Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

‘I must say, it's a relief.'

With impossible grace, Catherine moved from the loveseat to her preferred armchair, her posture noticeably looser than usual. ‘Doesn't it feel good to have everything out in the open at last?'

‘I haven't made it to "good" just yet,' I replied, still reeling as all the puzzle pieces my mind had stored in different pockets, slotted themselves into place to form a very clear picture.

‘Take all the time you need,' she said. ‘I wanted to tell you everything the moment we met but I had to be sure the blessing was alive in you. That's what we call our magic, what it has always been called. The blessing had to develop in its own time and now we know for sure. Emily, you're one of us.'

‘I'm a witch,' I said, trying out the impossible statement for the first time.

‘That's right.' She laughed lightly as though I'd just declared myself a Libra or a Swiftie or any other normal thing.

‘And you're a witch too?'

‘Surely am.'

‘Is that where you go in the mornings? To hang out with your coven?'

This time her laughter was much louder.

‘Oh, honey, I wish. Most days I'm out there arguing with tedious little men over tedious little things. There is no coven, it's just us. Things are not as they used to be but I do believe that's all about to change.'

Before I could ask one of the thousands of follow-up questions that were tripping off my tongue, the door flew open and Ashley entered carrying her usual tray, her usual iced tea.

‘Are you a witch?' I asked bluntly when she set the tray down on the coffee table. My aunt looked up at me, her green eyes as hard as flint.

‘No, I'm not a witch. I already told you, I'm a caretaker.'

The silver sugar bowl clattered onto the marble top of the table and without waiting for a response from me or Catherine, she strode out the room, slamming the door behind her.

‘The blessing passes from grandmother to granddaughter,' Catherine explained, the glasses on the table still rattling with the force of Ashley's exit. ‘This demands a great sacrifice from the middle generation. The sons and daughters of witches, their mothers and the fathers, are not blessed with magic. Their sacred calling is the duty to nurture and care for we Bell witches.'

I'm a caretaker.

No wonder she hadn't exactly rolled out the welcome wagon. Catherine was a witch, I was a witch, Ashley made the tea. Not exactly a good deal.

‘This morning, in the library,' I said, eyeing a plate of cookies beside the tea. ‘I almost choked and Ashley just watched, she didn't try to help or anything. That's her idea of taking care of me?'

‘Your aunt was quite keen to discover whether or not our magic was with you,' Catherine replied with a disappointed eyeroll. ‘I suspect that may have been her way of hurrying things along. Moments of crisis can expedite access to our abilities.'

‘Like in the park. And the cemetery.'

‘Precisely.' She poured my tea and passed the glass across the table.

‘You said it passes from grandmother to granddaughter?' I asked, grasping for solid facts, things I could learn and hold on to. ‘What about people who aren't assigned female at birth?'

She gave me a sour look over the rim of her glass. ‘Emily, magic comes from nature. Do you think it is concerned with something as vulgar as flesh? Man invented this idea of male and female and like most things created by mankind, it means very little as far as nature is concerned.'

The cold, sweaty glass of tea felt good against my hot skin and I wrapped my hands around it, breathing in the herbal scent before taking a sip.

‘Your abilities will show themselves more quickly now. If you'd been raised here, they would have expressed themselves slowly, over time, but your being oceans away from your family line limited the both of us. Not anymore.'

I swirled the tea around in my glass, listening to the ice cubes clink against each other. Did I feel different? It was so hard to tell, I already couldn't remember what normal felt like.

‘My abilities,' I repeated. ‘You mean my magical powers?'

Catherine raised her hand, the internationally accepted sign for ‘hold up'.

‘The first and most important thing you need to learn: the concept of power is corrosive. It simply screams world domination, don't you think? People who desire power seek to control and that's a mistake. We work with the world, not against. At its heart, the blessing is simply the ability to see things others miss.'

‘Like little girls who died decades ago and platinum blondes who disappear after saving your life.'

‘People fear what they can't explain,' she said. ‘Much like witches, ghosts are just another natural part of our world with an undeservedly nasty reputation. I have to tell you, I'm quite envious. The ability to communicate with those who have passed over is very rare.'

‘If I could regift it to you, I would,' I replied. Then another thought occurred to me. ‘Unless there's a way to summon a particular ghost?'

‘I think I know what you're going to say next. You won't be able to speak to your father. Spirits can't cross moving water.'

‘What about my mom?' I asked, knocked down but not defeated.

‘As I understand it, when one opens a door to the dead, there is no way of knowing who will walk through it,' Catherine replied, the warning in her voice loud and clear. ‘I don't think that's a risk we're ready to take right now, do you?'

The deep ache of grief returned, stronger than ever, the brief flicker of possibility snuffed out. I put down my glass and looked at the backs of my hands then turned them over to inspect the palms. No evidence of magic here. Just a girl who could speak to random ghosts but not her dead mom and dad.

‘Is it a secret?' I asked, eyeing my grandmother with curiosity.

She lounged back in her armchair, waving one hand around as though she might pick the right answer out of mid-air.

‘It's not a secret. But I would think very, very carefully before you choose to share the truth with anyone.'

Like I was about to get a T-shirt printed that said ‘I'm a witch, ask me how'.

‘I can't believe this is something that's been in me since I was born,' I said, flexing my fingers as though laser beams might shoot out from the tips at any moment. ‘What if I'd never come here? What would have happened then?'

‘Your abilities would have withered on the vine after your seventeenth birthday,' Catherine said in a soft voice. ‘And taken mine along with them.'

My hands curled into two fists, holding tight to something I didn't even know I might've lost. Whatever this was, it had only been mine for moments but already the thought of losing it was like losing a limb. No one should be allowed to make that kind of decision on behalf of someone else. No one should have the power to fundamentally change who you really are.

