Chapter 3 Gracie
Suggested Listening: In Too Deep by Sum 41
W e don’t really speak on the drive home. Yeah, Briella and Poppy talk about what we’re going to eat and this new strain of cannabis Poppy wants us to consider growing for our edibles line. But no one addresses what just happened in the shop. And I’m eternally grateful these are my friends.
They know I can’t handle talking about Puck right now. Not yet.
It’s completely unlike me to leave my car at the shop, but I didn’t trust myself to drive after that.
I pull out my phone and shoot off a text to Dad.
Gracie
Puck showed up today. After SIX MONTHS. WTF???
I don’t expect him to respond, since this is prime time for his business. He’s a gifted tattoo artist, and he’s riding the high of new relationship bliss, relocating, and everything going his way for once. So when I see the little dots light up my screen, I’m so happy.
Dad
thats unacceptable
hope you let him know
how are you holding up
Dad doesn’t bother with annoying things like punctuation. It’s a random detail that never fails to make me smile.
Gracie
Remember that paragraph of text I sent you a few weeks back? I basically said all of that to him. Then Ezra kicked him out of the shop.
Dad
so you two didn’t talk
Gracie
Nope.
Dad
six months is a long time to go without seeing someone you care about
has to be a reason
before you write him off completely think about hearing him out
hes still in the wrong
i just know id want to know
Gracie
Thanks. I’ll think about it.
Not sure if he’ll come around again.
Dad
his loss
When Puck ghosted me those first few days, I was worried. But it quickly turned into anger, because this isn’t the first time he’s left me.
I bitched about it the first few weeks, but as it stretched on, I got worried again. It wasn’t until I went by Puck’s place and found out all his stuff had been boxed up and ready for pickup that I got pissed. According to the landlord, Puck just packed up despite the lease being paid out for another year. The strange thing is that none of his friends or neighbors saw anything. Which has been the one fact bothering me about this whole silent stretch. But I suppose I got my answer today.
That fuckboy asked me what I’d think about moving in together, then vanished on me. I got my hopes up thinking, he’s my person . Someone who loves me better than I can love myself. Who doesn’t take my physical limitations as a challenge I need to overcome. With Puck, I’d found someone who loved me as I was, not who I might become if only I’d conquer those pesky feminine issues. And yes, sometimes he was overbearing and took over too much, but he did it because he cared. But not enough.
Briella pulls into the driveway and we pass through the tunnel of trees lining the gravel lane. It’s like going through a magical portal that allows us to leave the city behind for something wilder. I feel the ghostly fingers sliding over my skin, that signal we’ve passed through the wards. I breathe out a sigh of relief and unclench my jaw as the house comes into view.
It’s set back off the road in a tiny pocket of wilderness along a flood plain that allows us the appearance of being out of the city. Most people never even notice it for all the trees, and we like it that way. There’s really nothing normal about the sentient house. Including the layout. Back when Dad and I lived here, it was a cute, two-story house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. When I was little, weird things would happen. Doors would open and close. Sometimes there would just be tea in the microwave.
Dad and I chalked it up to the house being strange and our own forgetfulness, then my stepmother’s antics.
For the majority of my pre-teen and teenage years Dad was married to Briella’s aunt. Basically, from the point the coven became aware that I was a descendant from a powerful witch line until Dad and I realized that my stepmom was stringing us along. It was ugly and hurtful. To this day I laugh whenever I think about how the house gave us signals that my stepmother wasn’t welcome.
The biggest indication the house was more than it appeared happened in my early teenage years. I needed more space to hone my craft and work with magic. Dad and I spent an evening in my room discussing where I could work and how I didn’t want my stepmother getting into my business. We wouldn’t know for quite some time, but Dad had been charmed by my stepmother to love him. It was really ugly business.
But the house saved me. The very next day a workroom suddenly appeared off one side on the ground floor. And whenever my stepmother tried to enter it, the door was just locked. No spell she tried would admit her, and I loved that little feature.
