Chapter 55

Chapter 55 of 56 · 9-minute read

Mama won our little game! She finally connected with me again—to buy me lunch.

All the way back to Virgil’s, my heart sings. Tears stream down my face, too, as I drive, but they’re happy tears.

The landscape passes by in a blur of reds and greens and browns, just as it has every Thanksgiving week for as long as I can remember. Some fields of defoliated cotton gleam like snow, while others are bare after harvest. I watch a deer step out of the pine and scrub oak forest and stare at the road ahead of me before it turns and vanishes into the thick underbrush that the first frost of the year has yet to kill off.

Sometimes in ritual, when the effort to make a change in destiny is considerable and the subject is leaden, an unseen bubble will burst at the moment of change, the energy will lighten and rise, and the witches in the circle will find that their eyes leak tears from the outer corners. I feel that now, like a spell has been broken, and I can finally move forward in this new, strange world that doesn’t include my mom—or Bobby.

For the last mile of country road to Virgil’s house, I roll down the car window. Fresh air, warm sunshine, and the tang of smoke from some distant neighbor’s burn pile fill my car. I have just enough time to change into something new and pretty before the kids are due to arrive, provided Sonnet and Christabel’s flight into the Tallahassee airport wasn’t late and Rhiannon and her husband were able to pick them up uneventfully in their new van full of baby gear. Shelby will drive in tonight, hopefully, if his transportation from some remote, sandy land hasn’t been delayed yet again.

As I turn into Virgil’s driveway, I can see that he’s already out front, raking piles of leaves from the old oak tree that stretches out over the house. He’s wearing that robin’s-egg blue T-shirt I like so much, the one that almost matches the color of his aura, and I can see the muscles in his back and arms working as he moves. My heart skips a beat, and I feel a flush of heat in my cheeks. Whether a few months ago or a few years ago, I’d thought this feeling was gone for good.

I park the car and get out, hesitating for a moment before making my way over to him. It’s one thing to feel the warmth of his presence and the comfort of his words, but being in his physical presence is something else entirely. We’ve gone from comfortable with each other to slightly anxious and often giddy. I’m not sure I’m ready for this, but I know it’s what I want, and I know it’s solid.

Healthy.

“Hey,” I say softly as I approach him.

He turns around, a smile spreading across his face as he sees me. “Hey, there. You look beautiful.”

I blush even harder and duck my head. “Thanks,” I say, feeling suddenly shy.

My hair is in a ponytail—like his—and the silver in both his hair and mine shines prominently in the November sunshine. Beautiful? I’m in my skinny jeans and my mama’s old blouse, no make-up except a light coat of mascara and under-eye concealer. I’m also barefoot because my sandals are in the car and it’s not cold enough for boots, and I don’t pay much attention between the extremes. The leaves crunch under my feet.

“I hope you’re not doing all this work for me, sweetie,” I say, though I’m certain by the lack of sweat that he hasn’t been at it too long.

“It’s no trouble. I’m the lookout. Though maybe a bad one.” He winks.

Seeing my confusion, he gestures toward the side yard. I squint into the bright sunlight, trying to make out what he’s pointing at. Sure enough, parked flush with the front of the house is a white van. An overwhelming wave of relief washes over me, and I take a deep breath, my shoulders relaxing.

“My babies are home?” My hands fly to my mouth. I blink back the tears.

“They got here early. All of them. They wanted to surprise you, but you weren’t here. I hope you don’t mind, but I took them over to your mom’s house to see the progress we’ve made on cleaning it up. Then I walked them out to your mom’s grave and showed them the pretty spot where it is and the marker in the grass and the wildflowers we planted that were her favorites.”

My throat catches. “Of course, I don’t mind. Wait. Is that—?” The scent of fresh-baked banana bread. The air heavy with the aroma of hot chocolate and oatmeal-raisin cookies. Sonnet is in the kitchen, her favorite place on earth, second to any place where she has her guitar in her hands.

The sound of family comes from inside Virgil’s house. Laughter, low and soft, with an occasional chortle. The chatter, a mix of happy and sad. Taking a deep breath, feeling a sense of nervous excitement flutter in my stomach, I head for the door just as it opens.

I’m greeted by a flurry of hugs and kisses from my Sonnet and Christabel. Rhiannon’s husband, Declan, hands me a glass of wine, and I take a sip, letting the warmth spread through me, then set it down on the table on the porch as everyone spills out onto the fern-lined veranda.

Rhiannon has her hands full but kisses my cheek and then hands me the fretting baby. I cocoon the little one in my arms, holding her close as I lightly bounce her. She lets out a burp and quiets down. She’s changed in the last four weeks and looks more like her mommy now than when I last saw her. Nothing could make me happier than⁠—

No, I have everything I need. I don’t need magick to bring me any more happiness than is already on the horizon for me. I don’t have to do more shadow work to clear a space for contentment and love in my life. I glance over my shoulder at Virgil as he props against his rake and watches me.

