Chapter Twenty-Two
Lissa
Did I step into a cottage or another dimension, Lissa wondered as she stared into the bright-blue eyes of the barista who’d been so kind to her a few days ago. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out, “but my brain is playing Twister right now, and I’m not sure which color I should put my hand on.”
The High Matron smiled. “I understand this a lot to take in, Alice.”
“Lissa,” she corrected on reflex. “I go by Lissa.”
“I understand,” the High Matron said, gently guiding Lissa back to her seat. “The names we give ourselves have just as much power as those given to us by others. My given name is Melinda, yet I often go by Mixie, as I’m sure you have figured out.”
“Right,” Lissa replied, settling into the chair. “I totally knew who you were on the patio that day.”
Mixie gave Lissa a knowing grin.
“You’ve met the High Matron?” Ria hissed from beside Lissa.
“Well, obviously, I didn’t know she was a High Matron, or even a witch at all,” Lissa replied, unable to take her eyes off Mixie.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Ria began timidly, “but how are you the High Matron? Shouldn’t you be, um, old?” Her eyes grew wide, and she promptly added, “Um. Older, I mean.”
Mixie laughed and moved over to the empty chair beside her wife.
“Oh, I might use a little glamor now and again. I wanted to be able to work at my cafe without anyone knowing my identity.” She raised both hands high above her head, murmured a few indiscernible words, then brought them down in a twisting, swirling motion.
A slight shimmer appeared and streaks of gray materialized in her blonde hair, joined by a handful of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
Lissa sat frozen in her chair, trying to wrap her brain around what she had just seen. There was no denying it. Where once a young twentysomething had sat, there was now a woman of late middle age in the same clothing with the same hairstyle. It was impossible and yet…
“Holy shit, you’re a fucking witch!” Lissa blurted out, unable to keep her mouth shut.
All heads turned in her direction in unison, and an assortment of expressions greeted her, ranging from amusement to horror. Lissa only had eyes for Mixie though. Because if she really was a witch, then that meant…
“Back the fuck up. What did you mean when you said I was a witch? Because I can guarantee you I’ve never been able to do…that,” she waved her hand at the older woman who was no longer the familiar barista.
Mixie laughed, and the tension in the room eased. All except for Ria. Lissa could feel the anxiety wafting off her as she fidgeted in her chair.
“Did you guys all know?” Ria asked, glancing around the circle. “Did you guys know Mixie was the High Matron?”
“Of course,” Bootsy replied, reaching for a scone. “How did you think we always had these treats at the meetings?”
“I assumed you bought them,” Ria cried, exasperation filling her voice. “Not one of you mentioned our High Matron was running a coffee shop?”
“You never asked,” Hailey chimed in and everyone nodded in agreement.
“You told me she was on a soul-searching journey,” Ria replied, and Lissa was tempted to take Ria in her arms and give her a hug. She looked so lost and confused, something Lissa could more than sympathize with.
“I was on a journey,” Mixie answered before anyone else could offer an explanation for her. “I’ve been preparing to turn over leadership of the coven, and I wanted to see what it would feel like to run a coffee shop for my retirement.”
“You’re planning to continue that, right?
” Lissa asked, her own distress taking a brief back seat to her love of Mixie’s scones and lattes.
There was no way she was going back to the corporate coffee shop in town.
After discovering the bliss in a cup she got from Mixie’s, anything else would basically taste like sewage.
The High Matron chuckled and folded her hands in her lap, a picture of bemused serenity.
“I do think I am, yes. It has been a most wonderful experience to provide joy to my community. Not to mention, I get to keep my magic fresh by infusing the tiniest hint into everything I make.” She winked at Lissa.
“I’ve been eating magic muffins?” Lissa breathed out, her brain switching from Twister to Jenga as each new fact she learned threatened to topple her entire way of life.
“Scones,” Mixie corrected. “But, yes. Much like the woman next to you, I am very skilled at potions, so I put a drop of my contentment concoction into everything I make.”
Well that explained a lot.
As a couple of the witches began peppering Mixie with questions about her ingredients, Lissa shifted to face Ria. “You really are a witch, aren’t you?”
How do you even apologize to someone for doubting such a core aspect of their identity? Although, in all fairness, Ria never turned into another person to prove her authenticity.
