Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Six

Emptying the woodshed was exactly what I needed. Hours of exhausting physical labour that gave me no time to think. Even though it killed me to be away from him, we all agreed Wyn would stay with Lydia until Catherine had everything figured out. This would surely be the first place his pack would look for him and while Bell House would do all it could to keep us safe, we didn't want a fight knocking on our door if it could be helped. While Catherine worked on a way to keep Wyn safe, I worked on clearing out decades of junk; broken lawnmowers, old bicycles and pogo sticks, and a mountain of unlabelled boxes, the yellowed tape that had once held them closed disintegrating the moment I touched it. It was almost shocking to see so much useless clutter in the vicinity of Bell House. Inside, even a fly wouldn't land where it wasn't welcome and I couldn't imagine why Catherine hadn't thrown all this stuff away years ago.

Even though it wasn't visible yet, I could feel the moon as it moved along its orbit. One second I was too weak to pick up a suitcase, the next I was sure I could lift the whole house. I squatted to pick up a box labelled ‘Christmas decorations' and I staggered sideways under the unexpected weight. This was one of the weaker moments.

‘You need some help?'

A pair of hands grabbed the other end of the box right before my knees buckled, and helped me carry it out into the garden.

‘Why does that say Christmas decorations when the damn thing is clearly full of bowling balls,' Ashley asked, pressing her hand into her lower back after we let it fall to the floor with a jingling thud. She looked around her garden, scowling. ‘This is a mess.'

‘I know, it's endless,' I agreed. ‘Most of it looks like junk, we could probably toss it all out.'

She turned back to me, pushing the sleeves of her old denim shirt up to her elbows.

‘I wasn't talking about the shed.'

I couldn't really argue with her.

‘So, is he worth it?' she asked. ‘This wolf?'

‘His name is Wyn and he's not a wolf.' I disappeared back inside the shed and came back carrying an ancient typewriter with more than half its keys missing.

‘At least that's not all he is,' I added. ‘And I know you're going to say I'm dumb and too young and I'm throwing my life away for someone I just met but, yes, I think he's worth it.'

‘I'm the last person who could call you dumb. Well, at least about this,' she replied, laughing unexpectedly. ‘I was only sixteen when I fell in love.'

I dropped the typewriter on the wrought-iron table, a cloud of dust blowing up in my face.

‘Ellie,' I said and she nodded.

‘When we were together, nothing in the world could touch me.'

Ashley sat at the table and tapped absently at the typewriter. ‘I knew right away, the second I saw her. She took my breath away. Most beautiful woman I've ever seen.'

‘Will you tell me what happened?' I asked, slowly sinking down to sit on one of the boxes. ‘What really happened?'

The edges of her mouth twitched like she wanted to smile but her feelings were in conflict with her face.

‘Catherine happened.'

A strand of hair escaped from my topknot and fell in front of my face. I blew it out the way and even the air rushing over my lips felt like it was intruding on the moment.

‘Ellie had only just moved here when we met but strangely enough, she left town with her family one month later. On my birthday. Her dad got some high-class job in New York, the offer came completely out the blue, and I never saw her again. Don't forget, my mother's influence doesn't start and end with magic. She can accomplish just as much with one phone call as she can by summoning a storm.'

Ashley flipped the top of a random box back and forth a few times then shook her head. ‘Catherine located her for me a couple of years ago. She was living in New Jersey, married to an extremely average man, couple of kids running around. So I guess my mother did me a favour in the end. Would've broken me in two to find out I was just a phase.'

‘When you say Catherine located her for you, you're not saying she hired a detective?' I guessed.

‘Location spells are easy for her if the person she's looking for is on the same continent. All you have to do is ask the elements for help and you can find most anyone.'

She stood up, wiping away tears she didn't want me to see and headed back into the shed, reappearing with two ancient suitcases in her arms, stacked high so I couldn't see her face.

‘Maybe I'm being stupid,' I said as she opened the latches on the cases, testing the rusted hinges. ‘But I don't understand why Catherine interfered? Was she upset because Ellie was a woman?'