“I love seeing you happy,” he whispers so quietly that I have to read his lips through his close-cropped beard.

Rhiannon disappears inside the house while I coo to Emmaleigh, then returns with something behind her back. “Mom! Sonnet is going to cook all Grandma’s traditional Thanksgiving dishes for us tonight and tomorrow, starting with her pecan pie recipe and then her chicken and dressing with mushroom gravy. But I brought the best part with me.” She whips her prize from behind her back and, for all to see, she holds up a giant can of cranberry sauce. Everybody who has ever eaten my mama’s Thanksgiving fare knows the cylinder of gelled cranberries will be jiggling tomorrow on an oblong dish in the middle of the banquet, carefully sliced but with the dent from the can still visible to anyone who looks closely enough.

“Raven,” Christabel begins, “it’s so good to see you again.”

Raven. My craft name. No one’s called me Raven or Lady RavenHart in months, but my protege wraps her arms around the baby and me.

“I watch your livestreams and social media every single day, Chrissy, no matter what.” Both she and Sonnet—“Ravenz Legacy”—beam up at me. I’m proud of them and they both know it. “And yes, I got your message,” I tell Christabel before she can ask.

“Yeah, I figured. I see you found a soldier who brought you peace.” Slanting her eyes at Virgil, Christabel grins knowingly. Maybe too knowingly. He holds her gaze for a second, then looks away, the blush showing under his beard.

Sonnet takes the baby from me, whispering promises of a lullaby, and once my arms are free, Rhiannon gives me a long hug.

“It seems weird to be at the farm without Grandma here,” she murmurs in my ear, and we both nod against each other’s cheek. “But we need to talk to you about something important. Finances. The future.”

Uh-oh.

Mine? Hers? Has Virgil told her about the non-profit foundation I’m starting with the four million dollars—including four decades of interest—in Bobby’s account, with me as his beneficiary? I can’t—won’t—touch that money for myself, but Virgil and I have been working with a lawyer friend of Dixon’s to launch a philanthropy that will help children who have been the victims of sexual predators so that those children will be able to get help decades faster than I did.

Before Rhiannon can elaborate, the door opens again, and my little brother emerges with his usual shit-eating grin and a boyish charm that still shines through his face, even though he’s over forty now. My heart swells with happiness at the sight of him. We hug for what seems like an hour, but after not seeing him for a year, it’s still not enough.

I run my fingers through his short, regulation-cut hair and decide not to comment on the sprinkling of salt among his pepper. This last life-or-death assignment has aged him beyond his years. Like me, he needs peace.

“Hey, big sis. I’m retiring from the Air Force in a few months, and I figured I might spend some time back here getting my head on straight. Maybe take a year to rent a cabin on a lake and do a lot of fishing and thinking.”

I hold him close. I can feel the trauma of the last year shaking behind his veil of bravery. “Trust me, Shelby: healing can be done here.” Even where so much of our dysfunction as a family and as victims started.

“I promise I’ll be around for you more, Laur. I’m so sorry I couldn’t be here for you—and for Mom. I was, well, they weren’t going to pull me out for a funeral when what I’d been working on for six months was at a critical juncture. I didn’t have comms, so I didn’t really know what was going on back here. It was big-hairy-eyeball-time for the last few months, and to be honest, I didn’t know if I’d make it back. Or if I’d ever see you again. Or live to see my little grandniece-ling born. And then, in the worst of it⁠—”

He breaks free from my embrace and steps back to look into my eyes. He shakes his head, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips, but decides against explaining. Shelby looks like he still wants to talk, but instead, he retrieves my glass of wine from the porch table, next to a full glass that Declan sets down for him, and raises it to me.

“To you, sis,” he says, his voice carrying a hint of wistfulness. “And to everything you did for Mom when I couldn’t.” He raises his own glass, then takes a sip and savors the taste before setting it down.

As we stand there in silence, the wind picks up, blowing across the porch, rustling through the leaves and making them dance around Virgil and his rake on the lawn in front of us.

“I’m sorry, Shelby, that you weren’t able to be at the funeral. And I’m sorry that you didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Mama.”

My own goodbye had been months-long. Years, really, though I hadn’t realized it at the time. Shelby had probably said his goodbye to her after Daddy’s funeral when her mind was still intact, and any conversations with her after that had been guided by written outlines and scrawled sentences that she checked off in her notebook to hide her dementia before it overtook her.

Shelby takes a long swig from his glass. “Um, Laur? I don’t know how to say this. Please don’t take this the wrong way.”

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