“I am,” Ria confirmed. “I never lied to you Lissa, not about that. I would never lie to you about something so important.”
Ria might as well have literally punched Lissa in the gut given the impact her words had. There weren’t enough scones in the world to put Ria in a good enough mood to forgive Lissa now. How had she screwed this up so badly?
“I’m so sorry,” Lissa said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s okay,” Ria replied, rubbing a hand over Lissa’s thigh.
“It’s a lot to ask someone to accept. And I’m the one who owes you an apology.
I should have told you I messed up the spell the moment I realized it.
I hate that I kept that from you, Lissa.
I would never want to deceive you in any way. I care about you too much for that.”
And the gut punches kept on coming. Ria could give Muhammad Ali a run for his money at this point.
“High Matron,” Ria said loudly, shifting her attention away but leaving her hand on Lissa’s thigh.
“Is there any chance we can do the reversal ritual now? It’s not fair to Lissa to leave her in this state of altered emotion on top of everything else she’s just learned.
She doesn’t deserve to be put through this. ”
And there it was. The knockout. Lissa was done for. She was officially a monster for lying to Ria and definitely didn’t deserve her forgiveness.
“I am sorry, Sangria Lewis, but I’m afraid I cannot help you with a reversal,” Mixie replied.
“Why not?” Ria demanded, and Lissa noticed a few of the other witches tense up at the tone Ria used.
The High Matron, however, maintained her pleasantly calm demeanor.
“Because there is no spell on Lissa,” she stated plainly.
“You cannot perform a ritual on another witch without their explicit consent. It is Hecate’s protection for her children so they may never harm one another.
And while Lissa consented to the destiny love spell, that is not what you did that day, was it? ”
Ria frowned. “No, I messed that up and did the love ritual instead.”
“Precisely,” Mixie stated, her lips curling up just a hint at the edges of her mouth. “And since Lissa is also a witch, it did not take. I can tell you both,” she said, looking from Ria to Lissa, “while love may feel like magic, there is no actual witchcraft involved here.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Lissa interjected, refusing to even acknowledge the L-word. “We still haven’t covered that bit. Why do you keep saying I’m a witch?”
“I can feel it,” Mixie answered as if that explained everything. Lissa stared blankly at her, and Mixie let out the tiniest sigh. “You are a descendant of the witch, Alice Parker, are you not?”
Lissa frowned. “I don’t think so. I mean, anything’s possible. My family originally settled in the Salem area, but we never traced any genealogy.” Lissa paused for a second, something tickling her brain. “Wait, didn’t you say Alice Parker never had any kids?” she asked Ria.
“I thought she didn’t,” Ria answered, looking possibly more confused than Lissa.
“Alice Parker did have a child,” Mixie answered.
“She was married to a fisherman named John Parker who impregnated her before leaving on a year-long voyage. A few months later, she faked an illness that kept in her bed. She had the child in secret, aided by her lover, Mary Warren, and some family members. Fearing the growing rumbles of witchcraft would land on her doorstep and her child might suffer as well, she had the family members take the child away. Unfortunately that meant none of them were there to testify on her behalf when the charges came down. Most likely the child grew up never knowing she was capable of magic, and so the power faded over the generations. It’s unlikely you would ever be able to do magic, Lissa, but you are still a witch by blood. Nothing can change that.”
The room fell quiet, save for Jenna’s slight sniffling. “Alice’s story is just so sad,” she explained when a few heads turned her way.
“Huh,” Lissa said, as the last brick in her Jenga brain was pulled free and everything crumbled, causing her to lose the ability to form coherent thoughts altogether.
“Ria, maybe you should take Lissa out to get some fresh air,” an older woman offered, the one who had told the story about her daughter and the wormwood potion.
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Ria agreed. “I think we both have a few things to talk about.”
Still numb, Lissa allowed Ria to pull her from the chair and guide her out of the cottage. The witch tugged her off to the left, and Lissa followed blindly, her legs moving of their own accord since her brain was beyond occupied at the moment.
They’d been strolling down the sidewalk in silence for a few minutes, or possibly a few hours—time had lost all meaning to Lissa—when Ria finally spoke up.