Chapter 11 The Mother’s Book
THE MOTHER'S BOOK
It wasn't until we left Edinburgh for the cottage before I really had a chance to explore the book.
The leather cover featured a strange embossed design; a circle, and inside the circle a triangle, and then inside that, a flame.
A sigil of some sort? I opened the book, the spine creaking and groaning after being closed for so long, but somehow it sounded almost musical to me.
On the inside cover was a faded but still colorful drawing: a young woman, hair full of fire, and a flame held in her hand, the entire image rendered in oranges, reds and yellows.
I felt some strange pull to this drawing, staring at it for several minutes, unable to look away, as if she and her flames could erupt from the page at any moment.
There were dark rust-colored smudges along the edges, one clearly an ancient fingerprint, and a few darker spots, spilled and soaked into the surface.
My fingers traced the edge of the drawing, and I felt an almost imperceptible energy, soothing and warm, grounding me.
Something that felt so right, holding this in my hands.
It was like the first time I held a torch to solder metal, like this was a part of me.
Flames and fire were a recurring theme throughout the book, as was the name Brigid, linked often in relation to the drawings of fire, or different renditions of the embossed image on the front.
Interspersed, just like Granny had said, were drawings of different plants, with detailed information on their uses and how to prepare them, how to combine them, and when not to, for teas, tinctures, and uses in poultices.
Some of the pages seemed like recipes, or medical advice, but other entries seemed to use fire or some of these plants almost ritualistically, for different outcomes. Perhaps these were spells.
Scattered through the pages—in the spaces between lines, the beginnings of new sections, and the quiet corners of margins—were more drawings.
Different hands had left their mark over time.
Some were richly detailed, others little more than rough sketches.
Many of the drawings showed wheels, and at their centers, a cross-like shape—seemingly depicting something woven from grass or rushes.
Each of the four arms was equal in length, and where they met, a small square formed.
The shape tugged at something in me. I'd seen it before—I was sure of it—but I couldn't quite place where. Maybe it was only the resemblance to a traditional cross that made it feel familiar.
The margins were crowded with notes, some illegible, others barely so. Symbols, half-formed words, frantic scratches of ink. My eyes kept drifting back to one entry in particular, written in a hurried, uneven hand that made my skin prickle. The words made my blood run cold.
We are not chosen. Some are spared. Some are not. Our hands record the names and yet the debt remains unpaid.
Several blank pages followed the entry, marked only by deep brown splotches and the occasional smudged fingerprint.
As I thumbed through them, searching for something that wasn't there, an ache sparked in my palm—sharp enough to make me pause.
The sensation felt focused, deliberate, as though the book had taken note of me and found me wanting.
I flexed my fingers and kept turning pages, but the ache lingered, a quiet insistence that refused to fade.
After several minutes, I gave up. I shook my head and rolled my shoulders, forcing myself to relax—to ignore the uneasy sense that I had missed something meant for me alone.
Whatever those words meant, I couldn't afford to fixate on them.
I needed to learn the book's secrets, not get lost in out-of-context warnings and half-mad scribbles when there was still so much left to decipher.
Some of what Granny Margaret had pointed out was written in a language I couldn't read, but I caught enough words to get a rough sense of meaning.
I'd ask Baird to help me translate—maybe Sorcha, if I had to.
I tore up a few pieces of junk mail and slid the scraps into place, marking anything I didn't want to lose track of.
Either way, I needed to begin transcribing what I could into my own journal.
Granny Margaret had kindly lent me the book, but eventually, I'd have to return it to Evie or Morag.
One entry piqued my curiosity, first because it seemed easy to execute, and secondly because it seemed useful. At the top of the page, written in a graceful but faded script, was something called The Call of the Hearthfire:
To summon one who is far, when yer need burns bright and true
Best worked at dusk, or by the hearth flame, on a waxing moon
Brigid's fire will carry the message, and her well will stir the heart
Supposedly, the spell caster was to gather a stone or twig from the place you wanted to call the distant person back to—easy enough—a length of red wool or ribbon, a candle or hearth flame—would my torch work?
—a sprig of hawthorn or rowan—there was a rowan tree growing next to Agnes's grave—and a square of linen cloth.
