Chapter Seventeen
Chapter
Seventeen
“Elle? What are you doing here?” I wipe my sleeves across my face to dry the lingering tears, and when I pull away, I notice two things.
One, Elle is staring at me with a horrified expression on her face.
Two, she has a child holding each of her hands, a young blond boy on her left and a redheaded girl on her right.
“Oh. Um, hi.” I smile at the kids and then shoot a questioning look at Elle, who looks shocked to see me.
The girl gives me a once-over, and I’d put her age somewhere around seven or eight. “Who is that, Aunt Ellie?”
“I have a dinosaur.” The boy, who looks no older than five, holds up a small plastic T. rex.
“Very cool.” I try to return his smile, but I’m filled with memories of Rykelan’s future. His toy cars and dinosaurs like the one currently being held out to me. It makes my chest ache so much it’s hard to breathe.
“This is my friend Pippa,” Elle finally tells the kids, shoulders easing away from her ears. “Pippa, meet my niece, Holly, and my nephew, Parker.”
Holly stares at me with a stubborn tilt of her chin that reminds me of my first meeting with Elle. “Why were you crying?”
Elle cringes. “You can’t ask strangers that, Holly.”
“Why?” Parker asks, examining his T. Rex.
“You just can’t,” Elle says, clearly flustered, but then she meets my gaze and quirks up one brow. “What are you doing here?”
“A previous client asked me to bless their newborn.” Worry slithers down my spine and pools in my stomach. “Why are you here?”
“Our sister is dying.”
“Holly.” An average-looking white man approaches the four of us. “What have I said about sharing Willa’s news with strangers.”
“She’s not a stranger. She’s Aunt Ellie’s friend,” Holly insists.
“Pippa, this is my brother-in-law, Ted.” Elle hands the kids off to their father. “Ted, this is the witch I told you about.”
Ted looks at me with new interest, a painful hope etched across his features. “Has she—”
“I haven’t told her yet,” Elle says, cutting him off. “I can do it now, if you take the kids.”
“Viv is getting Willa settled with the MRI tech. You go ahead. I’ll take the kids to the play area.” Ted reaches out and shakes my hand. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”
“Um…thank you?” I watch him leave with the kids, my body struggling to navigate the whiplash of emotions. The grief I tried to escape when I left the maternity ward now crashing against the surprise of running into Elle and a pair of kids with a dying sister.
“The baby you blessed,” Elle says. “Are they okay? You were upset when we ran into you.”
“He’s fine. It just stirred up my own family drama.” I glance over my shoulder, but Elle’s brother-in-law and the kids are out of sight. “Was Holly telling the truth? Is this where you’ve been disappearing to every week?”
“Come with me.” Elle takes me by the hand and leads me into a private waiting area marked Family Room.
The door closes behind us, and she checks the space to make sure we’re alone.
The room is nicer than a typical waiting room, with comfy furniture and a kitchenette area.
Elle sinks onto one of the couches, kicking off her shoes to pull her feet onto the cushions.
I settle beside her, close but not touching.
“This isn’t where I normally go on Thursdays,” Elle says at last, rubbing her thumb across her other palm.
The self-soothing gesture tugs at my heart.
“I usually go to my sister’s place to spend time with Willa.
Ted and Vivian try to make sure Parker and Holly get quality time with them, so I spend the day with Willa. She…needs a lot of extra care.”
“Because she’s sick?”
“Because she’s dying, yeah.” Elle squeezes her arms around her knees. “She was diagnosed with DIPG about nine months ago, just after her tenth birthday.”
“DIPG?”
“Brain cancer. The doctors missed it at first. They thought her headaches and coordination issues were from a pinched nerve or growing pains. Viv had to push for referrals to specialists before we could get a proper diagnosis. Once we had it, we tried everything. The best doctors. The best surgeons. The best healers. But this kind of cancer…it’s not operable.
Chemo doesn’t work on it. Radiation treatments just stall the progression. Even magic can only do so much.”
“I’m so sorry, Ellie.”
“She can’t even talk anymore.” Elle’s voice breaks, and she presses her thumbs against her eyes. Tears spill out anyway. “Willa was so smart and funny. I haven’t heard her voice in weeks. I miss it. God, I miss it.”
There isn’t anything I can say to make this better, but I desperately wish I could. Instead, I lay a hand on Elle’s back, and when she relaxes into my touch, I rub my thumb along her spine and give her space to keep going if that’s what she wants.
Elle reaches for the box of tissues on the side table.
Dabs at her eyes. “Do you know what advice the doctors gave my sister after the diagnosis? ‘Go home and make memories.’ That’s how hopeless this cancer is.
Nothing stops it. And I…I keep wishing it were something else.
Anything else. We deserve to have some hope, you know? ”
“Yeah,” I agree, and then memories from the past month click into place.
How insistent Elle was that the haunting be real.
How infuriatingly particular she’s been about which ghosts could move in.
How important it was that the ghosts be good with kids.
“Midnight Manor…you’re setting up the B&B for Willa, aren’t you? ”
“You have to understand, the past nine months have been hell. Knowing we were going to lose her, watching her lose mobility…” Elle turns to face me on the couch and reaches for my hands, pleading.
