Chapter Twenty-Five
Ria
“Why does this keep happening?” Ria wailed, staring down at the crumbling, dead leaves in her hand.
She needed that chickweed for a potion she was working on, yet just like the last three times she’d gone to cultivate an herb from her garden, it magically shriveled up the moment she touched it.
And it had to be magic of some kind because Ria had never killed a plant in her life.
Well, not until last week when Lissa dropped her off at home, and she’d run into the house so fast she’d accidentally knocked over a planter of evening primrose.
Ria wasn’t sure if it was her own foul mood seeping into the plants, or if they were getting revenge for a fallen friend.
Either way, they were just as grumpy as she was lately.
Ria fell back onto the grass, squeezing her eyes shut to ward off the glaring summer sun beating down on her.
She needed her plants. Needed to be focused on making potions.
If she let her mind wander for even a second, it immediately drifted to thoughts of Lissa.
She still couldn’t believe how quickly her life had gone from pathetic to perfect but then right back to pathetic.
At least she had the coven as support. Nearly every day someone had stopped by with an excuse to check on her and see how she was doing.
Something soft tickled her bare foot, and Ria glanced down her body, squinting in the harsh light.
The most adorable fuzzy face stared back at her, whiskers twitching anxiously.
“Hey Nibbles, how’s it going?” Ria still hadn’t turned him back to brown yet. Every time she brought it up, he either disappeared or knocked something over that distracted her. At this point, she just assumed he liked being different from all the other squirrels, so she decided to let it go.
Pushing up onto her elbows, she watched Nibbles hop onto her leg and dash up to her stomach. Plopping his fuzzy booty right over her navel, he stared up at her, his whiskers going a mile a minute.
“What’s up, Nibbles? You here to judge me too? Tell me I was too harsh on Lissa?” Nibbles cocked his head to the side, and Ria imagined him asking, “Do you want me to judge you?”
Sighing, Ria lay back in the grass. The truth was that she was judging herself more than anyone else was.
So many times she’d been tempted to reach out to Lissa, but then she remembered the sea lions and how Lissa’s deception tainted one of the best experiences of her life.
Knowing the whole thing had been nothing more than a ruse to get the marketing secret killed Ria.
Every time she thought about it, the wound inside her was ripped wide open again, and it felt like her heart might never be able to repair the damage.
Nibbles hopped off her stomach and nuzzled the side of her cheek.
“Thanks Nibs. At least I’ll always have you, right? You’re not going to leave me. Who needs love, anyway? Overrated is what it is. I have my plants. I have my coven. And I have you. I’m just peachy.”
Nibbles rubbed his face over her cheek again, then dashed away.
Okay, so maybe she didn’t have Nibbles. And maybe her plants were dying.
But she still had her coven. When she’d first returned to Seacliff, she never imagined she would bond so strongly with a group of unique women, yet each one of them had come to mean the world to her.
Even Willow with her bizarre comments and tendency to live in her own world.
They weren’t just her coven; they were her friends. Her family.
But even when she was surrounded by them, she couldn’t help the ache of loneliness in her heart that said something was missing.
“Ria!” her mom called shortly before the bang of the back door shattered her peaceful moment. “Oh, there you are. What are you doing napping on the grass?”
“I’m not napping,” Ria grumbled without opening her eyes. “I’m wallowing. My plants keep dying.”
“Hecate’s disappearing panties, Ria, of course they’re dying. They’re connected to you. Your pain is their pain.”
Ria rolled onto her side and eyed her mom sitting in a cross-legged position, fingertips dancing over the grass. “So what am I supposed to do? I can’t magically make myself feel better.”
“Well, actually…”
“Please stop right there,” Ria interjected. “I’m not taking a mood-lifting potion. I want to feel the pain. I need the reminder.”
Her mom shook her head, regarding Ria with a mixture of pity and sorrow. “Oh, Ria, why would you possibly want to mope around the house all day and hole up in the shed all night?”
Ria tucked her hands under the side of her face, eye level with the bits of grass tickling her cheek. “Because if I try to hide the pain, then I might be tempted to forget about it. And then I might be tempted to forgive it. And I can’t do that. She lied to me, Mom. She used me.”
“And then she fell in love with you and told the truth,” her mom pointed out.
