Chapter 20 #2
Luckily, when I pulled down the slope to the Manor’s long drive, there was only one car in the driveway, and that was Nova’s.
I leaned my bike against the fence, and made my way to the front door with the pitcher of flowers, balancing it awkwardly in one arm so that I could knock on the door.
A minute or so later, Nova answered it. My heart sank when I saw her red-rimmed eyes and pink nose above her pajamas.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“I, um… I’m so sorry about Bernadette,” I said, feeling my own throat get tight. “My family wanted me to bring these over.”
“Thanks,” Nova said tonelessly. “Come on in and we can put it with the others.”
She turned and walked down the hallway, and I hurried to close the door behind me and follow her.
She led me into the family’s sitting room, where a half dozen other floral arrangements were already adorning the surfaces.
I placed ours carefully on a small end table by the window, and turned to join Nova on the sofa.
“Where is everyone?” I asked. “I thought the house might be full of people.”
“It will be by tonight,” Nova said, picking at a crumpled tissue she had balled up in her hand. “All the Claires will be here for a vigil. But for right now, my mom and everyone are down at Blackleach and Graves making arrangements.”
“How… how are you?” I asked. It felt like pulling the pin from a grenade, asking that question to Nova Claire, but she surprised me. Rather than blowing me off or snapping at me, she just stared out the window.
“I don’t know. I feel kind of numb,” she said. “Which is weird, because Bernadette really has been gone a while now, but… I guess maybe a part of me was still hoping we’d figure out how to fix her. Which is obviously stupid, but…” She shrugged.
“It’s not stupid,” I said. “I think that’s a natural part of mourning someone who’s technically still here.” I thought about my friend Poe and her lola, who was starting to slip away from dementia. She was still there, living in Poe’s house, and yet she was already gone.
“Yeah, well. At least we can move on now,” Nova said, still not looking at me. “Put all of that shit with Sarah’s ghost behind us.”
The mention of Sarah was like an invitation for me to pivot the conversation, and I took it, my heart knocking against my ribs like a fist against a door. “That’s actually, uh… one of the reasons I stopped by.”
Nova turned to look at me, frowning her confusion. “What is?”
“Sarah Claire.”
Nova’s whole face tightened like a mask. “What about her?” she asked through unmoving lips.
I could tell I was close to losing my nerve, but I plunged forward anyway. “I, um… I went last night. To the Source. With Jess.”
Nova closed her eyes. “I’m pretty sure I told you I don’t want anything to do with this. Like seriously, Wren, I don’t even want to know what—”
“She was right. Jess, I mean. The Source is one of those Gateways she was talking about.”
Nova’s eyes flew open, and she stared at me. “Be fucking serious.”
“I am. I promise. But there’s something wrong with it, Nova. It’s not working the way it’s supposed to, and it’s cut all the spirit witches off from their spirit guides.”
“Wren, just because you still suck at your spirit abilities doesn’t mean the Source is messed up. You can’t expect—”
“It’s not just me. It’s every spirit witch in Sedgwick Cove. Xiomara has spoken to all of them. All their spirit guides have gone silent. Even Bea can’t draw them anymore.”
I watched the cracks form in Nova’s determination not to believe me. She bit at her lip, clearly trying to find a way to explain away what I was telling her.
“Persi caught us,” I continued, “and she already recognized Jess because of Bernadette.”
Nova stood up suddenly, dropping her tissue to the floor. “What the hell do you mean, because of Bernadette? What does Bernadette have to do with it?”
“She’s been… has anyone told you that she’s been drawing and painting in the hospital?” I asked.
A spasm of emotion crossed Nova’s face, and I knew her answer before she spoke it. “No. They told me she… that she wasn’t communicating, and that visitors were too upsetting.”
“Well, that was kind of true,” I said. “She hasn’t spoken at all or written anything down. But she has been communicating in her own way, with her art.”
“Nobody told me,” Nova murmured. “No one… they said I shouldn’t go, that she was too unstable.”
“That might have been true. Persi said she went back and forth from manic to catatonic. But she showed us the paintings Bernadette’s been making. She had taken several of them, and… and every one of them showed Jess’ face.”
“She was still getting visions,” Nova whispered.
“Yeah. And there was another painting, a sort of woman with three faces. One face was Jess’ and the second was mine. But the third… well, the third was Sarah Claire.”
