Chapter 29
29
FIRST THERE’S THE truly glorious spectacle of the Joywood kneeling to the Undine.
Which looks a lot like them kneeling to us , and I don’t have any plans to become a power-hungry witch bitch like any of them, but I’ll admit that there’s a part of me that likes the view.
Even if it’s only a temporary thing, before they rise up again and smite us all down the way I know they’re itching to do.
Though the look on Maeve’s face is...odd, I think.
I frown, gripping Zander a little harder.
“The rule of the Joywood has ended,” the Undine booms out. “The Riverwood will ascend to ruling coven. The transition of power has begun and will last until Yule. In the interim, the Riverwood will have the final say in everything, starting now.”
She turns to us, all blazing eyes and intimidating size. “Riverwood, you have ascended. You now lead witchdom.”
I hear her, but I think I’m in shock.
Maybe we’re all in shock, because none of us move. None of us react.
“May we use our power wisely,” Frost says darkly, and I suppose it’s not surprising that he shakes off the shock first. After all, I’m pretty sure he’s done this before.
Even Emerson seems stunned. Until she blinks, and then smiles, like she was born for this.
I stop tracking what we’re doing, because the Joywood are losing their proverbial shit. A bunch of children who lost their toy and now want to break it, leaping up from their knees like they intend to rush us .
“This is impossible!” Carol screams, her hair looking electrocuted, her eyes bright and furious. Her veneer is gone. She’s practically foaming at the mouth with rage. “I won’t allow it!”
Then, without warning, Carol shoots something at us. A bolt of dark, oily magic, no Skipweasel required.
There’s the sound of screaming from the audience, but we can’t look to see if they’re reacting to Carol or fending off their own attacks, because we have to throw up a protective shield to fend off all that nasty black magic—
Emerson is the one who leaps out in front of the rest of us, like she wants to take the hit herself—because we’ve all got a little martyr in us when it comes to the people we love.
The Undine cries out, another booming sound, and the bolt of oily black turns to stone, then explodes, showering down on the dais between us like an ugly hailstorm.
For a moment it’s like we’re all frozen. Staring at the black rocks, everywhere, that prove, once and for all, the Joywood are agents of evil. Black magic and power trips, no matter what they try to pretend.
If they were ever good, they turned away from it a long time ago.
I scan the crowd, relieved to see that no one looks attacked. That must mean the screaming was in shock at the Joywood’s attack, or, knowing my mother, a little battle cry of her own.
“Joywood,” the Undine booms, so loud we all cover our ears. Some people in the crowd even cower. Every single Joywood member freezes. “You have disgraced yourselves.”
They do not look as if that bothers them much. Maeve is glaring directly at me, and if I didn’t know her sickly pigeon familiar was blind, I’d think he was too.
“The laws of old are clear in this,” the Undine intones. “You must accept the choices of your fellow witches or forfeit everything you have achieved, everything you are. Should you persist, you will be judged—not by your peers, but by me .”
I’m sure I’m not the only one who believes her. Completely.
Across from us, black stones scattered before them and all around Happy Ambrose’s body, the Joywood—no longer the ruling coven—seethe. Gil Redd and Felix Sewell are muttering to each other. Festus Proctor and Felicia Ipswitch are huddled together, looking hollow-eyed.
It’s Maeve and Carol who look unhinged, but they do not try to take us out again.
Not here. Not now.
Not in front of witnesses both on the green and watching from afar.
I wouldn’t say Carol remembers herself, but it’s as if she suddenly remembers that she has an audience. Even her staunchest supporters can’t seem look her in the eye after such a childish tantrum. After such a loss.
Or maybe everyone is as stunned as we are that everything in St. Cyprian has changed.
Just like that.
This, I think, is why ascensions used to be more commonplace. So it didn’t feel like the world turned upside down—and on Samhain, of all nights, when the veil is so thin we can feel the ghosts of every witch who ever was crowding in to bear witness.
“Very well,” Carol says after a moment, so regally, as if we didn’t all just see her basically stamp her foot like a child. A murderous, black magic-y child, that is. She turns to the audience, and I blink, because she changes as I look at her. Everything...smooths out. She looks taller. Almost elegant. She inclines her head. “Witchkind, you have made the wrong decision, and I am terribly afraid you will live to regret it.” She sounds so caring. So concerned— but I take this as what it is: Carol signaling that she might be down, but never out. “When these children with delusions of grandeur have run witchkind into the ground and subjected us to trials far worse than Salem, letting humans run roughshod over all of our lives, you will rue this night. And you will cry out for a deliverance that will not come.”
“That sounds a lot like a curse,” I say, as the reigning expert in curses.
But it’s drowned out in the loud bang that sounds when the whole of the Joywood disappear. I’m surprised an actual puff of evil smoke doesn’t follow in their wake, but it doesn’t. There’s just moonlight on black stones, down on the green near the river.
