25
Demi
The cemetery is just around the corner from my house (because what good is a haunted manor without an adjacent graveyard in a spooky little town like Ivy Hollow?).
There’s a low fog hovering just above the ground, embracing the headstones in a way that forces me closer to read them.
A lone willow tree, tall enough now to have been here since the early colonial settlers, stands in the center of the cemetery, heavy and weeping with rainfall.
The gray day amplifies the dark green of the leaves and the moss that seems to be crawling along the oldest stones, decorated with faded depictions of eerie skulls and ravens.
Those Puritans sure knew how to honor their dead with spooky art.
It’s not a particularly large cemetery, but it is a bit crowded. The resting place for hundreds of years' worth of Ivy Hollow souls. I must read at least half a dozen epitaphs written in Old English before I finally find what I’m looking for .
Much like Tristan, his grave is quiet and lonely, nestled right at the base of the willow tree, apart from the rest of the grave markers. ?A shiver that has nothing to do with the damp or the chill crawls up my spine.
I don’t think anyone has tended to his grave in a long time. Maybe ever. His headstone is a taupe square, covered in a layer of grime, with just his name and two year dates:
Tristan Beaumont
1948-1978
Such a short life. He’s been dead much longer than he was alive.
The thought coils up inside me, and tightens my stomach with a sudden and new grief that feels a little too heavy to hold.
A man like him deserved to live a long, full life.
He should be an old man with gray hair and many decades worth of stories to tell.
Instead, Tristan is here, beneath the earth, and the part of him that couldn’t be buried lives in my house, waiting to be freed.
Tristan was given an unfair death and then left behind.
The cover of the willow branches is thick enough that I can set my umbrella down without getting soaked.
I rifle around in my tote bag until I find a handful of half-crumpled napkins I’d stuffed in there when getting take-out one day.
Lowering to my knees, I ignore the slow spread of wet mud on my jeans and wipe down the years of dirt and dust plastered to Tristan’s headstone.
Once it’s clean, I get to work clearing the overgrowth of weeds and brush from the grave itself .
I shouldn’t be surprised that Tristan’s grave has been neglected. His parents passed before he did, and he’s been gone for so long now. Still, the state of his final resting place ignites something protective in me, and I feel that the least I can do is restore a little dignity to it.
If it were me here, under the earth, he would do the same.
By the time his grave is groomed, I’m covered in mud but feeling even more determined to make this resurrection spell work, and to get it right. If I have the tools to reverse his fate, give him his life back, I’m sure as hell going to try.
For research purposes only.
That’s what Kitty said when she handed me the spell book. She trusted me to heed her warning, and here I am, about to do something above and beyond research with it. Far beyond. Guilt rankles the edges of my conscience.
I’m aware that attempting a spell to raise the ghost I have a crush on from the dead is, at best, reckless.
In truth, it’s a betrayal of my aunts’ trust. It’s spitting in the face of everything they’ve taught me about their Craft.
Not to mention the teeny-tiny detail that I've never cast a spell before.
Here I am, making my magical debut with a goddamn resurrection spell.
I look at Tristan’s headstone, at that small hyphen between the year he was born and the year he died.
Then, I measure that too-small line against the many years that have passed since 1978, and how Tristan has spent them alone in that house—decades of silence, half a century of being invisible.
The despair I feel for those lonely years of his is palpable .
I know that this is the right thing to do. Consequences be damned.
Pulling out my phone, I bring up the pictures I took of the spell. The ingredient list is small, but specific.
Blackthorn berries- mashed
Rosemary
Sea Salt
Rainwater
Grave dirt- one layer deep, from the grave of the deceased
As luck would have it, there’s rosemary and sea salt in my kitchen, and blackthorn trees in my front yard.
All I need now is the rainwater and grave dirt.
I brought along two glass Mason jars in my tote bag; I open up the first and set it just outside the willow’s canopy to collect rain, while I set aside the second jar and grab the other item I had the miraculous forethought to carry with me—a gardening hand trowel.
I’m not exactly clear on what “one layer deep” means, so I sink the trowel into Tristan’s grave and start digging and digging until I reach a level of soil that is pitch-black and fragrant.
