29. Pressed Flowers

Pressed Flowers

T he white-gray clouds outside the Giggle Water were so bright that I had to squint to look out the window at the city below.

A too-bright white fire, the light was strong enough to filter through the canopy of Monstera leaves behind me, painting dappled patterns on the table. My eyes went from watching the swirling ingredients in my drink as I absentmindedly stirred my Bloody Mezcal Maria to the sway of the plants’ shadows on the table to staring at the city below. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom, Pops, Aunt Max, and what sign they would offer me. Had they even heard me? Had it been real or just some spiritual practice meant to bring me comfort and peace? What was I going to do if it was the latter, after all?

“—Earth to Byrd! Hello!” Simone snapped her fingers in front of me. “It’s bad enough that Maisie is late, but I can’t seem to hold your attention for longer than two seconds.”

“I’m so sorry, Sea!” I said, shaking my head. “I just… My mind is elsewhere.”

“I know,” Simone’s teasing tone faded, and her eyes softened. “I’m just worried about you. So much has happened lately, I know it’s been hard.”

“You don’t know the half.” I shook my head, sipping my drink.

“Well, I would know some of it if your best friend would get here already.” Simone checked her phone again for any updates from Maisie in our group chat. I knew without looking that there were none since her last update almost ten minutes ago saying she was on the way.

I laughed. “ My best friend?”

“You two will be late to your own funerals. I, being a royal, learned to be punctual always.”

“It’s easy to be punctual when you can decree that the party started right on time with your arrival.”

“Okay, that happened at two parties?—”

“I’m so sorry! I was so caught up that I lost track of time!” Maisie’s hair was windswept, her cheeks flushed with no makeup on, and she was breathless as she approached. Still, she found a way to look like a celebrity staving off the paparazzi in her trendy bodysuit and jean jacket.

“Did you run over here, babe?” I asked, kicking her chair out for her and pushing her water closer to her.

“From the Archive, if you believe it,” she answered, taking a seat and gulping down over half her cup of water.

I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, I’m declaring Brunch Business right now. You have tea , and it’s piping hot.”

“Honestly, you both have tea to spill.” Simone pointed to me and Maisie. “To catch you up, Maze, our little Byrdie has been a space case since she got here, and she has a new tennis bracelet that she needs to explain.”

“First of all, no one has said space case since, like, the 90s. Second of all, how in the hell did you see that?” I gasped, looking down at my left wrist where I could still see my sweater sleeve hiding my bracelet. “ When did you see it?”

“Oh, I can smell relationship drama for miles. I’m a Cancer Sun and Aquarius Moon, remember?” Simone smiled. “Since y’all clearly have some juiciness to dish, I’m going to go first. I literally have nothing exciting. Cole asked to come on our Friendsgiving Trip, and he asked if he could bring the other cousins. It seems a little Byrdie told a certain stud about it who told Cole.”

“You make it sound like you are mad about it.” I snorted.

“You know I’m not. I just didn’t want to be that girl who invites her boyfriend on all her trips with her girls, you know? So, I wanted to check with you all to make sure it was okay first.”

“Oh, precious baby,” Maisie said. “Of course it’s okay. It’s not like you live together and you invite your man on every trip. Besides, it isn’t just your man, it’s my boytoy and Byrd’s study buddy, too.”

“I can’t stand you.” I rolled my eyes, chuckling. “But seriously, Sea. We know you would never choose a man over us. But the cousins definitely add to the fun.”

“Good! We are in for another bae-cation!” Simone clapped her hands. “Okay! Now that that’s settled. Which one of you heifers is next because I’m dying to know what is going on!”

“I volunteer Bee as tribute,” Maisie said, sipping from her espresso martini she told us to order earlier.

“Just twist my arm about it, why don’t you? Well, we can just start with the rose gold elephant in the room,” I said, pulling my sweater’s sleeve up to show them both the bracelet Quinn had given me. Simone oohed and ahhed while Maisie’s jaw dropped.

“Uh, I have sucked Cody’s dick more times than I can count, and I have yet to get a bouquet of flowers. You haven’t even had sex with this butch and you get a tennis bracelet . That is at least a couple grand around your wrist, ma’am.”

“Well, it’s called girlfriend privilege, Maisie.”

Simone screamed. “OMG OMG OMG! Did she ask you?”

I nodded. “You make it sound like a proposal, but I did say yes!”

“I knew you would!” Simone exclaimed. “Ohmigods, you wouldn’t believe how stressed Quinn was when she was planning everything. She texted us so many questions. It was so cute.”

I looked between them incredulously. “You both were in on it?”