By then, we had all surmised the house wasn’t exactly normal. It still freaked Dad out, but we adjusted and so many things about the house made sense.
One of the best days of my life was when my stepmother was evicted. All her shit just came flying out the windows while she screamed on the lawn, surrounded by her other husbands we knew nothing about. The only good thing that came out of that relationship was my relationship with Briella.
When Dad started talking about moving away and leaving me the house, I knew it couldn’t be that simple. I actually had a little meeting with Poppy and Briella in the living room to ask the house’s permission to transfer ownership and allow my friends to live there. We’d fully intended on cramming three beds into one room so we could each have a workspace.
Two days later, there was a whole new wing of the house, a bunch more rooms, and everyone got their own space.
I moved my things into Dad’s first-floor suite while Briella and Poppy are on opposite ends of the second floor with their own suite of rooms.
The house wasn’t always this active. In fact, the house seems to be getting more animated and responsive as the years pass. As if she’s waking up. Or maybe growing up?
There’s not much to tell about the house’s origins. For a while, I was really curious and went digging. That’s when I discovered that prior to Dad buying the place the year before I was born, there was no documented evidence that a house existed here at all. I’ve seen the city zoning maps and property records for the whole area. Digging any deeper might trigger questions, and I don’t have the energy for that. So I gave up the search.
Our house keeps life interesting, at least.
A few months ago we woke up, and the house had transformed from red brick with wooden shutters to a golden brown wooden shingle siding and a slate gray roof with ivy clinging to the walls and large picture windows. I’m also fairly confident the house expanded, but I’m not sure why. Then again, the house might have just wanted a new style. Can’t say I blame it. I’ve adopted wearing hats the last few years and I can’t stop.
Our home is my safe place. Here, I don’t have to be perfect. I can fall apart. I can smoke a bowl naked if I want to and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.
Maybe I should get a haircut? Or give in and allow Poppy to do something with my hair?
The moment the car stops, I’m out and heading for the house. Since we’ve cleared out the basement to market it as a summoning space, all the things Dad left here had to be moved out into the garage. Which is a disaster. There’s no sugar coating it. And it’s not getting handled tonight or anytime soon, so we have to park outside.
My insides feel as if they’re about to quake as I step onto the patio. I still remember helping Dad set the paving stones into the ground. He’d waited for it to rain just the right amount, so it was easier to work with the soil. That was back when we didn’t know the house was alive.
Goddess, I want to call him, but then he’d have to postpone his current session and that would cause a lot of hassle. He’s so good that he’s booked up for months. No, I can wait a little longer to chat with him.
The white French doors off the back of the house open of their own accord, giving me a panoramic shot of our kitchen and the spacious living room. It’s the house’s way of welcoming us home.
To my right, the open concept kitchen dominates the space. The cabinets are a mix of painted teal and raw wood with a white quartz countertop. The old school hearth for the large cauldrons is set into a massive fireplace against the right wall. The kitchen cabinets rattle as the entity that is our home picks up on my feelings and shows its support.
I make it as far as the bar before I drop my tote on the floor, grip the edge of the counter, and gasp for breath. I slap my hand over my mouth as the first sob breaks me, and my shoulders shudder.
I sense Briella and Poppy enter behind me, their energy a balm for my soul.
“Six months without a word. Not one fucking word.” The grief threatens to buckle my knees and I fold forward, burying my face against my forearms as the tears I’ve been fending off finally win.
“Oh, G. I’m so sorry,” Poppy mutters and envelops me in her arms. Her energy is full of life and light. And my insides have withered from neglect.
“Here.” Briella presses a tissue into my hand.
I swipe at my face, but there’s no stopping the tears now that the dam has broken. I do manage to suck down a breath and lift my head to stare at Briella over Poppy’s shoulder. She’s the only one who even vaguely knew Puck before all of this, but she doesn’t have an answer for me. If she did, she’d have said something by now.
Poppy continues rubbing my back. “I’ll put some tea on, grab some snacks, then how about we all have a big brownie from the batch I made last night?”
