Chapter 23
Turning the key, Annelise let herself into the house, almost surprised it was locked in the first place. That probably meant she was the last one here, which meant the place had sat empty with no one working on it for almost two days.
Story was saving everyone else and letting Annelise deal with their own disaster mostly alone.
She tried not to be mad about it. That’s just the way Story had always been.
She believed in the community and had spent her time and energy there.
But it was difficult for her granddaughter—the one who’d returned to the Hollow so her Gram didn’t grow old alone—to find a way to sit fully right with that.
Story wouldn't even lock the door to her own home. She believed in the people around her to make the best choices. When that hadn’t happened, she’d shrugged it off.
Even when it was her own daughter who’d stolen from her.
Story said Monica must have needed it more and that she had faith in the wards.
Monica couldn’t have stolen from them without the universe approving it.
Annelise hadn’t approved it. Her own mother Melissa had worked long hours for not enough money and wasn’t up to the task of replacing their accounts.
Story believed the universe would just right things.
Annelise had worked her ass off for enough money for the taxes on the house and enough left over to eat.
Story had credited the ‘powers that be.’
As a kid, Annelise had never locked the house either; she’d more fully embraced the boho witchy life her Grandmother ruled by. Bloom had lived here then, too—Story’s best friend.
The house had been full. Story and her three daughters. Teagan, Marina’s little girl. Annelise, and Bloom. Annelise had trusted Bloom as the stable, reliable adult in the group. But Bloom hadn’t locked the doors either.
None of her aunts nor her mother did, and honestly, unless somebody was traveling through robbing every random house they passed, nobody would have dared steal from the Lockhearts.
Just the sheer fact that they never would have gotten any more help from the best witches in the county if it was known what they had done was enough to stop most people.
While nobody ever directly said it, it was understood: if you stole from, damaged, or hurt the Lockhearts, there would be no witches in town to help when your luck turned bad.
The Hales and Goodmans wouldn’t help either.
So the doors to the house had never been locked, and Annelise had believed in the craft and the wards. And Bloom.
Until the floods had come the first time.
Story was an elemental witch. She had a general power over most things, but no specific specialty. That was unusual in the Lockheart family, but it seemed to happen once every few generations. Thus, Annelise had been raised—as had Teagan—looking for their gift.
It had been about her sixth year when they'd found out what she was, when she'd gone to a creek running muddy from storm runoff and seen the fish struggling. She and Teagan had each tried to clear the water, though Teagan was young enough that her failure to do so didn’t mean she wasn’t a water witch, just a toddler.
Annelise's mother, Melissa, and Marina—who should have been a water witch by her name alone—had all tried.
But it was Annelise who made it work. Much to her delight.
She remembered Teagan was angry that it wasn’t her skill.
Though her young cousin’s magic seemed to run strong, it had been a struggle to contain it.
Annelise remembered being told to help train the youngest not to use her skills on the other kids at daycare.
That it wasn't okay to simply make the forest animals come out and play with her.
Annelise remembered being told that somehow she'd been even more of a handful.
But she'd been the one to clear the water and she remembered her pride. The tests and confirmation that, yes, she was a water witch. Back then, the little house had been full and happy. Bloom had been keeping things running and young Annelise had existed in the shelter of that care.
What she didn’t know was that the dominoes had already begun to fall.
Monica disappeared frequently, and she was gone.
No one worried much—Story always called her “a space cadet.” They didn't know it then, but they were never going to see her again.
Annelise didn't know it then either, but the next domino would come within a few years, when Marina took Teagan and left the Hollow.
While she and Story still heard from Marina occasionally, Annelise had been granted almost no contact with her slightly younger cousin since then.
Almost three years after that, Bloom and Story had begun fighting. So Bloom was the next to leave. The Lockheart women in the little house had dwindled to the one line: Story, Melissa, Annelise.
It had been a hard thing to tell Jenna about Teagan.
That there was a third girl, another daughter from another sister.
But Annelise didn't know her other than her name, her age, and the memories she had of a chubby toddler running through the house.
One that she'd loved, cared for, fed, and carried around like a little sister.
She'd missed Teagan so fiercely in those early days, but Story always brushed her off.
Marina had a life to live somewhere else, as if that was that, as if it was okay for people to leave and not come back.
They were safe and Annelise should be happy for them.
Monica was another tough story to tell Jenna: hey, we think your birth mother is definitely deceased.
She’d skirted around how she and Story knew that to be fact, when they hadn’t heard from her or about her for nearly two decades.
But eventually the crystal had stopped swinging when they asked.
While Annelise wanted to track down her aunt’s remains, Story had simply brushed it off: It was just her body.
It wouldn’t bring her back. She was at peace now.
As an adult, Annelise was much less accepting of her grandmother’s blasé attitude toward her own daughter.
