Chapter 25
Eloise woke to the tickling smell of smoke and magic, her eyes tight from the night before, and her heart sore. It was still night and a hovering cloak of fog covered everything.
When she sat up and leaned back against the trunk of the newly blossomed peach tree she let out a sigh and shook her head to empty strange dreams.
That woman, the one with the pretty face and the short brown hair had invaded her thoughts, but this time had felt like a threat.
Lady Macbeth made a chittering sound, sitting on her back legs and her black hands motioning through the air. There was an air of concern that smelled like rust hitting the back of Eloise's throat.
"What is it, Lady?"
A click of yellow glow drew her eyes up to the second story of the house and she wondered if Ursula had awoken to an eerie feeling as well so she scooped up Lady and then they were moving through the dew-laced grass into the dark kitchen.
A sleepy Casper padded his way down the hallway followed closely by Ursula who was wearing a long, black tshirt Eloise suspected might belong to a certain Brawny man. Her black hair was mussed and she rubbed her eyes.
"You feel it too?"
Eloise nodded. It was four in the morning so the day was closer than the night before. "Breakfast?"
"I have brioche."
"I'll make the coffee."
She made coffee, Ursula whipped up a brioche french toast with blackberry compote while Casper and Lady ate a late-night snack, but as she lifted the raccoon mug to her lips she paused.
She didn't smell the Guatemalan roast of coffee as it steamed up into the air.
Instead, she smelled something bright and harsh.
Swimming pools heavily medicated with chlorine and a gardenia blossom when it browns around the edges wilting in too much sun.
She picked up one of Ursula's vanilla and tobacco candles to try and cleanse the smell from her nose.
They each grabbed a lit candle and a plate of french toast with their mugs of coffee and blankets wrapped around their shoulders. The string lights were flipped on, their glow trying to shine through the thick fog that looked like a plane of ghostly white cutting through the middle of the yard.
"This is perfectly spooky," Eloise said. The temperature was warmer than usual on a too early spring morning, but the fog carried a wet chill that made her grateful for the blanket around her shoulders.
"How are you doing?" Ursula asked.
"Fine," Eloise said easily, though that ease did not match the inside of her. She wasn't fine. She was in turmoil and pain and she knew her best friend wasn't going to be hoodwinked into thinking otherwise.
"You want to talk about it?"
She shook her head and looked up into the night sky with the stars trying to peek through the thick, foggy veil like a bride.
"I'm here if you do," she said softly.
She looked at Ursula, her dearest friend and reached over with her hand open, their fingers laced together and she knew she would be okay. Eventually.
"Just a little heartbreak," she said.
Ursula's mouth pulled up a little in a knowing, sad smile and she said, "Yeah, just a little heartbreak."
And wasn't that it? A little heartbreak could crack a person in half, rendering them incapacitated for a while.
The grief alone could alter a person's heart and mind, Eloise knew well.
Heartbreak struck a person when they were open and willing to love, like a hunter waiting for the perfect shot.
But it wouldn't kill her. And right now she could feel this ache with the knowledge that she had opened her heart, something she wasn't sure she'd be able to do again.
"Do you think heartbreak kills more people than we realize?"
Ursula tilted her head with concern and Eloise smiled sadly adding, "I'm not there. This is just a dollop." Had Taylor not cut it off when he did, she wondered how deep the cut could have gotten. There can be kindness inside of goodbyes like these.
"Yeah," Ursula answered her question. "Maybe the souls go somewhere special."
Eloise smiled at that thought. A place for broken souls to mend.
"Do me a favor," Ursula's voice was soft. "Don't run this time."
Her plea struck that already aching spot inside of Eloise and a rush of tears made their way to the surface, clogging her throat making words impossible so she squeezed her hand in a promise.
They sat that way in their gothic garden breathing in the the fresh herbs and flowers for a while. Even in this softness there was a feminine edge. Hurting in a garden that is bringing about new life was a kind of sharp worship.
"I don't feel him anymore," Eloise said thoughtfully.
"Taylor?"
His name spoken into the fog jarred the broken pieces of her but she pushed back tears. "No," she got out.
"Oh, him. You haven't seen him in a while?"
