Chapter 18
We followed Persi out of the cavern in tense silence. When we reached the woods at the edge of the parking lot, I paused only long enough to extract my phone from my pocket, and sent a quick text to Eva and Zale. It took three attempts, because my hands were shaking so badly I could barely type.
We’re out. Get out of there before they find you.
Then, I added, Eva you were INCREDIBLE. most badass waterworker EVER.
Zale replied with a thumbs up, and Eva with a string of heart emojis.
I was dying to find out what was happening down on the beach, but there was no time for that.
Persi had hijacked us, and we had no choice but to follow her.
Jess seemed to realize we were at Persi’s mercy as well, because she made no argument as she trudged along beside me, her expression grim and distracted.
I had a feeling her thoughts were still back in the cavern with the Geatgrima.
She’d said there was something wrong with it, and I still didn’t know what that meant, but I had no doubt that’s what she was focused on as we hurried along in the dark.
It took us fifteen minutes of tripping and cursing and catching our clothing on underbrush until we finally came out near the back garden of Lightkeep.
I hesitated, utterly unprepared to face my mom and Rhi, but Persi didn’t head for the house.
She continued instead to the gate, opened it, and then looked back at us, gesturing impatiently.
“Hurry! Before someone wakes up!” she hissed at us.
Jess gave me a wary look. I nodded in what I hoped was a reassuring way, and followed Persi’s already retreating form.
Only the moonlight glinting off her jewelry served to mark her path through the pitch-black garden beds.
I heard Jess stumble and curse a few times behind me, but we hurried on, past the wall to my mother’s garden, and along another path I rarely ventured down.
Because at the end of the path was Persi’s workshop.
And nobody went in Persi’s workshop but Persi herself.
I learned this lesson in one of the first weeks I was at Lightkeep Cottage.
My mother was gone for the day, returned to Portland to deal with all the headaches of having to break our lease and move out of an apartment we’d lived in since I was three years old.
I hadn’t yet started my training in earnest, and so I was using my abundance of free time to explore the place that was now my home.
I’d learned the ins and outs of the house, as well as the main garden areas.
I decided I would go down and explore the parts of the grounds I hadn’t yet spent any time in.
Rhi had mentioned there were fruit trees, and I wondered what grew there, and if anything was ripe for picking.
I followed the path all the way out of the gardens, where it grew wilder and more untamed.
Rabbits turned to statues at the sight of me, and birds sang their chirpy songs as they swooped from branch to branch, like they were warning each other about my invasion of their usually undisturbed haunts.
I passed a greenhouse so overgrown and sagging that I knew it couldn’t possibly still be in use, and followed the remnants of a tumbledown stone wall until I found myself facing a small, vine-covered building.
It looked like a cross between a potting shed and a fairytale cottage—the kind of place I might have imagined a witch living in, before I relocated to a town full of them.
There were riots of blossoms growing all over the roof and walls, and a tiny, crooked metal chimney puffed little purple smoke rings into the air.
The walls were made of multicolored shingles cut to all different shapes and sizes, and there was a ring of perfectly smooth stones encircling the place, like a protective spell.
I stood with my mouth hanging open, utterly enchanted, for at least a full minute before I rediscovered my will to move forward.
Like Hansel and Gretel, I could not resist exploring this most unexpected and charming domicile, despite the decided lack of gingerbread and candy.
I hesitated on the doorstep—I knew I was still on Vesper property, because the boundaries of our land were marked with walls both physical and metaphysical.
My mother had shown me the stone walls that looked like they were held together with sheer magic—and likely were—and warned me that the protections we had while at Lightkeep did not extend past those walls.
“Inside them, we are safe. Without them, we are vulnerable,” she had said in a sing-song voice that told me she was merely repeating the words that had been drilled into her from her own wild, barefooted childhood wanderings.
I was inside our protections, and so this house belonged to our family, at least. Beyond that, I couldn’t be sure. It was this connection that allowed my curiosity to get the better of me, and I turned the filigreed brass knob, and pushed the door inward.
