.
Geraldine, to her credit, did not argue. She packed her bags, accepted the cooler from Tina with grace, and left.
“Where do you think she will go?” Blaire asked only when the car was out of sight.
“I don’t know.” Joss ran a hand over her head. “I’m not sure I care, as long as it’s away from me. Come on.” She hooked her arm in Blaire’s and tugged her down the stairs. “Let’s go home.”
Home.
The word trilled between them. Definite and true. Home. Not this estate high above Hexen Holler, but her small, one-bedroom cottage on the outskirts of town, already crammed full of Joss’s cauldrons, vials, and the mountain of clothes, makeup, and jewelry she had summoned before meeting her mother.
“We can get a bigger place,” Blaire said, letting herself be led down the front stairs.
“Why would we bother?”
“To host the local coven. For meetings, like your mom and grandma used the parlor for.”
“Then we’ll host them here.” Joss waved a hand at the mansion behind them.
“We’ll open up the grounds for the quarter days and larger rites.
I’m sure Chester would love to buttle for visitors from wherever.
This place should be for all witches, not a single family.
” She stopped abruptly and faced Blaire.
“This place wasn’t built for a family; it was built for bureaucracy. A family should live in a home.”
“A family?” Blaire’s stomach flipped. Joss had been home for a day, and she was already talking about family?
“Eventually,” she amended. A glance at Blaire had her cracking a smile. “Oh, calm down, I’m not going to rent the U-Haul tomorrow.”
“You did summon everything you own into my front room this morning.”
“Okay, so maybe I did, but we dated for years before my mom hexed me. Forgive me for wanting to make up for lost time.”
“Forgiven.” Blaire laughed and dropped her head against Joss’s shoulder. “I still think my cottage is a little small for the two of us.”
“And I’ve already started planning the renovations.” Joss patted her hand.
“Of course, you have.”
“But for right now, I want to go home to our little cottage, put on some sweatpants, and cuddle next to you on the couch.”
“I have Cheers reruns on DVD. And Seinfeld.”
“I thought we could read instead.” Something in her tone raised Blaire’s head. She stopped them alongside her truck, reading the strain pinching Joss’s features. The odd nerves tremoring across their bond.
“Read what?”
“My letters.” She swallowed, lifting her eyes to the mountains at Blaire’s back. “I skimmed a few, but I would like you to read them. With me, to me, I don’t care, but I want to finish bringing the memories back together.”
Blaire slid a hand up her arm, resting it beside Joss’s neck. Her fingers graced the strong line of her jaw, and with gentle force, she directed that lovely, dark gaze down to her. “Anything you ask.”
“Dearest Blaire,” she began. Joss squirmed beside her and covered her face with her hands.
Absent the rings, her fingers somehow looked even longer and more graceful.
Even her so-called “comfy clothes” fit her like they were designed for the runway.
Where Blaire had immediately jumped into a sports bra, t-shirt, and plaid pajama pants, Joss had donned a pair of flowing silk pants with a wide waist and a fitted, cropped tank top.
She paired it with a decadently soft, heather gray hoodie zipped only halfway, and it was the effort of the ages for Blaire to keep her eyes on the worn postcards and faded letters in the bundle.
“How is that somehow worse than ‘Sweet Blaire?’”
“I don’t know, ‘dearest’ has a nice ring to it.
” She shook out the perfumed paper and cleared her throat.
“Dearest Blaire, the Moldau is lovely this time of year. Framed on either side by rows of ash and drooping willows. Long, green fronds tickle the water’s edge, reminding me with every breeze that moves them of your hair. Your touch. Oh, how I long to feel—”
“Stop!” Joss snatched the paper away and jumped to her feet.
She held it high over her head, cheeks dark with embarrassment.
“Oh, my Goddess, stop, I can’t take any more of this.
” She squinted at the page, silently mouthed a line, and rolled her eyes in disgust. “Muddied waters as clear as your eyes? That doesn’t even make sense. What was I thinking?”
“You were being poetic,” Blaire answered. Goddess, she loved this. Joss stewing in embarrassment over four-year-old letters written by a lovesick teenager. Cuddling beside her, laughing at the children they had been. Together. “It’s nice, in a weird, never-show-this-to-anyone-else sort of way.”
“I swear to the Horned God, if you show these to anyone—”
A sharp rap at the door cut off her threat. Joss jerked her arm down, hiding the letter behind her back.
“Are you expecting anyone?”
“No.” Blaire cracked open the blinds with two fingers, frowning at the pillar obstructing her view. “Sometimes a Carver stops by with an odd request, but this is late, even for them.”
Whoever it was knocked on the door again, less urgently but just as loudly.
“Should we open it?” Joss asked.
“Probably.” Blaire rose and gave her a reassuring squeeze as she passed by. “It could be someone from town looking for a homeopathic medicine or something. That happens every now and again.”
Still, she opened the door cautiously, barely more than a crack, and kept her body wedged behind the wood.
A middle-aged white man stood on the stoop.
Long, light hair hung in wind-bedraggled waves to his shoulders, frizzing against the pilled wool of his cardigan.
He wore a knit hat, the top gathered to a loose point, and multiple strands of leather adorned with dreamcatchers, bones, feathers, and a rainbow of crystals adorned his neck.
“Can I help you?”
“I reckon.” His accent was impossibly thick, thicker than Blaire’s.
“Come over from Johnson City with my folk.” He gestured blindly behind him.
Blaire opened the door wider so she and Joss could peer over his shoulder.
A crowd filled the narrow drive before her cottage.
Men, women, and children, each of them eschewing a thick, charged aura of magick.
“We’re some of us C.R.O.W., if that’s alright, and some of us hedge.
We were wantin’ to meet the Witch of the Demesne. ”
“Now?”
“Felt a mighty charge late last night, and it’s all we’ve been able to think about. My Gran”—another blind gesture earned a crackling hoot from somewhere in the crowd—“said the last time she felt that was when Charlotte Braddox took power.”
“My grandma,” Joss said quietly.
“So,” he continued, “she gathered us all up, and here we are.”
“It’s protocol,” a crackling voice hollered, and Blaire thought she heard another voice whisper “C.R.O.W.-tocol” in mocking response.
“Oh, well.” She pushed the door wide, filling the frame with Joss at her back. She pressed the tips of her fingers against Blaire’s spine, lending her a bit of Braddox courage. “The thing is, there’s been a bit of a change.”
“Both of them,” the crackling voice she assumed to be Gran added. At her words, candles lit throughout the crowd, the pulsing, golden glow showing Blaire wide-eyed, soft-smiled hope on every face.
Joss filled the space beside her, eyes glistening with unshed tears. She grasped Blaire’s hand, gazing out at the crowd of witches. Shoulder to shoulder, side by side. A sea of C.R.O.W. and hedge witches come to welcome and accept them as their representation to the greater magickal world.
“Felt it as sure as I feel the rain rise beneath my skin.” Gran worked her way from the center of the crowd, standing at their head.
The candle in her hand cast shadows in the wrinkles on her cheeks and beside her eyes.
Long white hair was pulled into two braids, falling halfway down her front.
“A joining ritual, and a binding to the land. Old magick.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Blaire confirmed.
“Magick with good intent.” Gran nodded, smacking her teeth. “We wanted to welcome you both properly.” She tipped her brow to Joss, then Blaire. “As our Witches of the Demesne.” Her eyes fell to their hands, clasped tight, and she smiled. “As the Witch of Hexen Holler.”
Looking for more wildly witchy romance? Enter the World of C.R.O.W. with Ritual Income, book one of the high stakes, high heat, urban fantasy romance series Witch of the Demesne.