The ritual required you to set the stone or twig on an altar, which I didn't have, or beside your fire to ground the spell in your land.
I was thinking maybe the top of my jeweler's bench, which was covered in fireproof tiles and was where I soldered and cast molten metal, might suffice.
Maybe it was, in some sense, an altar already.
I was supposed to wrap the sprig in the linen and tie it with the ribbon and place it on the altar, and then light it, speaking my need into the flame, and recite the words:
Brigid of the flame and forge, Brigid of the sacred well,
Carry this call on wind and ash, Let my longing rise and swell.
By red thread wound and waters deep, Let their soul be stirred from sleep.
Across the moor, o'er hill and glen, Bring them home to me again.
Let no road turn them aside, Let no doubt within them hide.
By stone and fire, word and will—Let them come. And let them feel it still.
I needed Sorcha's help to unravel this book. But I didn't have her number—or even an address. So I decided to try my hand at what the Garvies had apparently done for centuries: send a witchy sort of telegram and hope it reached her.
The night we returned to the island, I gathered what I needed—everything except the waxing moon, which based on the date couldn't be helped but sounded optional—and set the wheels in motion.
Ever since I'd spoken the incantation the night before—inviting Brigid's magic into me—I'd been buzzing with electricity.
Like seltzer in my veins. Even in sleep, I'd felt it: a low, constant vibration that somehow both lulled and stirred me.
I moved through the day like I was dreaming, suspended between worlds.
I was in the studio the next afternoon, trying to distract myself from the beehive humming beneath my skin, when she arrived.
Despite willing the hearth-spell to work, I still couldn't quite believe it when I saw her—Sorcha—standing at the door.
That slightly incongruous ladies-who-lunch purse slung over her arm, her eyes fixed on me, expectant.
She cleared her throat. “You rang?”
I opened the bottom of the Dutch door to let her in, my mouth hanging open in shocked disbelief. “It actually worked? Even without the optimal moon phase…” I said, more to myself than her, trying to let it sink in.
“How did ye call me?” she asked with a small smile. “I kent ye weren't in danger. But I felt it as clear as day—ye needed help.”
I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry.
Emotion welled up in me out of nowhere, and I reached with shaking hands for the dusty book I had left on the low table.
“This,” I said softly. “I need your help to understand it.” I didn't know if I was asking for an afternoon of her time, or the rest of my life.
She cocked her head curiously, and then a small, knowing smile formed on her lips.
“This is your family grimoire. Oh…what a precious thing…” She took it from me and sat down to leaf through the fragile pages with reverent fingers, and I could see it—a witch's awe in the face of something old and sacred.
“Ye just picked it up, found a spell tae call me?”
I nodded dumbly, not sure how else to describe what I did, and explained how Granny Margaret had loaned me the book, and that I wanted to make a new copy—to preserve it.
Sorcha nodded, her voice low. “Aye. These were recopied again and again. When the old ones fell apart or the family scattered, someone would choose what mattered most and write it down anew. And every woman left her mark.”
I looked down at the book she held, suddenly aware I was just the next in a long line—scribing, preserving, adding.
Not starting something. Continuing it. “I noticed several references to someone named Brigid, and her name was part of the—spell?” I shrugged, not even sure if that was the right name for it.
“…Whatever that was that I used to call you.” I pointed to the page I'd bookmarked for The Call of the Hearthfire. “Who is she?”
Sorcha's entire face lit up. Her usual serenity gave way to wide-eyed excitement as she turned toward me. “Brigid is the goddess of fertility—and fire—and smithing,” she said, practically beaming.
“Smithing? As in metalsmithing?” I asked, stunned.
“Exactly that. It would seem the Garvie clan had a special bond with her,” Sorcha said, nodding slowly as she flipped through the pages I'd marked. “I suspect she's the source of the matrilineal magic in yer family. That's why the invocation that called me came so easily to ye.”
From the look on her face, this all seemed to add up—one plus one equals magical two. But for me, the math hadn't quite mathed yet.
“And ye channel it when ye wield the torch, aye?” she added. Then she giggled, a wicked gleam in her eye. “And when Baird lights the fire inside ye.”