Chapter 20
It took me an hour to clean up the remnants of the wind chimes, but when I had finished, I was able to confirm what I already knew to be true: the teardrop-shaped piece of sea glass was gone.
When I had finished, I locked up the shop and flipped the sign on the door to “Closed.” I couldn’t sit there, pretending everything was okay, faking a smile and a friendly greeting to whoever decided to brave the New England winter in search of silly witch-themed junk.
I needed to move. I needed to think. I pulled on my coat and started the solitary walk home.
No one would care that I closed up early.
A few more puzzle pieces had clicked into place.
I knew now who the woman was who had come to me in my bathroom mirror.
Isabel, the woman Ambrose loved, the woman he had literally traded part of his soul to save.
Isabel, who walked into the sea rather than stay in a world with a man she no longer recognized.
But rather than letting her go, Ambrose only grew more determined to regain her.
Another piece of soul gone. Another slice of humanity, cut away from the whole.
And perhaps most significant of all was the fact that Abaddon had told Ambrose where to look for Isabel. I knew the cave he spoke of. I knew the place where the veil between the worlds was thinnest.
Abaddon turned Ambrose into a monster, and then set him loose on the Source.
We had always assumed that the Darkness wanted the Source for its ability to amplify power. But I was starting to wonder if we’d misunderstood all along. Maybe what he really wanted from the Source, more than power, was simply her: Isabel, the love he lost, whose loss he refused to accept.
I was so busy grappling with the complicated mess of feelings this scenario created, that I was completely oblivious to the extra car in the driveway, and the extra coat and boots by the front door.
Despite all these hints, I was startled to see Xiomara sitting at the table with Rhi, a steaming pot of tea between them, and their heads bent together like they were plotting something.
“Hi, Xiomara,” I said, and Xiomara inclined her head.
“Wren, what are you doing home?” Rhi asked.
“I… still wasn’t feeling great, so I closed up and came home to rest for a while,” I said.
“Oh, you poor thing. You’ve been pushing yourself,” Rhi said, tutting. Then she turned to Xiomara and added, “Unbalanced. She had a bad spell the other night and Kerri had to dose her for it.”
“Mmm,” was Xiomara’s response. She nodded her head like she expected no different.
“Well, as it turns out, this is excellent timing!” Rhi replied, smiling and patting the chair beside her. “Serendipitous even! Come sit down. Xiomara has news for us.”
I sat down beside Rhi, feeling unaccountably nervous.
Had we been expecting news about something?
I was so wrapped up in decoding my onslaught of visions that I’d lost track of everything else.
My confusion must have been obvious on my face, because Xiomara was examining my expression like she could read my thoughts printed right on my forehead.
I looked away from her, uncomfortable, and looked pointedly at Rhi instead.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Rhi said, “but Ostara said yes.”
“Ostara said yes to what?” I asked, bewildered.
Rhi looked at me like I had lost my mind. “Don’t you remember?”
I bit my lip. “Remember what?”
“Your research, of course!” Rhi said, looking somewhat exasperated. “We wanted access to the Conclave’s books about the Darkness, remember?”
My mouth fell open. “Ostara actually said yes? Are you serious? I thought we’d decided that was basically an impossibility!”
Rhi looked at Xiomara, who shrugged. “I thought the same when Rhi approached me with the request. I had to bring it before the whole Conclave. Lydian, Davina, and Zadia were an immediate yes, as I knew they would be. They acknowledge your unique position, Wren, even if Ostara doesn’t want to.
With the others in agreement, I turned to Ostara, ready to make your case, and she just… agreed.”
“Just like that?” I gasped. “No argument? No resistance?”
Xiomara smirked. “I promise, I’m as surprised as you are. I’d prepared myself for a real battle, and in the end, she just tossed aside her sword.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Who can say why that woman does what she does?” Xiomara snorted, pouring more tea into her half-empty cup. “She baffles us all.”
I looked at Rhi. “This makes no sense,” I said.
“I don’t disagree, honey, but why question a decision that’s gone our way, even if the outcome is unexpected?”
My mother walked in at that moment, her hands covered in earth, her face rosy and slick with sweat from her work in the greenhouses. She looked from Rhi to me to Xiomara and said, tensely, “Wren, what happened? Why are you home so early?”
I sighed, and we repeated the same conversation over again. But when we got to the bit about Ostara, my mother’s response was almost identical to mine.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said at once.
