Chapter 32
Annelise was still sitting in her office at eleven that night. Her brain hadn't quite been working to its fullest extent all day. Everything seemed just a little foggy.
The memories of last night kept pushing in. They were wild and wonderful, and it had all been an amazing relief on the stress she felt all along. That’s what she told herself it was. That way she didn’t need to examine any feelings or be sad that she’d left mad that morning. Stress relief, check.
This morning, when she'd made it to her office—just in time—she’d returned to her reality. But the liquid feeling to her bones lingered. She didn't want to thank Rowan for anything these days, but he was giving her a different perspective on the way she was living her life.
Taking care of her grandmother was more work than she'd realized, and she’d slowly added one or two pieces at a time, not ever stopping and seeing what she was doing.
Now that she was out of the house, and Story was staying with other people—presumably cooking for them, helping them fix things, magically restoring the gardens that had flooded, possibly even drying out their electronics, Who knew?
—Annelise had texted back and forth with her grandmother.
They even had a few calls. Story said she was doing great and Annelise shouldn't worry about her.
For the first time, Annelise made it happen: she didn’t worry. It felt amazing.
She'd managed to arrive at the offices in time to change her clothes and get her hair and makeup done. Also, she’d done it without any clients watching her arrive in yesterday’s clothes.
She took a few extra minutes to sit at the desk and breathe.
She’d also managed to drive through her favorite place for a sandwich on her way over—a little drive thru charm hadn’t hurt.
It seemed everyone just wanted to order inside this morning.
She could even say she'd had eggs and tomatoes and avocados on a whole grain bun. She would not count the soda she’d suddenly ordered when they asked.
Her first clients had demanded her attention in the best way.
They’d been a watershed, handing her twelve new items from their recent travels.
She’d tagged them, then asked about where they'd purchased the items. They’d handed over papers for five of them.
The other seven would be up to Annelise to determine their history. But she could do it.
Almost the moment those clients had left, another call came in, and she'd found herself meeting with another couple at twelve-thirty.
They were interested in buying, and she'd walked them through the warehouse where they spent what she personally would have considered an exorbitant amount of money.
Five items were sold, and when they'd left, Annelise first smiled, then immediately emailed Alice.
After giving her the rundown on which items, she let her know to begin shipping procedures.
Settling back into the office, with no more clients on the books and no open house for tonight, Annelise clocked a few more hours for the day.
Then she'd driven back to Belle Hollow for the first time in a while. She let her car set the pace and didn’t watch the clock.
She wasn’t due to cook dinner for Story or meet a contractor for the drywall or the new carpet.
She wasn’t adding up those costs to see if the emergency money covered them entirely or if she might need to pitch in some of her own money.
Or more if the lawsuit didn’t come through.
This time, she looked up where the trees grew over the road, making an arch of leaves that were beginning to change to fall colors.
Breathing in the cool air, she put one hand out the open window.
A hawk cut across the road in front of her, wings spread, almost as if it were posing, but she didn’t have her camera ready to snap it at its best angle.
Deer peeked their heads out from between the trees, waiting until she passed.
In her rearview mirror, she saw a mama and two little babies who were just on the edge of losing their spots.
No, she thought. She still wouldn’t stay.
The house wasn’t ready, and she had a hotel room in Charlottesville right now.
She'd made the bold move of checking online and pricing a few apartments.
She found out what she could spend if she wasn't still supporting her grandmother, and she realized she didn't want to do that. Belle Hollow was home—twisty roads, wildlife, weird weather, and all. She was settling back into her skin and, though she didn’t want to admit it, mostly because of Rowan.
She pressed her lips together and sucked in the clean air through her nose, trying to let that settle in her soul.
It was Rowan who said Story could take care of herself.
That maybe Story leaned on Annelise more and more through the years because Annelise kept stepping up.
She didn't like the idea, but she had to accept the possibility that maybe she had helped build this life.
The good news was that meant maybe she could unbuild it.
Stepping back into the business after leaving for a week had been frustrating and daunting.
Now that it was running smoothly again, she knew that, even if Rowan's deal with the insurance company fell through, she could finance her grandmother's house—at least the repairs.
And she could insist Story make part of the payments.
Story didn't like charging for what she offered to the townspeople, but many of the witches did.
It wasn't as if Mindy Bormann came by and fixed all their appliances for free.
Annelise shelled out for all of that, and it was only fair.
It was Mindy's time, and her talent, and maybe a little witchcraft, but none of it was anything Annelise could replicate herself, and she owed Mindy for the years she'd put in going to trade school.
Because, apparently, she'd gone back to another trade school a few years later, and another one after that.
Mindy seemed to understand she couldn't just be a plumber in Belle Hollow, and so she'd built a life that was sustainable. Annelise needed to do the same. The way she'd been running was going to burn her out. She could even wind up like her mother.
So once again, she'd pulled up to the little house, though it felt less automatic this time. Pushing open the door, she wasn’t surprised it wasn't locked again. It meant Story had been here.
