Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘It's kind of late in the season for azaleas?' Wyn remarked as we rushed back down Harris Street towards Bell House.

‘I'll have to take your word for it,' I replied, staring at the bold pink and red blossoms. There were flowers everywhere, exploding in a riot of colour, all around us.

‘Were they even here this morning?' he asked with a frown.

‘They must've been. Flowers don't appear out of nowhere.'

Except sometimes they did. I anxiously bit my bottom lip, listening to the whispers meant just for me. The trees, the plants, the flowers, the moss. They were full of love and as happy as I was. The afternoon had passed too quickly and there was no time to worry about spontaneously blooming azaleas when I was five minutes away from being late for dinner with Catherine.

‘So, I was thinking about Cole,' I said, pulling down Lydia's still damp but thankfully clean dress when it rode up my hips. It was not made for speed. ‘Do you have a recent photograph of him? I won't say anything to anyone but two pairs of eyes looking out for him have to be better than one.'

‘This is the last photo I have.' He pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it to me. ‘It's not his best look but it is the most accurate.'

As we came to Lafayette Square, I slowed my pace, making a complete stop underneath our oak tree. The man on the screen looked much older than Wyn but the resemblance was clear. Their matching skintone, the same cheekbones. Cole's hair was wavy like Wyn's but longer and a few shades darker. In the photo, he wore a flannel shirt with ripped jeans, and even though he was undeniably handsome, the sneer on his face left me cold. He scowled into the camera with a middle-finger salute.

‘Not exactly North Carolina's most charming gentleman,' Wyn said as I zoomed in on his brother's face. The colours in his eyes were just as complex as Wyn's, maybe a little more golden than grey.

‘He looks so angry,' I said, aching with sympathy as Wyn tucked his phone away in his pocket. ‘What happened to make him so mad?'

‘No idea, he's always been that way. Doesn't mean I'm not worried about him though.'

‘We'll find him,' I promised, smoothing away the anguish on his perfect face. ‘And if we can't do it on our own, we can always draft in Lydia and swear her to secrecy. She's like a one-woman FBI.'

My palm buzzed against Wyn's skin and I could almost see his worries drift away, replaced by the same marshmallow puff of happiness that filled me all the way up. He leaned down as I reached up and the kiss that followed was different to all the others we'd shared that afternoon. They were hungry, exploratory, insatiable. This kiss was sure and slow, our passion building until I stumbled backwards, out of breath.

‘No,' I muttered, holding my arms out in front of me as I fell to my knees hard, flesh scraping against dirt.

This was the kiss. The kiss I'd seen on my first night in Savannah. A strand of Spanish moss slid off a low branch and curled around my wrist before the world went black and a thousand confusing images flashed through my mind, all in the same moment.

‘It's fine, I'm fine,' I insisted, Wyn's worried hands clutching at my shoulders before I even knew what had happened. ‘I tripped is all.'

‘You're sure?' he asked, unconvinced.

I nodded and he bent down to kiss me again. I let him, curling readily into his chest and the warmth of his arms. Only this time I kept my eyes open, too afraid of what I might see. Of what I had already seen.

Bonaventure cemetery. A full moon. Catherine screaming in the night and a huge, bloody, fearsome wolf lunging straight for my throat.

Lydia hadn't lied. The Olde Pink House was exactly that, big, pink and old.

‘This particular mansion has a long history,' Catherine said, a daredevil squirrel sprinting across our path as we passed through Reynolds Square on our way to dinner. ‘It was built in 1789 as a private house for the Habersham family.'

‘It's even older than Bell House?' I replied, eyeing the Pepto Bismol pink exterior.

‘It is. But unlike Bell House, it has been a bank, an attorney's office, a bookstore, a tearoom and finally a restaurant. A fate our home will never suffer.'

‘Because you would never sell it,' I said as though the answer was obvious.

‘Because Bell House would never allow it,' she corrected. ‘Even if I tried.'

Inside the restaurant, there was even more colour, each room painted a different shade from floor to ceiling: deep navy, hunter green, powder-puff blue, all of them accented with gold: chairs, candlesticks, picture frames. All antique everything. But Catherine and I weren't eating in one of the colourful rooms. After an extremely effusive welcome from the manager, a server in a white shirt and pink tie took us downstairs, shaking every step of the way.

‘We're eating in here?' I asked when he waved us into a tiny space with old brick walls and rafters on the ceiling and only one table, set for two. An unwelcoming deer's head peered down at me, giving me the same kind of look I'd seen on Catherine when I bolted into Bell House with one minute to spare before my curfew.

