Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

One Day Until Halloween

Thick, gray, drizzly mist greets me through the window when my eyes open. It looks positively dreadful outside, but I am bundled up cozily beneath several quilts. My only source of discomfort is my long lace sleeves, which have been rubbing against the scratches healing on my arms all night. I never got the chance to change out of my dumb supper dress before the Tranquilum finally took me.

The bedroom is dark except for the diffused misty light slowly brightening outside. The cottage is settling around me with content and quiet creaks. A pair of chipmunks race their way across the roof, their tiny feet pattering on the ceiling. Behind me, I hear soft, rhythmic breathing. I turn over and see Matthew lying beside me, still dressed in his suit from the night before.

Sound asleep, he looks incredibly peaceful. His chest rises and falls in slow rhythm. Everything about him is softer in this light. The curve of his jaw isn’t as severe as it is in the nighttime, and his lips are in a resting position with a natural upturn I’ve never noticed before. Stubble covers the bottom half of his face.

With delicate fingers I lift a hand to his cheek and softly follow the edge of his jaw, feeling the prickliness of his unshaven hair tickle my palm. From there I lightly draw my hands over his nose, his forehead, just under his thick black eyelashes. I am quite in awe of how truly, stunningly beautiful he is.

Suddenly, his lips break out into a grin. He lazily reaches up and grabs my hand with his own. He takes my fingers, which have been running over his temple, and draws them down to his mouth, where he places several soft kisses onto my palm and wrist. He lets out a content sigh and then opens his eyes.

“Good morning.” His voice is husky and rough.

“You slept in my bed,” I point out.

Though, on might be a better descriptor. While I am completely curled into quilts, Matthew is uncovered, the pants of his suit and his once crisp shirt wrinkled.

“Apparently so,” he chuckles, looking around my room. Merlin eyes us sleepily from his little embroidered chair. “Though I will remind you,” Matthew says, “that you asked me to.”

I scrunch my eyes and think back on the night before. I vaguely remember some general pleading on my end, though it all exists behind the fog of the Tranquilum.

“Did I at least stay put after falling asleep? No more Shadow Walking?”

“You slept quite like the dead, funnily enough.” Matthew grins. “I did think to check your pulse once or twice. I hardly slept at all.” He lets out a long dramatic yawn to highlight his exhaustion.

I roll my eyes. “Well, you needn’t suffer any longer. I have to get up now. Things to do.”

Before I manage to wriggle my way out of the sheets, Matthew has shifted quickly, pulling me under him. I let out a quiet yelp of surprise before his lips close down on mine. And suddenly the whole world is spinning again, and I am too hot under these quilts, and the more interesting moments from the night before come roaring back into my mind.

My lips part and he deepens the kiss, firm and soft all at once. His hands work their way through my hair, gripping onto me and pressing me to him, as if he can’t get close enough to me to be satisfied. I am utterly at his mercy, my limbs and body contained beneath the covers between us. But I eagerly—too eagerly—return his kisses, longing to run my own hands through his hair.

Before I am ready, he pulls away, breathless, pressing one final soft kiss on my top lip. Then he turns his head and slowly begins to run his nose up and down my jawline, his lips brushing softly against my neck as he goes. I can barely catch my breath at the sensation of it, and I can hear the grin in his voice as he speaks.

“And what could possibly draw you away from bed on a gray morning like this one?” he murmurs in my ear, still nuzzling my temple.

I wrack my brain for a moment, knowing there is an answer beyond the haze in my mind. “The safety of the children of Ipswich,” I finally say with a regretful laugh. Matthew pauses in administering his affections and looks at me in surprise.

“I’m going to be honest,” he says thoughtfully, “that was not the answer I was expecting. And unfortunately, it’s a good one.”

I laugh softly. “One of my many traditions, I’m afraid.”

Before he can distract me further, I sit up and free my limbs from the quilts. Merlin chirps and hops off his bed when he sees me rise. He runs up and nips affectionately at my toes when my feet hit the cold bedroom floor.

