43 Jasper
JASPER
“Is it my turn yet?”
I sigh, not looking up from my cards. Dáinn sits at the table across from me, once more in his wraith form.
Apparently, he doesn’t like spending too long in his fancy new skin suit.
He says his shadows don’t like being so confined.
I can feel them pooling out under the table, wrapping around my ankles like softly coiling snakes.
A wraith is in my kitchen.
A wraith is in my kitchen and we’re playing cards.
I lay down the five of clubs. “Fifteen for two.” Reaching over, I move my peg two spaces on the cribbage board.
“My turn?” he says again.
“Yes.”
I can’t see within the depths of his cowl, but I can feel his triumphant smile as he lays down his cards, splaying them on the table. “Gin.”
I groan. “What the fuck, Dáinn?”
“What?”
“We’re playing cribbage. How did you even—” I glance over to see his skeletal fist full of yet more cards. “How the hell did you get so many cards?” I slap them out of his hands, scattering them to the table.
“I don’t know how to play cribbage,” he says with a shrug.
Sighing, I set the rest of my cards down, sliding them away from me. “Right. We’re done.”
“Did I win?”
“Yes, you won.” I get up from the table and stretch. Gods, I’m fucking exhausted. It’s late now. After midnight. But I can’t go to sleep. Something has been telling me to stay up. It’s telling me to wait. And I trust my witch’s intuition.
Something is coming.
As if on cue, the magical wards at the end of the property trip. Then the crystal system I installed throughout the house goes off. All at once, the crystals in every corner glow red and pulse. A sound like wind chimes fills the air.
Dáinn’s merriment is gone as he sweeps out from his chair, floating in the middle of the kitchen. His shadows pool out, darkening the corners of the room. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“Wards just got tripped.” Waving a hand, I shut off the crystals. They go dark and the wind chime alarm goes silent.
Down the hall, a door creaks open.
“Jasper?” Hortie shuffles down the hall, her hair in curlers tucked under a purple silk bonnet. She’s got on her feathered teal robe, worn open over a pair of leopard-print pajamas. Her glasses have simple clear frames. “What is it, dear? What happened?”
“Something just tripped the wards.”
As I speak, headlights flash in the widows, starting at the front of the house then sweeping around the side. I know the sound of that engine.
Hortie looks to me, heaving a sigh of relief. “Birdie.”
I nod, relief filling me too.
She came back.
“It’s okay,” I say to Hortie. “You can go back to bed.”
“But she might be hungry.” She shuffles over to the fridge, but I intercept her, taking her reaching hands in mine.
“I got her, Hort. If she needs anything, I promise to be a proper host.”
At this, she narrows her eyes, difficult to do behind her magnified glasses. “Don’t scare this one off. I mean it, Jasper Prescott.”
I search her face. We talked about it earlier, but this is too important to not check again. “You’re really fine with it? Making a human part of the coven?”
Reaching out, she cups my face. “Esther was my friend for more than sixty years. She was my high priestess for nearly thirty. That doesn’t mean I didn’t see her many faults.
Allowing the initiation of outsiders is a conversation we’ve only ever had in the shadows.
Now look at us. Ten members. Only one younger than thirty with any magic to her name.
If we don’t evolve, we die. And you know how I feel about staving off the cold hands of death,” she adds, glancing to the wraith.
I give her hand a gentle squeeze. “Thank you, Hort.”
She turns to the wraith. “My threat applies to you too, Sunny. Scare this girl away, and I’ll be yanking that cowl from your head and turning it into a pillow for Pickles.”
He brightens, ignoring her threat. I don’t even have to ask why. I know the asshole is preening over his new nickname. Sunny. I hate that it fits.
Outside, the door to the Jeep cranks open then softly snaps shut.
“Go on,” I say again to Hortie. “Back to bed.”
She lets me lead her as far as the doorway before she walks the rest of the way on her own. In moments, her bedroom door shuts.
Turning back to face the kitchen, I take a deep breath. “All right. Dáinn, disappear.”
He stiffens. “But you said you told her about us.”
“I told her about magic. I told her about me and my coven. I didn’t get into the intricacies of the whole of the supernatural world.”
“She has to find out eventually—”
“Do you want her to stay?” I say over him. “Do you even want me to get her back inside the house?”
“Of course I do!”
“Yeah? Because I’m thinking her walking in here to find Death waiting in the kitchen to play cards will be a bit of a shock.”
Now the wraith is officially pouting, those skeletal arms folded inside his shadowy robes. “I can wear the render. She can meet me as Daniel.”
“Tomorrow.” Crossing the room, I take him by the shoulders. “Please, Dáinn. Trust me in this? She will know you, I swear it. She’ll know you and value you as I do.”
Before he can argue, there’s a soft tap at the back door.
I look to him again, squeezing his bony shoulders. “Dáinn, please—”
“Fine,” he snarls, fading into nothing. The pressure I just felt beneath my hands disappears and I lower them back to my sides. He swoops behind me, hissing in my ear, “I hate this.”
I swat at the empty air as there’s another soft rap at the door. I jog around the kitchen counter and into the laundry room. “Coming!”
Birdie stands there under the yellow glow of the back door light with Pickles in her arms. She’s wearing her black-framed glasses, hair in a messy bun atop her head.
A threadbare Ramones T-shirt clings to her shoulders.
Seeing me, she smiles weakly, gesturing to the cat in her arms. “Can we come in?”
I open the door to see a bag on her shoulder. Two more bags rest at her feet. She packed. Is she leaving for good? Does she expect me to drive her to the ferry? The last one left hours ago. But she knows that.