“Too little, too late,” Ria grumbled, her eyes tracking an ant moving through what must be monstrous stalks of grass to him. Everything really was all about perspective. She just couldn’t bring herself to see things from Lissa’s point of view.
“Well, if you want to lay in the yard and wallow, that’s your choice, but I thought you should know there’s someone here to see you.”
A spark of something—not hope but maybe in the same family—shot through Ria, and she bolted upright. “Who?” she demanded, knowing she planned to meet her coven sisters later, so it couldn’t be them. Was it Lissa? What would she even say if it was?
Scrambling to her feet, Ria evaluated her outfit. Grass-stained khaki shorts. Dammit. Wrinkled pink blouse. Double dammit. And Hecate only knew what her hair was doing. Did she have time to slip into her bedroom and clean up first?
“Relax, sweetie. It’s not Lissa,” her mom said, interrupting Ria’s freak out.
“I wasn’t…” she started to protest, hating how obvious she had been.
Her mom gave her a knowing smile. “Yes, you were. And maybe that tells you more than you realize.” Standing, her mom gave her a quick hug.
“Just don’t close your heart all the way off, okay?
I know you haven’t exactly been lucky in love, but it’s the trials that make the triumphs even sweeter.
” With that last pearl of wisdom, she wandered off toward Ria’s shed.
“Don’t touch my plants,” Ria called after her.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, my sweet Sangria.”
Yeah, right, Ria thought before making her way through the back door into the house. Pausing in the kitchen, she eyed the woman rooting through the cabinets.
“We don’t have any coffee if that’s what you’re looking for,” she told Daria, who froze at the sound of Ria’s voice.
Turning around slowly, she gave Ria a sheepish grin. “You caught me. I’m a caffeine addict. I’d say I’m trying to get help, but that would imply I want to get better. I’m willing to own it.”
“Fair enough,” Ria replied, leaning against the counter. “It’s important to own things.” A trace of bitterness laced her words, and judging by Daria’s wince, the double meaning did not go unnoticed.
“Okay, so jumping right in, are we? I can respect that. No need to make small talk.” Daria tossed her black hair behind her shoulder and folded her arms. “Since we’re skipping right to the point, I’ll just come right out and say it. You need to forgive Lissa.”
Ria scoffed and pushed off the counter. Yanking open the cabinet beside Daria’s head, she pulled out a mug. “Of course you would say that. She’s your best friend.” Setting the cup down, Ria flipped the knob to heat up the kettle of water that permanently lived on their stovetop.
“I’m not just saying it because she’s my friend,” Daria argued. “I’m saying it because you don’t know the whole story.”
“Oh, Lissa told me everything,” Ria shot back. “And I’m betting you knew the whole time and didn’t stop her.” Reaching into another cabinet, she pulled out a tin of loose-leaf Darjeeling tea.
“Yeah, I knew,” Daria confessed, appearing only mildly embarrassed at being called out. “And I did try to get her to come clean with you, but at the same time I understand why she did it.”
“Yeah, to save her business,” Ria grumbled, scooping a spoonful of tea into her manatee-shaped infuser.
“It’s not that simple,” Daria protested. “This is what I meant when I said you don’t know everything. You think she was being selfish, yeah? She didn’t want to lose her cushy job?”
Ria hesitated, then nodded. Tucking the tea tin away and hooking the manatee onto the edge of the mug by his rubber flippers, she muttered, “Something like that.”
“Well, here’s what you don’t know. Lissa wasn’t doing it just for her.
Yes, she loves her job and yes, she loves living here.
That’s part of why she did it. If the job goes, she has to go too.
There’s no other option for her to work as a glassblower in Seacliff. But that also goes for the rest of us.”
Ria stared at the kettle, wishing it would hurry up and boil so she could distract herself from this conversation. She didn’t want to imagine Lissa having altruistic intentions behind her lies.
“If Smooth Expressions goes under,” Daria continued, “then every single artist there will lose their livelihood. The only other studio in town despises us, and the owner, Marge, would die before hiring anyone from Smooth Expressions.” Daria sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Lissa didn’t ask for any of this. She’s not a manager by any definition of the word, but she had the responsibility dumped in her lap.
She panicked, okay? She didn’t want to let everyone down, so she lied.
She wasn’t trying to hurt you. She just didn’t see any alternative. ”
“She could have asked me!” Ria exploded, the anger boiling out of her at the same time the kettle started to whistle. “I would have helped if she talked to me.”