Chapter 7
pine needles and prophecy
She didn’t remember falling asleep. One moment, Callie was curled into a pile of pillows, warm and weightless, the scent of pine and lemon balm lingering on her skin.
The next moment, she was walking, and Jess was by her side.
Not hand in hand, not speaking, but there. Their steps aligned, and the pace quickened. Hurried but not frantic, as if they had somewhere important to be. Together.
Callie looked down at her hand, thinking she could still feel the warmth of Jess’s grasp. She looked at Jess, then stared, her breath holding. Jess wore a hood. Its structured peak kept the fabric away from her face. She looked stoic, deep in thought, but then Jess turned her head and looked at Callie.
With a slight tilt of her head, Jess smiled. That shy glance under her brow that suggested she was thinking of something about Callie, maybe inappropriate. It was alluring but brief, and then Callie heard the forest.
Feet crunching in the soft earth, through pine needles, then leaves. The loamy, organic ground was wet with dew. This was a march, and soon other footsteps joined theirs. The air buzzed with a pulse she didn’t recognize but somehow synced with her heartbeat.
The people around them, women of all ages, cloaked as well, were making their way through the trees in the middle of the night.
But Callie didn’t feel afraid. She felt ready.
The group stopped, and Callie began to speak. Didn’t even think about it, but her mouth opened, and the words spilled out. “We gather now, not in fear but in power.
No faces showed themselves as the group gathered around her. Then one. Isabel. She nodded to Callie in a moment of acceptance. “We are not the lost. We are the return…”
Then gone. Like a flame blown out.
Callie was still in bed. Sheets were tangled, and her chest was rising and falling rapidly.
The window was still open. The ceiling fan still spun. Her bedside glass of water hadn’t moved. There was no circle of witches and no rallying cry rising from her throat.
Just Callie. Naked and sweaty and blinking at the ceiling.
“What…the hell..” She sat up and reached for the water glass, sipping it like it would ground her.
“I was awake,” she thought as her eyes darted around her bedroom, the scent of crushed pine still fresh in her mind. Putting her arm to her nose, a gentle citrus balanced pine was too floral. In her mind, the scent she remembered was too sharp, far too tangy to be the same. Like the earth had opened its lungs and exhaled around her gathering.
The words she’d said were still humming in her chest like a tuning fork.
“We are not the lost.”