Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Even today, when Blair’s heart had been ripped in two, when the man she loved looked at her with nothing but hatred in his eyes, there was no one to stroke her hair and let her cry on their shoulder. Blair was tired of being the strong one. The responsible one.
But she had no choice. Blair watched the pot of tea carefully so the milky brew wouldn’t boil over. When the colour was dark enough, she poured the tea into three mugs and brought them to the living room to Belinda and Bianca.
‘I made chai,’ Blair said.
Bianca looked at Blair, nodding. It was clear she’d been crying – her dark winged eyeliner was running down her cheeks. Belinda was looking blankly in front of her, absentmindedly stroking Kass’s fur. Blair sat next to Bianca on the sofa.
‘You’re bleeding, Blair,’ Belinda said.
‘I’m fine. Just some scratches.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve thought it over, and we should take Hecate’s advice and leave. Before the festival.’
‘What do you mean, leave?’ Belinda asked, brows furrowed.
‘I mean leave Moonbeam Hollow. Now. Before witch hunters find us.’
‘No,’ Belinda said sharply. ‘This is our home.’
‘Yeah, and it’s time to find another one,’ Blair said. ‘By now the whole freaking town probably knows we’re witches. And we have no idea what’s going to happen at the festival. We will be painted in the same light as Hecate. This town is no longer safe. It’s time to go.’
‘Shouldn’t all three of us make this decision?’ Bianca asked. ‘You have major oldest-child syndrome. You promised you’d stop treating us as kids.’
Blair sat up straight. ‘I’m acting like the oldest child because I am the oldest!
And I promised our parents I’d look out for you!
I don’t want to go any more than you do, but this is our only option.
Mom and Dad left Zanzibar when things weren’t safe for them there, and it’s time for us to leave here.
Witches rarely stay in one place their whole lives for exactly this reason.
We can change our names like our parents did. Start over somewhere new.’
‘But you love Luke,’ Belinda said. ‘You have to fight for him. I saw it in both your futures.’
Blair shook her head. ‘Your prophecy had to be wrong. Or it was misinterpreted. You heard what happened. I said I was a witch, and he looked at me like I was a monster. His mother told us to leave.’ She paused. ‘For good reason. Look what we did to their bakery! This was her dream.’
‘Hecate did that,’ Bianca said. ‘We were trying to stop her. To save the festival.’
‘And we failed,’ Blair said. ‘Yes, the festival is in danger, and so is Moonbeam Hollow. But we are in even more danger. And we didn’t cause this issue; Moonbeam Hollow caused it when they distrusted the Stormvales because they were different.
’ Her voice cracked with emotion. Blair pushed her hurt back down.
‘Women were just living their lives and being kind to their employees, and they were killed for it. That festival that we’ve been desperately trying to save?
It was created to celebrate killing people like us.
That’s why it exists! Yes, Moonbeam Hollow has changed since then, and I doubt everyone here now would act the same way as people did one hundred years ago, but this is Moonbeam Hollow’s problem to fix, not ours. It’s too risky for us.’
‘But we are a part of Moonbeam Hollow!’ Belinda said. ‘What about the café? And Wolf Willow Bookstore? I can’t abandon Gladys like that. All of our friends will be at the festival. The whole town. We can’t abandon Moonbeam Hollow, Blair.’
Blair looked out the window. The wind from earlier was gone now, and there was nothing but idyllic tree-lined streets and blue skies.
The fall leaves and crisp air were everything Blair loved about Moonbeam Hollow.
And she always thought the town loved the Briarwoods as much as they loved the town.
‘We’re not really members of the community,’ Blair said quietly.
‘How can we be, when we’ve always had to hide a huge part of who we are from the town? ’
‘We don’t have to hide who we are if we don’t want to,’ Belinda said.
Blair’s eyes narrowed. ‘We cannot tell the whole town we’re witches. That’s beyond irresponsible.’
Belinda shook her head. ‘That’s not what I mean.
I mean . . . we can live here, but not as witches.
We can stop using magic.’ She paused. ‘We barely use it, anyway. We couldn’t even manage a summoning circle, remember?
Blair, you can stop using magic to make your latte syrups, and I can stop reading tea leaves and tarot cards.
We won’t be hiding anymore because we won’t be practising witches. ’
Blair looked at her sister. She’d always known that Belinda loved Moonbeam Hollow as much as Blair did, and she was so attached to Gladys and the bookstore, but still. Was giving up magic really a sacrifice Belinda was willing to make for the town?
‘All we have to do is decide what means more to us: being a practising witch, or living in Moonbeam Hollow,’ Belinda said.
‘Maybe that’s an option,’ Blair relented.
‘But not for right away. Maybe after this Hecate mess has blown over, we can come back. But after that scene in the bakery today, I know we’re going to be seen as the villains here.
We should leave at sunup. Let’s take only the bare minimum with us.
Bianca, do you have any witch friends who can hide us while we look for a new temporary home?
Maybe your Swedish contacts? Or the ones in Singapore? ’
‘I can find someone.’ Bianca sounded resigned.
‘It will need to be somewhere that can take a cat,’ Blair added. She looked at Kass and the small dip of his chin told her he agreed with this plan.
‘I’m turning off my phone so no one can contact me,’ Blair said.
‘You should do the same. Pack lightly, only things that could be dangerous to leave behind. I’ll send an email in the morning after we’re long gone saying that Harvest Moon won’t be in the festival because of the damage the café sustained in the storm.
You can email your commitments, too. We have enough in the emergency fund to start over.
We’ll get plane tickets in the morning.’
Belinda and Bianca nodded. There was nothing left to say, so Blair downed the rest of her tea in one sip and went upstairs to her room to pack.
But when she got to her bedroom, she didn’t pack. Instead, she sat on her bed and finally let herself cry. Not just cry, but sob. Let all the pain and frustration of the day out.
How had it gone so bad so quickly? And the fact that it was happening because she’d opened up her heart to someone in a way she’d never done before, just rubbed salt in her wound.
Yes, she’d hidden things from Luke. Yes, she’d lied to him.
But she’d lowered her inhibitions in a way she’d never done with anyone else.
She told him she loved him. And this was how their love story was ending – with him looking at her like she was pure evil, and Blair sneaking out of town at the crack of dawn.
Blair had to be strong now. She looked around her room.
She wasn’t going to bring many things with her.
The nature of her potions witchcraft practice meant she didn’t have tools like Belinda’s tarot cards or Bianca’s plant .
. . things. She wished she could take some of the treasures she’d accumulated over the last few years, like her cozy bedspread and the warm art prints that hung on her wall.
She wished she could take all her sweaters and skirts, instead of only the ones that would fit in two bags.
But maybe it was time for a reinvention.
Maybe she would become a jeans and sweatshirt person after moving.
Maybe she wouldn’t run a café to make use of her potion magic but would instead be a bartender.
Maybe even a winemaker, or brewer. Maybe a year from now the Blair that had been thirty years in the making would be gone.
Wiping her tears, Blair pulled the luggage her mom had bought her to take to university out of her closet and started packing things into it.