Chapter Eighteen

Upon the night of the full moon, Marigold readies a vessel to make moon water. She cleanses it with crystals and wipes it clean with white silk. It rests on her hip, and she carries a white lantern in the other hand. Lottie and August follow close behind.

"Remind me where we're going again?" Lottie asks as she adjusts the tight collar of her black dress.

"We are going to the moon pool. It's a small oasis in the middle of the isle, and the perfect spot to make moon water."

"Why can't you simply fill up the jar with water from the lake?" August asks.

"I could, but it's never quite as potent. We want only the best for your soulmate spell, right?"

"Of course," he says with a playful flip of his curly hair.

When they arrive, Marigold places the lantern on a nearby tree stump and looks for Yliza, the landv?ttir of the oasis. The bright yellow koi normally greets her eagerly with bubbly kisses beneath the surface of the water, but tonight, she is nowhere to be found.

Still, moon water must be made, and there is no time to waste. As she kneels at the water's edge, she pushes the vessel into the water and allows it to fill to the top. It emerges, filled with fizzy blue water that must sit beneath the moon for the remainder of the night before it is incorporated into any spells. She stands and tries to wipe the dirt away from her knees, but then she has a different idea.

She turns to face Lottie and August. "Would anyone fancy a swim?"

August points at the moon pool below. "In there?"

She nods. "It's deeper than it looks."

That small bit of reassurance is all that August requires. He immediately begins unbuttoning his shirt while Marigold removes her dress and starts unfastening her stay around her ribs.

Lottie scoffs in disbelief. "You're going in that tiny puddle?"

"Aren't you?" August says as he peels his shirt away from his body and drops his trousers to his ankles.

"August, you know I can't." Lottie tries to keep her voice to a whisper so Marigold cannot hear, but the urgency in her tone makes her words impossible to ignore. August glances over at Marigold, who tries to pretend that she is not staring.

"It's dark, Lottie. No one can see anything," August says, his tone reassuring. Lottie still hesitates, but Marigold comes over to her side.

"Do you not know how to swim?" she asks.

August and Lottie look at each other, back at Marigold, then back at each other, holding a silent debate with only their eyes.

"What's going on?" Marigold asks.

Lottie sighs, hugging her ribs. August gives her a sympathetic look and a nod of reassurance.

"I have a certain job…" she says quietly.

Marigold raises a brow. "And this job means you cannot swim?"

"No, but it's a job of which many disapprove. And I don't know you well enough to be sure you'll be kind."

"Well, I'm still unsure of what this has to do with swimming, but as someone who has been ruthlessly mocked by you for my own occupation, I can assure you that I would never do the same to you."

Lottie takes a breath to respond, but she lets it go. She is silent for a few moments, before she finally says, "You're right."

"What?" Marigold and August both say in time with each other. Marigold did not expect Lottie to abandon the fight so quickly.

"I'm sorry, I must have misheard. Did Lottie Burke almost admit to being wrong in her behavior?" August says, and Lottie shoves him nearly into the pool. He catches his balance in time and says, "This is unheard of. Tell me, Lots, what has prompted such an admittance?"

Lottie chews on her lip, the way she always does when she's nervous, and she looks back at Marigold. "I think I trust you," Lottie says, and she begins to undo her heavy dress.

Marigold can barely contain her heart. It throbs in her chest like a new wound. Lottie does not speak. She pulls her arms out of the long sleeves and drops her dress, then her stay, so that she is only in a thin chemise that stops just above her ankles. She stretches her arms out to her side, revealing areas of pinkish skin covered in random black shapes that Marigold cannot quite make out. Immediately, though, she knows that the marks on Lottie's skin are the result of burns. It looks like the wound on her own mother's hand that is always hidden underneath a lacy glove.

"My parents died in a fire when I was young," Lottie starts. Marigold opens her mouth to offer sympathies, but Lottie cuts her off. "Don't cry for me, for I have no memory of it, and I don't know how I made it out alive. I only have scars to prove that it was real."

As she comes closer, she can clearly see the pink and white scars all over Lottie's upper arms. She can also see that the black shapes over them form an elegant, swirling design. They are tattoos, all over her body. Birds, flora, anchors, snakes. Ribbons, Latin, gods, and monsters. Marigold stares in awe. Tattoos are scandalous, even in Bardshire, where people are supposedly more open-minded to any form of art. Even there, they are only for men. For women, tattoos are illegal, punishable by massive fines and possible jail time. She heard a story once about a rebellious daughter of a novelist in Bardshire who fell in love with a sailor boy. The boy had lots of tattoos, as most sailors do, and she asked for one—a letter or a heart or something else perfectly harmless and easy to hide—but her handmaiden saw it one morning while she was helping the daughter dress. When her father heard of this, he took his daughter to a doctor who scrubbed her skin down to the bone with salt and gauze until the tattoo was gone.

