Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Now that the hearth would obey the coven's commands as well as my own, Grandmother spelled it to act as a timer, its flames turning orange at every hour to count down the time we had until the echo of Arcadis's portal vanished for good. Then she shooed half of us outside to form a loose ring around the farmhouse while the others spread out within. As one, we poured our magic into the farmhouse.

Glass shards clinked and twinkled as they sprang from the floorboards and fused themselves back into the windows. The cracks in the walls and foundation caused by the assault on the front door sealed shut; the chipped paint smoothed out like wrinkles vanishing under the ministrations of a steaming iron; the shutters and shingles that had apparently been torn off flew back like crows to their appropriate roosts; even the creeping myrtle and morning glories got a boost. On the whole, the farmhouse received the equivalent of a facelift, a glam-up, and a detox, for the chimney belched out a giant exhale of all the soot and creosote it had collected over the decades.

Wards were layered next, using my floral boundary as a stand-in for the boxwood hedge that surrounded the Hawthorne estate. The delphinium spears rose to head-height in response, almost as tall as Flora's sunlions. The bigger pixies watched from their fur-lined nesting boxes, not even the strongest of them attempting to test the efficacy of these wards.

Our first task complete, we gathered in the dining room, Dad and Otter dragging over the loveseat from the den so most of us could sit down, Grandmother at the head of the dining room table, of course. Aunt Peony quickly poured the tea, distributing the mugs according to status within the family. When the mugs ran out, people sipped from a variety of bowls. I drank my tea from a ceramic one-cup measuring cup.

No one touched the toast points I'd made. The half-empty jar of apple butter with its little wooden spoon beside it was equally rejected.

After Grandmother had taken a sip of her jasmine green tea, she folded her hands on top of the table. "Report."

"There are two main points of entry upon the lower floor," Dad immediately answered, "and since this is a covered wraparound porch, the windows on the second floor must be considered possible breach points. There's an attic, too, but the vents are too small for anything much bigger than a cat. There are loose floorboards in the hall here under that braided rug that empty out into a crawlspace."

"And tunnels," I offered, a little reluctantly. They were the hobs' secret, after all, but we couldn't afford any nasty surprises. "There's a trapdoor under the west side of the house and tunnels that extend throughout the property."

Grandmother looked to Uncle Badger sitting on the loveseat. "Seal that immediately."

"But the hobs," I protested.

She silenced me with a look. Scowling and stewing, I disappeared back into my tea. Uncle Badger abandoned his bowl and went to the hallway to roll back the rug; Grandmother turned back to the witches assembled at the table, rapping her knuckles on the wood to prompt the next report.

I nearly spat out my tea when Aunt Hyacinth thumped my paper-birch-bound notebook on the table and flipped it open to a page where she'd obviously made a checklist. "Most of the raw ingredients we'll need for the spells are already accounted for, so there will be limited foraging necessary." She gave me an apologetic look. "Sorry, Meadow, I needed paper and couldn't find any loose sheets lying around. Your notes and observations in here are fascinating, by the way."

"You… you read my journal?" I sputtered.

She shifted uncomfortably. "Only a little."

Liar. Aunt Hyacinth was a Hawthorne; we never did anything halfway.

"What more do we need?" Grandmother asked.

"Well, the wood for the mirror's frame, for starters—"

"We can get that at Cedar Haven," I supplied.

Aunt Hyacinth scribbled that note in the margin beside her list. "And we'll need more of the basic necessities, like jelly fungus, mouse stair ferns, plus blackberry lily rhizomes—"

"Cedar Haven forest."

More scribbling. " Local honey—"

"Also Cedar Haven."

"—and opals."

The family gave me a look, pausing for my inevitable response. "Those are at the Barn Market, actually."

"The grimoire is a secure as I can make it," Mom reported next. She didn't elaborate, and Grandmother didn't ask for anything further.

"I found suitable attire for some of us in the closet." Aunt Eranthis gestured to where a small selection of my clothes hung from hangers on the banister. "I found no sewing machine, so that means we'll have to go thrifting."

Once again, the family turned to me. I took another sip of my tea and answered, "Barn Market."

"I'll need to go shopping," Aunt Peony announced. "This pantry and fridge aren't equipped to feed this many of us, though I did find a good deal of beef in the chest freezer." She gave me a smile. "You have a very nice vegetable garden, Meadow."

"Your mushrooms could use some more water, though," Aunt Hyacinth put in.

I ignored Aunt Hyacinth's comment and dutifully told my other aunt, "Galloway's."

"And where is there to get good coffee in bulk?" Aunt Peony asked. "This little moka pot isn't going to cut it."

"The Magic Brewery. It's on the square."

"That's it, then," Grandmother announced, finishing her tea and standing. "Peony and Otter, you're on grocery and coffee duty. Check for—"

"Kalamata olives, yes, I know," Aunt Peony said. "Green olives stuffed with bleu cheese if they don't have them. Tinned plain black olives as a last resort."

