Chapter Thirty-Two
‘This is it.’
At my direction, Wyn pulled his truck off the road and came to a stop in front of a small cabin I thought I’d forgotten but remembered at once.
‘We’re getting out here?’ Lydia asked.
‘We’re getting out here,’ I confirmed as she tossed back her head to drain her soda. ‘Take nothing with you.’
‘What about my phone?’
‘No.’
‘My chips?’
‘No chips.’
‘But what if Wyn eats them?’
‘I solemnly swear I will not eat your chips,’ Wyn said, immediately reaching into the bag to steal one. ‘At least not all of them.’
‘Thank you for this,’ I said as she hopped out, leaving the two of us alone in the front of the cab. ‘I’m not sure how long we’ll be, could be hours.’
‘I’ll be here.’
He ran his hand down my arm, snapping back when he reached the blade I had hidden in my woefully sewn sleeve. ‘Em?’ he said, his sleepy eyes suddenly alert. ‘Should I be worried?’
‘It’s just part of the ritual, no one is going to get hurt.’
The journal I’d spent so long studying assured me of that, but I couldn’t quite see how plunging a dagger through my hand would be pain-free. Just like the time I let Lydia do my makeup, I was trying very hard to trust the process.
‘No matter what you hear, I want you to stay in your truck,’ I told him. ‘It may get weird but we’ll both be OK.’
‘You’d be amazed at how many times I’ve heard that over the last few months. Starting to think it might be nice to drive into the woods sometime without a “this could get weird” warning up top. We should plan a camping trip.’
‘A camping trip with hot running water and a private indoor bathroom?’ I asked hopefully.
‘We should sleep out in your backyard sometime,’ he amended, tenderly brushing his hand against my face. ‘Me, you and the stars. Nothing and no one else around.’
‘It’s a date.’ I smiled back, that golden pull sparkling as our lips met.
The spark of wanting him burned through me, fuelled by the magic I already felt rising with the moon. Out of breath, I broke away and rested my fingers against his lips, his ever-changing eyes deep, dark pools of desire.
‘Whatever you hear, stay away,’ I said again. ‘Promise?’
I didn’t want to scare him but I was afraid what might happen if a Were tried to follow us under the oaks.
‘A wolf has no place in a witch’s business,’ he replied easily, a statement not judgement, then kissed my fingers and pressed them to my own lips. ‘I’ll be here, waiting. With the snacks.’
‘You are a snack,’ Lydia said, appearing at the open window. ‘Em, can we get this show on the road already? I want my super powers.’
‘Abilities,’ I reminded her for the thousandth time as I climbed out the cab. ‘Let’s hope our ancestors are in a good mood.’
‘Woah, the floor is squishy!’ Lydia exclaimed, leaping around as we entered the avenue of oaks, her feet bare and her eyes alight. ‘This is wild. I must’ve been to this place damn near a hundred times and I never noticed before.’
The trees arced towards one another, bowing to us as we passed.
The Spanish moss hung still, unmoving in the chill night air.
I looked up at the interwoven branches and felt an unexpected longing for Catherine’s strong comforting presence.
She would know what to say right now, she would know what to do.
‘I really need you to take tonight seriously,’ I told her, shaking my head when she reset her face into a most solemn pout. ‘This is the Wilcuma, it’s part of your initiation.’
She walked onwards without fear, her head tilted back to take in the static trees.
‘Why doesn’t the Becoming have a spooky sounding name?’
‘It does have another name,’ I replied, the knowledge appearing in my mind. ‘The original name for the rite is Weorden but our ancestors chose the Becoming.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ll have to ask them.’
‘Will I meet them?’
I didn’t answer because I couldn’t. I didn’t know the answer.
‘What’s going to happen?’ Lydia asked. ‘Or are we just taking a sweet barefoot stroll?’
She’ll see soon enough.
The words whispered through the static leaves but if Lydia heard them, she didn’t show it.
‘We need to keep moving,’ I said as we reached the end of the avenue, holding my breath until Lydia passed underneath the final tree without incident. ‘We don’t have much time.’
