Chapter Thirty-Seven

Marigold does not know where Lottie went, nor does she allow herself to wonder in the month that passes.

Though she does wonder if time is passing at all. She has always heard that time heals everything, but if that is the case, how is she still so broken? Where are these healing hands of time, if not here, stitching her wounds? She feels as if she has been left to suffer, to bleed, but she does not allow herself to believe that the pain is undeserved.

She did this.

To herself.

To Lottie.

To the isle.

She's able to distract herself from it all during the day. She exhausts herself by strengthening the protection wards and healing the landv?ttir, providing bountiful offerings twice a day. This is the only way she has been able to keep them even remotely healthy, but she is almost out of honey, and her apiary is still destroyed. Soon, she will have to make a choice—give the honey to the landv?ttir or maintain her protection wards upon the isle. In the cold winter air, she works tirelessly to rebuild the apiary so that she may call upon wild bees to make Innisfree their new home. Hopefully, she can finish before her honey, and her magic, runs out.

Mr. Benny comes to help a few days a week, and he is always a comforting presence, but he is very old and cannot work the way he used to. He gives great instructions on which tools to use, how to cut the wood, and he's always happy to paint. He asks her how she is feeling, and she always lies. What more can she do?

There have been no additional attacks from the Ash Witch yet, but it is not over. The will-o'-the-wisp's warning still flickers in the forest. She knows that she must still be afraid and prepared for any sudden horrors that may come. But the landv?ttir kept Versa from overtaking Innisfree before, and now that they are seemingly back to their full health, they should be better equipped to defend their home.

At night, she is consumed with reading as much as she can of the grimoire, denying herself sleep until it forces her under. Customers have all been warded off by Mr. Benny. Marigold cannot bring herself to care. She is too tired, too broken to heal anyone else.

When she does try to go to bed at a reasonable hour, she cannot escape the thoughts of Lottie. It is absolute torture, lying there awake and alone.

The guilt is overwhelming, heavy, and seemingly endless. She is sickened with the feeling that she has made the world worse. She feels the jagged edge of every promise she has broken, every person she has hurt, and all the landv?ttir she let down. Night after night, she cries herself into a panic. Even Cindershine can no longer stand to stay in her room at night. The screams keep him awake. She curls into herself on the bed, praying that she can make herself small enough to disappear forever.

She finds herself screaming Lottie's name over and over again, as if it were an incantation that could bring her back. Her grandmother warned her of this pain, this loneliness, but she never knew it would be like this. She has become a hollow, heartbroken girl who grieves the love she never truly had, and there is nothing she can do to change that.

There never was.

Another month has passed, and the hives are almost all rebuilt. Marigold sands the last one to get ready for Mr. Benny's bright purple paint. She knows that he is far more exhausted than he is willing to admit, and she has always wondered about his unwavering dedication to helping her, and to her grandmother, before she died.

"Mr. Benny, can I ask you a question?" Her voice feels rough against her throat, like the sandpaper scraping the wooden hives. Benny nearly drops his brush out of surprise. She has barely spoken a word since Lottie left, let alone initiated a conversation.

"Go ahead, miss."

"Why are you still taking care of me?"

"Because you are a sweet girl who does not deserve to be alone. And because I promised your grandmother, long before you ever came to the isle, that I would protect you until my last breath."

"What made you want to make such a promise to her?"

He walks over to Althea's grave and puts his hand over his heart. "I loved her, Miss Marigold. I loved your grandmother."

"But the curse—"

"Before the curse. And then during the curse, but in another way. A part of me knew that I loved her, but something inexplicable, something undefinable, was missing. I always felt like I was waiting for it to fall into place, and I never understood why it didn't. Until she died." Tears well in his eyes and stream down his wrinkled face. Marigold comes to his side and places a hand on his shoulder.

"When I found you on the floor of her room when she died, I remembered. That was the moment I remembered everything. Marigold—" he says, but the words fall beneath his sobs.

"What did you remember, Mr. Benny? Please tell me."

He can hardly find his voice. He sits down in the grass, curling his old knees into himself until he can breathe again. She sits with him, holding him for what feels like years.

"Althea and I were soulmates," he finally says to the waking stars. "There was a time when we had a life together. But when she was cursed, so was I. I lost all memory of what we were. We lost the life we were supposed to have. And when she died, I felt it. The crash of my memories and my love that had been waiting there, waiting for her, for fifty years. I finally understood why I could never love anyone else."

He wipes his face and wraps his arm around Marigold's shoulder, pulling her closer.

"Her ring that you now wear around your neck was her engagement ring. I made it for her."

Her hand moves to the ring as tears sting her eyes. "Oh, Mr. Benny, I am so, so sorry. Why didn't you tell me then?"

"Because it would have been too cruel to you. I couldn't look into your eyes and tell you that you could have a soulmate out there who could never love you back. And selfishly, I couldn't bring myself to say it, to tell you the reason why Althea and I were both so lonely. People think of loneliness as a feeling, but it's a presence. It's a living thing that takes the shape of the company you wish you had. For me, loneliness grew into the shape of her, but I didn't recognize it until it was too late. That is the true cruelty of your curse, Marigold. No one can fall in love with you, not even your own soulmate, who remains incapable of loving someone else. So, two people end up alone, and only one of them truly understands why."