‘The Olde Pink House was a bank at one time. This was once the vault. We always eat in here,' Catherine said. ‘It's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My grandmother and I would dine here every month.'

‘Can I get y'all something to drink?' Sweat was already beading on the server's forehead. It wasn't hot in the air-conditioned restaurant so I figured he'd tangled with my grandmother before.

‘Two sweet teas, thank you kindly,' she replied curtly. ‘And we'll take the fried green tomatoes and the artichoke fritters to start.'

‘And can we get the jalape?o poppers?' I added.

‘No,' Catherine said before he had the chance to reply. ‘We can't.'

The server fumbled in his pocket for an order pad but her glare sent him staggering backwards out of the vault before pen could touch paper.

‘How was your afternoon?' she asked, turning all sweetness and light. ‘You haven't said a word about it.'

‘It was great,' I said. Not a lie. ‘I'm sorry I wasn't back earlier, we were having so much fun, um, helping the community that I lost track of the time then I slipped and fell and—'

‘And the Junior League?'

‘We – we didn't really spend a lot of time with them.'

‘Oh?' Catherine raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

‘Or any time at all.'

Another server entered to fill our water glasses and my grandmother nodded with satisfaction. ‘Thank you for telling the truth. Lydia Powell is not a good liar and, I'm pleased to say, neither are you.'

Better than you know, I thought shamefully, my lips still chapped from Wyn's kisses.

‘The Powells are a good family but they've never been beyond testing the limits of proper behaviour,' Catherine added. ‘Even Virginia could be a handful in her day. I don't doubt that Lydia will grow up to be a fine young woman but I am quite as certain she'll get into some scrapes along the way.'

She sipped her water while casting warm looks around the vault. One way in, one way out. I pulled at the collar of the oversized white cotton shirt I'd thrown over Lydia's dress, suddenly claustrophobic. Catherine turned her head towards the candles that lined the ledge behind me and in the blink of an eye, they flickered with golden flames.

‘Shit,' I exclaimed before covering my mouth.

‘Ladies don't curse,' she replied sternly as the candle on our table also came alive.

‘Literally or figuratively?'

‘Both.' She smiled and the small, unfriendly room seemed to open up a little. ‘It is so nice to continue a true Bell family tradition with you, Emily. This is where my grandmother taught me most everything I needed to know.'

‘About your magic?' I asked, surprised, one eye on the open doorway.

Catherine laughed loud enough to gutter one of the candles. ‘Oh, honey, no. This is where I learned how to be a lady, so elbows off the table, if you please.'

I yanked my arms off the table entirely and placed my hands in my lap. Which subject did I know the least about: relationships, magic, or etiquette? It didn't seem fair to be so clueless about all three.

‘But it is safe for us to talk openly here,' she said. ‘This room is spelled. Anyone who is not a member of our family will forget every word they hear the moment they walk out the door. Aside from our orders, that is.'

‘Acacia, adder's tongue, hickory, and lavender,' I murmured, gazing at a painting of the ocean hanging behind her head. ‘They're hidden inside the frame. It's a memory charm?'

‘That's right,' she confirmed, eyes bright. ‘The Olde Pink House has been around almost as long as the Bell family and it has always been a safe space for us. It survived both great fires of Savannah in 1796 and 1820, along with Bell House and only a handful of other buildings. We couldn't save everything but there's something special about this place. We take care of it, it takes care of us.'

I drank my water and said nothing. It wasn't just buildings that burned down in those fires, people had died. If Bell witches could save lives but only some, how did we decide who was worthy and who wasn't? Catherine said she didn't like the word power but choosing who died and who didn't certainly seemed like power to me.

The door to the dining room opened slowly and our server reappeared carrying two teas and several plates, definitely more items than we had ordered.

‘Compliments of the chef,' he said, rattling them onto the table. I couldn't help but notice my grandmother's flicker of irritation when he set the jalape?o poppers in front of me. ‘Would you like to order your entrees?'

‘We will both have my usual.'

Catherine did not alter her impassive expression, but when he made eye contact, he started sweating bullets. As soon as he crossed the threshold, his shoulders straightened and he strolled off down the hallway with a swagger in his step, any trace of apprehension having evaporated.

‘If we eat all this there won't be room for any entrees,' she muttered as if she was mad at the food. I could not relate. I was ravenous, they couldn't bring us enough free jalape?o poppers as far as I was concerned. ‘Now, where should we begin this evening?'