“I don’t want to feel anything.” I pull out of Poppy’s arms and head for the sofa.
I’m being a brat. They only want to help. But I’m unaccustomed to being the one on the receiving end of help. It’s always me doing things for everyone else. If I had it in me, I’d hex Puck for leaving me, then hex him again for breaking my heart. Unfortunately, I’ve never been a vindictive witch, so I’m not likely to carry through with it. That’s how the witch feuds began, after all. People not letting shit go.
“Nope.” Poppy grabs my shoulders and points me toward my door. “Go change. You’ll thank me later.”
She’s right, but I still flip her off over my shoulder. And then immediately feel bad about it.
“Love you, too,” Poppy calls out and I can’t help but grin.
These girls know me. They know my bad moods, my pain days, and that my heart was barely taped back together.
The bedroom door swings open and I pet the door frame as I pass. The house isn’t typically this active. It does seem to feed off our emotions, so I’m not surprised that it’s off-kilter thanks to me. We’ve been together for a long time.
My dad is human through and through. I sincerely doubt he’s my biological father. He still has a handful of images of my mother from their short-lived romance. My theory is that my mother was with Dad because of this land and the house. As best we can tell, the house wasn’t built here. The land is positioned over deep ley lines and a convergence of power. I think the house is an entity that slipped through from another world and assumed the appearance of a house and is maybe stuck. Or maybe it just likes being this way. So it would make sense a witch like my mother or Briella’s aunt would be interested in it.
Dad was head-over-heels for my mother. He does admit that she was often distant or would go off for days at a time without telling him what she was doing. And somewhere in all of that, my she got knocked up and became my incubator. I can’t think of her as my mother. It’s just too weird. Dad never did know a lot about her. She was a mystery, and he was simply content to be part of her life. When she told him she was pregnant, he assumed the baby was his. And he was excited. But the truth of it is that there’s no way Dad is my biological father.
All I have to do is look in a mirror to see there’s no resemblance to either of them.
I have my incubator’s eyes and chin, but that’s it. My pin straight black hair and light reddish-brown skin are courtesy of my sperm donor, whoever he is. I have zero thoughts or feelings about him. My guess is he was either another witch or a powerful enough warlock. But no one really knows, since my mother never registered herself with the local coven. She was here, popped me out, and left before the hospital discharged us. Dad has told me the story a few times, and it breaks my heart to think of him left holding a baby and being told the love of his life just walked out without saying a word. Sometimes I wonder if I was the problem. If I’d been born with red hair and freckles, like Dad’s, would she have stuck around?
My clothes are all wrong. My hat hurts my head. The T-shirt is strangling me. My leather leggings are too loose and too tight all at once. I toss my hat on top of the lamp then start stripping, throwing articles of clothing in the vague direction of my hamper to deal with later. It isn’t until I’m in my underwear that I remember skipping my turn at laundry in favor of taking a nap.
Groaning, I face-plant onto my bed and scream into the pillows.
It helps let the pressure clogging my chest out, but mostly my head just throbs more.
“Get it all out,” Poppy says.
I growl my frustration because I won’t take it out on them. Not really.
The mattress dips and shifts as two other bodies settle on the large bed with me. Dad had just bought a new King mattress before his plans changed. Win for me.
“I don’t have any clothes,” I say into the pillow.
“Was that English?” Briella asks.
“I’m not sure she was talking to us.”
I lift my head and blow a piece of hair out of my face. “My clothes are still dirty. I didn’t do laundry.”
“Yeah, I thought about that.” Briella places a plastic envelope in front of me. “I was going to surprise you two on our next girls’ night, but… I bought us themed pajamas.”
I push up and stare at her. “Really?”
“Aw, Bri.” Poppy presses her hand to her chest. “You really love me, don’t you?”
Briella reaches across the pillows and takes Poppy’s free hand. “I do fucking love you, you bitch. Now, cover those tits and let’s go have those brownies, so we can talk about the tough shit.”
