Chapter 21
Twenty-One
“That was unexpected,” Hazel says, her eyebrows flying toward her hairline.
The wind dies down as suddenly as it started, and the immediate stillness of the room sets my teeth on edge compared to the wild burst of magic that nearly tossed us all about a second earlier.
“I don’t think I like that.” Fig jitters, flapping her wings until she lands back on Rose’s head, picking at her hair until she’s half buried in it.
“Fig, are you making a nest?” Posey asks.
“Yes,” Rose mutters. “This new thing she’s doing is not my favorite.”
“Deal with it,” Fig’s voice comes, muffled from the crown of tousled hair she’s created on Rose’s head.
Hazel bends forward, looking at the page the book is flipped open to. “Well,” she says slowly, “it’s a ward, all right.”
Her finger traces over the lines on the page the way they used to when she was learning to read. I remember spending so many evenings helping her sound out letters. The memory brings a small smile to my face.
“It’s… it’s a doozy though,” Hazel adds. “It’s got a lot of ingredients. And you guys are right. It does say we have to call the corners first to create a safe place for the spell.” She pauses. “How the hell did we do this? We were so little.”
“I think I remember this,” Rose says suddenly. “I found the book. We were all playing around with it. Do you remember, Posey?”
Posey shakes her head. Oatmeal chitters something into her ear before curling around her neck like a plush living scarf.
Posey pats Oatmeal absently.
“It feels like a dream,” she says finally. “I do remember playing around with something before Mom and Dad left, but it’s fuzzy.”
“We need a lot of ingredients,” Hazel interrupts, clearly not listening to the conversation anymore. She’s fully focused on the book, and there’s a light in her eyes I haven’t seen in a long time.
I settle into the back of the chair, crossing my arms, Gunner still leaning against my legs.
“Well, what else does it say?” I press.
Hazel looks up from the book and gives us a grim expression. “We need a waxing moon. Moon phases.” She elaborates, when we all stare at her.
“What the hell does that mean?” Posey asks.
Hazel gives her a long, searching look. “You’re joking, right?” She looks around at the three of us.
“You’re telling me the three of you don’t know anything about moon phases, and you’re the ones who are supposed to be magical?
” Hazel makes an exasperated noise.“Seriously. The three of you take everything you do for granted. You’re telling me I’ve been out here researching as much as I can about actual witchcraft, traveling up and down the East Coast finding books that might help me unlock my magic—”
She gestures wildly before slapping her hand onto the book. The house shudders slightly at the impact. She quickly pulls her hand away as if burned.
Hazel clears her throat, glancing down at her hand, her voice slightly less sure. “Moon phases are pivotal to witchcraft and casting spells. Different phases of the moon create different energies for spells. A waxing moon happens before the full moon.”
“See? That’s why you didn’t go into the kitchen with Caleb,” I tell her, arching an eyebrow. “We couldn’t do this without you, Hazel.”
“If that’s supposed to make me feel better about the fact that the three of you know absolutely nothing about witchcraft and just dillydally around doing whatever’s easiest, it doesn’t,” Hazel says.
It comes out testier than I’ve ever heard her, she’s usually so cheerful that her tone takes me aback slightly.
I grin. This might be the first time she’s really stood up for herself with us.
Good for her.
“All right,” I tell her. “You’re right. We could have done more research.” I don’t say out loud that I’m not sure when I would’ve squeezed in research between running a full-time business and taking care of this old house.
She’s not wrong. I know next to nothing about how witchcraft actually works. Posey, Rose, and I have essentially skated by on natural ability and a few charms our grandmother taught us.
“All right,” Posey says briskly. “This is good to know. I might be able to get some extra work done if I sync up my spell work with the phases of the moon or whatever. Fascinating.”
“I have to say,” Hazel drawls, “you’re the one I’m most surprised about. You’d think you would’ve done everything you could to learn this already, Posey. Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” Hazel pulls out her phone and opens an app I’ve never seen before.
“Well,” she says after a moment, “we’re about five days away from the peak of the waxing moon before it turns into a full moon. And based on the number of ingredients we need to gather, it’s going to take us at least that long to get ready. If we miss it, we have to wait a whole month.”
“OK,” Rose interrupts, “but how did we get all these ingredients when we were kids?”
“Do you not remember how much stuff Grandma had lying around in this house before she left?” They all stare at me.
“What?” Posey asks.
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Grandma had stacks and stacks of ingredients when we were little. She kept them out of reach so we wouldn’t mess with them.
Stashed all over the house. It was chaos.
When she left, she took most of it. We never needed things like that. Our magic just… leaks out of us.”
Hazel makes an annoyed sound.
“Why don’t you keep reading?” I tell her. “You’re the one solving the problem right now. You’re the key to this solution. Be mad if you want, but you should also be proud of yourself.”
Rose grins.“Yeah. We’ll get your magic back so you can leak it out everywhere and see how annoying it is.”
Posey tries to hide a smile.
Hazel glares at Rose.
“Fine. Give me something to write with.” She makes a grabby motion with her hand.
We all stare at her.