Maisie nodded. “The girl has big feelings for you, babe. She wanted everything to be perfect for you. Especially since she wasn’t going to be there in person to give it all to you.”

“Y’all are going to make me cry. That’s so sweet that she texted you both! It was absolutely perfect. I still can’t believe it. I always have to touch the bracelet to make sure it’s real and that it all really happened,” I said, absently touching said bracelet to right it on my wrist.

“Byrd. The girl bought you a spa day and bought out a fucking theme park for you for the day. You have that girl wrapped around your finger,” Maisie said.

“Well, yeah! But I mean, it’s crazy that she feels that way about me. Like, I’m nobody. It’s wild that she wants to spoil me like this.”

“Well, you are everything to her, Bee. She obviously cares about you and wants you to be happy. Plus, you are a badass, smarty sweetheart who deserves all the love and the whole world,” Simone said. “I totally understand what you mean, though. Cole gave me a first edition copy of Jane Eyre just because he saw it and thought of me. They don’t even seem like real people.”

“They really don’t honestly, but there’s more,” I told them the story from the grimoire about Mom’s pregnancy and her attack. Again, I wanted to tell them about Quinn, her daggers, and what she had told me on Halloween, but I swallowed down that desire. It wasn’t my story to tell, and I didn’t know if Quinn would be okay with me telling it. It seemed like a secret told to me in confidence. Plus, she had told me such tiny details about everything, and that was like pulling teeth to get. I didn’t want to betray her trust and lose all the positive momentum we had.

I also kept Mom’s ritual to myself. Yes, these girls were like my sisters, but there was something that made me hesitate in telling them. Was it embarrassment or shame? Was it just that this felt like something for just me and my mom? I wasn’t sure.

“Oh, my gods, Byrd. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe your mom got attacked like that!” Simone placed her hand on my arm.

“That’s insane. But it does mean that we know your parents are at least some kind of a shifter. And a very powerful one at that. I mean, wind and fucking lava powers? That’s fire as fuck, no pun intended.”

“Yeah, but I still have so many questions. Like, why was she attacked in the first place? Reading her attackers’ questions to her reminded me of what your sperm donor said, Maze?—”

“Love that you called him that. Please go on.” Maisie smiled.

“He had said, ‘I would at least make your death easier and more profitable.’ So, whatever Mom and Pops were—and inherently me—there are people out there that want us dead for their own gain.”

“Yeah, but why? I mean, what could your family have that is so valuable but that you only have when you are dead?” Simone asked.

“I have no idea. This sounds kind of like one of Izzy’s riddles.” I rubbed my temples.

“Well, speaking of Izzy, I have so much to tell y’all.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well, that’s it from me, so you definitely have the floor. What’s up?”

Our server came to replace our empty glasses with the next round. After she left, Maisie said, “So, I’ve been busy working in the Vault of the Archive with Isidora.”

“Really?!” I exclaimed. “Okay, I need details yesterday.

Maisie chuckled. “Well, thanks to you and your brilliance, Isidora has been helping me learn more about fitches and how to use my powers. We have even been training together between reading the books the Archive has about fitches and Archaics. Izzy may not be a fitch, but her knowledge of them and magic in general is incredible!”

“Holy fuck, Maisie! That’s awesome!” Simone said.

“ I freaking love Izzy. I’m so obsessed with her.”

“Me too, honestly,” Maisie agreed with me. “Now, I know a lot about Archaics, even beyond the basics of just reading them to understand what the spell was for. I can see who created the Archaic, recognizing their power and rune signature within the Archaic. I can also manipulate it.”

“By manipulate, you mean…?”

Maisie’s smile was slow and wide, like the Cheshire Cat. “It means, I can find and locate the last fitch to edit your family’s grimoire.”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Simone and I shouted loud enough that staff members turned to look at us.

Maisie sipped her espresso martini, preening with pride. “Dead fucking ass, babes. We can talk to her and find out what’s going on.”

“Okay, Miss Bonnie Bennett with the locator spell! I see you!”

While Maisie was rolling her eyes at Simone’s joke, I said “I can’t believe you were sitting on this! I have no idea how you were able to do it.”

“Well, you, for one, can’t keep a secret to save your life, so we can start there,” Maisie said to me.

“Wow.”

“I mean, you couldn’t hold a secret if it was water in a bucket, Byrd,” Simone conceded with a shrug.

“ Wow . Y’all are some haters. I thought we were friends.” I shook my head as they both laughed. “Okay, so what now?”

After we finished eating and drinking, we paid and headed back to my house. The three of us immediately went to my room, where I plucked the grimoire from where I had placed it in my bed. I had been cuddling it every night since the story about my mom, taking comfort in the scents of home. I passed it over to Maisie.