Poppy groans. “I’m having a big glass of chocolate milk.”
Briella picks through the three packages, then hands me one. “Gracie, as the hat girl, this set is yours.”
“The hat girl?” I chuckle. She’s not wrong. “What?”
She rolls her eyes and gestures at her bare head. “You’re the hat friend. You’re the only one that hats look good on.”
I sit up and rip open the packaging, pulling out a set of cropped sleep pants and a voluminous tank top. The pants have a purple base, which matches my room, and black witch hats all over it. I don’t actually wear a witch hat, but most days I do wear a felt flat topped wide-brimmed hat. I started doing that when the headaches started as a way to keep the sun out of my eyes on the really bad days. The look has grown on me until it feels weird if I’m not wearing it. The black tank top has the words Getting Witchy scrawled across the chest with a pointed hat perched jauntily atop the script.
“I love it, Bri. Thank you,” I say.
Briella passes a package to Poppy. “This one is yours. I hope you love it.”
Poppy rips into the package with a squeal.
Purple seems to be the theme. The print on Poppy’s pants is a bubbling cauldron on the lavender fabric.
“Oh, this is so cute, Bri!” Poppy clutches the fabric to her chest. “Thank you!”
“What do yours look like?” I ask.
Briella grins and pulls out the third set covered in spell books.
Figures.
She might not have my gift for creating spells, but no one is more meticulous about their grimoire than Briella.
Poppy proceeds to strip and throw on her own pajamas right there in my bedroom.
Normally, I’d wash them to get rid of the factory scent and soften them up. These aren’t so bad. I’m delighted that the material is so silky against my skin as I pull the pajamas on, though the smell does leave something to be desired. I grab a bottle I keep on my dresser with peppermint oil and water mixed together, then give myself a single spritz.
Peppermint helps with my headaches and can cover up other less pleasant odors, but that’s not the case for everyone. Case in point, Briella wrinkles her nose and waves her hand in front of her face to dispel the scent.
“So. Puck,” Poppy says out of nowhere.
Briella’s eyes go round. “Pop, what the fuck?”
Poppy shrugs aggressively, eyes wider than Briella’s.
“It’s fine.” I settle on the foot of the bed, leaning against one of the tall wrought iron posts that holds the canopy up. “What the fuck? Am I right?”
Both girls nod at me.
“Why now? What the heck does he want from me?” The anger that has been simmering in my gut since I saw him has begun to bubble over. I swipe at the useless tears clinging to my lashes. Puck doesn’t deserve them. “Should I have heard him out?”
Poppy wrinkles her nose. “Did you want to?”
“No.”
“Then, no.”
“But…” Briella holds up her finger. “Did you want to know why?”
I ponder that for a moment, as if it’s the first time I’ve wondered. We all know this isn’t the only time we’ve had this conversation.
“No,” I finally say. “The why doesn’t matter. He left for six months . I know that for a fae, that’s nothing. But I don’t want to be with someone who is going to vanish on me. And this is now the second time he’s done this. I… I relied on him. And he just ditched me. Whatever his reason is, it won’t be good enough. And it will happen again. I’m not going to be with someone who is there and not with no warning.”
Briella’s lips twist up. “I really wish you’d give him a chance to explain. Hear what he has to say. It might not matter, but it would give you some closure.”
Poppy claps her hands together. “You know what you deserve?”
Briella pumps her fist in the air. “Brownies!”
Poppy drags me off the bed chanting brownies , like we need to cheer them into our stomachs. Neither of them let me help. I’m pushed toward the comfy sofa and presented with a chipped plate and a large, warm, gooey espresso brownie. I’m not much of a coffee person, but the espresso helps cover up the medicinal taste of the plant matter. I pull the fluffy blanket over my lap and bite into the thick treat.
“We should talk about the money before the brownies kick in all the way,” Briella says.
Poppy groans and would hide under the cushions if we let her. But we can’t. We let this situation get this bad from brushing things under the rug and just hoping it would turn out okay. And things are not okay.
