Chapter 42
“Go home, man.” The young paralegal opened the door and seemed surprised to find Rowan still here.
Of course he was. Though he laughed and tried to cover it, going home no longer felt like an option. He was struggling to come to terms with the things his parents had done.
While Annelise had told him none of them were big enough sins to be horrific, they certainly added up.
Would Melissa still be alive if his father hadn't fired her? If the Lockhearts had the income they needed then, or if she’d had purpose and a job to go back to?
Would Melissa still be alive if they’d known about the black mold months earlier?
He would never have to face his father, but his mother was still there. How many times today had he told himself there were two sides to every story, and maybe Vienna had better reasons than it appeared? Whatever her reasons, it seemed Annelise was right.
His family had constantly made decisions that benefitted themselves. Maybe those decisions themselves weren’t truly at fault, but every time they’d made them, they’d benefited on the backs of the Lockhearts. And maybe some others.
He swallowed hard, looked at the young paralegal, and said, “All right. Are you locking up?”
The kid just looked at him, nodding, clearly waiting. “Everyone else went home a while ago.”
There was a tone underneath it suggesting maybe the kid had waited for him.
But it was clear the others all knew he’d been staying late more often than not.
He’d left Annelise’s house last night too full of new knowledge to properly process it.
It wasn’t like there was a hotel in Belle Hollow, and even if there had been, he wouldn’t have stayed there—the gossip would have spread like wildfire.
He’d driven into Charlottesville, hoping not to get recognized and to get a bed for a good night’s sleep. He’d only achieved the first.
Now, he headed out, letting the younger man do his job and lock the doors behind him.
Rowan climbed into his car, waved goodbye, and pulled out of the parking lot, realizing he had no idea where he was going.
He’d checked out of his Charlottesville room this morning.
Maybe, he thought, if he stayed close, he could run into Annelise.
He knew sometimes she slept in her office.
He was torn between jealousy at the option and concern for her safety in the empty warehouse district.
Right now, none of that mattered. It was already late enough, but he wasn’t ready to go home and he didn’t have a place to stay.
Though it was tempting to think he could go to a store and buy another set of clothing, it wasn’t a real option. He’d already worn his spare clothes from his kit in his trunk today. He couldn’t show up again in an unpressed shirt, or worse yet, the same thing.
He needed food, and as he headed toward his favorite local burger joint, he saw a strip mall and looked at the time. Oh, bless the kid for kicking him out. He had three minutes. Cranking the wheel hard, he just managed the turn without squealing the tires and pulled up in front of the dry cleaner.
Picking up his ticket meant he had clothing. He didn’t have to go home. What if he stayed in Richmond? He could handle getting recognized, but he needed sleep. He was closer to Belle Hollow than to Charlottesville now.
At the counter, he paid and took the hangers, then walked out as they locked the door behind him too. Maybe it would be that kind of night.
He struggled with what his parents had done in large part because of the town of Belle Hollow.
Closing his eyes, he sighed and remembered when they were kids and the Butcher family lived up on the mountain.
The Butchers had money, but then old man Butcher died, and the kids moved away.
Rowan had never put the pieces together, but he could see it now: It was the Velascos who lived at the top now. Almost where the Butcher home had been.
Unlike the Butchers, he’d grown up relatively poor.
Unlike the Butchers—and maybe his own parents—he knew better.
When communities had little, they leaned on each other.
It was a phenomenon he saw again and again in the families he helped.
The more resources a family had, the less likely they were to share.
But when one person in an underserved neighborhood got a car, they drove everyone to the doctor.
When the first family got a washing machine, they shared whenever anyone needed it.
He thought his parents had done that too, that they’d been part of the community. And that they’d earned a place on the mountainside through hard work.
Even as he thought it now, his jaw clenched, pressure pushed at the backs of his eyes as he thought of black mold in the walls and how his mother had stayed silent.
He wondered how many other families there on the river road had been sick for months and not known why.
Sure, she’d eventually let the information out, but the numbers added up.
Vienna Velasco had found it first, and she hadn’t shared.
She’d kept it to herself to protect the sale of their house.
He found himself standing at the car, hand on the door handle before he even realized it.
His thoughts were churning and stealing his ability to pay attention to his surroundings.
He owed people a debt he hadn’t even known about, and he owed his mother a face-to-face confrontation he did not want to have.
So, for the moment, he tried to ignore it.
Reaching into the backseat, Rowan hung the pieces on the hook and thought again about a burger, fries that were cut straight from potatoes, and a side of pickles.
But as he climbed into the car and turned the engine, something slipped at the back of his brain.
There in the parking lot with a car running, Rowan Velasco blinked. No, it couldn’t be.
He hadn’t heard this in fifteen years. But he heard it now as if from a great distance.
Rowan.
Rowan, I need you.
Though he couldn’t distinguish all the sounds, he heard them and knew what they meant. He turned the key, almost smacking himself as the engine ground. Bad move.
Pulling out of the parking lot, he turned around. But should he go to Charlottesville or Belle Hollow?
Rowan, I need you.
Just in case it wasn’t clear the first time.
Heart pounding in his chest, his exhaustion fled like wind. This time she was casting a spell to bring him, not to keep him away.