“That’s exactly what I said,” I told her.
“Ostara guards that archive like a dragon guards its treasure,” my mom went on.
“And there’s no singular topic she guards more fiercely than the Darkness.
We all agreed this would take some serious persuading and negotiating.
Frankly, that’s why we asked you to take it on, Xiomara. Why the sudden change of heart?”
“We all thought it was strange,” Xiomara admitted, peering down into her tea like she was trying to glimpse a clue in her tea leaves.
“Zadia actually asked Ostara if she’d sustained a head injury.
But once I’d gotten over the shock, I decided not to question it.
We got what we wanted. Let’s not complicate something that turned out to be simple. ”
“But why was it simple?” my mom asked, unable to let it go. “Ostara has been even more unreasonable and militant ever since Bernadette… well…”
“Unleashed their family’s biggest shame on the living world to wreak further havoc on Sedgwick Cove?” Xiomara suggested dryly.
“Well, yes. That,” my mom agreed. “I would have expected her more likely to burn every reference to the Darkness than risk anyone going down the same path.”
“Maybe she realized the opposite,” Rhi said, looking thoughtful.
“I don’t follow,” my mom said, frowning.
“Well, it’s like those parents who insist they don’t want to teach their children about certain things, only to realize too late that those children will just stumble into those things anyway.
If you never teach your child about drugs or alcohol, for instance, because you don’t want them engaging in those things, that same child won’t know how to refuse when someone offers them those things.
They won’t understand the effects or the consequences. ”
“So you’re saying that if Ostara had simply been forthcoming about Sarah Claire when Bernadette asked about her, then Bernadette wouldn't have felt the need to contact her in the first place?” I asked.
“Exactly!” Rhi said. “The more information we have, the better decisions we can make. It was a terrible lesson to learn, but maybe she’s learned it.”
Xiomara and my mom traded a skeptical glance that showed they highly doubted Rhi’s optimistic interpretation.
Neither bothered to contradict her, though Xiomara looked at her with an almost pitying fondness, like she found her naivety endearing.
Rhi smiled back at both of them, oblivious to all of this, bless her.
“Whatever the reason, I am to bring you to the archive tonight to allow you access to our documents and books about the Darkness,” Xiomara said.
“Wow. Um, tonight?”
Xiomara raised an eyebrow. “Do you have somewhere more important to be, mija?”
“No!” I said quickly. “I just… of course not.” That wasn’t true, of course. I was supposed to be at Nova’s house that night, and I couldn’t just ghost her, not when she was in such a state. “Uh, what time?”
“You can meet me there at seven o’clock,” Xiomara said.
I let out a mental sigh of relief. Surely I could get out of there in time to meet the others at the Manor. “Okay,” I said out loud. “Thank you, Xiomara. I really appreciate it.”
Xiomara nodded gravely. “It is incumbent on all of us to do what we can to help you, Wren. This is a mighty burden for those tiny shoulders.” She glared at Rhi. “Are you feeding this child?”
Rhi looked properly offended. “Of course I am!”
“Scones and pastries and tea cakes,” Xiomara scoffed. “I mean real food.” She turned to me. “You come to my house before we go to the archive, and I’ll make you a proper meal. You’ll be full up when I’m finished with you.”
“Eva fed me a little while ago!” I said.
I took one look at Rhi’s face, grabbed one of the offending baked goods off the table, and bolted out of the kitchen before the argument could begin.
“Wren.”
I turned to see that my mother had followed me out, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Do you want me to come with you? To the archive, I mean?” she asked.
“No!” I said, a little too quickly, and then forced my face into a smile. “It’s fine, Mom. We’re lucky Ostara is letting me in there. I don’t want to push our luck.”
My mom frowned. “I feel like I’m not doing enough to help you, honey. Xiomara is right. You’re looking thin. Stressed.”
There was no point in trying to convince her I wasn’t stressed, so I skirted the issue. “I’m eating, I promise. I’ve also grown like two inches in the past couple of months, Mom. Not sure if you’ve noticed.”
She looked up at me and frowned deeper. “Oh, I noticed, and I don’t like it. If you keep up this whole ‘becoming an adult’ thing, I’m going to have to do something about it.”
I laughed. “Like what? Invent a time machine?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t underestimate me. I’m a witch, remember?”
I hugged her tightly. “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to rush it. This grown up stuff kind of sucks, actually.”