The bills for the business are covered. The issue is the house. Dad took out a very real mortgage for the place and that has to be paid.
If we can’t pay the mortgage, we lose the house. If we lose the house, we lose the greenhouses and our summoning spaces. If we lose the greenhouses, we have no more farm-to-bong buds. Not to mention the much more lucrative witchweed business. And not the kind of witchweed humans can see, though it is very pretty and we do use it in our branding. No, the magical witchweed you have to possess some magic to even see. Losing the summoning spaces might be a blessing in the long run, but it’s our only back-up plan for paying the bills. And I hate what that means we might have to do.
Due to the laws surrounding our bank, the loan, and ethical concerns, we can’t borrow from the business. If we’d gone with a human institution, this wouldn’t be an issue. Which makes it all so much more frustrating.
Briella takes a deep breath. “How bad is it?”
“Bad. You know it’s bad,” I whisper at her, then take another bite.
Poppy pulls her legs under her and begins to gnaw on her fingernails, the brownie forgotten. At some point since leaving the shop, she twisted her hair up into a big, puffy bun balanced on top of her head. Okay, so she’s not as unaffected by all of this as I thought. It’s hard to tell with her. She’s such a free spirit. Sometimes it seems like nothing ever bothers her. I hate that we’re here. That the people we thought we could trust to look out for us and mentor us into the witches we wanted to be only really wanted to use us.
That is a frustration I tamp down on and slide into the back of my mind to deal with later. Not that it’s new. If I could pay to get off this merry-go-round, we would have done that by now. All of us.
Briella captures her fiery colored hair into her fist and gives it a tug. “How bad?”
“After payroll, paying the mortgage for the store, and all the bills?” I shrug. “You know there’s nothing. We can’t pay the mortgage on the house.”
“Have they cashed the check yet?” Poppy asks.
I tilt my head to the side and stare at her, unsure how to answer. Does she want the truth? Or does she need to hear a lie?
“Poppy…” Briella turns and the two of them share a long look. It’s the kind of look that contains an entire conversation.
We all look at each other and sigh. We’ve been friends for so long that some conversations don’t need words.
Poppy’s mother is currently acting as the coven’s treasurer. We’ve been trying to cut ties with the coven officially for a year, but we’ve been on this path for much longer. That stupid loan has been hanging over our heads. The coven won’t allow us to break away while we owe them money. It’s the last leg they have to stand on where we’re concerned. We had a lot of start-up costs for the dispensary and farm, so the loan had seemed like an excellent idea. And it was. We’re doing fantastic. The plan to pay the loan back over the course of five years was no big deal.
That was back when we all had rose-colored glasses on and didn’t realize how ugly the world really was. How we didn’t actually know our coven. And while for me that is a hard blow, they aren’t my family. The loss of those pretentious bastards isn’t devastating. Dad gives no fucks about the coven. He’ll make room for me if I decide I need to bail and run. But only me. He can’t shelter Briella and Poppy, too, and I can’t leave them. With their family names, they can’t relocate without making themselves targets. When Briella, Poppy, and I decided to cut ties, that meant stopping all contact with their families. And that’s where things get messy.
It’s all so fucked up.
The coven and their families have been using the loan to poke at us. To demand access to us and to pretend like we’re just having a tantrum. And then I turned twenty-five six months ago. Briella a month ago. And Poppy’s birthday is in a few months. And things got real. There was no more wondering if all the little things we took issue with were made up or not. Our time is up. Now that we’ve all almost passed the age of twenty-five, the coven is getting much more serious about drawing us back in. The witch population has declined in the recent decades because of feuds between covens and families. Our former coven sees our wombs as the answer to their shrinking population problems instead of stemming the stupidity.
It sucks to realize that the only place I’ve ever had where I felt like I belonged never really wanted me. They just wanted my ability to procreate.
“I’m just going to say it,” Poppy blurts out. She glances between us and tucks a piece of her neon green hair behind her ear. The pink-green split dye job isn’t her worst choice. I think it’s growing on me. “What if we use the money for the mortgage? If I text Mom, you know she’ll hold the check until after the first of next month. She’d totally pretend to forget about it if I actually answered one of her phone calls.”