Forgetting about the burgers or his rough day at work, forgetting his tangled thoughts about his family, Rowan tried to reach out. He tried not to be a menace on the road while figuring out which way to go. Charlottesville or Belle Hollow?
This time her voice was clear, as if she was sitting in the backseat. Home.
He knew what Home meant. Turning the wheel, he headed deeper into the mountains, wondering what he would find. Annelise waiting for him. Annelise wanting to be with him.
He was turning on to the state road that led to home when he heard it.
Rowan, help!
Shit. This wasn’t about her wanting him.
It was about her needing him, and he was even less able to say no to that.
He raced toward the little house on the river road, toward the place he’d once called his own.
Pushing his speed, he struggled with going faster in the darkness, fought back the fear that crept up each time he didn’t actively push it down.
What was happening that was so bad that Annelise had reached out to him?
When he finally reached the house—and it felt like forever—he practically skidded up the gravel driveway, stopping right behind Annelise’s car. He was out and up the porch steps before he even realized what he was doing. The front door stood ajar, and his heart cracked. This couldn’t be good.
Inside, he found the lights on and Annelise hovering over where Story lay on the floor. Her grandmother wasn’t moving but a melody hovered in the air as she did CPR.
“Annelise,” he said.
She replied a sharp, “Twenty-two!”
It took him a minute to catch on. She was singing for rhythm and counting chest compressions.
When she hit thirty, she leaned back and took a deep breath.
Even he knew not to pinch the nose and breathe into the mouth anymore, that the compressions would work the lungs.
As he watched, she placed one hand flat over Story’s chest but didn’t touch the older woman.
Then slowly she lifted the hand, bringing all the fingers together as if drawing something out.
Whatever she was doing, it was powerful as hell.
He could almost see light coming from her fingers, and usually witchcraft didn’t have the energy to produce that kind of sensation in the physical world other than the changes it made.
Next, she said three syllables into the air to the fist she held over her grandmother’s chest and then smacked her hand back down, palm open, as if throwing it into her grandmother.
He watched as Story gasped, and he breathed his own ragged sigh of relief.
Just as quickly, he became confused as the older woman sank back to the floor, eyes fluttering shut as if the moment had never happened.
Frustrated, Annelise worked her spell again, pulling it up, grasping it in the air above her grandmother, who still lay on the ground.
She threw her hand back towards her grandmother again, as if smacking life into the older woman, and again Story’s eyes flew open, her mouth gasped.
Again, she slipped back into death.
“Annelise,” he asked.
But she was already pushing him back. “I have to do compressions!” She started again, leaning over, squaring her shoulders, and singing.
For a moment he didn’t recognize it, and then he did: A song about the trees in the hollow, and the magic in the hills. Annelise was trying to save her grandmother’s life with a song Story had sung to them as children.
“Annelise,” he said again, more forcefully.
This time, her reply was, “Thirteen!”
“Let me.” He moved in close, his head near hers, ready to swap out and take over the demanding task. He knew from CPR class that no one was supposed to do it alone. How long had she been here not even taking a breather in between? She was casting spells which was just as much effort, maybe more.
“She doesn’t last,” Annelise cried to him.
He understood now that was the issue. After every thirty compressions, Annelise would bring her grandmother back, maybe even twice, but only for a moment. Then Story would fade again.
“Let me,” he said again, moving his hands into place.
“I need you to get Delanie and Avery.”
“No,” he told her. “You can get them faster than I can. But I can do this.”
This time he firmly shouldered her out of the way and took over.
He even picked up the song that she’d been singing, because he knew it too.
For a moment she stared at him as if he were the crazy one, but he didn’t have her magic.
When he finished the line, he looked up at her, and he knew he had fire in his own eyes.
“I can do this part without magic. Call them!” he urged.
It took a moment, a blink, for it to sink in, because she must have been doing this for some time and she was clearly hyper-focused.
Fluidly, she lifted to her feet and looked around the room.
Story lay to one side, partially over the chalk star and circle he now noticed.
Annelise moved to the middle. He watched as she spun slowly, her breath blowing candles to life.
He tried to maintain his counts as he watched the woman he loved do what she did best. She was good at so many things.
But this was her calling. In the center of the circle, she chanted a call to the elements and followed it immediately with a cry to the other witches.
Her hands rising as she repeated it three times, it felt as if she lifted the energy in the room and threw it outward.
He hated that she had to do it when she should be resting, but he wasn’t capable himself of what was needed. He called out, “Thirty!” and fell back.
Dropping to her knees once again next to her grandmother, Annelise worked her spell.
Again, he watched as twice Story opened her eyes, breathed on her own, and seemed to come back.
This time he looked for better signs and realized that though she made these actions, he didn’t see her behind her eyes.
As before, though Story breathed, she didn’t stay.
After two tries, he moved Annelise out of the way and continued doing the compressions.
When she offered to trade, he told her she needed a break, that she’d been at it for a while now.
Though he wondered if it was even possible to save Story given the time that had passed, he didn’t know and didn’t ask.
In his class, they talked about how long to do compressions, and the answer was often until the ambulance arrived.
He knew this wasn’t sustainable for long, but he also wondered how long they could go with witchcraft bringing her grandmother back, if only momentarily, in between. He started another set of compressions. Then watched, as one by one the witches of the Hollow began walking through the door.