As soon as she took the tome, she opened it to the back, where the Archaic still weaved elaborate symbols across the pages. I got a strange sense of déjà vu as her hand hovered over the complex runes. For a brief moment, her bleeding on the floor flashed into my brain. How did we know this would work this time? Had she been physically practicing her magic or just working on it in theory? Shouldn’t I have asked that before we tried this? What kind of friend was I that I didn’t?

I didn’t have to fret for long. Unlike last time, Maisie’s eyes remained open. The dark-brown-almost-black color turned into a glowing neon purple with sparks and stars overflowing from her eyes as she stared at the book. Once her eyes changed, Maisie lifted her hand above the book. The lines, dots, geometric shapes, and runes inside runes lit up from the inside out until the entire Archaic was aglow. Maisie’s magical eyes lifted from the brilliant pages to the air above the book, examining something Simone and I couldn’t see.

“What are you looking at, Maisie?” Simone asked, looking between the glowing book in Maisie’s arm and Maisie’s also lit-up eyes staring above it.

“You know how in the Iron Man movies, Tony could create holograms of stuff and move things around. Yeah, that’s basically what I just did with the Archaic. I’m looking at a massive, magical hologram of it right now that I can edit.”

“Is it safe?” I asked.

Maisie glanced at me and smiled. “I’m in control now. The weird black blood is going to stay in the scary movies and won’t make an appearance today. Trust me.”

“Fantastic,” I sighed in relief. “Then please proceed.”

Maisie nodded and returned to the hologram that only she could see. She lifted her hand up. Then she started quickly moving it through the air. It was like her hand was dancing as it shoved things away, zoomed in on things, weaved and tied things together, and typed new characters in. It was graceful like a ballet, and I was mesmerized.

All too soon, it was over as Maisie moved one last piece into place. Suddenly, the lights from the grimoire brightened until a bright purple flat plane appeared above. Simone and I came to stand on either side of Maisie, just as a map of Georgia and Alabama appeared. A twinkling star marked where Blackbell was in southern Georgia. Then as if someone had put coordinates into a magical GPS, a white line formed and made its way through the map toward the Alabama side. It didn’t take long for it to come to a stop in southern Alabama with another star marking a location. Cursive script appeared to describe the destination: 677 Helena Way Morgaine, Alabama 36804.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and searched for the address. It was a little over an hour away. I raised my eyebrows.

“Well, do y’all have any plans next weekend?”

T he following Saturday morning, Simone, Maisie, and I all got in my car and headed to the address Maisie found. We drank our coffee, listened to our road trip playlist, played catch-up like we would at our Sunday Brunches, and chatted generally in our usual way of jumping from topic to topic and back again. It felt so regular and normal, as if we were just going to Atlanta or something for fun. But my anxiety reminded me that we certainly weren’t doing that as it clawed at a door in my mind, like a cat wanting to come into a room. I knew if I opened that door, even a crack, I would drown in the unknown and my worry about our actual destination. Ever still, some slipped through as my brain wandered.

Who was this fitch? What should I expect from them? What were they like? Would they be willing to talk? How did they know my mom? Would they be the sign I had given up hope of finding by now?

What if this was going to be like when we met Maisie’s father?

Or worse?

What if this was dangerous? I mean, it would take a lot to take the three of us down with Maisie’s magic, Simone’s water powers, and my… Well, it would be a lot to lift me up, at least, to kidnap me. Besides, Mom had told me to follow my instincts. I had a feeling that we were okay. None of this gave me bad vibes outside of the general anxiety of being a black woman headed into bumfuck nowhere, Alabama.

According to my cursory lookup of the address on Google, I found out there were more livestock in this town than people—if you could call it a town with that kind of population. The address had been on Zillow for years before someone bought it several years ago, a year or two after Pops and Aunt Max had died, to be exact. Now, the house had been remodeled, the farmland cared for, and the lot thriving, if the satellite views were to be believed. It was almost unrecognizable compared to the images of what it used to look like. Anyone who just wanted a homestead life couldn’t be all bad, right?

Right?

Turn left and arrive at your destination: 677 Helena Way Morgaine, Alabama 36804.

Seeing a bright red mailbox next to a dirt driveway, I turned off the gravel road that we had been on for some time—forever grateful that I had an SUV that could survive off-roading. Ahead of us stood a beautiful farmhouse and barn straight from the mind of Joanna Gaines. It was quaint and cozy, a nice little farmer’s getaway from the city life. I parked in the front of the house next to a large GMC truck covered in similar dirt to what was on my 4Runner now after the drive, and the three of us got out.