‘Much time for what?’
‘You’ll see soon enough,’ I said, a strange echo to my voice. ‘Follow me.’
By the time we reached the woods, Lydia wasn’t speaking to me.
The trees trembled with anticipation, branches, boughs and trunks twisting this way and that, opening up a path that had been walked by a hundred witches before me.
I thanked them all, my skin electrified, every brush of every leaf sparking a chain reaction in my body I could not and did not wish to control.
Doubt had pulled me out of shape but now I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I felt infinite. Our magic sang on the air, loud and clear, and drew us onwards.
‘Do you know where we’re going?’ Lydia asked, breaking the longest silence she’d ever kept in her life. She sounded hushed and uncertain, all of her exuberance smothered by the pitch-black night around us.
‘It’s this way,’ I said with a nod, the path as clear to me as if it were lit up with neon lights. ‘Can’t you hear it?’
‘Hear what?’
I looked back to see her holding onto herself, one arm pulled across her chest and gripping the other tightly.
‘You don’t need to be afraid,’ I said, the ebb and flow of energy directing me. ‘Look up.’
She did and she gasped. A velvet sky stretched out across forever, studded with every star that had ever existed.
Whatever was about to happen, had already begun and all that time I’d spent studying dissolved into my blood, leaving my conscious mind and seeping into a place where it already seemed to live.
‘This is the place.’
My voice was firm and strong. No point lowering it out here, we were completely alone. The woods, the earth, the air and sky, and directly above us the new moon shone down, a pure slice of light and a promise of what was to come.
‘Em?’ Lydia said as I squatted down to dig my hands into the dirt, silk against my skin. ‘Em, what’s happening to the trees?’
‘They’re acknowledging you,’ I said without looking up.
Freezing rushes of fear shot out all around her but I couldn’t understand why. Everything was perfect. The trees sighed with happiness as they wove themselves into a ring, protecting us from harm. Not even a wolf could touch us here, we were completely safe.
‘A new moon represents new beginnings,’ I intoned, the words flowing out of me as easily as air.
I circled Lydia, so full of love for my friend, for all my sister witches, alive and dead, I could barely breathe.
‘A new moon allows us to set our intentions. A new moon welcomes you, Lydia Virginia Sarah Powell. Wilcuma.’
‘Wilcuma yourself,’ she muttered back, spinning around to keep her eyes on me. ‘Can you stop? You’re making me dizzy.’
‘All of those who came before and all of those to come. We ask you to acknowledge us.’
‘Acknowledge me,’ Lydia said in a booming voice. ‘OK, ow?’
She winced when I took hold of her wrist and pulled her down to the ground until the pair of us knelt in the dirt.
The sacred circle drew magic from the moon, funnelling it from the sky to infuse the air around us with an energy so intoxicating, I had to tighten my grip on Lydia’s wrist to stop myself from floating away.
‘You’re hurting me,’ she said with tears in her eyes, twisting against my grip, but I couldn’t let her go, not when our sisters were so near. ‘Em, please, I’m scared, tell me what’s happening.’
‘Just listen,’ I replied, pulling the long, pointed dagger out from my sleeve and placing it on the ground between us. ‘Just be.’
The fear in her eyes evolved into terror but it made no sense. Why couldn’t she feel the love that surrounded us? The stars burned brighter and I felt Lydia’s magic coursing through her as her lips opened and she sucked in the deepest breath.
‘What’s happening?’ I heard her say as the world darkened around me. ‘I feel like I’m going to explode and – Emily, your eyes?’
My spirit soared up above the circle and Lydia screamed as though someone was separating her flesh from her bones.
Watching from above, I saw myself holding her down.
She thrashed around, arms and legs spasming in the dirt, moss and grass and muck staining her white shift.
She clawed at my arm and wrist, nails raking my flesh but I couldn’t feel it, even as the sleeve of my dress turned scarlet.
Reluctantly, I floated back down to my body like a feather, filling myself up to the brim, more than I was before.