The first thing I need to address is my clothing. I can see the irritated scratches through the pattern of lace on my sleeves.

“No special wardrobe change this time?” I ask Matthew with a cocked eyebrow. He grins.

“I considered it. But I didn’t have the excuse of saving your life to make taking your clothes off an appropriate course of action. Though, I can always assist you now, if you’d prefer?” He sits up with eager eyes. I shake my head.

“No, I think I can manage. If you wouldn’t mind giving me a few minutes.”

He gives a good-humored if disappointed nod before lifting himself off the bed.

“I’ll be outside if you end up needing me,” he says with a wink as he walks out my bedroom door. I shut it behind him with a determined thud.

With a few inches of wood now separating us, all my confidence vanishes. My heart beats rapidly, thinking back on the things we whispered to each other last night. Running over to my vanity, I gather several of the crystals that rest there. The pink quartz, which I have never really paid attention to before, now becomes my lifeline. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My hair is still braided, but dozens of thin strands have fallen out of place and are sticking out every which way. My cheeks are full and flushed, my lips slightly swollen. And my eyes are bright despite the disturbed sleep I’ve had this past week.

“Not last night, though,” I remind myself out loud as I begin to unbutton my dumb supper dress. Last night had been perfect, spent slumbering under warm blankets in warm arms. Perhaps that is why I look so well this morning. It is amazing what good rest will do to someone who hasn’t had it in a while.

I make quick work of getting ready. I don’t bother leaving my room to wash up since Matthew would no doubt use the opportunity to distract me again. As appealing as the thought may be, I don’t have the time. Instead, I change out of my dumb supper dress into a warm but light, pleated wool skirt and a deep plum blouse that is billowy in the sleeves. Not exactly ideal for cooking, but the shirt hugs me rather attractively. I leave my braid as is, but I wrangle the flyaway strands of hair so that they fall and frame my face nicely. After blotting on some raspberry lip stain and stuffing the pink quartz crystal into my skirt pocket, I dare to open my bedroom door.

The cottage smells like fresh coffee. Matthew sits in my reading chair with Merlin curled onto his lap, a sight I am slowly growing used to. He has changed into a knit cream sweater and dark jeans and sips from one of my ceramic mugs. On the kitchen counter, below the spice cabinet, is my French press, halfway full with rich dark coffee. I pour myself some and fill the rest of the mug with milk, watching the black and white mix and churn into shades of light beige. When I take a sip, I am unsurprised but pleased when it tastes like cinnamon.

Drizzle patters on the kitchen window. The roof of the manor house is barely visible through the rain. Wondering if Miranda or Celeste are up yet, I frown.

“What are you thinking about?” Matthew asks, walking up behind me and leaning casually against the kitchen table.

“I’m beating myself up for not being a good hostess. I should bring my sisters breakfast.”

Matthew shakes his head, amused. “Your sisters are grown women. They can take care of themselves.”

He’s not wrong. But Mom would have been mortified at the thought of guests in her house having to fend for themselves. Ice prickles across my chest as a flash of resentment runs through me. Why should I let my mother’s wishes dictate what I want? This thought is immediately followed by a gnawing guilt in my stomach and the ugly, wretched specter of grief.

“What is it?” Matthew asks gently, setting his coffee mug down on the table and walking over to me. My distress must be written all over my face.

“I’m so unsure how I’m meant to feel. About everything that has happened this week. About everything I’ve learned regarding my mother. About the King Below. And then there’s you. I keep flitting between excitement and happiness to moments of profound betrayal, fear, and confusion.”

Matthew cups my face with his hands. “I don’t think anyone would blame you for being confused,” he says softly.

“I still miss her,” I whisper. He nods, unsurprised. “But how can I justify it? After all she did?”

Matthew sighs. “She’s not the only person to turn to the taboo in times of desperation. And it’s people who fear darker crafts that are the most likely to be corrupted by them,” he says sadly. “That doesn’t mean we can’t empathize with who they were before power infected them.”

