Chapter Thirty-Five
The Wyn-shaped hole in my life was a chasm, too wide to bridge, impossible to fill.
If I looked directly at it, the despair that consumed me was overwhelming, but there wasn’t any time to indulge in my own pain.
We messaged constantly but didn’t dare speak on the phone, not with so many sharp ears around him.
The pack had accepted his story and welcomed him home, too anxious and eager to get their newest member completely up to speed before the trial to poke holes in his narrative, not that they were forthcoming with the details.
All he could tell me was he’d never seen his mother more focused or his grandfather quite so sad.
Not many of the pack had lived through the last trial, he said, but his grandfather had and did not appear to relish the thought of doing so again.
Since he left, I’d barely slept but as long as I didn’t look directly at the scar Wyn’s absence left on my soul, I could keep moving.
The Powells moved into our guest quarters the same day Wyn left town, taking over the three downstairs bedrooms that opened directly out into the garden, their own apartment within Bell House.
It made sense. I needed everyone where I could see them and keep them safe, and Lydia needed all the help she could get to hone her magic as best she could before the Becoming.
She was already faster and stronger, her senses sharpening every day, but her control over the weather was erratic at best and every time I walked into a room without correcting my permanent scowl, I heard a distant rumble of thunder.
My craft room had become my sanctuary and, once inside, I lost all track of time.
It felt like Thursday. Day or night, today, tomorrow or yesterday, I wasn’t sure, hours spent poring over the journal that filled itself with all the accumulated knowledge my ancestors had gathered on the Weres.
There wasn’t much. When I yawned for the third time in a row, I closed the book, admitting defeat for the day and looked up to the impossible skylight in the ceiling.
The room was bright with daylight but the sky was dark.
Barely any stars, too close to the full moon for the furthest away to break through.
The door to the craft room opened quietly and the lights along the hallway turned themselves half on, guiding me to the kitchen and muffling my footsteps so as not to wake our guests.
It was late, although I had no idea how late.
The energy of the house was peaceful and at rest, except for one spot in the kitchen.
Virginia Powell sat at the kitchen table surrounded by dozens of open glass jars and wielding a stone pestle, the bowl in front of her full of a vivid chartreuse paste.
‘Emily,’ she said kindly. ‘Whatever are you doing out of bed at this hour?’
‘I don’t actually know what this hour is but I’m extremely hungry,’ I replied, heading for the fridge only to be beaten by Virginia. ‘I didn’t eat dinner. Or lunch. I think I had breakfast?’
‘Sit,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll fix you a plate.’
It was nice, to do as I was told for once.
Taking a chair at the table, I silently reviewed her poultice.
Slippery elm, honey, turmeric and ginger, to treat inflammation and sore muscles.
Much of the morning had been spent strengthening the wards around Bell House, burying chunks of black tourmaline and labradorite around the perimeter of our garden.
My body ached with the effort. A quick slather of the funky-looking paste would help no end.
‘How does it look to you?’ Virginia asked, busy assembling a turkey sandwich behind me. ‘Your aunt refuses to let me write anything down and I’m having a devil of a time trying to get the measurements right.’
‘It looks amazing,’ I said. ‘Perfect, in fact.’
Brandishing a butter knife, she gave me a look. ‘You must be honest with me. It’s the only way I’ll learn.’
‘There’s a tad bit too much honey.’ I reached across the table to adjust the measurements by adding another pinch of each herb. ‘This consistency will stick to the skin better.’
‘Marvellous. Just marvellous.’
In companionable quiet, she finished constructing my late-night lunch while I poked a finger in her various concoctions. She would never have access to her magic, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be of service to her family’s magic.
‘Eat,’ she said, placing the sandwich in front of me, complete with a radish rosette. ‘Can’t have you wasting away now, not when there’s so much work to do – and your aunt Ashley tells me there is much work on the horizon.’
From the lift of her eyebrows and the prim tightening of her lips that wasn’t all Ashley had told her.
‘Such a weight to place on young shoulders,’ Virginia lamented as she began closing up the open glass jars dotted around the table. ‘It really isn’t fair.’
