It was Death again. The card flickered and I expected it to dissolve as it had before, but instead it became transparent and faded into Hetty’s realm, still pinched between her fingers. The rest of the cards fell to the ground, the fabric around the deck folding itself back together.
Hetty snapped her fingers and the Death card disappeared. “Use them wisely.”
A flash from someone’s phone illuminated the scene, quickly followed by several others until it looked like a strobe light. The ground shook and I fell to my knees, along with the elite witches on the other side of the fallen oak branch. The rest of Dewdrop remained standing and watching. Hetty stooped down and I bowed my head, both to show reverence for the unusual encounter and to avoid looking into her face so close.
A kiss from her ghostly lips chilled the crown of my head as the scent of rain filled my nostrils. I looked up at her serene smile and blinked in disbelief. Nothing like this had every happened before, not to my knowledge.
Hetty’s ghost floated away, hovering at the edge of her gravesite as her eyes narrowed. “Fizgigs. Skeptics,” Hetty hissed, looking out on the crowd. “Blob-tales.” I’m pretty sure that one meant gossipers. “Lubberworts. Sorners. Tenterbellies.” She continued with the ancient insults as the crowd started murmuring theories.
The pile of flowers on her grave began rotting, the floral scent becoming powdery and foul as it turned into black sludge, aside from the hyacinth I’d laid down. That burst into flames and went up in smoke.
“I knew we should have put an end to this,” whispered Eliza. “Get the tourists out of the cemetery. And find out whoever started that website.” The witches around her nodded in agreement and began to disperse.
“I wasn’t talking about them!” Hetty bellowed, turning to her progeny.
“Grandmother Hester,” Eliza said. “If we have displeased you, we sincerely apologize.”
“We? You speak for all your kinfolk now?”
Eliza stammered, unable to form a reply.
“We ask for your forgiveness,” said the Fiona, Eldest of the Third Daughter, dropping to her knees.
“And why should I give it?” the matriarch replied. “What have you done to deserve it? How have you helped the people of Woodshade as of late? For the good citizens of Massachusetts as greed and corruption poisons their earth? The throngs of my descendants appearing at your door, begging for guidance?”
“We… we…”
“You only care for yourselves, for your petty squabbles. The world boils around you. Your sons rot on the vine. And yet you do nothing.”
“It is a very different world than the one you knew,” Eliza tried to explain, stepping over the branch.
A clap of thunder overhead drew our eyes to the sky. The ghost of Hetty shrieked and the branch caught fire, flames flickering at the edge of Eliza’s skirt. My loyal dog barked, finally crossing the threshold and landing between me and Eliza with a growl.
The witches behind the branch began to mumble theories, then one of them simply started chanting. It was a refrain I’d only heard once before, one to banish a poltergeist.
“No!” a witch called out from the crowd.
“You can’t!” another joined in.
“She’s our Matriarch!”
The elite witches ignored the protests and Eliza began chanting along with them. A strong pair of hands wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me backwards. It was my brother.
“Don’t bother!” Hetty laughed, wrinkling her nose at them.
The witches fell silent, their eyes wide as their fingers flew up to their mouths. They scratched at the seam of their lips and I realized they couldn’t open. I immediately tried my own mouth and found that whatever Hetty had done hadn’t affected me. My brother was pulling at my shoulders to get me out of the way, but I had to grab the cards first. I shrugged him off and crawled over to the deck. Eliza would have gotten her hands on them first if not for my barking, snapping dog. Bliss didn’t lay a tooth on her, but she could have.
Wesley wrapped an arm around my waist and hoisted me off the ground, stumbling backwards until we were surrounded by family. Luna and Soleil were on either side of us, looking up in disbelief like the rest of the crowd.
I turned to see the high ranking witches parting to give Hetty’s spirit ample room as she passed between them, which was the traditional way she went back into the beyond after her brief appearance at Hettymoot. An ethereal hill rose in the north after the last ring of headstones, as it always did. The sky there was bright, swirling with oranges and purples, like a sun setting in the wrong direction.
Atop the hill was the shadow of an old wooden fence with a crooked gate, a boundary between our world and the next. Hetty stomped up off kilter stone steps to the top, never once turning around. The gate swung open with a creak that rang out through the valley. Just as Hetty was about to cross over, the shadow of some terrible beast crawled up from beyond, backlit by the colorful sky.
“Back!” Hetty screamed, raising her hand in defiance of its claws.
With a powerful gesture I’d never be able to master, she had the beast crawling back to whatever hell it came from. At least she didn’t let it get loose in Dewdrop, that was the last thing we needed. The gate slammed shut and the sky of another world faded quickly to blue, then black. The hill sank back into the earth, leaving the forest behind the cemetery completely as it was before.
A crack of thunder shook the ground as bright lightening streaked across the sky. Then came the rain, big fat drops pelting the crowd below. Experienced witches kept their calm and cast spells to keep them dry, invisible tele-umbrellas spreading over confused families. But the tourists scattered, tripping over graves and each other as they scrambled out of the cemetery, hopefully never to return.
If it hadn’t been a total disaster, I would have laughed at all the frantic, sopping wet cats jumping from headstone to headstone until they got to their masters. I wiped my hair from my face and rose to my feet, turning to bewildered relations.