I caught only a fleeting glance at the interior—the multi-colored flames leaping in the pot-bellied stove, the long work table, the shimmering fumes rising from a small cauldron, the sagging shelves full of jars and dried bunches of herbs and candles—before a whirlwind of dark hair and angry eyes flew into the gap, blocking my view.
“Let’s get one thing perfectly clear,” Persi had said. “You might own the cottage, but you are never ever to set foot in here. Ever.”
The door had slammed in my face. And though I had glimpsed it again in my various explorations of the grounds, I never dared to so much as approach Persi’s workshop after that.
And so, my heart pounded with anxiety as the little building came into sight, and when Persi opened the door and jerked her head impatiently for us to enter, I hesitated.
It was only when Jess nudged me in the arm that I forced my feet to unstick themselves from the ground and shuffle forward, following Persi inside.
At first, I could see almost nothing, waiting in the darkness while Persi bustled around lighting candles and lanterns and, finally, the fire in the squat little stove. The firelight threw elongated shadows that stretched up the walls like long, creeping fingers.
“Sit,” Persi said. It was more order than invitation, and Jess and I both obeyed, perching ourselves on two rickety wooden chairs that had been pushed up against the work table.
Jess was looking all around her with a mixture of awe and curiosity.
Persi flew forward and slammed a spellbook shut that was lying open on the table in front of us, and clasped it protectively to her chest before returning it to the shelf behind her.
Then she looked between Jess and me, her gaze as sharp as knives.
“Explain,” she said.
“Explain what?” Jess asked.
“Let’s start with how you’re alive when your body was sitting in the morgue a few days ago.”
Jess and I locked eyes, silently asking each other who should begin and where. Persi, short-tempered at the best of times, gave a low growl of impatience.
Jess raised a hand in apology. “Very well. I’m the interloper here. I’ll go first. But I must insist that we treat this conversation as confidential. You must give me your word that you will not repeat anything that I’m about to tell you. It is as much for your safety as it is for mine.”
Persi’s eyes darted fiercely from Jess’ face to mine, and I nodded earnestly.
“Trust me,” I mouthed.
Persi looked like she wanted to refuse just out of sheer spite, but she gave a sharp nod instead.
Jess took this as the word she required and, with a calmness I envied, she began to talk.
She explained about her own sisterhood, the Durupinen, and about how she came upon the grimoire.
Then she went on to describe how she had sensed the Source and wanted to explore it, how I had mistaken her powers for her death, how I had helped her regain her body, and finally, how we had arrived in the cavern that night.
Even Persi couldn’t hide her increasing incredulousness, and by the time Jess had talked herself out, Persi’s hands were pressed over her mouth, and her eyes were wide with shock.
“My… my mother…she spoke to you?” Persi whispered from behind her fingers.
“Yes. Many ghosts do. It’s kind of… my thing,” Jess said, though her tone was gentler now, like it had occurred to her in the moment that she was speaking to a daughter who was still grieving her mother. “She was adamant that the book be returned to Wren.”
Persi’s gaze, suddenly sharp, darted to me. “To Wren specifically?”
“Yes.”
“And she came to me, too,” I said, barely able to look at Persi. “The night of the Litha Pageant. She warned me that a girl was coming with a book, and that I should trust her.”
“And you didn’t think to tell any of us about that?” Persi asked.
I bristled a little. “I didn’t know what it meant. And I’m not sure if anyone’s ever told you this, but you don’t exactly invite confidences.”
Persi looked like she was biting back a retort, and then seemed to deflate. She ran her hands over her face and through her hair, taking a deep breath, before turning her attention back to Jess.
“So you mean to tell me that… that the Source is in fact one of these Gee—…geet—…”
“Geatgrimas,” Jess said, enunciating clearly. “And yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
It seemed we had finally reached the moment to ask questions, and I was not going to miss that opportunity. “Why would a Geatgrima give people access to magic?” I asked.
Jess furrowed her brow. “Look, I don’t know much about how witchcraft works, so this is just a theory, but… am I correct in assuming that your powers are passed down through your bloodline?”
Persi and I both nodded.