Chapter 30
She hadn’t intended to end up back at Elk Ridge Presbyterian when she’d set out from Midwinter House, but she ended up there all the same. The star affixed to the roof of the building beamed across the small town, pulling her the same as it once had the Magi across Judea.
No one had quite known how to react to her revelation, but she read suspicion in every crinkle of the eye and twitch of the lips. There must have been something she wasn’t telling them. She had to know more than she was letting on. Something that would condemn Goshen. Something big.
“Maybe something’s in the bag,” Stephan had offered. “Something you didn’t realize got left behind.”
“For ten years?” she said with a note of frustration.
“Do you know where it is?”
“No, but I don’t think I got rid of it,” she’d said. At some point, she’d stopped using it. It had never been lost or stolen or broken down; she’d simply swapped it out for something she preferred.
This was the second time she’d been shown this bag. First, by Baba Yaga. Now, by whatever hand guided Birdie’s visions.
She hadn’t dealt with the companies that did sample collections and testing. So what else? Who else? What angle to this wasn’t she seeing?
And then it came to her in a flash. There had been someone else who handled the soil.
A white-glove courier service empowered to provide legally binding chain-of-custody paperwork after they transported it between the site and the lab.
It was one of many services Goshen had hired Gray Industrial Services, her father’s company, to provide for the Shepherd’s Summit development.
My father isn’t a criminal, her brain shouted in a knee-jerk reaction.
And yet, she had managed that relationship, including delivering paperwork between them.
Contracts that needed to be signed. Invoices.
The paperwork had gone straight between Jack and her father, which at the time she hadn’t let herself question, but it was irregular.
The owner of an industrial services conglomerate didn’t usually trouble himself with contracts.
They’d had a close relationship, she told herself—he and Jack. They were both on the board of Victorious Life. That relationship had been what had gotten her the interview at Goshen with Jack’s team.
She had seen that paperwork, but she had never looked that closely. Not with the same scrutiny that she would have if anyone else had handed it to her. Because it was her father.
And she did not question her father.
Her stomach bucked, and a sense of nausea rolled through her.
She needed to go back to Bellevue, desperate to find out what was in the purse.
She wasn’t going to sit here in Elk Ridge for four days with this possibility looming over her head drinking cocoa while the witches made people’s days merry and bright.
Because if it was true, if her father had been involved in changing samples and forging legal paperwork, and she revealed it, as she was sure she needed to do to break her curse, her family would lose if not everything then at least a lot.
They’d be ruined. She would ruin them.
A thought bullied its way up. All of this suspicion was grounded in something that magic had shown her. Something Baba Yaga, a notoriously wicked being, had shown her. Is this what it felt like to be led astray? It certainly seemed like it could be.
But a new thought parried. I trust Stephan. She trusted him, and trusting him had come to mean, more and more every day, trusting his magic.
But did that have to mean trusting all magic?
She needed guidance. She couldn’t think through this alone.
And just as that thought hit, she’d seen the star.
The gathering at Elk Ridge Presbyterian was clearly winding down.
Only a dozen or so people lingered in their fellowship hall, picking over the remains of the food spread.
A few children had settled around a gigantic pile of wrapped presents, gazing at it with forced patience.
Pastor Matthews was there, drifting among her guests, though it seemed Arnauld had already moved on.
“Hayleigh,” said the pastor, gliding across the room with open arms. She folded her in an embrace. “So good to see you. Come in! Come in! Afraid we don’t have much left to eat…”
Hayleigh put a hand on her stomach. “I was at the Midwinters’ before this, so I’ll be full for a week.”
It wasn’t true. She’d been too nervous to eat much at dinner, and now she was too sick with her suspicions. But the pastor accepted the explanation without question. “Ah, yeah, that Lili’s a feeder. Woman after my own heart. Here, let me introduce you around.”
“Hold on, can I talk to you first? Privately?”
“Of course. Let’s snag ourselves a quiet spot in the corner.
” Pastor Matthews led her across the room.
She couldn’t help but notice as they passed that all of the lingering partygoers were women and children, and they all had a similar look to them.
Clothing not quite right for their bodies, shoes with scuffed toes and loose laces, shirts too short at the wrists.