“Funny to hear you defending her,” I say. Matthew looks thoughtful as he carefully brushes some of the loose strands of hair away from my face.

“I think I’ve come to understand her a little bit more these past few days.”

“Why is that?” I ask, mystified yet a little amused by this change of heart. “Now that you know she wasn’t a Goody Two-shoes kitchen witch, she’s more deserving of your empathy?”

Matthew laughs loudly. “Not once in my life have I thought of Sybil Goodwin as a Goody Two-shoes, even when I believed she was only a kitchen witch. I knew your mother just for a few days, but in that time it was clear to me that she would do anything to protect the ones she loved. Even if she did overdo it sometimes. Like banishing a young and innocent hexan when she realized he’d fallen for her daughter.”

I flush but don’t respond.

“I have no doubt that very protectiveness is what led her to seek out more power,” he continues. “I can only imagine the state of turmoil she must have been in to go against what her coven believed in. To turn her back on everything they had been working for.”

“Would you do it? Turn away from all you knew?” I ask.

“To protect the people I love? Absolutely,” he answers definitively.

I can’t quite bring myself to his place of understanding. As a hedge witch, I’ve always had a solitary practice. I gather with the coven at Beltane in the spring and Samhain in the fall, and that’s it. But even so, the idea of betraying their ideals, what I once had thought were my mother’s ideals, I couldn’t find anything respectable or understandable in it.

You Shadow Walked last night! I remind myself. And you’re in love with a necromancer!

I look over at Matthew. I will have to eventually make a choice to betray the ideals of the Atlantic Key if I want to be with him. And I do. But I can’t think of the repercussions of that now. The thoughts are too dark. Instead, I wrap my arms around Matthew’s neck and pull him toward me.

I kiss him without restraint, letting any fears or doubts about the next few days melt away … or be buried away. He grips my waist and crushes me toward him as he eagerly returns the kiss. If I could have my way, I would drag him back to my bedroom, and we wouldn’t leave until Samhain was well behind us. But duty, family, and tradition keep me rooted to my spot in the kitchen. With a repressed sigh, I break away from him. His eyes are bright, his dark brown hair slightly mussed from my fingers running through it.

“Thank you,” he says, his thumb lightly tracing my lips.

“Let’s make breakfast,” I respond, determined not to be sucked into bleak thoughts any further. He chuckles as I turn away from him and head toward my cabinets. I grab some mixing bowls off the shelves and take ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon from my spice rack.

Matthew watches as I mix together heaps of flour, the spices, and several cups of buttermilk and pumpkin puree.

“What’s this recipe?” he asks.

“Pumpkin cinnamon pancakes,” I say, cracking several eggs into the bowl and whisking quickly.

“And I’m assuming these aren’t only for us?” He eyes the large bowl.

I shake my head. “If I’m lucky, my sisters will be so happy with the meal, they won’t mind its delay.”

“How can I help?” he offers. I smile.

He heats up the maple syrup while I warm the griddle, carefully pouring the batter into pumpkin-shaped pancake molds and drawing the segments of the gourds with a cinnamon and sugar paste.

We make twenty pancakes and two cups of spiced maple syrup, which Matthew pours into a ceramic gravy boat. I cut some strawberries into quarters and sprinkle them over the pancakes. I place it all onto a platter and wrap the whole thing in tinfoil.

Despite my protests, Matthew insists on taking the food up to the manor himself.

“You’re not walking in the freezing rain,” he demands, taking the tray from me.

“I’m not as delicate as you think I am,” I say with a huff.

“It’s not about you being delicate.” He grins. “It’s about preventing any discomfort on your part whatsoever. For my own pleasure and peace of mind.”

“That’s a fool’s task,” I grumble. “Discomfort is part of life.”

“Then a fool I shall be.” He leans down and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek before snatching the boat of spiced syrup from my hands.