When she thought too hard about it, it made her question her devotion to her grandmother, this house, this town.
What if she disappeared next? Would Story even look for her or just declare her absence the universe’s will?
Annelise breathed slowly as the memories and concerns assaulted her anew. It was always easier to deal with Story when things ran smoothly. When they didn’t, it felt as if it all fell to Annelise. She’d been left as the only adult in the house.
Lord knew, Story would not tell Jenna that Monica had likely been doing all kinds of drugs.
She had magic but no self-control. Well, Annelise had barely gotten to the magic part with Jenna yet, not the drugs.
Story had kicked Monica out more than once, fully unable to comprehend why a witch would do drugs when she had power at her fingertips.
But Monica had fought with her mother constantly; Annelise remembered that much.
She had been a chemical witch, able to manipulate elements.
She could have been a baker. She could have designed new pharmaceuticals to save the world.
She could have just helped Belle Hollow.
But as an adult, looking back with clearer eyes, Annelise wondered if Monica had simply fallen in with the wrong crowd.
If they'd seen her skills and taken advantage of her abilities. When she’d looked for her aunt, she’d seen her dancing as she mixed something—probably cooking some seriously witched up meth.
There were no right or wrong answers to any of the story, not that Annelise could see even with the benefit of hindsight.
But Story's response had been to simply kick Monica out of the house.
As Annelise looked around the small bare building, she began to wonder if she was starting to understand her aunt.
Her aunt who had apparently had a child one of the times when she disappeared.
She’d not been pregnant in this house—they all would have known.
So she’d gotten pregnant and given birth, and given the child up for adoption, all while she was away.
She could have come back home and brought the baby with her, or so Annelise would have believed. The Lockhearts only birthed girl children, and here, in the house of the Lockheart women, wouldn't Monica and her baby have been welcome?
For the first time, Annelise wondered.
Monica had come back, and Story had tried once more to straighten her daughter out. Clearly, none of it had been what Monica needed, and her aunt had disappeared again.
Annelise looked around the small space in the present, thinking about the things she'd told Jenna—how she didn't have antiques here, and it wasn't just because of the creek and the possibility of the water rising.
Reaching up, she touched her cheek to find the odd sensation was tears.
No one lived in this home right now, and they'd been through this before—through the waters coming, the homelessness, the house getting rebuilt, the community pitching in.
Though she and her mother and Story had put the house back together piece by piece, The dominos had still been falling. That flood had cost her everything.
Story had never been the same. Maybe she hadn’t always been this flighty and willing to brush off everything as ‘the universe’s will.
’ Maybe, like Annelise, she’d fought and lost. But Annelise had been seventeen, not a full adult yet herself.
Were the memories of paying the taxes from before or after the first flood? She wasn’t sure.
It didn’t matter in the end. She’d lost everything in that flood. She'd been told she was a powerful water witch, and she'd not been able to save the house that time or this time either.
Back then, when they'd moved back in, Annelise thought things would finally get back to normal. She’d still been sneaking out to see Rowan then—one of ‘those Velasco boys’ Story and the elders didn’t want her seeing.
By then, her mother was on board with that, too.
There hadn’t been many hard and fast rules in the house, but that had been one of them.
Annelise hadn’t known it then, but things had changed at the plant her mother and his father worked at.
Then Monica was fired, and Rowan hadn't wanted to admit his father's part.
Annelise couldn't forgive that. Piece by piece, Monica had lost every shred of herself. She caught every passing flu and cold, and one had eventually been too much. They knew now what it was, but they hadn’t at the time.
Sucking in a deep breath, Annelise tried not to let the memories overtake her.
The wood subflooring creaked beneath her feet.
The carpet had been pulled up, rolled, and taken to the street.
Just like last time. The county had come and taken it away, but it hadn't been replaced yet.
Rowan said there would be money for that from the insurance agency.
But, because the house was deeded in Story's name, he had to talk to Story.
And Annelise stood here now wondering if it was going to be the same old shit.
Would Story wave him away? Suggest the universe would take care of them? Because it wasn’t. The only thing taking care of them was Annelise. And she hadn’t even been able to save the house from fucking water. Her own element. She’d failed. Again.
Why had she come back here? ‘Coming back’ was actually a stupid term. It wasn't like she'd ever gotten far enough away to actually leave. She’d only gotten as far as Charlottesville. Though she set up her business there, she lived here and commuted in.
As close as it was, the little city with the university was worlds away from Belle Hollow.
But Annelise had only ever stayed away for college.
She’d turned around and come right back.
Despite her plans for New York. Despite her degree and her business.
Despite her better judgement. She’d not been able to leave Story alone. She’d never escaped.
Marina had. Monica had. Melissa stayed, and she died from it, and Annelise wondered now if that same fate awaited her.