The Joywood are gone.
Maybe not forever—I can’t quite believe that—but for now feels pretty good.
Because we won . We’ve ascended. We’re the ruling coven.
This little band of misfits has done the unthinkable and the impossible.
We had our families and each other and Emerson’s unwavering faith to lead us here, but I know I still had my doubts.
Everyone looks as dazed as I feel as we turn to each other, pulling together in a kind of huddle. Even Frost, usually too prickly for such things, looks...as mortal as the rest of us are.
We don’t say anything, not even Emerson. No speeches. No fist pumps.
This is enough. We are enough.
Each of us maybe a little banged up but whole, here, alive .
Tonight, that’s what matters.
“Do you really think that will be the end of it?” Georgie asks, chewing on her bottom lip as she stares down at the black rocks still scattered everywhere.
I glance at Rebekah, because she too can reach into the future. She can weigh all the options, see down all the paths. But sometimes...it isn’t worth it. Bad things happen. Threats exist everywhere, not just in this one small river town.
You can lose your way under the weight of the possibilities.
Rebekah and I look at each other, the whole of our long friendship there between us, and the futures we see winding together like a confluence all their own.
“All we can do is focus on the present,” she says quietly.
“That’s how we make our future,” I agree.
And tonight, the rest of our coven lets that go.
Emerson takes a deep breath, and then she grins. “And in the present, we have a ton of work to do before Yule,” she says, making us groan.
But the group huddle turns into a hug, and we’re grinning when we pull away again.
Then there’s St. Cyprian to deal with, and all of witchdom—and it seems like the green is three times as full of witches as the last time I looked.
Like people came from everywhere to see this momentous thing, our scrubby little coven overturning the Joywood after so long that no one can remember who came before them.
Emerson steps off the dais and immediately starts shaking hands and hugging people who’ve always supported us. She even hugs her mother.
Zander and I climb down together, and my mother finds me immediately, pulling me away from him and squeezing me so tight I can hardly breathe. But I don’t mind.
I hug her back, hard.
When she finally releases me, I spot Zander behind Mina, being awkwardly hugged by his father, no doubt worried about the damage that’s still visible on Zander’s body.
I don’t want to think about that near miss he’s still not fully recovered from. If I never think about that terrible fire again, that weasel scream, it will be too soon.
We all field lots of positive congratulations, and even some grudging ones. It seems as if a lot of people go out of their way to say a few words to all of us before they begin to filter away, off to celebrate Samhain in the old ways.
I look back toward the Undine, feeling a little strange that she looks like nothing but a statue now. Now that I know she’s watching, waiting, even when it seems that she’s nothing but insensate stone. Still, I like knowing she’ll be judging the Joywood.
Just like I like knowing that we’ll continue to protect each other the way we have our whole lives, no matter what comes next.
By the time the first hints of dawn show up on the horizon, the crowd just begins to thin out. I have the sense that we should all go home and sleep—rituals and trials and unexpected wins take a lot out of a person—and yet none of us suggest it.
Because Samhain has dawned, chilly but right. We have businesses to run, parades to watch, community events to participate in.
And we are the ruling coven now.
I magic us all one of my favorite concoctions, and we sit on the edge of the dais as the sun comes up, sipping a proper witch’s brew and greeting our first day in the whole new world we made, together.
In the late afternoon, I close my shop a little early and make an impromptu trip out to the Bill Wallace house to check on Sadie. Tanith assured me that she cast a little memory spell to make her think anything she might recall is nothing but a Halloween dream, but I want to make sure she’s okay.
Zander insists on coming with me. Not because we’re worried about danger this time, but because I don’t think we’re quite ready to be apart for very long just yet.
And I think he wants to see for himself that Sadie really is okay.
We arrive to much Halloween fanfare. Bill is, no surprise, away on a business trip, doing whatever it is he does out there. But Stephanie is so excited to see us that she nearly shackles us to chairs so we stay for dinner before we even get our coats off.
Inside, all the girls are dressed up and vibrating with excitement at the dining room table. Brynleigh is dressed like an angel, but it’s kind of a slutty angel. Madyson is in the same costume she’s worn the past ten years—an Albert Pujols baseball jersey—the only other detail some baseball eye black under her eyes. Sadie is wearing a little pair of antennae and a T-shirt that reads, bookworm . Avery is dressed up like some Disney princess I’ve forgotten the name of, and Gigi is a cute little scarecrow.
So cute that I think I might melt, until she looks right at me and says, deadpan, “I have a knife in my bag.”
I want to laugh, but I remember that my sisters are as cursed to tell the truth as I am.
“That’s terrifying,” Zander mutters as Stephanie serves up big bowls of chili and slides them in front of us.
Sadie keeps staring at me from across the table. I stare back, trying not to be worried. “Everything okay?”