Before I can argue further, he drapes a coat over his head and runs out the door. I laugh as he races up the hill to the manor, the icy rain pelting off his coat, and steam drifting up from the food. When he disappears behind the hedges that line the driveway, I turn back to my kitchen. It’s time to start the true task at hand, or it will never be done in time.

From my highest shelf I pull down my cauldron. It’s a tongue-in-cheek reference, of course. It’s my pure copper stockpot, but it’s my most prized possession other than my Herbal. This stockpot has been passed down the Goodwin line for at least five generations. And every year, on the 30th of October, it is used for one specific purpose.

I place the pot on my stovetop, but I don’t light the burner yet—there are supplies to gather. Clear quartz, black jade, and pyrite from the vanity in my room. Candles from my supply closet; black for protection, green for luck, and purple for wisdom. Lastly, I grab my Herbal and my mother’s Recipe Book, doing my best to ignore the third book of Winifred’s design sitting on my desk, the Grimoire. I can’t invite any negative thoughts in this process.

Back in my kitchen, I light the candles in a triangle around my stove and place the crystals in a circle inside that triangle. With my black salt, I draw thick, dark lines to connect the candles to one another. My burner roars to life as I pour eight cups of sugar into my stockpot. Next, the honey goes in, with a large dash of vanilla. I stir it all together and then sit patiently as the sugar begins to dissolve into the honey. After a few minutes, my door opens as Matthew enters. A cold breeze nips at my feet before he shuts away the elements.

“Whatever that is, it smells amazing,” he says, taking a deep breath. I don’t answer, still trying to maintain my focus on the energies of the candles and stones, coaxing them to seep into the molten sugar.

The kitchen floorboards creak as Matthew makes his way over to me. “How can I help?” he asks, placing a hand at the small of my back. I close my eyes and revel in his touch.

“You can’t,” I say, turning to face him for a moment. “If anyone else’s intention gets mixed up in the recipe, then the spell won’t take.”

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise and he looks at the copper pot with interest. He hadn’t realized I was doing magic. “And what spell would that be?” he asks.

“Careful Caramel Apples. Ipswich has a munchkin masquerade the morning of Halloween. All the kids parade around the main town square in their costumes and adults pass out treats. My mother and I always hand out caramel apples, spiked with a little bit of magic to protect the children on Samhain.”

“A townwide protection spell?” Matthew lets out an impressed breath.

I don’t answer for a moment. The sugar has turned a dark amber. I grab the heavy cream off the counter and pour it into the pot, then add several sticks of butter, more vanilla, and a few splashes of bourbon.

“It’s not very powerful—it’s spread too thin,” I say. The mixture rises quickly, the hot sugar reacting to the cold ingredients. I stir furiously until the caramel settles down again. “It can’t bend the fates in your favor, but it can increase judgment so that little kids will remember to look both ways before crossing the street to the next house.”

I keep my eye on the caramel, stirring occasionally before turning the heat down. As I wait for the mixture to turn the perfect color, I prep the apples. There are four dozen mini apples, each with a clean stick pushed into its flesh. On a separate baking sheet, I cut up a handful of leftover apples into thin slices, laying them flat on the parchment paper. Matthew watches in silence, but his eyes are on me. Every so often, whenever I find myself stirring the caramel, he places a soft kiss on the back of my neck or rubs his hand over my shoulder reassuringly.

When my candy thermometer reads two hundred and thirty degrees, I pull the caramel off the heat and break the lines of salt connecting the candles. The candle flames extinguish the moment the ritual ends.

“You can help with this part,” I say to Matthew, carrying the hot pot of caramel over to the kitchen table, setting it down on a trivet next to the trays of apples. He joins me and watches as I gingerly grab the first apple on the tray closest to me, lifting it by its inserted stick.

“You don’t need to be shy with the caramel. Better to over-dip than under-dip. And if you spin it like this, it creates a lovely swirl.” I demonstrate with the first apple, letting the hot sticky liquid rise halfway up the fruit and spinning it as I pull it out of the pot before placing it back down on the tray.