Checking her grandmother’s bedroom, she saw the bed frame was still empty, but the closet door left slightly ajar, and the clothing moved a bit. It took Annelise a moment to recognize the noise as the washing machine running. Her mouth fell open.
Reaching to the wall, she flipped the switch, watching in happy surprise as the lights came on. Story had turned the power back on. If the washing machine was running, she was washing her own clothes.
Yes! she thought. Damn it, but Rowan was right.
Story could do what she had to, and maybe in a handful of years, or if her health failed, Annelise would move back in.
She would certainly take care of her grandmother when and if she needed it.
Not because she'd built a scenario where Story could lean into her for everything.
After grabbing a few pieces of her own clothing, she traded out the items in her bag and this time left her dirty clothes in the hamper by the laundry.
She had a hamper separate from Story's because some of her clothes were dry clean, or hand wash, or delicate only. The last time her grandmother had washed her work clothes, they’d needed to cast four different spells to get them back to their original size and shape.
Annelise locked the door behind her as she left for Charlottesville again.
Then, once she was in town, she took a right-hand turn into the warehouse district and remembered Rowan saying he didn't like her being out here by herself sometimes at night. She’d held her tongue and not replied that it didn't matter what he didn't like—Rowan Velasco didn't get an opinion in her life.
But apparently he had one, and apparently he'd been right about Story.
In the office, she decided to do a little work for lack of anything better to do.
The Edmondsons traveled internationally and left her with carefully wrapped items—tissue paper, bubble wrap, paper shreds, and even straw protecting what they collected along their travels.
Annelise unwrapped the first piece, finding a tablet.
She sighed heavily. She'd have to check this one carefully.
It might be stolen. In another, more ordinary-looking cardboard box, she found a wind-up clock that piqued her interest. A few items later, she peeled back the crinkled paper wrapping to find a small statue and jolted as she touched the ceramic glaze, almost dropping the piece in her surprise.
Her eyes flared wide, and she quickly wrapped it back, before shoving it down into the box. Then wondered how far away she could get from it.
The urge to wash her hands was strong though she knew it wouldn't help.
Then, even though she knew her movements were almost comical, she stepped back over to the box and lifted the paper, looking at it but not touching.
It was a small sculpture of a woman, and it looked like one of the old clay cave sculptures with the large breasts and rounded bellies, where the limbs didn't quite extend all the way to feet or hands.
Even without touching it, there was something Annelise could feel, and she didn't like it.
Setting the paper gently back over it, she decided it was time to head back to her hotel room.
The grandfather clock in the corner of the room chimed just then, almost making her jump, and she was glad no one was here to see her. Not Alice, not Jenna, and certainly not Rowan.
His name lingered on the tip of her tongue like a taste of wine.
Turning then, she grabbed her bag. As she checked around the room, she spotted the book on the side shelf.
Much better than the evil little figurine.
She'd have to figure out what the provenance of the diary was.
She wanted to offer it to Vienna. Though it was her husband's family history, she might have an interest.
Leaving it wrapped in the cloth it came in, Annelise slipped it into her bag, telling herself it was fine if the item left the premises tonight, even though that was generally a no-no.
An hour later, she'd managed to eat a microwaved cup of noodles in her hotel room, slid into her pajamas, and texted her grandmother good night. As she climbed into bed though, she pulled on her gloves, laid out the comforter, and put the book on top of it. Slowly opening it, she slid back into the pillows she’d propped up.
Turning only one page at a time with gloved fingers, she read through Launa Velasco’s life.
By the time she blinked, her eyes watery, she saw the time was well past one. She had a client at nine tomorrow, and she and Story were supposed to meet up in the afternoon to discuss the house and the insurance payout.
Annelise closed the book, suddenly feeling the burn in her eyes.
The diary read in large part like a travelogue of a young woman almost three hundred years ago.
She’d made her way to the US by ship with the husband she'd married just days before leaving.
Apparently, she'd also married him within moments of meeting him—an arrangement by the two families with no input from Launa.
The more Annelise read, the more she was beginning to believe the rumors about the Velascos were true.
Because while it read very much like a young woman's diary, the pages were interrupted with spells.
Spells that Annelise had never heard of, and she'd grown up not only as a witch, but in a community of witches.
Unlike other modern-day witches, she'd struggled to develop her talents rather than hide them. They developed naturally. They developed with nurturing from her mother, her grandmother, her aunts, and even the other women in the Hollow. But Launa had practiced in the quiet dark of night. No one there knew what she could do. And Annelise wasn’t sure she was reading it right . . . but if she was . . .
She closed the book, peeling the gloves.
She should have set it further away, she knew, but she'd simply closed the cover and moved it to the other side of the bed, knowing that it was safe there—at least. She wrapped the fabric back over it and set the gloves on top before leaning back into the pillow and falling into a dream of a covered wagon and a husband who was about to get what he deserved.