Chapter 36
“Dammit!” Jenna yelped as she tried to zip the suitcase and it refused. Everything had fit on the trip out here. Well, it had fit into this suitcase and her other suitcase and her duffel bag, because she hadn’t known how long she was staying. But she couldn’t get any of them zipped shut now.
Aside from the lovely onyx bracelet from Delanie, and the candles and family magic book from Annelise, she wasn’t trying to fit anything extra into the space.
In fact, she was a pair of sneakers shy, because they’d been ruined in that first trek up the mountainside, when she was wondering if Ford Velasco was a serial killer. She could almost laugh about it now.
Looking at the bed, she tried to count the things that no longer fit into the space they’d once occupied just fine.
She hadn’t even packed the candles and the book!
Annelise gave them to her, sure, but did she mean for Jenna to keep them forever?
To run off with them to another state? Maybe she’d just meant while Jenna was here locally.
Using a cloth grocery store bag, she carefully laid the book at the bottom and put the candles gently on top of that.
There were no matches or even little wood sticks to light them, only her own power.
She had to admit that every time she popped a lock or watched a wick flare to life, she felt a little shot of pure awe.
But none of that fought the churn in the bottom of her stomach now.
She needed to find Annelise.
Jenna was turning to grab for her phone when it rang. She shouldn’t have been surprised at the name across the front screen, and when she answered she was shaking her head at herself as her new cousin asked, “You needed me?”
Had she been here in Virginia, in and out of Belle hollow only just over a few weeks? But it clearly wasn’t long enough to squash the urge to say, how did you possibly know? Of course, Annelise knew. “Yes, I was just getting ready to call you.”
“I’m sorry, I would have called earlier,” her cousin was already apologizing, “but I had a client, and they stayed longer than I thought. They just left. I was so antsy, though, for the last several hours. I hope it didn’t show. What’s going on with you?”
There was no denying it. “I got a call from my mother.”
“Is she okay?”
“I think so, or I hope she will be.” It didn’t sound good, so Jenna scrambled to backtrack, hoping to make it sound better. “She had one of her annual tests and they found something. She’s scheduled a biopsy. One of those things that probably will be just fine, but they have to check.”
“Your father passed last year,” Annelise said in a comforting tone, as if the pieces made obvious sense to her.
Jenna hoped they did. She wasn’t sure all the pieces made sense to her these days, but she had to go.
“Exactly. I don’t want her to go through this alone.
She was always the dutiful wife, but my dad would go with her most of the time to her medical appointments.
It is only this last year that she’s gone by herself.
I’m scared she’s at home worrying herself into something worse. ”
“Don’t worry about us,” Annelise said. “You do what you need to do. I hate to see you go, but I fully understand.”
Something reached across the line between them, and Jenna felt it like a comforting hug laced into every word.
She’d driven into town in the middle of a storm, thinking she would lay low for a while.
That she could hide out and announce herself when she was ready.
Maybe it was better that it happened the way it had.
With everyone in the room turning to look at her, mouths almost open. Everyone put two and two together.
Even if she’d tried to hide, it wouldn’t have worked.
There would have been whispers of that girl who looks just like Monica.
She would never have heard them. She would have believed she was anonymous.
But she couldn’t have been anonymous here, even if she didn’t look exactly like her birth mother.
Story had showed her the pictures. She looked like a Lockheart. No wonder everyone whispered.
In the end Belle Hollow had become more than she’d ever wished for.
She had a cousin in Annelise, who welcomed her with open arms. A grandmother who happily folded her right into the family, even to the point of taking her out for lunches, having little conversations with her, and then flitting off to offer some kind of help to someone else around the town.
With Story it was as if Jenna had always been here and always would be.
The first part was not true. Today was proving the second part wrong, too.
“How can I help?” Annelise asked.
“I’m trying to get out of town. It’s a long drive back to Texas.”
“You’ll stop overnight, won’t you?” Annelise asked, as if they were the kind of friends and cousins who worried about each other. Maybe they were now.
“Exactly. I’m a little anxious to get on the road. I was hoping to see you before I go.”
“I’ll be right over. Are you in town?”
“I’m still at the hotel in Charlottesville.” Only as the last word came out of her mouth did Jenna realize she understood Annelise’s “in town” to mean Belle Hollow.
“I can come to you,” Annelise volunteered.
“I wanted to stop by the Hollow anyway,” Jenna added.
“Then I’ll stay put.”
She was out the door in just a few minutes.
Handing in her key, she told the hotel staff not to worry about the charges.
She couldn’t bring herself to care. Throwing her things into the car, she had a few extra fabric bags handling the overflow.
Even as she shook her head at it, she climbed in and started the engine.
The little blue car knew the way between the city and the smaller town nestled in the mountains now.
As she admired the fall foliage—she’d never seen it like this in person—she wondered when she would be back.
Would she ever drive this little stretch of state highway between Charlottesville and a place she was now considering a home of her heart again?
Before she even knew the time had passed, she was pulling up to the little house on the river road.
Annelise was waiting on the porch, coming down the steps and taking Jenna into her arms. “Your mother will be okay.”
“Thank you.” Jenna felt some of the weight come off her shoulders at Annelise’s suggestion.
