Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Florence, Now
Florence and Owen talked late into the night, and at some point they both drifted off to sleep on the couch. When Florence woke, it was to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and sunlight streaming through a window that didn’t exist on the outside of the building.
She opened her eyes to find herself lying against Owen’s chest, his arm over her, a cozy blanket thrown over them both, her glasses askew.
She nestled into him and found he smelled of woodsmoke and honey.
She smiled softly and almost closed her eyes again, when she realized how close to him she was.
She sat up, fast, and fell off the couch.
“Are you okay?” Owen rubbed the sleep from his eyes. When they landed on Florence, they widened as he realized where she’d been.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “We must’ve fallen asleep and …” He shook his head. “I should’ve offered you the bed.”
Behind them, Ink lay in the middle of said bed, curled up in a ball.
Owen stood and offered Florence a hand. She looked up at it, considered not taking it, then realized she was already in much too deep for that to make any difference. Owen helped her to her feet, then looked around the room.
“When did you make coffee?” It was clear from the furrow of his brow he was trying to piece together if Florence had gotten up, brewed coffee, then slipped back under his arm.
“I didn’t,” she said.
Understanding dawned in his eyes. “The shop.”
Florence nodded.
“Thank you,” Owen said, a little too loud.
“It can hear you just fine,” Florence said.
He ducked his head and laughed. “Let me try again,” he said. “Thank you.”
The lamps glowed a bit brighter, and Owen’s eyes glowed right along with them. He headed over to the kitchenette.
Meanwhile, Ink stood up from his spot on the bed and did a long, slow stretch. Then, he hopped down, trotted over to Florence, and started meowing at her feet. She bent down to pick him up before he could claw his way up her skirt.
“Coffee?” Owen asked.
“Please,” Florence said, still unsure how she’d ended up in this room with a man she wouldn’t even let herself look at for longer than a few seconds for fear she might cause his untimely death.
Owen poured two cups of coffee and brought them over. He eyed the couch with color in his cheeks before he offered one to Florence without sitting down. She, too, avoided the couch. Instead, she set Ink on her shoulder and took the coffee from Owen.
“I’m going to take this upstairs and get changed. Then we can head over to the house.”
“I need to grab some clothes out of my car,” Owen said.
Rather than think about Owen changing his clothes, Florence took a sip of coffee on her way to the door. When she pulled it open, she found Angela and her niece standing on the other side.
“Florence?” Angela asked.
“Angela!” Florence said, her throat growing hot. She tried to shut the door behind her, but it was too late. Owen took up the full frame, and there was no way she could hide him.
“Owen?” Angela asked.
“Angela,” Owen said with a small smile.
“You’re the reason I couldn’t get into my reading room!” Clara crossed her arms.
Florence held out the kitten as a peace offering, and her niece readily accepted him.
“Isn’t that what you were wearing yesterday?” Angela asked.
“It is,” Florence said.
Angela’s eyebrows shot high on her forehead. Her lips curved up in a smile that quickly disappeared. “But the curse …”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Florence said.
“I will not be going to Honeysuckle House on the thirteenth,” Owen said.
“What about the festival?” Clara asked at the same time Angela said, “Have you told Evie?”
“I’m hoping to talk your mother out of the festival,” Florence said.
“How?” Clara asked as she buried her face in Ink’s fur.
“We’ll explain it all soon,” Florence said. “But right now, we’re headed to Honeysuckle House.”
“You’re actually going over there?” Though there was surprise in Angela’s voice, she nodded, as if she was relieved.
“With Owen’s help,” Florence said. “I tried yesterday, after you texted me.”
Angela took Florence’s hand. “You could’ve called me.”
But Florence shook her head. “Evie needed you.”
“And now she needs you,” Angela said.
“And me!” Clara said.
Angela rested a hand on Clara’s shoulder. “I think this is something Florence has to do on her own.”
Florence traded yesterday’s skirt and sweater for jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt.
She undid her braid and replaited her hair into twin pigtails, one of which she tucked behind her ear as she and Owen followed the familiar road to Honeysuckle House.
She leaned forward in the seat, her hands on her thighs.
Each turn of the tires over pavement made her heart race a little faster.
“You okay?” Owen asked as they left the town center behind.
“Not in the slightest.” Her legs shook.
“Do you want me to pull over?”
“The only way I’m going to be able to do this is if you do it for me.”
“Maybe it would help if you closed your eyes,” he suggested.
Florence glanced sidelong at him. She couldn’t quite parse how she’d gone from avoiding this man to putting her panic attack in his hands.
After his tarot pull, she’d planned to do everything she could to make sure whatever the cards meant, they didn’t involve her.
Now she was sitting in the passenger seat of his truck, entrusting him with some of most shattered pieces of her heart.
As they approached the familiar curve in the road, Florence braced herself with her hands on the dash, her breath coming out staccato. Her eyes started to spot over. Owen reached a hand across the space between them and gripped her scarred forearm gently.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered.
Florence listened. She pressed her eyelids shut so tightly white burst across her vision. She dropped her hands from the dash, letting Owen thread his fingers through hers.
“Count your breaths,” Owen said. “One.”
Florence inhaled.
“Two.”
Florence exhaled.
“Three.” In.
“Four.” Out.
The truck slowed to a stop.
“Open your eyes,” he said.
