Chapter 18
It was a fairy moon. Pearlescent, glowing, and hanging low in the sky—it was the kind of moon that spelled mischief and delight. Dina stood at the edge of the north field, where the fire was already burning. It had all been arranged by Nour, a kind of witchy wedding gift. Dina inhaled the midnight air, sweet and smoky. Her mother was silhouetted by the fire, loosening her hair from the updo she’d styled it in for the evening. Dina would be like her mother tonight: untameable, wild.
Dina longed for this night every year.
Honeywell House was a shadow in the distance, the lit windows nothing more than fireflies floating in the night.
Normally she would travel up to Little Hathering, where she and her mother performed their ritual in the courtyard of the house. That’s how they had always done it, ever since she was a child. The house would, of course, dress itself like some kind of opulent glade, and she would feel the heat of the fire, even if it was all a glamour conjured up for their amusement.
Since Dina had met Immy and Rosemary, they’d joined the ritual too. All women were witches on Halloween night.
If the woods had felt thick with magic before, tonight they were practically pounding with it. The pulse of magic ran through Dina’s body like a second heartbeat.
She strode through the long grass, relishing the feel of the cold earth against her bare feet. This is what Samhain was all about. Connection. Chance. The veil was at its thinnest—anything was possible tonight. Dina had never felt so acutely like she was in the exact right place at the right time.
“Aywa, are you going to stand around all night?” her mother shouted at her as she approached. Dina had changed out of her evening dress into something lighter and more billowy. In this case, she’d opted for a light blue gondora. The kind that she only wore in the height of summer when she was pottering around and cleaning the house. It billowed against her skin, barely there. She should have been cold, but there was too much magic burning through her, and the blaze of the fire was strong.
Immy had gone for some kind of Victorian nightdress, while Rosemary had opted for a loose black T-shirt and jogging bottoms.
“It’s different tonight, can you feel it?” Dina asked.
“Mmm. It’s this place. It has a weight to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some kind of holy site, or some saint’s bones buried around here somewhere,” her mother replied. Nour stood before the bonfire that towered over them both. Dina noticed her mother wipe a single tear from her eye.
“Mama, what is it?”
“I’m okay.” She sniffed. “Just remembering doing this with my sisters. We always went out to the broad bean field for nights like this. There was just something about being on our own land, all together. I’d never felt so powerful.”
Her parents had taken her to Morocco lots of times since then, and her mother’s spirit always seemed to quieten when they were there. Dina couldn’t imagine how hard it must be, to feel homesick but not want to go home, for fear of the pain the memories would bring. She pulled her mum into a hug, smelling the rose-scented shampoo she used.
“I can feel them tonight though. They’re here with us, celebrating. I think it’s this place—it’s full of ghosts.”
Dina nodded.
“I felt something in the woods too, but I couldn’t place it.”
“Did you say full of ghosts?” Rosemary asked. “Because you’re absolutely right. I’ve seen so many around tonight. I don’t know if it’s this place, or if it’s Halloween, but they’re…brighter than usual.”
Sometimes Dina forgot how normal it was for her friend to see the other side—she imagined this was a little like how others felt when she showed them her magic. Thankfully, Scott hadn’t freaked out after her stunt with the moonlight. In fact, she recalled the way his gaze had softened, the way he had exhaled slowly when she’d shown him her magic. Almost as if he’d been relieved.
She still wasn’t entirely sure what had come over her earlier. Deep pulses of magic had thrummed from the forest floor to the full moon above, pushing for freedom against the fibers of reality, and Dina had needed to set them free just as much as she needed to breathe. Her intuition told her she was safe with Scott, and if she was honest, she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself. A big part of her wanted Scott to see her for who she truly was, magic and all. She wanted to be her true self around him, no more hiding. The idea that this was a weekend fling felt more and more fleeting. It was all too easy, surrounded by magic and moonlight, to forget about the hex. It was so much easier to pretend.
“I hope we haven’t missed any of the witchy stuff.” Immy traipsed toward them, the hem of her nightgown soaked in mud.
“Did you buy that from an antique shop or something?” Dina asked.
Immy swished in her dress. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s a burial dress. So someone must have died in it and then a gravedigger robbed them of it. Isn’t that cool?”
“I don’t understand you children,” Nour sighed.
Dina chuckled. “I hope you know you’re insane, Immy.”
“I hope it’s all right that I didn’t wear anything flowy,” Rosemary said, looking at the billowing dresses they had all chosen.
Dina grinned. “As long as you can dance in it, it doesn’t matter what you wear. Or you could go naked.”
Nour cleared her throat and locked eyes with each of them, the weight of her magic settling over them like a warm blanket.
“Summer is gone, soon winter will be here.” Nour handed each of them a black Babylon candle. “Tonight we will celebrate the last of the light, and we will remember those who have left us, and those we still hold dear. Tonight, we will hold a light in their memory, so that as we dance, they will dance beside us.”
“Dina, did you bring the music?” Nour asked.
Dina put her portable speaker and phone down on the ground. “This bad boy is fully charged, so we don’t need to worry about the music cutting out this time.”
“Has that happened before?” Rosemary asked.
“Yeah, just once.” Dina winced. “Do we have any requests?”
“Ooh, what about some Whitney Houston? My grandma loved Whitney,” Immy said.
“Me and my sisters used to sing ‘I Have Nothing’ in the car at the top of our lungs,” Nour agreed.
“Whitney it is.” Dina selected a couple of her greatest hits.
Somewhere in the distance, a church bell chimed midnight.
Nour looked up at her daughter and smiled a witch’s smile. “It’s time.”
Sparks from the bonfire caught on the wind and spun ceremoniously into the air. One by one, they approached the fire with their candles.