A hunger in their expressions, not just for food but for comfort, for safety.
Were they here as part of the program Pastor Matthews had told her about last time? The women’s shelter? The program Stephan suggested Hayleigh might benefit from.
If her father went to jail and lost everything, would her mother end up somewhere like this? Would she?
“Now, what’s this about, honey?” said the pastor.
“You know the rumors about the Midwinter family, and the others…like them.”
The pastor’s eyes sparkled as she leaned in and whispered, “Witches?”
“Yes…I talked to Arnauld, and he said you told him you were okay with it, and also that it’s possible to…have a sort of double faith?”
“Ah, yes, dvoeverie. I do.”
“How? Or, why, I guess?”
“God gave my people ways to connect with the divine long before we’d ever even heard of Europe. They came to us talking about St. Peter, and we said, ‘Yeah, we call him Papa Legba.’ ” She paused. “There are as many ways to connect to God as people on this earth.”
“But what about ‘suffer not a witch to live’?”
“Mmm, a translation popularized by the King James Bible. A man who burned many witches. My dear, if we never looked at scripture with an eye to reinterpret, people would still be using it as an excuse to keep you and me low. Well, not that some aren’t still…
” An uncomfortable familiarity stirred in Hayleigh’s chest. “But obviously not all, or even most. Jesus doesn’t draw tight circles about who’s in and out.
He wants us whole and healed. If he came here and saw how they spend their time mending wounds, promoting charity, caring for creation, and loving their neighbors as deep as they do, I think he’d call them kin. ”
Frustration stirred in her breast. “But does them being good have to mean all magic is good?”
“Now that’s a bigger question,” said the pastor, leaning back and wrapping her arms around her chest. “No, I don’t think it does. Strikes me it’s something that would come down to who, or what, it was coming from, and what their intentions were.”
Hayleigh’s chest tightened. “If magic were leading you to break one of the Ten Commandments, that would probably be a bad intention?”
The pastor’s eyes widened. “What commandment are we talking about?”
She waved a hand. “I don’t have a voice whispering ‘murder’ in my ear.”
“Glad we cleared that up,” said the pastor with a chuckle.
“I…” Hayleigh looked away for a moment, and her eyes grew hot and watery. “God, everything’s so unclear. Everything used to feel so straightforward. So certain. Now nothing is, and I don’t know what to do with that.”
The pastor let out a long sigh and then wrapped an arm around Hayleigh’s shoulders.
“You know, people come here looking for certainty all the time. To know for sure they’re on the right path, and I wish I could give it to them every time—I wish I could give it to you—but I can’t.
What I can tell you is that you’re not alone in feeling this way.
I see you looking for answers, doing your best to do good.
No matter what you choose, you are loved.
Even when you mess up. Maybe even especially when you mess up.
Because that’s when we need love the most. No one finds the way without love. ”
It was late when Stephan finally returned to his apartment, but Hayleigh was awake, wrapped up in blankets on his surprisingly comfortable brown microfiber couch with Ozzy Dogbourne curled over her feet. She hadn’t tried to sleep, but she was sure that if she had, it would’ve failed.
Everything was pointing her home. To Bellevue. That was the only way to clear any of this up. The only hope she had of breaking the curse. It couldn’t be put off. She was going back. First thing in the morning.
Now, all she had to do was tell Stephan.
When he walked through the door, he immediately zeroed in on her face. “You okay? Is something wrong?”
She was caught off guard by how easily he read her. Well, at least it spared her the buildup. “I can’t wait around for you guys. I’m going back tomorrow.”
He eased onto the couch beside her. It sank, forcing her to resist the way it pulled her into his orbit. “Okay. Can we talk about this?”
“Sure, but I already bought a ticket for the bus tomorrow morning. It won’t change things.”
He ran a hand back through his hair. “Why buy a bus ticket? I could’ve gone with you. I will go with you.”
No. She couldn’t let him do that. She did not want him to know it was her own family she was going to be investigating, and furthermore, if she showed up with him, and her parents got any whiff of what she’d been doing with him, to him—if they had any reason to think she had attached herself to an underemployed witch, not only would she not receive her money, she’d likely be turned out for good.