“When Alex came to me after his breakup and made a joke about starting a haunted B&B, it felt like fate. We had to try. We had to.”
I study her expression, ignoring the growing ache in my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Alex wanted me to, but you were a stranger. One who didn’t seem to particularly like me or my business ideas.
” A rueful smile tugs at her lips, and she leans her shoulder against the back of the couch.
“Despite all his assurances that you’d help us, I was afraid that if you knew the whole point of the B&B was for her, you’d decide it was a bad idea and back out. ”
“Are you not actually opening the B&B?”
“No, we are. The business is real. The investors are real. But she’s the reason it matters so much.
She’s the reason I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make this work.
” Emotion thickens her voice, and she presses a hand tight to her chest. “She still has life to live, Pip. She deserves longer than she’s getting.
And if there’s anything I can do to give her spirit more time, I’ll do it. ”
All of me feels tender and bruised, and though most of it is for Elle’s family, there’s this small voice in the back of my head saying I’ve been nothing but a pawn.
A tool to sharpen and use. I brush a lock of hair out of Elle’s face, shoving away my insecurities as best I can.
“I understand why you didn’t say anything at first, but we’re not strangers anymore. I thought…I thought you trusted me.”
“I do,” Elle insists. “I just didn’t know how to bring it up. I was scared that you’d say no, and once I told you, there’d be no going back.”
Her reasoning stings, but it makes sense.
“Now that you do know,” she continues, tracing her fingers along my knuckles. “Will you help us? When Willa passes, will you bring her back to the manor?”
I stare at her hands in mine, but I’ve gone numb to her touch. A tool and nothing more. I push the thought away. Even if it’s true, that’s not Willa’s fault. “What about her parents?” I ask, thinking of Ted’s reaction when Elle introduced me. “I assume this is what they want?”
“Absolutely.”
“And Willa?” I press. “I’ll need her permission, too.”
Elle shakes her head. “Willa doesn’t know yet, and we haven’t told Parker or Holly, either. We didn’t want to say anything until we knew for sure it would work, and now…I’m not sure how much Willa understands. How much she can hear.”
The weight of Elle’s expectation settles over me, and I don’t see how I could possibly say no. If I were in her shoes, I’d want the same thing. “If her parents are on board, if they can both confirm that for me in person—”
“They will,” Elle interrupts, and the hope is back in her voice now. A tangible, living thing.
It stirs something in my chest that I can’t quite name. “You know this work is tricky. I won’t make any false promises. I can’t guarantee anything.”
“But you’ll try?”
I give myself a final beat, a final breath, before I fully commit. I’m not sure how healthy it is for Elle’s family to do this, but who am I to decide for them? I’m not a psychologist. I’m just a witch with a knack for experimentation. “If Willa wants this, too, I’ll try,” I say at last.
Elle launches herself at me and wraps me in a fierce hug. “Thank you, Pip. You have no idea what this means to me. To my entire family.”
“Happy to help,” I say, despite a growing sense of unease. I hope I’m doing the right thing, and I wish I could shake the worry that everything that’s happened between Elle and me was because this was her end goal. That it was never about me, but what I could do for her.
As she cuddles into my side and shows me videos of Willa from before her diagnosis—swimming and playing soccer and cracking jokes—I remind myself that Elle isn’t some cold, calculating spy.
This wasn’t all some long con. And yet…I can’t help but think she doesn’t see the real me.
That she looks at me and only sees the witch who can keep her niece from leaving her.
Not that it matters in the long run.
Halloween is next Friday. The B&B is already haunted, and once Midnight Manor officially opens, my job will be done.
Even without the complication of her niece, this was always a time-limited fling.
Next week, I’ll go home to my empty apartment and my crumbling business.
A business that money might not save. A business that’s as defective as I am.
I should text Dea and ask her to run the numbers, see how adding retail or teaching options could affect our bottom line…
When the video of Willa dancing with her siblings finishes, Elle tucks her phone back into her pocket. “I should go find the kids. Ted will want to be with Viv for the MRI results.”
I nod, my back screaming at me as I get up off the too-soft couch. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Actually…” Elle stands and reaches for my wrist, tugging me back to her. Her hands come to rest at my hips, and she pulls me close. “Do you think you could stay? I’ve missed you so much this week, and I trust my sister not to say anything to Alex.”
My traitorous heart flutters, ignoring all the reminders I gave myself. “I’ll go wherever you want me,” I say, tipping my forehead down to hers.
Elle rises onto her toes to kiss me, the brush of her lips brief but bruising.
“Thank you.” Her whispered words are full of emotion, but then she chuckles.
“You know, I keep thinking there’s some alternate universe out there.
One where Willa never got sick and Barrett loved Alex the way he deserved. ”
“Yeah?”
She nods and bites down on her lower lip. “In that universe, we meet for the first time at Alex’s wedding. Everyone is happy, so we get to make out on the dance floor without needing to worry about anyone getting hurt.”
“That sounds nice.” I force a smile, even though all my heart hears is that in this universe, we aren’t meant to be. That I can only be the woman she keeps in the shadows.
I know it’s unfair. I saw for myself how hurt Xander is. Elle is right to keep this from him. But my heart doesn’t give a shit about logic, and as I follow Elle to the children’s play area, all I can hear is the clock counting down the moments until this is all over.