Chapter 27 #2
It’s a gut punch. Tears prick my eyes. A year after the gallery. So for two years, my sisters have carried on without me.
I’m not angry—I can’t be. It’s not like I made any effort to reach out after that first week, when my calls and texts to Kate went unanswered. But a deep sadness opens up inside me, filled with the time we missed. Time I missed, and I’ll never get back.
“For what it’s worth,” Rachel says, “I wanted to reach out. So many times, Lizzy. Kate wasn’t ready—I don’t think she was ready until the moment you stepped into the kitchen that first night, and she saw you again after all those years, and the old grudges just sort of… melted away.”
“So why didn’t you get in touch? What stopped you?”
“I was avoiding this exact conversation. I knew you’d have more questions about Mom—questions I couldn’t answer.
All through your childhood, I tried to shield you from it.
Tried to, like, be your mom. At least, be an adult you could actually rely on.
I took it personally that you still wanted to see her after everything…
” She presses her lips together, shakes her head.
“God, I was so immature. Jealous. Pissed off that the woman who drop-kicked us out of her life was even a thought in your mind. Deep down, I think it made me feel like nothing I did was good enough.”
The weight of it hits me, a wrecking ball to the chest. My mother wanted to protect us from her magical legacy, but in exchange, she left us this immense hole, a loss that can never be filled.
Adult responsibilities we never should’ve had to bear.
The fracturing of our sisterhood. All the unanswered why-why-whys, and blame that had nowhere to go but back to each other.
Tears burn my throat. When I speak again, it’s only a whisper. “Why were you always so fucking hard on me, Rachel? Why are you still so hard on me?”
“Because when I see you in pain, when I see you struggling or being reckless, I don’t see it as your failure.
I see it as mine. In every one of your so-called mistakes, I see all the ways I’ve let you down.
All the ways I didn’t protect you. Didn’t step up when you needed me.
Judged you when I should’ve been guiding you.
And I don’t know how to forgive myself for that. “
“That was never your job. It was Mom’s, and—”
“She abandoned us. What was I supposed to do, Lizzy? Let what was left of our family shatter? Someone had to keep us together, and you and Kate were too young to know how.”
“So were you.”
Rachel dashes away a tear. Through a sad smile, she whispers, “Maybe.”
We sip our hot chocolate in silence, the past gathered close, hovering like ghosts we can’t see.
“I want you to know something.” Rachel turns to me once more, her eyes sincere, her smile warming.
“For all that I’ve been hard on you… I’ve always admired you.
Your spirit. Your energy. You see something you want and you just…
you go for it. You were like that even as a kid.
You’re brave and wild and a little bit crazy, in the best way, and as much as it terrifies me and frustrates me to no end, I wouldn’t change any of it. ”
“You wouldn’t?”
Rachel shakes her head. “What happened tonight… it’s not your fault. I’m the one who refused to listen. Who carried on with that fucking slimeball lawyer even after the way he treated you.”
“You couldn’t have known he was a demon. None of us knew. Not even the actual demons helping us.”
Rachel sighs. Then, after another long pause, “Did you mean it? When you were talking about what you wanted to do with your magic—that part about magicking up a new family?”
“At the time, yes.”
“And now?”
Shocking us both, I reach out and grab her hand. Hold on tight. “Maybe this is the part where we all give each other a little grace and try to move forward as a team—as sisters—the way we were meant to be.”
Rachel squeezes my hand. “When did you get to be so wise?” she teases. “Was that part of the magic lessons?”
“Oh, not at all. I read it on a magnet. Mom has a whole collection.”
“Shut up!” Laughing, she yanks her hand away, dashing the last of her tears. “You are such a little beast.”
I rest my head on her shoulder and sigh. “Just remember, Rach. Love is the real magic.”
“Oh my god, stop. Right now, just stop.” She reaches for another cookie, dunks it in her hot chocolate.
There’s a soft knock, and Kate peeks her head in. “You girls doing okay? I heard laughing. Figured it was safe to check in.“
Her eyes are alert, her coloring back to normal. I try not to show how relieved I am.
“Come sit with us.” Rachel pats a spot beside her on the bed. “There’s one more cookie left if you want it.”
Through a full mouth, I say, “Uh-oh.”
“We could always assist the house in making another batch?” Rachel offers.
“That’s okay.” Kate smiles. “I’ve got a better idea.”
My sisters and I climb the rickety wooden staircase to the room we’ve been avoiding since we arrived—the tower room with the still-broken window I saw when I stepped out of the Uber my first night here.
My mother’s bedroom.
I gave it a cursory look that first week, hoping I might spot the grimoire, but there were no books, no secret nooks and crannies, and I bailed after five minutes. Rachel didn’t take Killroy up here. Kate didn’t want to set foot inside either.
We all had our reasons.
Though it’s been neglected since she died, it doesn’t feel so heavy anymore. So suffocating.
There’s nothing magical here, nothing that would indicate our mother was anything other than a middle-aged woman with a penchant for collecting plants and trinkets, but it feels special to me just the same.
It’s the first time I can remember not actually hating her.
I’m still angry that she abandoned us—I’m not sure I’ll ever truly get past that. But I’m starting to understand why she did it. It wasn’t the right call. Not by a long shot. But, after believing for so long that she simply didn’t want us, the truth feels a little easier to bear.
She was doing what she thought was best. And she was—as I have been many, many times in my life—wrong.
But maybe, if my sisters and I can give each other some of that elusive grace, we can find a little left for our mother, too.
Kate gathers up the dead plants while I sweep the broken glass, the dried leaves that’ve blown in.
Rachel finds something to temporarily patch up the window.
We leave the clothes in the closet for now, but dust the furniture and shelves.
When I pull the sheets off the bed for a linen refresh, a Tarot card flutters to the floor.
Six of Cups. The one with the blonde woman with the heart-shaped face, reaching toward a young girl in the moonlight. A card I now understand is connected with nostalgia and memory.
The moment I pick it up, an image flickers to life in the bedroom. My mother, pacing, her arms full of loose papers. The scent of rosemary fills my senses.
I look at my sisters. It’s clear they don’t see her—Kate’s busy talking to the plants, Rachel’s chasing dust bunnies out from behind the dresser.
My mother’s energy is frenetic. She darts to the window, to the doorway, back again, her eyes roving every inch of the room, then peering out into the woods. It’s like she’s afraid she’s being followed.
Hunted.
Suddenly, she stills. A sense of grim determination washes through her—I can feel it, emanating from the vision itself. Her jaw is set, her shoulders squared. She marches toward the wall beside the door. Puts a hand on the wallpaper.
And then she’s gone.