“Why?” Nova asked in a strangled voice. “Why, what does that even mean?”
“We’re not totally sure. But Jess thinks we should contact Sarah Claire. She thinks she might still be here, even after Persi exorcised her.”
Nova was already shaking her head. “No, that’s not possible. Sarah’s gone. She has to be gone.”
“Bernadette didn’t seem to think so,” I said.
“How do you know what Bernadette thought? How did anyone know? She was… she was crazy. Broken. That painting was probably just… just nonsense.”
“Do you really think that?” I asked gently. “Or do you just want it to be true?”
“Go home, Wren,” Nova said, turning her back on me and looking out the window again. “I don’t need this today.”
I jumped to my feet. “Nova, I know this is the worst timing ever, and I’m sorry I have to bring up painful stuff.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you have to bring up painful stuff? Because you could just… not.”
“Nova, if this was only about sparing your feelings, I’d never talk about Sarah Claire again.
But this is bigger than us. We think Sarah might still be here, and that might be why the Source is all messed up.
We need to talk to her, and it would be a lot easier if we had something of your family’s to lure her in—”
Nova spun around, her expression so vicious that I took a step back in alarm.
“What of my family’s? What are you talking about?”
“Well, the mirror is gone, of course, but…” I swallowed hard, steeling myself. “Well, Jess thought that your coven’s grimoire might work just as—”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me. You came here to ask me to steal something from my own family? And our grimoire of all things?!”
“No!” I cried. “No, of course not! I just thought maybe we could… could borrow it. It’s important, Nova. If we’re ever going to free this town from Sarah’s actions, we need to understand—”
“Get out!” Nova shouted. She picked up a bud vase off the nearest table, and flung it at me. I ducked out of the way just in time, and it shattered against the wall.
“Nova, please—”
“GET OUT!”
She reached for a much larger vase as I turned and fled for the front door.
I didn’t stop until I was on my bike and had pedaled far enough away that I couldn’t see the Manor anymore.
Well, actually, I couldn’t see anything anymore due to the tears that had welled up into my eyes.
I blinked them away and wiped them on my sleeve, furious with myself.
I shouldn’t have come. Nova would probably never speak to me again, and I didn’t blame her.
Back at Lightkeep Cottage, my mother spotted me from the garden, and hurried over to the fence.
“Well?” she asked.
I just shook my head. My expression must have been bleak, because she opened the gate and hurried over to put an arm around my shoulder.
“It’s okay, honey. We’ll figure something else out.”
“I shouldn’t have gone.”
“You had to try.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I shrugged her arm off my shoulders and walked back into the house, feeling miserable.
My mom took the hint and didn’t follow me.
I needed some time to myself. I looked around for Freya, hoping to curl up with her, but she remained elusive, and I convinced myself that I probably didn’t deserve cat snuggles.
I laid down in my room and stewed in my own misery until the sun started to dip behind the tree line, and Rhi called everyone down for dinner.
Jess didn’t ask about Nova as I sat down, so I assumed my mother had told her about my disastrous attempt to get the grimoire. Rhi hovered over near the window, biting at her lip.
“Do you think we should check on her?” Rhi asked. “She hasn’t come out of the workshop all day.”
“She really should eat something,” my mom said, nodding. “Maybe we can just take her a plate, so she can still be alone, if she prefers?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s a better idea than dragging her to the table,” Rhi said, her expression clearing up.
She began to pile food onto the table. I watched Jess’ eyes go wide as Rhi handed her a heaping plate of roast chicken, potatoes, gravy, asparagus wrapped in bacon, and a steaming, buttered popover.
“This woman should open a restaurant,” she murmured to me. “I’ve never eaten so well in my life.”
We all ate in silence for a few minutes before my mom finally said, “We should try to decide what to do next. Jess, can we still summon Sarah without the Claire grimoire?”
“I’ve got other methods we can try,” Jess said, nodding. “They’re more complicated and less reliable, but they can definitely work.”
“Well then, I guess the next question is when?” Rhi said. “How long do you need to prepare?”
Jess considered, chewing thoughtfully. “It will depend on how hard it is to get my hands on a few items,” she said. “There are some specialty herbs and gemstones and stuff that—”
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” my mom said, trading a smile with Rhi. “We’ll take you over to Shadowkeep after dinner.”
Jess looked dubious. “Really? Because when I peeked in the window the other day, it looked pretty… well…”