Grandmother ignored the interruption. "Forsythia, establish a connection with the family back at the manor, then guard the grimoire. Badger," she called into the hole in the floor, "you're staying here as protection detail."

"Okay," his voice echoed up from the crawlspace.

"Everyone else, we're going first to this Barn Market so we can blend in to this little town and then to this Cedar Haven for the rest of the spell ingredients. Meadow—"

"Is coming with you," I finished.

I don't know where I got the gall from, but some part of me—the part that kept speaking out—was demanding I be treated as an equal, not someone she could order around like she could have back home. We weren't at Hawthorne Manor; we were in my farmhouse, in my adopted town, and I'd meant what I'd said about not being a princess locked in a tower.

"Unless," I added, "you'd like to waste time wandering around when I could just direct you straight to whatever you need. I have been foraging in those woods before, you know."

She shook her head. "Not while you've been exposed. You've always had a layer of protection over you. Until now."

"Well it's a good thing you four are coming with me, then, isn't it?"

Grandmother was reaching the end of her patience. "Meadow, you don't understand."

"Then explain it to me," I fired back. "Why are the deep woods forbidden? Why can't I ‘consort with' shifters? Why—"

"Not. Now." There was magic in her voice and eyes, and while the rest of the coven flinched, I remained standing, holding my makeshift teacup in a grip that threatened to crack the ceramic.

"I'm not a child—"

"Then stop acting like one," she thundered. "Stop resisting me at every turn. Stop being so obstinate. Marten is lost because of you —"

"Mother!" Mom protested.

"—and your assumptions —"

"Would you really have believed me if I'd spoken up about what I saw?" I cried. Then I faced all of them. "Any of you? You apparently couldn't trust me with the truth, and still don't, instead taking on that protection spell that ended up being no better than a curse! Maybe if you'd prepared me—"

"We were," Dad interrupted calmly. "And we were doing a good job of it too, considering all these months you've been alive and successfully hidden and even thriving, it seems. Your Vanishing Spell was potent enough to erase your entire existence, and for that feat, we are all very proud of what you've accomplished. But"—he rose from his seat, his expression hardening—"did you ever stop to consider what it would do to your mother and me, not to mention the rest of the family, when the spell finally broke and we realized that we had a daughter again and no idea what had happened to her? That there was a decomposing body in the hall and our grimoire stolen? How were we supposed to interpret that, other than someone had kidnapped you and one of the three sources of our power? The scenarios that plagued us then—we were preparing for a coven war, Meadow. For you."

My bottom lip trembled, the ceramic one-cup measuring cup shaking in my hand and sloshing lukewarm tea over the backs of my knuckles.

"It was only when your mother cast a spell to piece together the fragments of that night that we realized what truly had happened," he continued. "Imagine our shock then."

I couldn't apologize for the strife I'd caused them, not yet. "Would you have told me," I repeated, fighting to keep my voice level. "Would you have told me the truth if I'd come to you first?"

Him looking to my Grandmother was all the answer I needed, but my heart hoped for more.

"No," came her quiet rely. "No, I would have spelled you to forget."

My control broke. "Why?"

"Because I wanted you to live your life, to enjoy it—"

"Like a lamb does before it's slaughtered?" I shouted.

My words hung in the air when the hearth flashed orange, the light streaking down the hall and into the dining room, bathing us all in a brief hellish glow.

"Another hour lost," Aunt Hyacinth announced in a muted voice.

"Meadow," Grandmother said sharply, "you don't have to agree with me on this. But you do need to obey. If you want to help Marten as fiercely as you say you do, then do what you told the hearth fires to do: stop squabbling and get along. We are family. You will get the answers you seek, but only after we get through this. You will only be safe when Marten is safe and the Circle of Nine remade. That is the goal. Nothing else can take priority right now. That is where our focus should be."

Focus . How well I knew that word. How much I hated it right now.

I would have protested again, demanding the explanation I was so desperate for, had it not been for Arthur's promise. I will tell you everything. And yet, the one I most wanted to hear it from was her. Grandmother. The woman I had modeled my entire life after. Until now.

Clenching my jaw, for I didn't trust myself to speak just yet, I simply nodded.

"Good," Grandmother said with a superior lift to her chin. "Now—"

"We'll do what we should've done all along," Mom said, pushing herself away from the table.

A second later, I was yanked into her arms. The smell of old books and her wiry strength enveloped me. Dad hugged us immediately after, and our bodies rocked with the impact as each family member joined in the embrace. Including Grandmother, last, and after a long pause.

Even after all the hurt and fear, the secrets and lies, I was with my family again. Their love wasn't perfect, but none of us were. And I knew, from the bottom of my heart, that none of their actions had come from malicious intentions. That didn't excuse anything, but it gave us a foothold to rebuild. To be better.

A sob I didn't know I was holding back wracked my chest.

"Oh, honey," Mom whispered, holding me even tighter. "I'm so happy we have you back."

"Me too, Mom," I wept into her shoulder. "Me too."