I’ve dug about a foot deep in the earth.
I decide that’s at least one layer, and pour a great, heaping scoop of the black dirt into my jar.
Once I’m done, I fill in the hole I’ve dug and clean up the mess I’ve made, gathering my jars and trowel and stowing them in my tote bag.
Finally, I stand and take one last long look at Tristan’s grave.
It’s clean now, cared-for, and if I do this next part right, it will soon be empty, with Tristan coming back to the land of the living.
I hope .
As I’m leaving, I realize I’m not alone in the graveyard. On the opposite side of the cemetery, I spot a black-clad mourner sitting on the ground, facing a headstone.
I’d recognize the shape of her anywhere, even if she had a hat or umbrella covering her red curls—which she does not. My sister.
I don’t dare approach her, despite how much I might want to. She doesn’t take well to others bearing witness to her grief. That’s probably why she’s here on a day like this, less risk of being seen. But there she is.
Blue St. James, rain-soaked and sitting at the grave of the man who turned her into the Widow of Ivy Hollow.
~
“You’re filthy.”
That’s the first thing Tristan says to me as I walk in the door, and he’s not wrong.
I turn toward the mirror in the foyer and take in my appearance.
Sure enough, I’m covered in dirt. Smudges along my cheeks and nose, saturating my clothes and staining my hands.
I’m sure there’s mud buried deep under my nails that will take ages to get out.
He abandons the book he was reading while I was gone and approaches me from behind.
I see him in the mirror, just over my shoulder.
His wide shoulders and tall frame make me look so small in comparison.
Tristan looks a little nervous, as if he’s unsure what kind of trouble I got myself into, or what kind of trouble I’m about to get us both into .
I, on the other hand, am nearly buzzing with excitement. My eyes are glittering in the mirror with an almost manic spark. The biggest hurdle in doing this spell was finding the ingredients, and now that I’ve done that, I can’t help but feel like I’m really going to pull this off.
“You’re bleeding,” Tristan says, a line etching between his eyebrows.
I look down at my hands, and underneath the layer of dried dirt, I see a fresh cut near my wrist, bright red droplets of blood pooling at the surface. It’s not deep, but the look on Tristan’s face tells me it bothers him all the same.
“Got in an argument with the blackthorn tree out front,” I say.
“Did you win?”
“Obviously.” I pull the small container of blackthorn berries from my jacket pocket to show him the proof.
He nods. I can feel his energy at my back, and I want nothing more than for him to press against me from behind, wrap his arms around me, and hold me for real.
“Did you also argue with the ground? Because you look like you rolled around in the mud.”
I roll my eyes, but can’t keep the smile from my face.
“No, I had to clean up a bit.”
The line between his brows deepens. “Clean what?”
“Your grave.”
It feels like a strange thing to say to someone. Tristan’s features turn sad for a moment, then soften as he processes what I said .
I watch in the mirror as he takes a step closer, leans down, and wraps his arms around me. I wish I could feel the weight of his touch, the span of his palms—one pressed against my belly and the other cupping my ribcage. I wish I could feel his breath on the side of my face.
“All this for me?” he asks, in a voice that is somehow deep and vulnerable all at once.
“You would do the same for me.”
He shakes his head. “If it were you, I’d show up at your grave every day with flowers, begging you to haunt me.”
This man.
“Would you do a spell to bring me back?”
“I’d do anything ?to bring you back. Barter my soul for yours.”
“Dramatic.”
“It’s the truth.” He leans down and presses his face into my hair. My scalp tingles against his energy.
“Are you ready to do this?” I ask.
“I’m trying not to get my hopes up. But, yes, I think so.”
“And if it doesn’t work—”
“And if it doesn’t work, it’s okay. We both know this is a long shot.”
I smirk. “I was going to say, if it doesn’t work, we try again. I’m not the type of girl to give up.”
Tristan’s jaw clenches, and his throat works on a swallow.
“Tristan, I want this. I want you. ”
His eyes shine with emotion, like he wasn’t expecting to hear that. Not from me .
“One thing about me is that when I want something, I usually get it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me one bit,” he replies with a grin.