‘The visions,' I replied quickly, before stuffing a pepper in my mouth. ‘If they're going to keep happening, I need to understand them.'

Catherine looked displeased.

‘Etiquette lesson number one. Ladies don't speak with their mouths full.'

I held a hand over my mouth until I'd chewed and swallowed. She nodded approvingly and motioned for me to speak.

‘Sorry,' I said, clearing my throat with a sip of water. ‘I'd like to know more about the visions. How far back will they go? Can I only see into my own past?'

‘I believe so,' Catherine answered. ‘At least for the time being. That could change as your magic grows.'

‘And the visions of the future. Am I seeing events that are set in stone or is there still a chance we can change things?'

‘Why? Have you seen something you believe needs to change?'

The cemetery. The wolf. My grandmother, bloody and screaming. Rather than answer right away, I stabbed several pieces of fried green tomato with my fork and dumped them on my plate.

‘Emily, do try to save some room, you're not starving to death.' She pulled the plate of tomatoes out of my reach before placing one single slice on her plate. ‘I wish I could be of more help with your visions but I have never experienced one for myself. It's a very rare gift.'

‘Doesn't feel like a gift,' I said, my whole body deflating. ‘If it was, I would return it.'

Catherine's gaze softened then she placed another slice of tomato on my plate.

‘Discovering your magic should be a wonderful thing. I'm sorry this is so hard on you. We should be celebrating, not panicking. With all your magic expressing itself at once, it might be difficult to fully understand your gifts until after the Becoming.'

I took several nervous gulps of water and emptied the glass.

‘Which is the other thing I wanted to talk about,' I replied. ‘You said it's a ceremony that takes place on my birthday, like a coming of age thing?'

‘That's correct. Very straightforward, very simple,' Catherine said, moving food around on her plate without ever taking a bite. ‘We'll go through the details closer to the day, but there is something else I would like to talk over with you this evening. Something we haven't discussed yet.'

‘Today's the day for it,' I said quietly, reluctantly switching my empty water glass for the sweet tea. So help me, it didn't even taste that sweet anymore. I was already getting used to it.

Catherine selected a small piece of cornbread and slathered it with butter before taking the tiniest possible nibble.

‘How do you feel about the word prophecy?'

‘That depends,' I replied warily. ‘Who is the prophecy about?'

‘We've never been entirely sure.'

She paused our conversation as our server returned with a large glass of red wine.

‘Your Chateau Lafite. Please enjoy.'

He was gone before she could say thank you.

‘I don't remember you ordering wine,' I said as she swirled it around in the glass.

‘Nor will you find it on the menu. Another perk of our relationship with the owners.' She took a deep drink, savoured the wine then returned her attention to me. ‘Let's start over. I would like to tell you a story instead, one that's been passed down through Bell family witches for as long as we've been in Savannah. It is a story about a very special witch and all the wonderful things she will do in the world.'

‘Like run the New York marathon and win American Idol ?'

‘Entirely possible but the finer details of her life are missing from our version of the story. What we do know is this witch will do three things: revive the dormant powers of her sisters, protect our magic from its greatest enemies, and …'

‘And?' I prompted. ‘I've read a lot of books about prophecies and they hardly ever end in "then she spent the night bingeing Friends on the sofa and lived happily ever after".'

Catherine put down her glass and nodded. ‘The prophecy says she will be strong and gifted, the most intuitive witch in centuries, and she will be able to access all the magic of her ancestors rather than connect to just one ability.'

So far so yikes.

‘That's it?' I croaked. ‘Apart from the greatest enemies bit, that doesn't sound too bad.'

‘The final part of the prophecy says this witch will either save the world or end it.'

I stared into my grandmother's eyes, the exact same shape and shade as my own, and searched for a single shred of uncertainty. Nothing. Whether the story was true or not, she believed it.

‘Save the world or end it?' I repeated. ‘Why would anyone want to end the world?'

‘Why does anyone do anything?'

Just what this moment needed, answering a question with another question.

‘There will come a time,' Catherine continued. ‘We do not know when, but when it comes, this witch will be faced with a choice. Only she will be able to make the decision and act upon it. The choice will be hers and hers alone.'

‘If I'm honest, I'm not loving the plot twist,' I said as Catherine reached for her wine again, the look on my face driving her to drink. ‘Any idea who this witch might be?'

She gave me a look and I felt the last shred of denial slip through my fingers.