Not this again.
I massage my temples as the pressure behind my eyes builds, then shove half the brownie in my mouth. I want to be in the sofa tonight. I won’t want to think or worry or deal with anything. But that’s how we got into this situation.
“I appreciate that, Pops. I really do,” I say.
She flops back and sighs. “But it just gets us out of one fire and into the next.”
“ Exactly .”
Briella looks between us before settling on me. “So—what are we going to do? How much time until the mortgage is due?”
“A week. If we’re okay with a late fee, two weeks. After that, the fees get ridiculous.”
“A week,” she mutters. “And how much do we need?”
“A grand. That will get us by, but we’re eating out of the garden for at least three weeks.”
They both wrinkle their noses. We’ve gotten by on what Poppy can grow, but I think we’re all bored with what we know how to cook. With the business and the farm, none of us have time to work on our craft, much less meal plan. We’ve been eating some version of stew and stir-fry for months, as it is. Ever since Puck vanished. He’d started making us dinner and leaving muffins whenever he stopped by. I think that’s what hurts the most. It wasn’t just me who’d grown to rely on him. We all had. And I hate that both Briella and Poppy have gently nudged me to simply forgive Puck.
This sucks.
And they’re both looking at me for answers. Because I’m the responsible one. The one with the plan.
What am I going to do? How do I salvage this and keep everything above board?
My stomach bubbles as the nausea sets in. These tension migraines have gotten worse over the last six months. But I don’t mention that because then I’d have to admit there’s something about Puck that I miss. And once I start down that list, I’ll crumble and call him, even if I hate myself for it.
I blink a few times and stare up at the lightbulb.
I could call Dad for help, but after how things ended with my stepmother, I really don’t want to involve him. He’s finally happy and seeing someone new. No, I’m not going to ask him for help. It was hard enough talking about Puck’s disappearance. I never did muster up the courage to tell Dad my boyfriend wasn’t human, though he probably assumed. Guess that doesn’t matter now.
“We need to put out some feelers for summoning, like I mentioned earlier.” Briella licks her fingers. “I’ll call a few people. See what I can set-up.”
Poppy and I both groan.
“I know. I know. I don’t like it either. Do you guys have a better plan? Because the dispensary has paid us, so it’s not like anything we do here is going to cover our asses. I’m just putting it out there that we can’t squeeze blood from this stone.” She glances at each of us. “Unless you want me to start trying to get some cash payments from the wine moms?”
“No,” I say quickly. While not technically illegal, if we were caught not documenting that money as the business income it could get us in trouble with our paranormal bank.
I hate that she’s right.
Our property backs up to a low area that’s been left as a little spot of wilderness due to habitual flooding. Part of the loan went to installing a drainage system and wards, so we can use some of that land to expand the growing side of things. It’s not technically legal, but there haven’t been flooding issues in the neighborhoods on the other side of the creek since we did the work. I figure we’re ensuring people’s property and taking the pressure off the city to manage the creek better, so it’s okay if we plant on a few acres, if not exactly legal. What they can’t see can’t hurt them.
“Okay,” I mutter. “Where are we going to get someone stupid enough to want to do an unsanctioned summons?”
“I know of a couple guys…” Briella wrinkles her nose. “They give me bad vibes, but they’ve asked in the past.”
“How would you feel if we charged them double?” I asked.
“Less bad, but honestly? They give me the creeps. The I-don’t-want-to-be-alone-with-you kind of creeps.”
“Then if they want to do the summons on our property, they’ll pay the fee and we’ll only allow them on the property when we’re all there. How’s that sound?”
Poppy and Briella both nod.
Fuck.
Okay.
We’re doing this.
That’ll be an easy five hundred in cash. What are the chances we can get two more takers?
Not good if we continue to refuse to deal with dark magic users. And that’s one door I really do not want to open.