She frowns. “I think I must have had a funny dream about you, but I can’t remember it.”
“Then how do you know you had it?” Brynleigh asks like a smart-ass.
The girls start sniping at each other, good-naturedly enough, and I reassure myself that she’s okay. Maybe she remembers more than I’d like her to about the ordeal she went through, no matter if it’s just a feeling and a dream, but she seems okay.
Especially when she lights into her older sister.
While the two of them poke at each other, Madyson rolls her eyes and swipes up more corn bread from the platter in the middle of the table. “They always do this. It’s so annoying.”
I have to accept that everything is good here, and I find that harder to take than another round of bad stuff. Like I’m primed and ready to fight another wave of Joywood nonsense—but the possibility that we not only won, but everyone I love is okay?
That’s almost too much.
“Love is the only lie you tell, but it will claim you in the end,” Rebekah told me a long time ago, and I get it now. And I have to allow it to claim me, in all its forms, or it was nothing but a lie all along.
I can hear Elizabeth’s voice, almost as if she’s standing there beside me the way she used to. Legacies are choices, Ellowyn.
Maybe the thing about really, truly being okay is choosing to be. And the doing it.
Maybe it’s that simple, and that complicated.
I decide, then and there, that it is.
“What happened to your arm?” Gigi asks, poking at Zander and the jagged pink burn scar running down the length of his forearm. A parting gift from the Joywood.
“Just a little bar accident,” he lies easily.
Brynleigh’s eyes widen in a mix of horror and delight. Her angel halo vibrates with her excitement at something so ghoulish, and the rest of the sisters follow suit, until we’re having a frank and fairly gross conversation about scars and wounds for the rest of dinner.
Perfect for Halloween.
We finish dinner, and even though Stephanie begs us to stay and enjoy trick-or-treating, we can’t. We have our coven to get back to.
But what I say to Stephanie is, “Thank you. For everything.”
When she hugs me, I hug her back. Hard.
Then Zander I climb in his truck and head for St. Cyprian. Because Emerson decided we should all meet at Nix and celebrate. Even though I’m not sure how any of us are standing, no one objected.
I’ve been magicking everyone herbal pick-me-ups all day, and I do it again now, so Zander and I have something to sip on for the drive.
The Missouri highways spread out before us, strings of light against the October night. Zander has his hand on my leg and the music playing loud, and it could easily be any night from back in high school. Ruth’s flight ahead of us is occasionally illuminated by the headlights or the moonlight. She stayed with my sister until I had a chance to see her myself.
You’re welcome , Ruth offers.
And instead of joking, I answer in our heads emphatically. Thank you.
Uncharacteristic vocalized gratitude aside, this has been a very normal day. After all the melodrama of last night, today has just been...like any other Samhain.
It’s a relief. Another indication that choices are what create a legacy, not dramatic intervals with black magic covens and all the rest.
Life can just go on, filled with family and friends and the jobs we do, the businesses we run, the world we know.
Some things will change. Our responsibilities will grow, and there will be demands on us I’m sure I can’t predict, but the best gift is that we get to keep being us.
We didn’t have to transform ourselves to win.
All we had to do was tell the truth.
I look over at Zander as he drives, and I carefully rub my palm down his arm, avoiding his scar. I know it must still pain him, even with the Healing and the teas I’ve pushed on him today.
“How are you holding up?” I ask.
“All right. Dad forced me to take a nap while you were at the tea shop. No work allowed for the next three days again—Grandma’s orders.” He rolls his eyes, but I can see he’s not fully himself yet.
I trace outside the jagged scar. I imagine that while it might fade, it will never fully go away. We’ve all been marked by what happened this year. Maybe it’s a good reminder.
As for me, I don’t have scars. But I have new eyes and a baby on the way.
I don’t think I’ll be forgetting any of this anytime soon.
Zander parks in the ferry lot and we walk along the river, letting the water lead us and whisper to us as we go. Songs and secrets. St. Cyprian’s soul, rushing into the bright gold confluence in the distance.
Nix is buzzing. There are many costumes, much merriment, and humans wearing witch hats and those funny wart noses while standing next to actual witches dressed in regular street clothes. Our coven is already here, and we wind our way through the crowd to join them at the same booth we sat in when Rebekah first came home.
Except this time, instead of making a dramatic entrance, Frost is one of us.
We’re the ruling coven, I keep having to remind myself, especially when I see the avid attention we get. The sidelong looks and whispered conversations from all the witches packed in here.
Zander signals his cousin for some drinks, and once Zeb brings them over, Emerson lifts her glass. “I’m going to give a toast.”
“You’re going to give a speech , you mean,” Rebekah returns, grinning.