And her father would do everything in his considerable power to punish Stephan.
She bit her lip. “You have to work tomorrow—to make the money to fix that car. You said so yourself. This is fine. I’ll go on ahead. See if I can find the purse. And who knows, maybe it’ll be as simple as that, and I won’t even need to bother you guys again—”
His eyes softened. “Helping you isn’t a bother.”
She looked down. “It is some kind of bother, and I can spare you the trouble.”
His fingers traveled under her chin, and he tipped her face back up to look at him. “What if I don’t want to be spared?”
She summoned every bit of professional detachment she had cultivated over the years, but it did not come easy, because she was so much more attached to this man. But she needed him to keep his distance, even if it meant hurting him.
“I’m going to be moving into my parents’ house, per the terms of their deal.”
His face fell. “Your parents? Hayleigh—”
She held a hand up, and it was all she could do to keep it from shaking. “I appreciate the offer you made; I really do, but all I have to do is play their games for a few days, and I’ll have what I need.”
“You don’t need it.” There was a spike of something in the atmosphere, a surge like static electricity. “It won’t take long for you to get a job once the curse is lifted—I’m sure of it.” He studied her. “What happened while I was gone?”
She hesitated before saying, “What makes you think something happened?”
“Your whole energy is different. You went from ‘considering your options’ to ‘already bought a bus ticket’ in two hours.”
“This was always the plan.”
“I thought maybe it had changed.”
His eyes begged for the truth, and she was glad she had not committed that paper to the bowl at the Solstice party. Because she couldn’t tell him all of it. She couldn’t tell him that she suspected her father had been a part of what happened in Eucharist, and that she had facilitated it.
But she could lean into spoiled little rich girl. That was familiar territory.
“I went to the church for that party Arnauld mentioned. I saw the women from the shelter. That can’t ever be me.”
His eyes widened. “And you think if you move here, that’ll happen?”
She picked at her nails fiercely, tearing a cuticle as she fought the urge to walk this back. “I’m used to a standard of living, Stephan. I wish I were some carefree, granola, could-live-in-a-van girl, but I’m not.”
He let out a low, pained sound and stood, walking away from the couch. After a few moments of silence, his body rumbled in a harsh chuckle as he slipped his hands behind his head and shook it. “I can’t believe I thought what I was offering was good enough for you.”
Her stomach clenched. “It isn’t about that.”
“Isn’t it?” He turned to look her directly in the face, challenging her to offer an alternate explanation. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, because she’d been prepared for him to say just about anything else. Had even rehearsed her answers.
She was prepared for him to blame her in a dozen different ways. But she hadn’t taken the time to imagine he might blame himself.
“That’s what I thought,” he said after a moment. “You’re not afraid of ending up in that shelter, Hayleigh. You’re afraid of ending up with me. It’s not like you didn’t warn me. A man with no direction, right? Who doesn’t know what he wants? How’s a guy like that supposed to keep you in Manolos?”
She balled her hand in frustration. “I’m not asking for Manolos, just…basic financial security!”
His eyes remained flinty, cold, and serious. “Like I said, not enough.” Then he crossed over, pulling out his wallet. Her grandmother’s ring emerged from the pocket, and he placed it on the coffee table between them.
“But I haven’t paid you back!”
“You don’t owe me anything.” He turned back away, retreating to the galley kitchen.
There was a jangling sound, and all the decorations fell simultaneously from Stephan’s tree. One of them, a small glass jar wound in ribbon, spilled open on landing, and light winked off shards of pale pink rose quartz.
She glanced at the fallen ornaments and then back at him, cheeks burning. She wanted to say no, he was more than enough, so much more than she had ever known.
But she stopped herself, because this anger, this rejection, was exactly what was needed for him to let her go and for her to do this on her own.
He kept his attention fixed on the kitchen counter, where he busied himself putting items away from his drying rack. “Morning bus comes at the buttcrack of dawn, so you’ll want to get some sleep. I’ll take the couch again.”
She clambered to her feet and found that her legs were shaking. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you…”
His voice was weary as he said, “I know,” and then with finality, “Good night, Hayleigh.”