Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Evie, Now
The morning after the fire, Evie left Clara with Angela.
They stood outside on the steps of Angela’s two-bedroom Craftsman, Clara insisting Evie bring her along to check on the house.
Evie hadn’t made it very far in her grandmother’s journal, not after what happened between her and Angela—a thought that sent heat all through her.
Though she was tempted to spend the day reading, she had a meeting with the fire remediation expert.
More than that, she wanted to prepare the binding spell.
But if she was going to find a way to make it work—and a way to do it without harming the house in the process—she couldn’t have Clara hanging around.
“It’s been alone all night,” Clara said, throwing up her hands. “It needs me.”
“You’ll get to check on it soon, honeybee,” Evie said. “But if the damage is worse than we thought, I need to make sure you’re safe.”
Clara crossed her arms and frowned.
“You can play with Ink when we get to the bookstore,” Angela reminded her.
“Ink!” A smile spread across Clara’s face. Then it disappeared just as quickly, as if she couldn’t decide between her desire to hold the kitten and her worry over the house. “But how are we going to bind the curse together if I don’t go with you?”
Evie hated lying to her daughter. She’d followed along with Clara’s idea that the spell had been meant to bind the curse only because she was afraid of what the house would do if it knew her plans.
But if she told Clara the truth, Evie had no doubt Clara would want to be there, and Evie wouldn’t risk her safety.
“Your mom isn’t going to do the spell today,” Angela said, shooting Evie a meaningful look, one filled with love and worry. Evie reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze, then she knelt down beside Clara.
“We’re going to take things one step at a time,” Evie said. “But right now, you need to make sure Aunt Florence is taking care of the cat you conjured for her.”
“Yes, well, he might need another friend,” Clara said. “Will you tell the house I’m worried about it and I love it and I’ll be home soon?”
“Of—” Evie started, but Clara cut her short.
“And give it a hug from me? The second porch column on the left. It likes hugs there the best. Oh, and give it this.” She produced a small black pebble from her pocket, one of the many she’d gathered at the creek earlier that week.
“Isn’t that your favorite?” Angela asked.
Clara nodded gravely. “This way the house will know I’m coming back.”
Evie’s meeting didn’t last long. The damage was superficial, not enough to warrant closing the bed and breakfast, but she would still be able to get her insurance to cover the cost to tear down the burned wall and repair the damage if the house didn’t end up taking care of it on its own.
With the exception of a few flickering lights and creaking floorboards, Honeysuckle House had mostly behaved through the whole process.
When it was done, Evie had thanked the man and sent him on his way.
Then she turned her attention to more pressing matters.
She still hadn’t fully puzzled out the spell, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t get her preparations underway. She’d always trusted her magic and intuition to guide her, so if she made the candles, then perhaps that would be enough.
She set up her double boilers and got to work. Normally, she talked through her spells aloud with the house as company. But she couldn’t let it know she planned to bind it.
“With the curse coming, we’ll need extra protection,” she said while the water heated.
“And after the fire, I want to make sure you’re safe, too, so I think we’ll do a black candle and a brown candle.
” Though her grandmother’s spell had lacked the brown candle, she opted to follow her mother’s work instead, assuming her mother had been building on what hadn’t worked for her grandmother.
Before she put the wax in to melt, a slip of paper fell from the ceiling, floating slowly until it landed beside Evie, face down.
An old photograph. She flipped it over to find herself and Florence standing side by side in front of Honeysuckle House on Evie’s eighteenth birthday.
The day they finally escaped their mother.
Evie’s throat grew hot with the memory, and tears pooled in her eyes. She quickly brushed them away.
“I’m not bringing Florence into this,” Evie said. “She made it perfectly clear she wants nothing to do with the curse or you or any of us.”
The flames on the stove turned off, and Evie sighed.
“You have made your point,” she said. “You and Angela both.” Evie didn’t blame either of them. She wanted Florence there, too. She’d wanted her there for years—the two of them, together, putting an end to their family’s tragedies and building a new life.
She turned the knobs to bring the flame back, but the starter wouldn’t click.
“I thought you wouldn’t want to be alone after the fire,” Evie said. “But if you won’t let me do this, I’ll pack up and dip these candles at Angela’s.”
The walls shifted like a sigh, and the burner came to life. At first, the flame was small, then it flared bright and hot, coming around the side of the pot and threatening to singe Evie’s shirt.
“Too much!” Evie said. The walls shook a little before the flames went back to where Evie wanted them. “Much better, thank you.”
Evie wanted to tell the house she was trying to save it, but she didn’t know if she could trust it. And if it came down to it—if she had to choose between the house and Clara—she knew what choice she would make.
Instead, she said, “Thank you.”
Once the wax melted, she poured enough black dye into the first pot for one candle.
With her weights tied to both ends of the string, she dipped one side in the darkened wax.
She thought of the temperance card in her mother’s spell.
A call for balance. She wanted to remove whatever malevolence her mother had discovered in the house, the magic that caused it to hurt instead of help.
If she could redirect it somehow, tip the scales in favor of good, perhaps it would be enough.
“An offering,” she whispered, more breath than words, thinking about everyone she wanted to protect from the curse—her daughter, her sister, Honeysuckle House. Then, her mind stuck on Angela. Memories from the night before brought heat into her cheeks. “Please let this work.”
The familiar spark of magic in her heart flickered erratically, like a match that wouldn’t light, and she couldn’t seem to direct it into the wick. She lifted the string from the boiler to find not even a drop of wax had clung to the cotton.
She brushed an errant lock of hair out of her eyes with the back of her free hand and huffed a breath. “I told you I’d leave if you didn’t let me do this.”
The stove creaked in response, low and sad.
“This isn’t you?”
The window opened then closed.
Evie narrowed her eyes. The curse, then. That would make completing this spell more difficult, but Evie wasn’t going to give up.
After her fourth try, her intention took hold. With each dip of the wick, her power went into the candle. It took longer than she expected, and the wax bubbled in some places, but the first candle was complete.
On the other side of the wick, she dipped the brown candle. This one, too, took time. But after a few tries, her magic flowed from her heart to her fingertips and into the wax. “For Honeysuckle House,” she whispered, loud enough to pass her lips but not loud enough to be heard.
“May my magic be good, my loved ones be safe, and my work be a blessing.” The words brought tears to her eyes.
She’d said them with every spell since her mother’s death, each time hoping her benevolence would undo the work of the Caldwell family curse, never realizing the problem may lay in the house itself, not her family.
But as far as Evie was concerned, Honeysuckle House was family, too, and she’d do whatever she could to fix it.