‘The witch will come from Emma Catherine Bell's line, born and Become under a full moon, and on both days, the tides will rise to meet her. The day you were born, Savannah experienced a King Tide eleven feet high. You're already expressing multiple abilities, finding your way to magic I couldn't even conceive of. Emily, it's you.'

‘No pressure then.' I pushed away my plate, appetite disappearing altogether. Even for the jalape?o poppers.

‘I don't mean to scare you,' Catherine said. ‘But it is my duty to prepare you.'

‘Assuming you're right,' I replied, quietly reeling. ‘What happens next? Is there a handbook or an instructional video? An instruction video would be so great.'

She said nothing but I was sure I saw her imperceptibly shaking her head.

‘There are a lot of different ways to interpret saving the world,' I added. ‘I could encourage people to recycle, maybe convince some celebrities to give up their private jets.'

‘I think your sisters might need a little more from you than that,' she said as I let my head loll backwards with frustration. ‘I know this is a lot to take in—'

‘And everything would have been easier if my dad hadn't taken me away.'

I finished the sentence before she could because as much as I might not like it, she was right, about both things. If I'd grown up learning about our magic, it might not seem so overwhelming now.

‘Prophecies are hard to interpret,' Catherine said as I rolled my head back around to look at her. She was so hard to read, there was sympathy in her voice but her expression was pure exhilaration. ‘Especially one passed down through generations; words change, their meanings are altered—'

As she was speaking, something occurred to me.

‘If your prophecy girl is supposed to revive her sisters,' I interrupted, using a jalape?o popper as a pointer, ‘there must be other witches out there?'

‘Dormant ones, yes.'

‘And if there are witches, there must be other supernatural creatures?'

‘Yes.'

I could tell she wasn't happy about making the admission.

‘But we're all quite rare and do not encounter each other often,' she said.

Excitement rolled through me and I held the jalape?o popper a little too tightly, squirting cream cheese across the table. ‘What, exactly, don't we encounter often?'

My grandmother exhaled heavily, a combination of frustration and defeat carving deep lines around her mouth. ‘Emily, let's talk more after we eat. This wonderful food is going cold and I would hate to waste it.'

‘When we were in the garden, you showed me the aconite,' I said quickly, the facts coming together in a way I really did not care for. ‘The wolfsbane. Catherine, are werewolves real?'

She put her knife and fork down and as the silverware touched the table, our server was back to clear away the barely eaten food. I closed my mouth, sitting still as a statue as he took my plate, his eyes glazed over with a milky glow.

‘We witches are protected by the fact history has a bad habit of underestimating women,' Catherine replied while he stacked the plates. ‘People buy crystals and burn sage and they think we're benign because they play at being witches too. But Weres are different. People do not like different. So they demonize them in books and films, then choose to pretend they don't exist in real life.'

‘But they do exist.'

She smoothed a hand over her shining hair, securing one rogue strand behind her ear.

‘Some of the more reliable histories suggest they originated in Scandinavia, and there are an awful lot of Were stories in Norse mythology. The Romans claimed them also. I suspect there is no one singular origin point for them or for us. We simply are.'

I looked at my grandmother, the beautiful, elegant pillar of the community, sipping red wine in a beautiful restaurant and chatting away about werewolves as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

‘Is their magic inherited like ours?' I guessed.

‘Not quite. Witches are born, wolves are chosen. The gift is passed down the bloodline but a family must select its protector. If they decide not to initiate a wolf in the next generation, their magic dies out and cannot return while ours lies dormant. Fewer and fewer families choose to subject their children to such a life in these modern times. It's a difficult magic to live with, painful, isolating. A tough secret to keep in today's world, I would imagine. Some Weres hide it even from their own family. The only people who know the truth are the members of their pack, who they might only meet with once or twice in their lifetime.'

‘Sounds lonely,' I replied, unexpectedly grateful not to be alone in my magic. ‘I can see why they would choose to let it go rather than put their kids through something like that.'

‘The right thing to do is rarely the easiest,' Catherine said with polite disagreement. ‘I've no doubt it is a hard life but it's also a matter of legacy, and heritage. Their magic is their purpose, as it is ours.'

‘What else can you tell me about them?' I asked, hungry for as much knowledge as she could give me. One thing I'd learned from my academic father, facts are more powerful than fear.