"That, and I just, I would get these small whiffs of him, like a memory come to life.
And I haven't in a couple of days," she tried to explain.
She didn't know if she should put her hopes into spoken words yet, that he was gone, left town.
Maybe he realized she'd moved on. Maybe their protection spell had chased him out of town.
Then the jars of moonlight shivered and shook until they exploded, the thick glass flying, pulling gasps and awed looks from both women.
Eloise cursed looking down to see a long gash along her shin where crimson was now dripping down her leg.
Ursula was kneeling in front of her her and had the tea towel wrapped around it and tied quickly.
"What was that?" she asked and both women turned to watch the moonlight that had escaped four jars lift and pull together to form a ball of milky light the size of a bowling ball as it hovered in the fog then started moving.
Both women were up and following it through the garden, as a vine of ivy stretched itself up to wrap around Ursula's upper arm pulling her to a stop.
"Maybe we shouldn't follow it," she said pulling Eloise to a stop ahead of her.
Eloise took in the ivy sliding its green vine around Ursula's arm and that smell of too-hot gardenias and treated pools hit her. A feeling of heaviness sat in her chest. And there was something about experiencing fresh heartbreak that could make a person throw too much caution to the wind.
"You stay here. I'm going to see what is going on. Something isn't right."
"Right, so we shouldn't go chasing it," she urged.
"Ursula, our names are being held in the lowest regard because of things we are not doing.
Everything has felt off, smelled off. And it started when I got here.
That is not a coincidence." Ursula's face fell into a softness at Eloise's fears.
"We need this to end. Please, don't ask me to sit back while you and this house and our friends are attacked. "
Ursula looked around, thinking, her struggle palpable and it smelled like thick vanilla when it hit Eloise.
Finally, she gently unwrapped the ivy from her arm letting it fall.
"You always have to be the crazy hero," she shook her head and joined Eloise, hooking her arm through hers. "If we die, I will haunt you."
She smiled and they started walking following where the ball of moonlight had gone. "If we die and become ghosts, do you think we could haunt all of Salem?"
"Hell yes. Who would you haunt first?"
"Carol Weatherby. I'd autocorrect the end of all of her articles after she sends them to print with a paragraph talking about how wonderful, smart and beautiful we were and how wrong she was about us."
Ursula threw her head back and laughed. "Okay, I would haunt our friends, but like a sweet haunting. Just look out for them."
"You're so nice. Even in ghostly death. I love that about you," she said.
The light led them along the path they had taken so many times and before they knew it they were in the graveyard where the fog cut through the middle of each grave.
Their names, each girl who lost their life, were illegible and the dark red snapdragons were dotting the acre of land surrounding them.
"What do you think the chances of us dying are?" Ursula whispered as Casper leaned his tall body against her legs, his ears pricked in caution.
"I mean, they've got to be around eighteen percent."
Ursula nodded with a pursed mouth. "Not as bad as I thought."
"I love this graveyard," a voice carried over the foggy earth and pulled their attention to a woman walking out from a cover of trees to run her pale hand over the top of a gravestone.
But not just a woman, the woman who had appeared in their dreams. She was wearing a long, white dress and her short brown hair was in waves to her chin showing off petite features on her pretty face.
"I have missed it. Isn't it neat what centuries of buried magic can do when you call upon it?
" she asked wistfully. "Like, hex a flock of birds to torment a nosy journalist." She looked at them with a smile that wasn't kind. "You're welcome, by the way."
"Oh, yeah. Thanks for making us the town pariahs. I'm working on the gift basket," Eloise said.
The woman's smile grew and her white teeth flashed.
"You are funny. I've caught snippets of you over the last few months as I've waited.
Though, terrible taste in men, don't you think, sea witch?
" She turned her eyes to Ursula who was glaring at her.
"I mean, one who tried to murder her because she revealed that he was a philanderer to his wife," she leaned over, her eyes going back to Eloise and held up a hand to her mouth as if telling a secret and said, "who was kind of crazy, am I right?
No wonder he cheated on her with you. You're much prettier, and funny. "
Eloise's body tensed. Ursula squeezed her arm which was still hooked through hers tightly.