This changes everything. She always thought that Honey Witches were destined to be alone, that she did not even have a soulmate. But now she knows it's not true, and maybe if she can find a way to break this damned curse, she can fix everything.

Marigold leans into his hold so that her head is on his chest. "What was it like before the curse, back when you were both in love?"

His low voice vibrates against her cheek. "She was magnificent and terrifying in the best way. She was stronger than me, smarter than me, and better than me in every way, but she would pretend that she wasn't just to protect my pride. She was the moon and I was the sea, and we were always reaching for each other. I don't think that pull ever truly went away."

"I don't think so, either. I saw it between you two from the moment I arrived. She never stopped loving you, Mr. Benny. It was always in her heart, and in her eyes."

A sharp breath escapes him and morphs into a desperate laugh. "Can I tell you the moment when I knew she was the one?"

"Share all the moments with me. I want to know everything."

He smiles as his gaze drifts into the distance. "It was the first snow of winter. There was a snowflake that had stuck to her cheek. I went to move it, but she pushed my hand away. ‘Leave it,' she said. ‘Use it as a guide if you ever find the courage to kiss my cheek.' I had no idea what to do, so I laughed. I thought I ruined my chances right there, but then she smiled."

"Then what?"

"Well, I'll tell you this—that day, I learned that both snowflakes and witches can melt beneath a kiss. And I knew that she was my soulmate. Always, but not forever. I know now that those are two different things."

"Neither of you deserved such pain, but you still cared for her. You buried her. And now you care for me. You are the closest thing to a grandfather that I have ever known. As far as I am concerned, that is what you are to me."

"Oh, sweet Marigold," he says. "You do not know what it means to me to hear that." He stands to face her and wipes the tears from her cheeks. "To have you as my family. To protect you as my granddaughter. Nothing could ever mean more to me."

"Then, as my grandfather, can you help me? I have to make this right. I must avenge the love we both lost."

He nods. "Althea would be so proud of you right now, Mari. So very proud."

With Mr. Benny helping her, Marigold pulls a few other interesting ancient texts from the shelves that line the library he built. They each take a comfortable chair inside, a steaming mug of strong coffee in hand, and they read.

For hours, and hours, and hours.

Days upon days of doing nothing but reading and never letting a book leave their hands. They search for something, anything that would allow her to defeat the Ash Witch once and for all, save the isle, and break this curse.

"I found something," he says, breaking a silence that has stretched on for days. He raises a small book toward her. "Take a look."

Marigold takes it from his hands and sits on the floor beside him. It's a tattered children's book with strange drawings and singsongy poems.

"This must be Lottie's book that she left here."

"I know," Mr. Benny says, and her eyes widen as she reads.

Ash of rose and lemon seeds

Make a man admit his deeds

She turns the page.

Ash of oak and locks of hair

An enemy will soon despair

Again, she turns the page.

Ash of bones and ivy vines

Bring another back to life

Marigold chews the words as she reads them. "These aren't children's rhymes." She looks up at Mr. Benny. "These are spells. This is ash magic."

"I think you're right," he says, but Marigold hardly hears him. She flips through the book over and over again. "But why would Lottie have this? I do not understand."

"Miss Marigold…" Mr. Benny says cautiously.

"No." She slams the book shut and casts it aside. "Lottie cannot be an Ash Witch. She would not have been able to step onto the isle."

"There is no other explanation," Mr. Benny says.

"There must be. It's not Lottie. It cannot be Lottie. She was with me the entire time that we were in Bardshire. She couldn't have done this."

She says this, willing herself to believe it—but she knows that Lottie is connected to this.

"I refuse to accept that Lottie would ever have anything to do with the destruction. She is not evil. I will not believe it."

He gives her a knowing look. "Who do you think disturbed the rune in the apiary?"

Bewildered, she says, "When would she have done—?" She stops herself, remembering the night that she found Lottie wandering around the isle. They were both having nightmares of fire. She woke her up. Lottie didn't remember how she got out there, but her hands were sticky with honey.

That's what Lottie was doing in her sleep. She let Versa in.

Everything comes together in her mind—how Lottie could see the landv?ttir. How she could smell the ash magic. The bad blood that Lottie's mother tried so hard to outrun. They were running from Versa.

Lottie shares the Ash Witch's blood. That's why she was able to resist the curse and fight against it. She is a descendant of the witch who created it. And if Versa was already close, where might Lottie have gone when she left? Who might have found her?

"Mr. Benny, I think Lottie is in trouble. Versa must have found her and used her to get to Innisfree. And after I sent her away, I fear"—she chokes on her words, swallowing her tears—"I fear I may have led her to ruin." Panic rises in her chest as she paces the library. "I must kill Versa to save Lottie from her. I have to take down the protection wards and let the Ash Witch come." She is terrified, not only for Lottie's life and her own, but for the fate of the isle. This is no longer only about the curse—this is about defending a Honey Witch's entire purpose.

Mr. Benny sighs before he stands and offers her a hand. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"You're going to brew up a lot of spells with the last of your honey. You'll need them to fight off this wicked witch."