Then her cousin stepped back, holding her at arm’s length, shaking her head as if she were confused. “I tried to check on it, to see more. Beyond that one outcome, I’m not allowed to look.”
Jenna knew she frowned. She hadn’t known there were rules, things that witches were not allowed to see. Annelise just shrugged as if that was the way it was. “I tried. It’s blocked. I don’t know what it will take for your mother to be okay, but she will be okay.”
An interesting thought. Jenna folded it up and tucked it somewhere inside her heart. They might be in for a long haul if the news was bad, but she could handle any hits a lot better knowing this would be the outcome.
Story came out behind Annelise, the porch boards creaking at her heavy steps. “We’re so sorry to see you go, but I know you’ll be back.”
Jenna stepped into her grandmother’s arms, the hug engulfing her and making her feel safe. Really safe. It seemed silly. She’d once told herself she would meet these people and learn about her genetics, and that was all she needed. But they really were her family now.
Did their shared genetics change the hug that Story gave her?
She didn’t know. But she did know this: Story’s prediction that she would return seemed more like a casual boardwalk tarot reading and less like a fact she could carry with her, like Annelise’s prediction.
But she didn’t say that to either of the women standing in front of her.
She was opening her mouth to ask about the book and the candles that she had in the bag in the back of her car, but she didn’t get the words out.
“Oh, you should keep those,” Story said, even though it was Annelise who had gifted them in the first place.
Before she could even look to her cousin, Annelise also nodded. “They’re for family, right? You’re family. And you should take them with you so you can practice.”
Though Jenna nodded, she had no idea how much practice she would be able to get with her mother around.
While the woman was loosening up and finding herself, shedding some of the strict upbringing she had and the strict marriage that had followed, she was by no means likely to be receptive to the idea that her daughter was a witch.
Or that Jenna should be finding out exactly which elements she controlled best.
Still, she thanked the women for the warm welcome, for the gifts and the hugs and the prophecies. Then she said she had to be on the road. One last hug, and she was in the car with the two other women standing on the porch still, waving her away.
As they disappeared into the distance, she realized she hoped Story’s prediction was true—that she would be back, and it would be soon. Maybe, if she was lucky, before her four months of leave was up.
The little river road wound through the landscape, leading in toward the middle of town.
She thought of Ford as she looked from one side of the street to the other, but it wasn’t the youngest Velasco male that stopped her.
With an almost startled turn of her steering wheel, she pulled into one of the few spaces and stepped into the little shop.
“Jenna,” Avery greeted her with a bright smile before it morphed into a frown. “You’re leaving?”
“I have to.” Jenna fought the sudden knot in her throat and the pressure at the back of her eyes.
She’d been hoping to say a kind and sane goodbye to Delanie, not burst into tears.
Though she liked Avery plenty, Delanie was the one who had invited her for a sleepover, taught her extra skills, and deserved a goodbye.
But just then the younger, redheaded sister stepped out of the back. She spotted Avery first.
“This,” she said, holding up a jade crystal on a chain. “This is for Jenna.”
Then she followed Avery’s gaze, almost startled. “There you are!” She was walking forward, displaying the strange necklace at arm’s length and motioning Jenna to hold her hand out for it. “This is for your mother.”
Just a few weeks ago, Jenna would have found all this too strange to even fathom—that these women knew what she was thinking and where she was going before she even said it.
Maybe Annelise had called them and told.
Maybe gossip traveled faster than the speed limit through town.
But truly she was confident that Delanie had been in the back and, probably in a moment’s notice, had perked up, getting some message from the universe that Jenna’s mother needed this jade crystal.
“Just get her to wear it or put it in her pocket or something. I charged it for you.”
Jenna had no idea what that meant, but she was not in any way about to refuse it. “I just wanted to say thank you for all of your kindness.”
“Please,” Delanie brushed her off. “We’re friends, and you’ll be back.”
It was the second proclamation of that future, and Jenna smiled. This time she said, “I’m sure that I will.”
Though she had no idea when it would be, and Annelise’s warning made it clear the road ahead might be harsh, she believed.
Stepping forward, Delanie offered a quick hug. “Go. You’ve got to get as far as you can before it gets too late to stop for the night.”
Jenna nodded, again taking the proclamation of something Delanie shouldn’t have known as just a fact. She liked lighting candles and popping locks and warding her hotel room, but when would she be able to know what people needed before they needed it? That was truly a gift.
Before she could smile and leave and try to deal with everything she was feeling, Avery stepped forward. Motioning from Jenna’s head to her toes, Jenna tried to follow what she was doing. Just before Avery gave a single snap of her fingers, Jenna figured it out. A spell.
“There. You’ll be protected while you travel.”
Not knowing what came over her, because it wasn’t her usual style—but maybe it was now—she stepped into the older sister’s arms. Whether it was a thank you or for her own comfort, Jenna hugged Avery.
Then without another word, she stepped away and out of the little shop.
Crystal necklace in her pocket, book and candles in the bag in the backseat of the little blue car, she headed out of town.
Only at the other side of town, as she passed the little brown sign that cheerfully told her in white text that she was leaving Belle Hollow, did she think maybe she should have said goodbye to Ford.