“And these?” Matthew asks, pointing to the apple slices.

“Those are for the toddlers. You can either use a fork to dip the slices or a spoon to drizzle caramel on top. Either way works. The important thing is that they are small and light enough for little hands to hold.”

Matthew washes his hands and begins assisting. We work in silence for a long while. The task becomes more difficult as time wears on and the caramel in the pot thickens up. I can’t heat it back on the stove, as the candles are spent and the crystals need to recharge. The result is that the first few dozen apples are lovely and perfect in their appearance, and the final dozen or so have humorously uneven globs of caramel stuck to their sides.

“I used to do this with my mother every New Year when I was a boy,” Matthew says after a while, carefully drizzling caramel on the last few apple slices.

“Really?” I smile at the thought, though I struggle to imagine Matthew as any younger than in his early twenties.

He nods. “She would make candy apples. Her ‘poison apples’ as she called them. I would help her decorate. They were always shockingly bright red. And more sour than any other candy I’d ever had.” He laughs softly at the memory.

“What does your mom practice?” I ask. I think back on what he has told me of her so far. He’s never once mentioned her using magic. Matthew pauses his work and looks at me.

“Hearth magic,” he answers simply.

I try to compose my surprise. Hearth magic is one of the most ancient crafts but also one of the tamest, based on protection and the creation of sacred home spaces. My great-aunt Cassandra had been a hearth witch, and my only memories of her are her throwing bags of herbs into the fireplace and calling it a day, letting the plants work their magic. Hearth craft is wholly good. Quite literally there is no aspect of the magic that could bring harm to others.

“Why are you so shocked?” Matthew asks, setting down the final sliced apple.

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I didn’t think there were hearth witches in your coven.”

“Just because the Pacific Gate doesn’t forbid any craft doesn’t mean everyone chooses darker ones. The majority of my coven would fit right in with the Atlantic Key. Well, the women, at least,” he adds as an afterthought.

“So why did you choose necromancy?” I question. If his coven really was as perfect and fostering as he would have me believe, what had led him toward the darkest of all the magics?

“Ah yes,” Matthew says, unsurprised by my question. “I chose shadow magic,” he says this pointedly, and I blush at accidentally using the derogatory term, “because I was the eldest Cypher son, and it was expected of me.”

I furrow my brow.

“Who expected it?” I ask.

“My father. The coven. It is our tradition. Since the start of the Pacific Gate”

“That’s ironic,” I say, shaking my head. Matthew looks at me quizzically. “Well, you’ve criticized the lack of choices in the Atlantic Key and yet you were forced into your craft,” I elaborate. Our fates have been so similar. Matthew simply laughs.

“Well, luckily I had a natural affinity for it. Unlike my father, who desperately wanted to go out to sea and never return. He has always struggled with the shadows. But not me—I found my freedom in them. I remember on my thirteenth birthday, when I was finally allowed to Shadow Walk by myself and dedicate myself to the craft. It felt like …” He pauses, searching for the right phrase.

“Breathing for the first time?” I finish for him, remembering all my happiest times of solitude gathering herbs in my forest. He smiles at me.

“Exactly.”

The apples are all finished now. Most are lovely and glistening but a handful are clumpy and thick. They remind me of my beloved warty devil pumpkins. I carry a tray over to the refrigerator and sit it on the top shelf.

“The caramel has to set overnight. By tomorrow morning they will be perfect and the spell will be at full potency,” I explain as I put the rest of the trays away.

“So now how will you spend the rest of your afternoon?” Matthew asks.

The rain shows no sign of stopping, but with Samhain tomorrow and the dumb supper behind us, there is one more task that must be completed. One I’ve been avoiding.

“How far did you say that protective boundary extends from the cottage?” I ask Matthew.

“A few miles. Why?” he inquires.

That will be just on the edge of it.

“We need to venture into the woods. It’s time to decorate the graves.”