The house was unassuming, especially up close. It was a wholesome white A-frame build, with a gray tin roof and a bright red carriage door. The many, many windows were open, allowing for the cool autumn wind to flow into the house and the sweet smell of baking to flow outside. The porch was massive, with rocking chairs and an adorable pot of flowers on a table between them. Bushes of rosemary, lemongrass, and lavender made the front smell like delicious herbs, while hydrangeas, peonies, azaleas, and roses added an insane amount of curb appeal to the house. It was everything that any Southern hospitality magazine dreamed of. It also really reminded me of my house growing up, where Mom loved peonies so much that she had them in our front yard and Pops would bring them home just because he loved her. Mom used rosemary in the front, too, to keep bugs away and make the house smell delicious before you even set foot in the house. We lived in a barn-style house as well. My heart ached with the nostalgia of it all, but it was enough to ease some of my concerns.

Before the three of us could start climbing the stairs of the porch, a female voice boomed through the open windows. “Hiya! You can come around back!”

“Wow, we didn’t even have to ring the doorbell,” Simone noticed as we started to make our way around the house.

“She probably has a magical shield to let her know when guests have arrived. I made one for my mom’s house when I was a kid. If she is the witch-fae, I’m sure that shield prevents those with bad intentions from coming in so she can trust anyone she’s notified about,” Maisie explained.

“Definitely cheaper than a security system.” Simone half-heartedly shrugged.

We rounded the house and were met with an adorable wooden picket fence surrounding a huge backyard oasis complete with an outdoor kitchen, pool, and quite a few standing gardening areas. Even from where I stood at the fence, I could see the gardening stands held everything from vegetables to herbs to some fruit that were lush and better than anything I had seen in a grocery store. Before a stand with butternut squashes, pumpkins, and zucchini, a woman leaned down helping what appeared to be a little girl beside her. Their backs faced the fence, where we couldn’t see their faces. Another teenage girl sat nearby reading on a swinging chair. As the little girl giggled at something the woman said, the teen smiled. It was an adorable little family moment that I hated to interrupt.

I opened the door of the fence for us. The teenager was the first one to glance at us as we approached. I smiled, and she returned it politely.

“Momma, there’s some girls here for you,” She called to the woman.

The woman and the little girl turned around to lock eyes with me. I immediately stopped in my tracks.

My stomach plummeted along with my jaw.

I knew her. Well, I didn’t know her, but I recognized her. It… It was the same woman from my dream where Pops died, the one who saved me and Uncle Everett with her orange magic.

She was older now. Her once long half-dyed blond and ginger-brown hair was shoulder-length now and a soft, brown color with half of it tied back in a ponytail. She had traded her gothic aesthetic for a more alternative country one. The rolled-up sleeves of her oversized plaid revealed scores of tattoos, and her mom jeans folded up to the ankle revealed even more. She was still gorgeous, and her daughters were spitting images of her only with darker brunette hair. Three sets of blue eyes stared at me full of curiosity.

No, wait… As I stood there realizing that things were getting kind of awkward as I gawked at this woman, I noticed that her daughters were looking at me with interest in who I could be. Their mom’s eyes, however, glazed over and seemed to look straight past me.

Just like Everett.

“Are you okay?” Simone asked, noticing that I stopped.

“Maisie—” I started.

“I see it. She’s magicked.” Maisie paused. “It’s the same spell as Everett and your scars… But… She’s actually under her own spell.”

“Woah!” The little girl said with wide eyes on Maisie. “Leah, look! She’s a witch-fae, too! Just like Momma and us! How cool!”

Leah, the teenager, ignored her younger sister to stare at me. “You look like the girl from the pictures.”

“What pictures?” I asked, trying to process what Maisie had just said.

Leah put her book down and jumped down from the swinging chair. It swayed after her. “I found this album a week or two ago in the attic. It had a girl who looked just like you in some of the pictures. When I asked Momma about it, she got that same look in her eyes that she has now.” She looked from her Mom to Maisie. Worry glinted in her eyes. “If it’s her spell on herself, then you can’t break it, can you?”

Maisie shook her head. “No, I can’t. If a fitch casts a spell on herself, only she can break it.”

“Is Mommy going to be okay?” The little girl asked. She couldn’t be a day over seven if I had to guess with her two front teeth noticeably absent and her hair already falling from their ponytails despite it being morning still.

“She’ll be fine, Betty. She went back to normal as if nothing had ever happened once I put the album away.”

Betty pouted, clinging to her mom and clearly not assuaged by her older sister’s words. I said, “You said I look like a girl from an album?”