Florence leaned back in the seat and slowly fluttered her eyelids open.
Honeysuckle House stood before her. She gasped at the sight of the leaves littering the yard and the honeysuckle circling the columns beneath the front porch.
Walls that once gleamed softly in the sun now absorbed the light instead of radiating it.
Her breath caught in her throat, and when she finally managed to release it, it came out as a sob.
Sitting there in the car, a pang of loss and nostalgia hit Florence square in the chest. If she closed her eyes, she could remember the light in her father’s smile when she brought him a fistful of chrysanthemums, their petals wet from the first fall rain.
She could feel the warmth coming off a hot pot of wax as she dipped the wick for a candle all her own.
She could hear Evie chasing her across the wraparound porch, their laughter strong and bright and pure until the moment they ran into their mother’s potted herbs, sending the terracotta tumbling.
That, of course, brought the rest of the memories—the after. Because in the Caldwell house, there was always an after.
A flower patch razed as a reminder only her mother could take from that which she’d planted.
The sensation of hot wax on skin, a punishment for making a candle not meant for her mother’s magic.
The mended pots stained red and the resulting scars from gluing them all back together under her mother’s watchful eye.
No gloves, no help, only blood and tears and lessons learned.
When her father saw her ravaged fingers, she knew better than to tell him the truth of what happened.
But in every memory, the house had been on her side.
Windows whispering hello through fluttering curtains.
Floorboards creaking with love, always ready to catch her footfalls.
Honeysuckle locking her away safely when she needed it most. She hoped it would help her again now and show her what she was missing about her family’s past.
She reached for the truck’s door handle to find Owen already on the other side of it.
“You’re very good at this,” she said.
“I dated a guy in my twenties who had complex PTSD,” he said. “I’m sorry this place does this to you.”
Florence blinked up at him as his words sunk in.
She’d never thought her inability to come home was a result of trauma—that was for people who survived sexual assault or mass shootings or war.
A single incident that changed your life forever.
What had happened to her wasn’t one moment of darkness, one act that separated Florence’s life between before and after.
It came in minutes and hours and days. One moment, her mother would tell her the world was a better place because she was in it, the next that her family would be better off without her—if only the curse had taken Florence instead of her father or her grandmother.
It was the shift from a tender brushing of Florence’s hair to a sharp tug, making Florence’s eyes sting.
It was a warm cup of chamomile to help Florence sleep, offered with love in her mother’s eyes, then the hot water pouring down her throat as Linda pushed the cup into her face after her first sip.
Of course it was trauma.
She held her hand over her mouth and blinked back tears.
“Florence?” Owen asked.
“I never realized it was PTSD. I thought …” She shook her head, not sure what she thought. That the memories were too much. That she wasn’t strong enough. That she was broken beyond repair, and somehow she was to blame. But if it was trauma, then it wasn’t her fault at all.
“You still want to do this?” Owen asked.
“I have to,” Florence said.
He offered her a hand. She placed her palm in his and let him pull her to her feet.
As soon as she stepped on her family’s land, the vines around the porch railings trembled then grew, extending past the front steps, crawling across the freshly fallen leaves, and stopping at her feet.
Florence almost jumped back at their approach.
Flowers tilted up at her like little faces.
They rose higher, but when they reached out to touch her, Florence pulled away.
The vine drooped, then turned back the way it had come, guiding her to the house.
She placed her foot on the first step. The front door creaked open, the hallway light soft and warm on the other side.
Despite her fear, despite what she had to do, she placed a hand on the nearby column and pressed her forehead to the wood.
She stood that way for a few seconds, just her and the house and Owen, wishing more than anything this could be a safe place once more.
Not only for her, but for every person she might someday let into her heart.
Tears spilled down her cheeks. Beneath her feet, the floorboards shifted, lifting her a bit higher and pushing her closer to the column.
She turned to Owen. “Thank you. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to make it back here.”
“I’m sorry it had to be for this,” he said.
The door opened wider, and Florence bit her lip to keep herself from crying any more than she already was. It didn’t work.
She leaned her head back so she could see Owen better.
She hadn’t realized how close they were standing, and in the light spilling through the open door, she could see that gray speckled his beard and honey threaded through the brown of his eyes.
She still feared for him, still worried the curse might find a way to take him, but now that she’d let her heart open to him—now that he’d seen the truth of it and somehow showed it to her—she found she felt safe standing beside him.
She took his other hand and gripped it softly.
“I have to do this next part alone,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “I know your great-aunt died here, but this is between me and Evie.”
“I’ll wait out here until you need me.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Florence said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“I’ll go check on the bees,” he said. “Start getting things ready for your sister—since I won’t be here for the festival.”
Florence released his hands and turned toward the front door. She squared her shoulders and, with a deep breath, crossed over the threshold.
She took a halting step and stopped, one hand on the banister.
It warmed beneath her touch. She rubbed the wood gently and reminded herself while her memories were true and awful, they were in the past. Florence was in the present moment.
Her mom was gone, and the woman wouldn’t ever be able to speak a harsh word or lay a heavy hand on her again.
The thought brought a weight to her chest, a mixture of sadness and relief.
She’d lost so much time because of what her mother had done.
But those days were gone. Florence was finally moving forward, and she wouldn’t let her mother’s decisions keep her from the people and places she loved ever again.