She touched her pointer finger to her aquamarine ring and twisted it from side to side, looking almost lost in thought. ‘Most Weres are male because, as I understand, the families used to initiate their eldest male as a matter of tradition. No one chose a female unless there were no males to continue the line. Absurd really, female Weres are much stronger than the males but their society is as susceptible as the rest of the world when it comes to believing what a woman should and shouldn't do.' She paused to take a drink, slyly toasting us both. ‘Female Weres are able to retain more of themselves after the change while the males are lost to the animal. Males must turn during the full moon. Females can choose whether or not to go wolf. We women have had eons of experience in managing our bodies once a month, after all.'

‘If the men in Were families freak out like my dad when I got my first period, I can sympathize,' I muttered. ‘Sorry, not ladylike.'

‘First we'll deal with the magic, then we'll work on the art of conversation,' Catherine replied with a frown. She straightened out her napkin as our server returned with our entrees, two huge pork chops with sides of macaroni cheese and collard greens. It looked delicious but I knew I wouldn't be able to take even a bite.

‘Weres are physically strong and not only during the full moon,' she carried on talking while he refilled my water glass, completely placid this time. The lavender added to the memory charm was doing its job. ‘They're creative, perceptive and usually extraordinarily smart. I would love to know who started the rumour that werewolves are blunt instruments because it has served them well. If only we had thought to spread the same misinformation about witches, more of us might have survived. Less pleasingly, many years ago, they appointed themselves to the role of supernatural peacekeeper, playing judge, jury, and executioner in the magical world, mostly because they wish to remain hidden. As you might imagine, that has put Weres and witches at odds in the past. I wouldn't call them our friends.'

‘But they're not our enemy?' I asked, full of false hope. ‘They wouldn't try to hurt us and we wouldn't hurt them.'

‘It's a little late to worry about that, don't you think?' Catherine replied lightly. ‘You've already killed one, after all.'

It hit me like a punch to the gut.

‘What do you mean?' I asked, my mouth dry.

‘The wolf at Bonaventure,' she said, slicing into her pork chop. ‘Honey, surely you'd worked that out for yourself by now.'

I was shaking, not trembling, but physically shaking so violently my water glass shuffled closer and closer to the edge of the table. My fingertips tingled, just for a second, before the palms of my hands started to burn. Catherine looked up with dismay as every candle in the vault flamed all the way up to the wooden rafters. It wasn't just me who was shaking, it was the whole restaurant.

‘Emily,' she hissed. ‘Stop it. Stop it right now.'

‘I can't stop it because I don't know how I'm doing it,' I replied, every word catching in my throat.

Outside, I heard raised voices and panicked exclamations. While the room around us rattled, the other diners scrambled for the exits. Our server blankly observed the destruction as glasses and plates crashed to the floor inside the vault but made no move to leave, even when one of the heavy gold candlesticks leapt from the wall, smacking into his shoulder on its way down. When the painting above the fireplace began to shake, Catherine leaned across the table and slapped me, hard, across the face.

The tremors stopped at once.

‘Go,' Catherine ordered the server and he ambled away, blinking in confusion at the debris outside the vault and rubbing his mysteriously injured shoulder.

‘I'm sorry, Emily, I didn't know what else to do.' She picked chunks of ice out of her tea and wrapped them in her napkin before pressing it to my face. ‘How do you feel?'

‘Like I killed someone,' I whispered, me and the restaurant both shivering with an aftershock.

She was already pale but in the dim light of the dining room, Catherine's skin was almost ghostly. The set of her mouth was grim and determined. Defiant or defensive, I wasn't sure which.

‘You killed some thing ,' she corrected. ‘A wolf. A vicious, violent animal that hunted and attacked us. If you hadn't acted, we would both be dead and, believe me, that creature would have shown no remorse.'

‘Maybe my dad was right to keep me away,' I said in a broken voice. ‘I don't want to hurt people, I can't cope with any of this.'

My face was already streaked with tears and my eyes red and sore but my grandmother looked like a warrior, her calm elegance bolstered by the same fierceness I'd seen in Bonaventure.

‘You are a Bell witch. You will not cope, you will thrive,' she declared. ‘Do you realize you just now caused an earthquake without even trying? That kind of strength hasn't been seen in a single witch for centuries. Your magic is one of a kind but we cannot allow anything like this to happen again, do you hear me?'

The thrill in her eyes was more terrifying than the earthquake and the wolf combined. I gulped down my own panic, pushing it down, down, down, as far as it would go.

‘Yes, I hear you.'

‘Good,' Catherine said. ‘You must stay calm, avoid heightened emotions and you must learn to take control of your magic, before your magic takes control of you.'