“My ankle hurts, remember?” she says.
Posey rolls her eyes and stands up, Oatmeal clinging to the strap of her denim overalls.
She walks to the little desk in the corner and grabs a pad of paper and a pen.
“OK,” Hazel says, immediately starting to write. “I’m going to break the ingredients into four groups. We can each be responsible for collecting some of them. Does that sound good?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. Soon she’s tearing off pieces of paper and handing them to each of us.
“We have five days,” she says. “We need to gather as much of this as possible.”
“Where do we find this stuff?” Posey asks, flicking the list. “What the hell is moon water?”
Hazel groans. “I don’t know how any of you have gotten anything done ever. Are you able to get to my van? I have a few jars of moon water from the last full moon.”
We all stare at her.
“Wow.” Rose sounds impressed. “You just casually have moon water in your van.”
“Listen,” Hazel says defensively, “just because I’m not a witch like the three of you doesn’t mean I wasn’t trying things.”
“I’m not going to find jars of pee in there too, am I?” Rose asks.
“You are such a jerk,” Hazel tells her.
I bite my lip as a snorting laugh escapes me. Just like that, the tension drains away. This? This is normal.
Just the four of us bickering like we always have. Not that we bicker about jars of pee, but there’s a first time for everything. Hopefully not literally jars of pee, though.
“I’m glad you’re home, Hazel,” I tell her. “We’re going to figure this out.”
“How dangerous is the spell?” Posey asks, leaning over the book. “It says we need blood.”
Hazel makes an annoyed noise. “Yeah. Like a drop of blood. Relax. No one’s slicing their palm open.”
“It also says we need a crowing cock who cannot crow.” Posey looks down her nose at her.
“Where the hell are we supposed to get that?” Rose asks. “What does that even mean.
“It’s a rooster,” Hazel says. “They crow all the time.”
“They crow at dawn,” Rose says. “Have you been around a lot of chickens?”
“Have you?” Posey asks Hazel.
“Yeah, actually. I stayed on a farm in Virginia for a while. Helped with chores.” Hazel rolls her eyes. “Those roosters can be mean. And they absolutely crow all day.”
“Then why did you put that one on my list?” Rose demands. “And how am I supposed to keep it from crowing? I don’t have the faintest clue where to get a rooster.”
“I guess you’ll have to get creative,” Hazel tells her sweetly. “Also, it probably just means a picture of one. Or a statue. These spells are like shit recipes from the two centuries ago.” She wiggles her hand. “You have to interpret them.”
“Interpret this,” Rose says, gesturing rudely.
“I’m going to check on lunch,” I say, leaving the three of them to continue bickering. It doesn’t take me long to slip into the old familiar kitchen, their heightened argument still bouncing off the walls behind me.
Caleb gives me a curious look as I walk in. He’s arranging cookies and brownies I baked last week onto a plate, along with chocolates from my shop. Sandwiches are already made, chips lined up beside them, tea steeping.
I steal a chocolate and pop it in my mouth. “You freaking out?” I ask.
“No, not at all.” His eyebrow quirks. “Why would I be freaking out? You have it handled.” A soft smile tugs the corners of his mouth up. “I’m not scared of you. I think you’re incredible, always have. This is just more proof of it.”
He starts to walk past me with the tray.
I stare at the sandwiches. “Wow. You made those fast.”
“Not rocket science,” he says. “Just peanut butter and jelly. I haven’t gotten the water ready yet, if you want to help.” He kisses my temple.
“Sure.” I find the big glass pitcher my grandmother loved and fill it with ice water, a companionable silence between us.
It’s peaceful, a whole system reset after my sister’s arguments.
I load up another tray with cups and fruit, along with things for our familiars: birdseed treats for Fig, extra fruit for the Snowball, and dog treats for Gunner.
They’d be pissed if we forgot him.
Then I take a deep breath, steel myself, and follow Caleb back into the living room— and nearly bump into his back when he stops short. He stares at the floor with a strange expression.
“What’s wrong?” I nudge him, because he looks slightly shell-shocked.
“I spilled some tea on the floor,” Caleb tells me.
“That’s fine,” I say. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” he says. “The house sucked it up like it never happened.”
Oh. I purse my lips, familiar dread settling in my belly before it dawns on me that he already knows our secret. I blow out a breath and smile, tension in my shoulders easing. “Yeah. Ever wonder why we didn’t invite you over much when we were kids?”
He lets out a low chuckle. “The house is...” he trails off.
“Yeah. It’s magic,” I finish. “Grandma and all the Romantic witches before her charmed it. Some of the spells don’t work as well anymore. But the cleaning spells and sand charms absolutely do. It’s one of my favorite things about living here. The sand just disappears.”
Caleb studies me for a moment. “You think you could charm the lighthouse like that?”
“Probably,” I say. “If we can pull off this whole ward thing, I’ll look into it.”
“Cool,” he says, just accepting that slice of weird like he has everything else. With a steadiness, amusement, and generosity that makes my heart ache with want.
Then we carry the food back into the living room and the conversation with my sisters pulls us both back in.