‘Earth,’ I said, sliding her hand into the ground, no longer a solid mass but soft and yielding, like a warm bath.
‘Water.’
Rain came pouring down, bathing our bodies, our souls. I turned my face upwards and let the warm water wash me clean.
‘Fire.’
I welcomed the flames as they flickered into life, caressing the tops of the trees as they grew, Lydia’s screams a world away as they warmed my skin.
‘Air.’
The rain stopped and the fire burned out. There was no sound, no heat, no anything. It felt like bliss.
‘I can’t breathe,’ Lydia choked, clawing at her own throat with her one free hand.
Her panic was so strange to me. The whole clearing sparkled, the trees bejewelled, rubies, emeralds and sapphires glinting in the night. We were so close.
‘Blood,’ I whispered, picking up the dagger.
With the last of the oxygen in her lungs, Lydia screamed as I thrust the blade through my own palm, my blood gushing over her skin.
The strength of two hundred years of Bell witches engulfed my body, hurling me forward, face-first. I’d been at this door before, at my Becoming, but I’d only peeked inside.
Now it flew wide open and I lay in the dirt, watching golden stars shoot across the sky, smiling up at the universe.
Everything was as it should be, everyone where they needed to be.
Lydia and I were in perfect harmony with the city that loved us.
Savannah wanted us here, both of us. All of us.
‘You were born for this,’ the first Emma Catherine Bell whispered in my ear. ‘We’re all so proud.’
I was wrapped in love, pure and unconditional, unable to speak or move but filled with light and energy as the circle filled with witches, my ancestors and Lydia’s.
‘The blessing welcomes you.’
I sat up, spluttering out a mouthful of dirt I didn’t remember taking in. On the ground, the dagger sat between me and Lydia, my blood on its blade, on my dress, on Lydia’s skin, as her gold eyes turned white, then black, then brown again, crystal clear and full of new strength.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked, pulling her into me and holding her so tightly, just for a second I was afraid her bones would break. ‘Do you feel different?’
‘Yes and no.’
She pulled away from me, staring at the woods around us as if she’d never seen them before. ‘I feel complete.’
The trees pulled back, releasing us back to the world and as their branches unfurled, the first fall of snow landed on the ground at our feet.
Lydia laughed, holding out her hand to catch a pair of identical snowflakes.
Smiling, I blew on them gently and watched as they sparkled, shifting into something more permanent. Diamonds.
‘They’re beautiful,’ Lydia said as I unfastened the clasp of her necklace and slid one of the diamond snowflakes onto the chain alongside her locket then added the second to my own. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me,’ I replied. ‘We did it together.’
I stared at her, my friend, my sister, full of something too strong to simply be called love. She beamed, directing the snowflakes as they fell from the sky, making one flurry dance while another hovered in midair.
‘We should head back, find Wyn,’ I told her, carelessly picking up the dagger blade first. It cut into my palm as Lydia reached to knock it from my grip and I fell backwards into the vision, watching her disappear down a dark tunnel of nothingness.
I saw Virginia Powell, a teenager again, only she wasn’t laughing beside my grandmother this time.
She was exploding with pain on the tiled floor of an Italian palazzo, her great-grandmother calmly listening to the radio in the next room.
Then Alex Powell, underneath the Candler Oak in Forsyth Park with my father.
He looked so serious but she was laughing, at least she was until he handed her a dainty opal ring, sliding it onto the middle finger of her right hand and begging her to never, ever take it off.
Jackson replaced his mother, walking along the riverfront with a man I didn’t recognize.
I chased him, calling out his name and when he saw me, he smiled, pulled out a silver sword with a gold hilt and drew it across his own throat before collapsing sideways into the river, his body pulled under the water before I could scream.
‘You’re back,’ Lydia said, when the blessing released me, tossing me back into my body. She took my hand and pulled me up to my feet. ‘You’re safe.’
I allowed her to take the lead, guiding us out of the woods and back towards the avenue of the oaks, so much closer than they were before.
We were safe. For now.