Epilogue
Once upon a time, there was a family of witches.
But witches, it turns out, are sometimes only women who have been hurt, and are determined not to be again.
Over the years, Bailey returned to Hen Town a handful of times.
She would sometimes see Tasha with Gary and their teenage daughter.
They would wave, and occasionally nod, as if telling each other, Still okay.
She never saw Clutch again, but she never totally trusted that she wouldn’t, so she thought it was best to stay away and let sleeping memories lie.
But this weekend, the son of Tug’s husband Ash was graduating from medical school.
Bailey had flown in from Austin with her twin sons to attend the ceremony, but Theo stayed behind.
He was in the middle of grading final exams and he’d been walking around for weeks with papers floating around him like birds. She missed his steadying presence.
The boys were running across the wide expanse of lawn at Wester Park, laughing, not understanding why Bailey was standing nervously at the top of the hill overlooking the creek, thoughts hovering around her loud but unseen, like summer bugs.
From behind her, Ash called everyone to the picnic he’d prepared.
She watched the boys race to the blankets, through a house that was no longer there.
The Wester House had been torn down and the basement filled in after Willamena died, found peacefully lying in her bed hours after telling Bailey what really happened.
The boys passed their grandfather, who was again trying to dig up the yellow roses that were always growing around the pink roses he’d planted in Willamena’s memory.
It never did any good. He would pull and grunt, eradicating the yellow roses from the arbor, then dig up all the roots he could find, but the very next day they would be back, twining around the pink ones once again.
Curiously, everyone in the neighborhood who visited the park left the roses alone.
Sometimes they would pick a few of the other flowers if they wanted a small summer bouquet to put in a jam jar, or to a wear behind an ear if they were newly in love.
But they steered clear of the roses. They seemed to understand that these flowers—one wild, one thorny—wanted to be left alone.
Bailey walked over to Tug and helped him stand. He was dressed in what he always wore when he visited Wester Park, his English country gentleman clothes, all tweed and crisp linen. Ash called him King Charles when he dressed like this.
“You know that never does any good,” Bailey said to him with a smile.
“I know,” Tug said, laughing as he took off his gloves. “This garden is as stubborn as she was.”
Tug walked toward the picnic blankets, but Bailey hesitated by the flowers.
It seemed appropriate that the end of this fairy tale included enchanted roses.
Bailey still wasn’t sure if she believed in a happily ever after.
Did anyone really know for sure?
But at least she believed in being happy now.
And that, she was certain, was a very good start.