"No tattoo artists would provide their services to a girl," Lottie continues, "much less a girl of my age, and the scar tissue is nearly impossible to cover. But I wanted to do it. I had to. I had to reclaim my body and mark it the way I wanted to, not the way that the burns left me." Marigold reaches for Lottie's hand and holds it lightly, lifting her arm toward the moon for a better view. She admires both the tattoos and the scars, as they both tell the story of this impossible girl.

"I'm grateful for the scars. They led me to my purpose, which is art," Lottie says proudly.

"You're so extraordinary, Lottie." The words fall from her mouth before she can catch them, before she realizes what she has confessed. She could not help herself. She thought Lottie was beautiful before, but now she is so much more than beautiful. She is marked with bravery, with artistry, with so many stories. Marigold wants to know them all.

Lottie starts making that pinched, sour face again, the one she makes every time she receives a compliment. She palms her forehead like she has a headache and shakes her head.

"Are you all right?" Marigold asks.

Before Lottie responds, there is a splash behind them as August jumps into the water.

"This is exhilarating!" August screams as he comes up and shakes the water from his hair.

The oasis looks like a pit of glass with jagged edges reaching up toward the moon. When Marigold jumps in, her movement blurs the sharp shards into soft ripples that welcome her inside. Her hair hovers upon the surface of the water, its bright golden tones piercing through the black of night. It spills down her back as she turns back to regard Lottie, who still stands at the edge with her arms crossed.

"Jump in!" she says, motioning Lottie forward.

"You're both mad," Lottie says, and Marigold splashes her with icy water.

"And you are missing out," Marigold says, pulling herself out of the water to stand by Lottie's side. "Come on!"

She shivers as the cold night air breathes against her body, pebbling her soft skin beneath its touch. Lottie looks down to regard her already wet chemise and giggles under her breath.

"Okay. We fall together?" she asks, offering her hand.

"We fall together," Marigold echoes, taking her waiting hand.

They leap into the air, and Marigold witnesses the moment that Lottie lets go of herself and everything holding her back, and for a moment, the woman is nothing but air and sound. She screams joyously as her body meets the water and she is submerged. Marigold swims down to meet her. Moonlight streams through the inky black water until it is blocked by Lottie's silhouette. A halo of moonlight surrounds her, hugging the sharp contours of her body.

They touch—softly at first, until Lottie pulls her closer. Marigold's fingers fit perfectly around the curves of Lottie's waist. Lottie's hands drift to Marigold's face, and whether she means to or not, she drags her thumb across Marigold's bottom lip. Underwater, they can pretend that this is not intentional, that every touch is by chance alone. Their noses brush, and if they were not close to running out of air, Marigold wonders how much further they could go.

When they come back up, they are both gasping, and not just for want of air. Tension crackles between them.

"Have fun down there?" August jokes. Marigold blushes and Lottie's only response is the sudden shiver that vibrates between her teeth.

"It's summer. How is the water so cold?" Lottie says.

Marigold squeezes her hand, unable to let it go just yet. "We don't have to stay. Whenever you're ready, we'll go inside."

The three of them splash and laugh until exhaustion creeps in. They pull themselves out of the water and grab their piles of clothes before heading back toward the cottage. Marigold leads the way with the dimming lantern in her grip.

As they walk along the coast, Lottie freezes. "Wait," she says.

August turns back to regard her. "What is it, Lots?"

Marigold looks in the direction where Lottie is staring. Her heart stops—the flicker is back, beating like a heart deep within the Hazelwood Forest. The air smells different now. She waits for Lottie to comment on it, to validate that it is real and it is wicked, but she does not. The light is simply playing tricks on her again. She comes closer until the candlelight illuminates Lottie's smirk.

"There is something I have always wanted to do," she says, "and now feels like the perfect time and the perfect place."

Marigold and August share a glance before looking back at her.

"Well, go on, then," August says.

Lottie turns to face the lake. She walks to the very edge where one heavy gust of wind could send her into the water. She takes a deep breath, and she screams without mercy.