Leah nodded. “Your hair was black in most of them, but I recognize that shade of pink from the other few. It has to be you.”

“How is that possible?” I asked. “I have never seen or met your mom before… well, not that I remember in my waking life, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Leah pressed.

“I had this dream—not a dream exactly, a memory that I had because of my family’s grimoire. Anyway, your mom was in it, but I didn’t recognize her. She looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t place where I could know her from?—”

“Well, why don’t you introduce yourself? Maybe you’ll remember! We always have to say our names on the first day of school, and this one time, I couldn’t remember a girl until she said her name and I realized I had played with her once during recess last year!” Betty said all in one breath. Then she continued. “So, I’ll go first!”

“Betty, that’s not—” Leah tried to interrupt, but it was Betty’s turn to ignore her.

“My name is Betty! That’s my sister, Leah,” Betty introduced her sister, whose eyes rolled so far into her head I was pretty sure she could see her brain. I swallowed a chuckle. “And this is Mommy!”

“ Tallis. Momma’s name is Tallis?—”

Tallis. The name racked around my brain. It felt so freaking familiar. I knew it. I knew her . I felt like the answer was just on my tongue. Until?—

“But everyone usually calls her Talli.”

Talli! That was it. My pendant heated against my chest. Suddenly, memories flooded me so strongly, all at once, that my knees buckled under me. Talli coming to visit me and my family as a kid. Rocks brought to me from visits all over the country. Talli’s famous rosemary potatoes. Talli being on my team as we played board games. Hikes through the forest to find caverns with Talli. Talli teaching me the meaning behind the crystals I loved. Talli being there for me and the family when Mom died. Talli rescuing us the night Pops and Aunt Max died. Talli rocking me when she told me what happened.

Then Talli forgotten.

Talli gone and never heard from again. Talli erased from my memory. Why? Where had she gone? Who had done that? What could have happened?

“Oh, my gods! Bee! Are you okay?” Simone helped me right myself from doubling over.

I was panting. My ears were ringing. Something deep in me was restless and pacing, like it was waiting for something that couldn’t happen yet. Despite my mouth feeling dry, I looked at Talli, still staring past me. Why didn’t she remember me? Why cast a spell to make her forget me? The idea felt like a stab straight into my heart.

Why do that to me?

“Talli!” I called out to her. “Talli! It’s me! Byrd! Please remember me!”

Talli frowned and furrowed her eyebrows. “Wait, what did you say?”

“It’s Byrd. Please remember! You used to come and visit me and my family when I was a kid! You saved my life. You are my mom’s oldest friend. You have to remember.”

“Your mom…?”

“Yes! My mom, Doriana Pierce!” I called, almost yelling now. “Everyone called her Doe!”

“Doe and Byrd… Doe and—” Talli’s eyes closed. It appeared like she was trying to envision something behind her closed eyes. Then she opened them and stared directly at me, but there was something in her stare that was too direct, like she was staring straight through my eyes into my very soul. She asked in a voice with power echoing through it.

“Byrd, do you want to know the truth?”

The shiver down my spine made me stand up straight. That question… “That’s the same question the grimoire asked in Mom’s handwriting.”

“How is that possible?” Simone asked under her breath.

“Well, at least we know we are in the right place. She’s the fitch who made the Archaic. She has to be,” Maisie said.

“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with our mom? What did you do to her?” Leah demanded, her eyes going from us to Talli, whose eyes had not left me.

“It’s not about what we did. It’s about what she did,” Maisie answered.

“What? Like Momma did this to herself? Is that even a thing?”

“Apparently, it is.”

“Byrd, do you want to know the truth?” Talli repeated in that strange voice.

I set my lips and squared my shoulders. Simone squeezed my arm next to me in full support. Maisie nodded reassuringly. I decided to say the same thing I had said when my mom’s handwriting had asked me the same question.

“I am ready. I want to know the truth,” I said. “What do I need to do?”

Suddenly, Talli hissed, clutching her head. It lasted a few moments, but when she finally looked up at me, her eyes were back to their normal blue. They were clear and present. Most importantly, they were knowing. I knew before she said anything that Talli, my Talli, was back.

She smiled and tears shimmered in her eyes.“Why, look at you, Byrdie-Bee. You look just like your mother.”

The tears were free-flowing as I ran into Talli’s open arms. She brought me close to her, holding me tight as if she feared I would disappear. Gods, she smelled just as I always remembered. Sweet like homemade brown sugar lemonade. Like home. I didn’t hesitate to return the hug just as tightly. We were both sobbing, reunited despite being forgotten after all these years.

“I knew you would find your way to me when you were ready,” Talli said. “We have so much to catch up on.”

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