“I can be brief,” Emerson says loftily. Then she laughs. “But why should I be? For over seven months now, we’ve been fighting for our lives. And for a lot longer than that, in our different ways, we’ve been fighting to just...be us. Think of all the ways they tried to take us down, take us out. And in the end, it wasn’t a battle that won this war, it was us . Just us . It was our community believing in right and good and light. Hard work and building instead of belittling and believing —”
“Emerson,” Rebekah groans, but her eyes look a little too bright.
“And a ton of other things that we represent,” Emerson continues, bumping her shoulder against her sister’s. “It’s not about power for us. It’s about doing what’s right. That’s what we’ll keep doing. Every one of us has sacrificed something, learned something, grown up some, and now we’re here. It’s not the ending point. It’s only the beginning.”
“But let’s celebrate like it’s an end to threats against our lives,” I offer, lifting my glass of sparkling water.
“Hear, hear,” Zander says, tapping his glass to the table.
An effective cutting-off point before Emerson continues on, before she inevitably starts listing our individual positive points until we all need to run away and hide.
Instead, we spend the next few hours talking. Not about the past twenty-four hours, weirdly enough. Someday, I think, we’ll want to rehash it. Minute by minute. But it’s almost too real just now. We came too close to losing everything, time and time again.
We set it aside for now. Until we’re ready , I think.
Before midnight, we’re all drooping. And tonight, we don’t have to go back to Wilde House and hunker down together. We’re safe.
That takes a moment to really hit all of us. We’re safe .
We split off into our usual pairs. Jacob and Emerson to the North farm, Rebekah and Frost to Frost House. Georgie finds Sage—and I don’t let myself wonder if they’ll go to Wilde House together or like...go research in a library.
I try to be happy that Georgie has made a choice she claims she wants. I brush aside the odd look I saw on her face when Emerson mentioned sacrifices .
Tonight, I let Zander take me to his place, because he’s still healing and the Guardian in him needs that proximity to the confluence, but I pick a half-hearted argument about where we’ll live, for old times’ sake. His place is too run-down. My place is too small—both things magic could easily fix—but there’s something about the fake argument that feels like home.
I can tell by the way he grins while he argues that he agrees.
Outside, the rickety house on stilts looks the same, but as he ushers me inside, I come to a dead stop. Everything is different. Bigger, cleaner. The furniture is new, the kitchen is huge—with plenty of room and supplies for me to brew my teas.
I turn back to him, to find him looking all smug. And hot.
“When did you do all this?” I ask, because he’s barely got the energy to fly , let alone magic himself a brand-new home.
He skims his hand down my back. “A few days ago. You can change anything you don’t like, but I figured I’d get it started.” Then he drops his head to kiss me on my forehead, which is somehow sweet and hot and beautiful, all at once. “But we can do the baby’s room together.”
We can do the baby’s room together. My poor heart. And I’m not magically cured of the resistance to crying in front of him just because I’ve done it a few times now, so I blink back the tears as he keeps talking.
“If you need to keep the apartment above the tea shop, that’s fine. We can—”
But I don’t. I really don’t.
Not when there’s this whole home he created for the both of us and the baby.
I hear Ruth hooting outside and Storm’s approving call.
And I shut Zander up by pressing my mouth to his.
It feels like too much joy to bear. But then again, we’ve suffered to get here. There’s been so much pain and sacrifice, trauma and loss. Some of it what the Joywood did to us. Some of it what we did to each other.
Some of it just the price of being alive.
Maybe, I think tentatively as he pulls me into his arms, this is actually what we deserve.
Because leading witchdom won’t be easy. Having a child won’t be easy. There will always be natural losses ahead, that’s the inescapable problem with life, so maybe there’s no such thing as too much joy. Even witches get old eventually, no dark magic required.
Maybe the best thing to do is soak in the good stuff for as long as we can.
Maybe that’s the best choice I can make, a legacy with every breath I take, the swiftest path to the best and brightest future.
Tonight, I believe it.
Before he can carry me into the bedroom—something he’s still not well enough to do no matter what he thinks, and I know he thinks he’s invincible, despite the scar on his arm that suggests otherwise—I pull him with me. But I stop at the threshold.
“Men,” I say in despair. “Such a dedication to the color brown .”
“What’s wrong with brown?” Zander demands with a laugh as I magic some color and much-needed style into the room.
Once I’m satisfied, for now, I turn to face him. I wrap my arms around his neck, the bump that is our daughter pressed tight between us.
It’s too much to think about everything it took to get here. Too much to think of all that lies ahead. So I just focus on this. Here. Now.
Him.
Us.
“I love you, El,” Zander says, lowering his mouth to mine. “Always.”
I sigh into that always, and then into him.
Always , I reply in his head.
I might be able to see the past, reach into the future, and see the different ways a thing might be, but I don’t need any of that to know always is our promise to each other. Regardless of what comes, what hurts, what changes.
Our path is always clear.
Because we have each other, and we have this love, the way we always have and we always will.
Always.