Marigold and August leap into each other's arms like scared children. The birds in the nearby trees flee their branches, screeching and squawking in surprise. Curious creatures that were sleeping in the bushes come out to see what has caused such a sound. After a few seconds tick by, Lottie falls into a fit of laughter and turns back to her friends.

"That was so freeing!" she says through her giggles.

Honestly, she sounds a bit like she has lost her mind. Marigold and August step back, wary of what Lottie will do next.

"I have never felt so alive," she says in a singsongy way, turning the last word into a little melody. "You must try this," she says to August, taking him by the wrists and bringing him to the coast.

"Think of all the bad in the world, all the horrible things you've endured, all the things you know you deserve but do not have. Breathe all of that in, and then scream it out," she says to him frantically, like she can't get the words out fast enough.

He starts to laugh, but she grips his shoulder tightly and says, "Do it!"

Startled, he turns back to the coast, lifts his arms, and screams even louder than Lottie did. The sound makes the water ripple and the branches shake.

"How do you feel?" Lottie asks after he is done. Marigold is curious to know, too.

Like Lottie, he bursts into laughter. "I feel weightless!" he says breathlessly.

Lottie comes up to Marigold and takes her hand. "Your turn, Witch. Think of the life you left behind and let it go."

Falling back, she says, "I am not sure I have a scream like that in me."

Lottie grabs her by the shoulders. "Of course you do! Do not hold yourself back from this moment."

Suddenly, this is too much. Too vulnerable. She shies away. "Perhaps I am trying to maintain a shred of my civility."

"Fuck civility. Fuck whoever invented it," Lottie says, sliding her hand down Marigold's arm and taking her wrist, raising both of their arms toward the sky in triumph. "Tonight, we are shameless." She dips her chin and looks up through her lashes. "Think of your greatest wish that you are still hoping will come true. Think of the redheaded impossible girl who has been admittedly less than kind to you."

Marigold's breath hitches. This feels like the closest she'll get to an apology from Lottie, and she'll take it. She nods, laughing.

"Breathe it in," Lottie continues, "and then scream."

She puts down the lantern in her other hand and follows Lottie to the edge of the water.

Deep breath. She thinks of her protective mother, her gentle father, her chaotic brother and her beautiful sister.

Another breath.

She thinks of George, her broken heart, and her curse.

Another.

Her grandmother. Her grief. All the things that she never got to say.

Another.

She thinks of Lottie. Lottie. Lottie.

She screams with so much emotion and power that her friends must catch her arms to keep her from falling into the lake. She gives all of the air in her lungs to this scream until she chokes on it. August lets go when she finds her balance, but she grips on to Lottie like she is the only thing keeping her from floating away. The muscles in her belly start to tingle, and laughter consumes her.

"How do you feel, Marigold?" Lottie asks, her embrace tightening. They lock eyes, and heat builds between them. Breath quickening, she leans in slightly. Their noses touch. If Marigold did not know better, she would lean in farther and let their lips meet just to see what freedom tastes like. Her chest tightens and her heart races. Realization crashes into her—she cares for Lottie in a way that she's never cared for anyone. She wants to keep Lottie all to herself, stand between her and anything that could ever hurt her. Whatever this feeling is, she can do nothing about it. Not with her curse. Lottie is only a daydream, a wish that can play out night after night when sleep does not come. That will be enough.

That has to be enough.

"Clean," she whispers.

Lottie laughs softly. "Me too."

Voices raw, bodies exhausted, they walk back to the cottage. August enters first, holding the door open for the women. As Marigold is stepping inside, a faint scream carries on the wind. It's rough and angry, sounding more like a battle cry. Leaning back, she listens for it again.

"Did you hear that?" she asks.

"Hear what?" August says.

"I did," Lottie says. "Another scream from far away."

Marigold nods as she takes another step back and places a finger over her lips, asking for silence. She hears it again, though this time, it is more than a scream. It is a word.

A name.

"Marigold."

She and Lottie look at each other.

"Is someone calling for your help?" Lottie asks.

August steps outside and walks past Marigold, cupping his hand around his ear to listen. "What are you two talking about? I don't hear anything."

A chill runs down Marigold's spine. There is something wicked in that forest, and whatever it is, it wants her. The voice sounds almost familiar, making it all the more menacing.

"Let's go inside," she says, taking August's hand and pulling him to her side. A witch knows to never answer the darkness when it calls.