My gods, I think she really did decide to stay. A feeling of warmth starts to glow somewhere low in my chest. I step back, holding the door open in silent welcome.
Pickles squirms from Birdie’s hold and leaps inside, darting away into the kitchen. But Birdie just stands there, one hand shifting to clutch the bag strap pinching her shoulder. “I talked to Phoebe tonight.”
“Oh.”
That could mean any number of good or terrible things—
“Do you really want me in the coven?” I don’t miss the slightly hopeful tone in her voice. Sweet Birdie, the lost and lonely human who doesn’t think she belongs anywhere. My rugged pine, standing alone on a windswept hill.
“It’s not about what I want,” I’m quick to say. “This has to be your choice. Do you want to be in my coven?”
“If you’ll have me, then yes.”
“I’ll have you,” I assure her. “But I feel I should confess something first.”
Her lips purse with a smile. “More confessions? Is that really wise? You know I’m a flight risk.”
Sensing the tease in her tone, I smile too. “I don’t know how to make it official.”
Her smile falls. “What?”
“We’ve never accepted a non-witch into the coven before. We’ve never even accepted a witch not of the First Five bloodlines.”
“What—like, never? Like, ever in history?”
I shrug. “Not to my knowledge. I’m our high priest and I have no idea how to make this official.”
“Oh . . .” She stands there on my threshold, bags at her feet, waiting for me to do or say something profoundly magical. But the only thing I can think of is—
“Handfasting.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Handfasting,” I repeat. “We can do a handfast ritual.”
“What is that?” She moves like she’s about to come in and I throw up my hands.
“No—don’t. Stay right there.”
Her eyes widen. “Why?”
I glance around, hands still raised. “No, this is good. Thresholds are liminal magical spaces. They symbolize transition and change. Yeah, we’ll handfast, and then you’ll cross the threshold and enter the house. Paired with our intentions, that should be enough.”
“Our intentions are magical?”
“Highly. Just . . . wait.”
She smiles, then nods. “Okay.”
I lower my hands. “I’ll be right back.”
Leaving the door open, I hurry over to Hortie’s old potion cabinet, tucked in the corner of the laundry room.
The top holds three shelves stacked full of glass vials and jars in all shapes and sizes containing an apothecary’s worth of potion supplies.
A set of four drawers below are stuffed with other spellcasting tools.
I don’t even know what I’m looking for, but I know we need something.
“Candles,” Dáinn hisses, barely loud enough for me to hear.
Right. Genius. Pulling open the top drawer, I take out two candles, leaving the matches. I return to Birdie, still standing in the open doorway. “Here.” I hand her one of the candles.
She takes it, clearly humming with nerves. “Does the rest of the coven need to be here for this?”
Mercy’s warning about a vote settles in my gut. But this can’t wait. “I’m their high priest. They voted for me. They trust me. If this ceremony works, they’ll accept the outcome.”
“Okay. So . . . how do we do this?”
I take up my stance across from her in the open doorway. “No idea. I’m sort of making this up as I go.” Waving my hand over the tip of my candle, I set the wick alight.
Birdie gasps, the freckles on her face glowing faintly in the light of the candle. “I thought your element was earth, not fire.”
“Any witch worth their salt can light a candle, Birdie.”
She smiles. “Impressive.”
I mirror her smile. “Trust me, I have not begun to impress you.”
She snorts, smiling wider. “You gonna flirt with me, high priest? Or handfast me?”
She flirts when she’s nervous. It’s charming but distracting. And this is serious. I don’t want to mess it up. Holding my candle in my left hand, I reach out with my right. “Take my hand.”
Slowly, she reaches out, clasping her right hand with mine. Our hands meet over the open threshold. Glancing down, I see Pickles sitting there, watching us. I know Dáinn is watching too.
Honestly, I’m glad. A ceremony such as this needs witnesses. Taking a deep breath, I let it out, centering my intentionality. If the goddess wills it, this will work. “Birdie Rhodes—”
“Actually, it’s Virginia.”
“What?”
“My name. It’s Virginia. Birdie is just a nickname. I didn’t want that to mess up the magic,” she adds, a nervous blush blooming in her cheeks.
“Very well then. Virginia Rhodes . . . you stand before the High Priest of the Burr Island Coven, seeking entry to his coven and his home. Do you wish to enter?”
I can practically hear the racing of her heart as she nods. “I do.”
“A coven is more than a circle of friends. It is a spiritual home. As part of a coven, you will never walk alone. Coven is safety. Coven is the light that casts out the darkness. Will you commit to walking with your new coven? Will you give of your talents to make us safe? Will you be a light in the darkness?”
She swallows, tears in her eyes. “I will. I mean—I’ll try. I have no magic, but I will try.”
“This oath offered, I accept,” I intone. “As your high priest, this oath I offer in return . . . to shelter you from the wind and rain, to guide you to a place of safety, and to be your light in the darkness.” Reaching out with my candle, I offer her the flaming tip.
Smiling, she touches her candle wick to mine, lighting it. Her face glows as she watches the twin flames dance.
Finishing the ceremony, I squeeze her hand. “Spirit to spirit, light to light, I call you to cross over. Leave the life you lived behind and step forward into your new future.”
Fighting every natural controlling urge, I don’t yank her over the threshold. This has to be her choice. Birdie has to come to me. She has to choose this. I feel it the moment she does. Our candles flicker and warmth heats in our palms as she steps over the threshold, entering the house.
“Oh god,” she says on a breath that quickly turns to a laugh. “This is crazy. Did I just do that? Did I just join a coven? Wait—did it work?”
I smile down at her, still holding her hand and my lit candle. “It worked.”
“It worked?”
I nod. “Welcome home.”