‘No. She was upset because Ellie existed,' my aunt replied, clipped and precise. ‘Taking care of the Bell line is a full-time job and even thinking about her took up too much of my day. What if Ellie wanted to leave town someday? Or have kids? Who would tend to Catherine and Bell House if I was off living my life with a family of my own?'

‘She's been so understanding about Wyn,' I said, watching my aunt sort through the contents of the first suitcase, picking up various pieces of old clothing, shaking them out, then putting them back down again. ‘Did you tell her you were in love?'

Ashley laughed, cold and harsh.

‘I did. Catherine told me love makes fools of us all. It made a fool of her twice. Once when she met my daddy and again when Paul met your mom. You're not going to end up with your wolf any more than I'm going to end up with Ellie. Not while my mother can still draw breath.' Her green eyes flashed a warning. ‘Don't let love make a fool out of you, Emily.'

She rummaged through the clothes, shoulders pinched tight with anger, two red spots on her cheeks. It didn't make sense. We were literally clearing out space to give Wyn somewhere safe to hide. Catherine was inside right now working on spells to protect him. Ashley had to be wrong. Maybe Catherine had changed or, as much as I hated to think it, the rules for witches might be different to the rules for caretakers. A breeze shook the leaves of the magnolia tree and a swell of energy passed over me. I looked at Ashley but she hadn't noticed. The rules might be different because we were different.

‘I'm about parched to death,' she announced eventually. ‘You want some tea?'

‘Thank you,' I replied, uncomfortable again and too polite. ‘That would be nice.'

‘Such a little lady,' she muttered as she marched away into the kitchen.

Even if I'd had the best night's sleep ever, clearing all this junk would have been exhausting. I was worn out but I had to keep going, there wasn't time to stop and worry about Ashley or anything else right now. First, I had to make sure Wyn was safe, and second, I needed to get through this evening without torching the whole damn city. Maybe after that we could work on her love life.

Wiping my dirty hands on my slightly less dirty jeans, I poked around in the open suitcase Ashley had left on the table. It was full of clothes, mostly women's. Dresses and shirts, some floaty tops, skinny scarves and weirdly wide belts. They smelled musty, like the vintage stores I'd sometimes poked around in back in Wales. I pulled out a cool pair of low-rise, bootcut jeans that looked like they might fit and tossed them to one side before digging back in with renewed interest. Lydia would love this stuff. At the very bottom of the case, I found two matching sweatshirts, black with gold lettering. I pulled out one and then the other, a medium and an extra-large. Two SCAD sweaters for two SCAD students. My mom and my dad.

The realization hit hard. These were my mom's clothes.

I emptied everything out in a heap on the table, my heart in my mouth. My mom's shirts and dresses and weirdly wide belts, left in a suitcase out in a shed to go mouldy when they should have been inside the house with me. I grabbed hold of a pink floral dress. It was a different style to the rest of her things and as I wrapped my fingers around it, breathing in the scent of the nearby rosemary bush, the garden disappeared and everything went black for just a second before I was nestled against the same soft fabric, tired and confused, tiny hands grabbing at I didn't know what. Two faces looked down at me, both so full of love and awe, as though they'd never seen anything quite so magical.

It was the dress my mother was wearing the day I was born.

‘No,' I whimpered as the image faded away and the garden returned. ‘Please stay.'

But they were gone. I was back in Savannah, in the present day, all alone and so confused. Afraid of what might happen if I let my emotions overwhelm me, I reached out to search for Catherine as calmly as possible but she wasn't inside Bell House. Reluctantly letting go of my mother's dress, I cast my net wider but I couldn't sense her anywhere. Ashley was on her way back from the kitchen, Lydia was in her bedroom, Jackson playing basketball in Forsyth Park. But my grandmother was nowhere to be found. And she wasn't the only one. Wyn's vibrant energy was completely absent from the city of Savannah. He wasn't at Lydia's house and he wasn't on his way here. There was no other glaring Were energy within the city limits so his family couldn't have got to him already, I would've felt that. Unless a person with much more power than me had decided I shouldn't. Something was very, very wrong. Something had happened to them. Panic overtook rational thinking and self-control was no longer an option. The prickling of my fingertips escalated into a searing burn before I could even take a breath and when I fell to my knees, the ground shook.

Then all I heard was screaming.