‘That's why my dad took me away,' I said, so very sure of the fact. ‘To stop this from happening.'

Catherine looked as though she was struggling to answer my question, biting on her bottom lip and twisting her aquamarine ring as she sought the correct response.

‘There is a difference between knowing something and understanding it. He thought he was making your life easier. Paul didn't want you to grow up to be different.'

She leaned forward to caress the petals of a live orchid in the centre of the coffee table. It trembled at her touch and when she moved her hand away, a tiny pink bud appeared on the stem.

‘Think of yourself like this flower,' she said. ‘The blessing is like any other living thing. In order to flourish, it must be nurtured and protected. The Bell family has always taken care of their line. Magic is something you are born with but still something that must be cultivated, otherwise …'

As she spoke, the bud began to pulse, blooming right in front of me and blossoming into a magnificent flower. It was beautiful. But it wasn't done. Even after every petal had unfurled, the flower carried on growing until it was so big, the supporting stem snapped in two and sent the plant crashing onto the floor.

‘When nature is allowed to run wild, things can go wrong.'

Catherine scooped up what had fallen and laid it all back on the table.

‘Can we fix it?' I asked, staring at the sad, broken orchid. ‘Can I fix it?'

‘Let's find out.' She knelt down on the floor, nodding for me to do the same. I slid off the loveseat in my still-damp jeans and sat across from her, cross-legged.

‘Hold your hands out over the stem,' she instructed. ‘Now, just like before, I want you to breathe.'

It shouldn't have been a difficult request but as soon as she told me to breathe, I was lost, overthinking everything, like I'd forgotten how and was afraid I'd get it wrong.

‘In then out,' she chided with tenderness. ‘I'm not trying to trick you.'

A quiet, nervous laugh stuck in my throat as I settled myself, searching for the same sense of stillness I'd found in the park but it was impossible. I could hold an incredibly heavy tree branch up in the air in the middle of a torrential downpour but I couldn't mend a broken plant stem in the safety of my own home?

‘Don't be disheartened,' she said when I huffed out a sigh of frustration. ‘Your mind and your body need to be in harmony. That probably isn't the case right now.'

‘Not so much,' I agreed.

There wasn't an ounce of peace inside me, only too many questions and not enough answers. Catherine reached across the table, looking more bemused than anything else, and covered my hands with hers.

‘I wonder, what might we be able to do if we work together.'

She held out her hands the same way the blonde woman had in the park and when I pressed my palms against hers, a warm, tingling sensation passed over my skin. At first, nothing changed. The orchid lay on the coffee table, just one or two fibres left unbroken in the stem, one petal falling to the floor like a crumpled-up piece of paper.

‘Stop trying to force it,' Catherine said. ‘Nature can't be bullied, only asked and encouraged.'

Simple instructions that were impossible to follow. I focused hard, pursing my lips and forcing my eyebrows together, but the orchid stayed exactly as it was.

‘It's not working,' I said, slapping my hands against my thighs.

‘Because you're doubting yourself. Clear your mind and believe that the orchid will be whole again. Stop trying and know it is done. See it, feel it.'

Clearing my mind was not a top-tier skill of mine. Ever since my dad's accident it was always racing, always overanalysing, searching for the safest, quickest, most efficient option. The only time I'd been off high alert in the last two months, was when I was with Wyn. The warm tingle in my skin spread all over my body as my mind wandered away from the orchid, filled instead with all the colours of his eyes, the soft grey, the vivid green, the warm golden brown. I pictured the freckles on the bridge of his nose, imagining myself leaning in closer and closer until …

‘Emily, open your eyes.'

I hadn't even realized they were closed.

The stem of the orchid glistened, bright green threads knitting themselves together, binding into strong, thicker fibres until it was complete again, and the blossoms that had wilted away entirely were lush and healthy. I pulled my hand away from my grandmother's to stroke one of the unfurling petals and felt a rush of joy as if we were still connected; me, Catherine and the plant.

‘Oh,' I whispered, stifling a laugh of happy surprise. ‘We did it.'

‘You did it,' my grandmother said tenderly. ‘When you have faith in yourself, you can accomplish anything.'

‘Anything?' I replied.

‘Anything within reason.' She smiled as the orchid bloomed more beautifully than ever. ‘You will have so much strength, Emily. All you have to do now is learn to control it. You must show discipline.'

I heard her, somewhere in the back of my mind, but I wasn't really listening, too busy staring at the thriving plant in front of me.

‘I can't believe it,' I marvelled, still speaking so softly, afraid to make any loud noises in case it spooked the newly revived flower. ‘We brought it back to life.'

Catherine had no such concern.

‘No, we didn't,' she said, speaking sharply. ‘That's not how our magic works. We cannot bring anything back once it has passed.'

This time I was the one who knew what was coming next.

‘Or anyone,' I added.

‘The blessing works hand in hand with nature and there is nothing more natural than life coming to an end,' she replied with tenderness, confirming my assumption. ‘We can speed things up and slow them down, but we cannot and should not interfere with the natural order of things. That would be very dark indeed.'

‘If we're good witches, does that mean there are bad ones?'

‘Good and bad are subjective concepts.' She took my hand, ran it over the orchid's brand new blossom once more. ‘Nature requires a balance of light and dark and the blessing exists to uphold that balance.'

One by one, the petals floated down to the coffee table and rocked back and forth on the marble before they shrivelled up to nothing.

‘There is always a before and an after,' Catherine said softly. ‘That is all we know for certain. Dawn and dusk, fire and ashes, life and death. We treat both sides with respect, neither one is good or bad. When it comes to the light and the dark, they both have the power to blind you.'