‘Fair doesn’t seem to have much to do with anything these days. If things were fair, a lot of people would still be alive.’ I took a bite of the sandwich, sinking my teeth into her fresh-baked, pillowy bread. ‘If things were fair, you would have your magic.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
It was still strange to hear Virginia Powell laugh.
I was so used to her stern but delicate persona, discovering this new version of her, a curious, caring woman, was a constant surprise.
In her own way, she had tried to protect her family, just like Catherine and her great-grandmother … only without the homicidal tendencies.
‘Even if there were a way to go back and change the events of the past, I believe I would leave things be. Let the cards fall where they may,’ she said.
‘It might not look like much to you, but I have had a good life. I loved my husband, my daughter is healthy and I believe happy in her own way. All I can wish for now is the same for Lydia and Jackson. Their path was already set to be a difficult one, and now … well.’ She pressed her hands into a prayer, fingers intertwined.
‘I shall be quite ready to meet my maker knowing I did all I could to protect my grandchildren. That to me is a life well lived.’
I chewed my sandwich thoughtfully. No one made all the right decisions every time but it had never really occurred to me how much she loved her grandchildren.
Lydia was forever complaining about her strict rules and adherence to outdated etiquette, and Jackson mostly brushed Virginia off as an out-of-touch guardian but she’d sacrificed so much, for them and before them.
Losing her magic, her mother and grandmother, living a lie for so many years, it can’t have been easy, but here she was, head held high, loving them the best way she knew how, whether they liked it or not.
‘One thing I have learned in this life is that the lion’s share of the burden always falls to those who don’t deserve it – so often the young,’ Virginia added.
‘But the worthy always rise to the challenge even when times look bleak. We cannot possibly hope to know what fate has in store for us, Emily, prophecy or no. The darkest days chase the happiest like the dog after the hare. We find love only to lose it, but joy shines brighter against the shadow of pain. One without the other is impossible and knowing that helps us choose to soldier on.’
‘Believe me, I’m soldiering,’ I said, a hand over my mouth as I swallowed. ‘I’m soldiering.’
‘I do believe you,’ she replied. ‘I only wish you didn’t have to.’
Under her watchful gaze, I finished every last bite of the sandwich. With a satisfied nod, she picked up my empty plate and took it to the sink, eschewing the dishwasher for a sponge and soap.
‘Can’t help but notice Jackson hasn’t been himself lately.’
‘Uh, really?’
‘I’d say not.’
Viriginia slipped her elegant hands into a pair of ever present but never used rubber gloves. ‘That boy was born with a smile on his face but it’s been a sight scarcer than hen’s teeth the last few days.’
I didn’t know what to tell her. I was as confused about Jackson’s behaviour as she was. Ever since they’d moved in, he’d been quiet in a way that made me uneasy, almost as though he’d left the easy-going, charismatic Jackson Powell behind and sent this sullen, suspicious version along in his place.
‘I trust my grandchildren implicitly and they trust you,’ Virginia said, resting my plate in the drying rack and pulling off the first rubber glove. ‘Lydia with her life, Jackson with his heart. It is painfully obvious to the rest of us you do not return his affections.’
The second glove came off with a resounding snap. I opened my mouth to defend myself but she wasn’t done.
‘Alexandra and your father were fierce friends until the end. Part of her always loved him, still does to this day. It would be nice to think part of him loved her too, perhaps not in the same way, but it was there. It is my fondest wish that their love lives on in you all.’
Draping the rubber gloves neatly over the drying rack alongside the plate, Virginia returned to the table, one hand on my forearm, understanding written on her face.
‘I’m not a tyrant or a fool, I know we can’t choose who we love, even if Jackson has yet to learn that lesson. I only ask that you treat him with kindness and respect. Please don’t let my grandson take risks for a love he will never see returned.’
‘I won’t. I would never,’ I promised, mortified to have the situation laid out so bare.
‘Would that he were having his heart broken for the first time under more ordinary circumstances, but all’s fair in love and war, as they say. Or unfair, as the case may be.’
She ran a hand along the kitchen counter as she headed for the door. ‘Goodnight, Emily, take the poultice with you and try to get some rest. Burning the candle at both ends makes the room twice as bright but you’ll find yourself in the dark twice as fast.’