Babylon candles weren’t your regular black spell candle. They could only be used once a year—Samhain at midnight—and they lasted only a few minutes. Rosemary might have been able to see the ghosts of people who hadn’t crossed over, but a Babylon candle allowed anyone to spend a few fleeting moments with their loved one on the other side.
“For Khadija,” Dina’s mum said as the bonfire lent its fire to the candle. The flame flickered an incandescent blue. Immy sucked in a breath.
“For Naima,” Dina said as her candle was lit. A peal of laughter echoed in her ears, and for a moment she smelled honeysuckle on the air. A flicker of her aunt’s spirit, ready to dance beside them.
“For Grandma,” Immy whispered as she lit her candle over the fire. Her grandma had died six months ago, and Immy was still grieving that she wasn’t there for the wedding.
Immy gasped, her eyes flying open wide as the candle flamed blue. “I think…I think I can feel her.” She smiled. Nour squeezed Immy’s hand.
“For my mother,” Rosemary said, her face still. Blue light flickered from her candle, and she said nothing, her eyes locked on something in front of her. Even witches couldn’t see spirits that had crossed over, but with Rosemary’s gift, Dina wouldn’t be surprised if she could see her mother’s spirit before her. Dina saw the tears flowing freely down Rosemary’s cheeks, saw the way her friend reached out a hand and whispered “Hi, Mama” to the open air.
They placed their candles, the flames dancing wild and blue, around the bonfire. Babylon candles were thin and fragile, just like the visiting spirits that they helped tether to the mortal plane for a short while. They wouldn’t last more than three minutes.
Dina pressed play, sending “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” blasting out of the speaker. Dina shrugged out of her clothes until she stood totally naked in the field. Immy looked a bit abashed but did the same. Nour was already naked and bopping along to the beat, her wild hair swaying about her, as was Rosemary.
Nour sang at the top of her lungs. As the chorus came, Dina lost herself to the song. Her feet skipped and danced around the bonfire, throwing out moves she would never in a million years have been seen doing in public.
When she looked over at Immy, her friend’s head was tipped back in laughter, and she looked like she was spinning someone around in a dance. She’s dancing with her grandma. Dina’s heart lifted.
Over on the other side of the fire, Dina could just about glimpse Rosemary twirling around, her red hair blazing in the firelight, her face lit up with an incandescent happiness.
Dina threw up her hands and sang, and she thought she heard a woman’s voice, a little raspy and slightly accented, singing just behind her. The wind lifted up around her, and she was spinning, kicking her feet up in the air. Dina imagined how her aunt would be dancing right now, if she could see her—probably throwing around some questionable dance moves from the eighties.
Dina glanced over at her mum, who seemed to be hovering slightly above the ground, doing what looked like a mish-mash of several different disco moves. She hadn’t seen her mother this happy for ages.
The song reached its climax, and Dina tipped her head back and howled with joy. Tonight, they were all shedding the versions of themselves that had to be neat, tidy women.
Tonight, they were wild things.
The music died down until all she could hear was the crackling of the bonfire and her breath heaving in and out. The Babylon candles had burned out, and were now a seep of black wax coating the grass. The spirits were gone.
“That was amazing,” Immy said, wiping the remains of tears from her cheeks. “I never really got to say goodbye. But…but that felt like a proper goodbye.”
“I’m so glad, habiba,” Nour said. Dina pulled Immy into a hug and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
Rosemary walked over, muddied and glowing.
“Thank you,” she said, wiping the remnants of tears from her cheeks. “I didn’t know how much I missed her until now.” She pulled Dina into a ferocious hug.
“I hope you don’t feel too upset?” Dina asked them both.
“Only the good kind of upset.” Immy smiled sleepily. “But I do think I’ll head back to the house. After all, I should probably try and get some semblance of beauty sleep before tomorrow.”
“Wait, what’s happening tomorrow? Something important?”
Immy elbowed Dina, then threw her burial dress back on and headed back across the field.
“I’ll go too, though I’m not sure if I’ll be able to sleep.” Rosemary grinned and followed after Immy.
Nour was sitting by the bonfire, her muddy feet stretched towardit.
“Mama, do you want me to stay with you for a bit?” Dina asked.
“No, no. You don’t need to worry about me. I told your father that if I wasn’t back by one he could come and get me.”
“Baba’s still awake?”
“He can never sleep on Halloween. He might not be a witch, but he can certainly sense something.” Nour saw Dina’s worried look. “Honestly, habiba, I’m fine. I just want to spend a bit more time out here before I go back. Besides, I have the sense that there’s someone else you need to see tonight.”
Dina flushed. There was no use lying to her mother; she had the sixth sense of a predator.
“Mama, it’s late. It’s been a long day. He’ll probably be asleep.”
“Hmm, somehow I doubt that.”
Dina stared into the crackling fire.
“What…what if it’s a bad idea?” she asked. What if I like him too much and I get him hurt? she wanted to say, but didn’t.
Her mother stood and brushed one of Dina’s curls behind her ear.
“I am not going to give you a lecture about how all of life is a risk. You know that already. But I am going to tell you that there is a man waiting for you in that cottage who cares about you very deeply and I think you care for him too. You would be a complete idiot to not give something like that a chance. And I did not raise an idiot.”
The hex was on the tip of her tongue. Dina hesitated. She could tell her now, get the truth out in the open. Her mum could help her break it, help her find a way to be with Scott without getting him hurt.
But what if she took it the wrong way? Dina would have to tell her she was bisexual; how would Nour look at her after that? What if she became angry? Would it ruin the wedding? The risk was too high.
For tonight, at least, Dina could pretend. She could pretend that there was nothing stopping her and Scott from being together.
Dina kissed her mother and picked up her phone and speaker. She was halfway across the field to the woods when she realized she had forgotten to put her clothes backon.