“What do you have?” Luna asked me.
“I… I’m not sure,” I stammered. “I found a deck of cards behind Wonder’s monument.”
“Wonder?” Soleil looked confused. “What were you even doing over there?”
“I always leave flowers. Her grave seems so neglected.”
“Well, that’s because—”
“I know, I know. She’s not even there.” Then I vividly recalled the wild haired ghost I’d seen. “Although…”
“Let’s discuss this at home,” Aunt Maudrey said, her eyes darting up to Eliza and the group of bewildered witches still gathered around Hetty’s grave. It appeared they’d regained their ability to speak.
“Yeah, we should leave,” my brother agreed. “You two coming over?” he asked Luna and Soleil.
“Definitely,” they replied in unison.
“Where is Dot?” my aunt asked. “She was standing right here.”
“She probably had a panic attack and ran off into the woods.”
“The timing leaves much to be desired.”
Unlike the rest of my family, I was under no such delusion that I’d be able to exit the cemetery without confrontation. I brushed off my skirt and took a deep breath as Aunt Clea tugged at my sweater.
“Don’t you dare walk out of here without explaining yourself.” Eliza had her narrowed eyes fixed on me and I stood rooted in the spot. Not from a spell, I’d be able to detect that. It was just plain and simple fear.
“My niece doesn’t have to answer to you, Eliza,” Clea said, boldly stepping in front of me.
“She most certainly does.” Eliza smirked and snapped her fingers, gaining the attention of the other elite witches.
“It’s alright, Aunt Clea,” I whispered, just wanting to get it over with.
“Gemma…” My aunt’s apprehension was visible. “Be careful.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said loud enough for everyone around me to hear.
“I find that difficult to believe.”
Eliza beckoned me to come closer with a curl of her fingers. Bliss growled at my side, but I patted her head and Wesley took her by the collar. I stepped forward into the pouring rain between my aunts’ protective tele-umbrella and the much larger one covering Hetty’s entire hill.
I knew what Eliza wanted, but I certainly wasn’t about to offer it freely. “I demand to see those cards,” she hissed.
I wrapped my hand tighter around the deck as I stepped over the gemstones circling Hetty’s grave. An unnatural chill ran through me as Eliza tugged at my fingers, our eyes locked in a standoff.
“I may have just found them, but they’re mine.” The defiant words surprised me, even though they rolled off my lips in barely more than a whimper.
“We’ll see about that.”
An old witch stepped closer to us, I couldn’t recall her name. She was hunched with age and her eyes were clouded, but I knew that she didn’t actually need them to see. “The girl is right.” Her voice was much younger than her years. “Hetty told her to use them wisely. Gemma clearly has her blessing.”
“She’s the only one who has The Blessing!” Eliza screeched, wrenching the cards from my hands. It was so unlike her to lose her composure.
Despite the primal urge to take them back, I noticed that a weight I didn’t ever realize was there had lifted off my shoulders. I always felt like that at the end of Hettymoot. Eliza was right, I had received Hetty’s blessing. I turned to look over my shoulder at my brother. There were only three thin white streaks in his hair now instead of five thick ones. I instinctively knew that he’d gotten it, too.
Eliza was struggling to unwrap the bundle, but the fabric wouldn’t budge. She whispered an ancient language that I didn’t understand and waved her hands over the deck, but it didn’t work.
“Here let me help you,” Fiona said, approaching.
“Stop casting over the cards,” the wizened old crone demanded, stomping over to Eliza first. “They belong to Gemma.”
I felt so awful that I didn’t remember her name. I’d see her before, and she’d been an ancient withered woman since I was a child. Eliza didn’t even acknowledge her in the slightest, moving on to another spell. She sprinkled a sulfurous powder over the deck, but it backfired. Literally.
The witches gasped as the powder ignited and sparks flew. Eliza’s face reappeared covered in soot as the cloud of black smoke dissipated. She dropped the cards, so I quickly stooped down and grabbed them.
“I’m not done with those!” she hissed.
“You most certainly are.” The crone raised her wand. “They belong to her.”
“Stay out of this, Cassandra.”
Cassandra. Of course. That was why I couldn’t remember her name and would probably forget it again. For reasons few of us understood, she’d spelled herself to make her more forgettable. She lived alone in a little cabin deep in the forest on the border of Wonder’s wild land.
She was by far the oldest witch in Dewdrop, which made her leader of the Goven. That was a clever yet unofficial way of shortening the Governing Coven. In the old days, they had much more power over their cousins. It was a smaller group then, but now so many witches could pass the entry trials that the coven was too large even for them all to fit around Hetty’s grave. They were rarely able to come to a consensus on anything, so they spent most of their time involved in each other’s business. Most of Dewdrop, including many of the Goven’s own members, considered the whole thing outdated. Plus, as time marched on into the modern era, the witches of Madison County grew more concerned with obeying the laws of humans so our magic could stay hidden.
The elite witches were arguing amongst themselves, but I was growing tired of it. With a huff, I folded back the fabric concealing the deck of cards.
“Here.” I fanned out the cards, face up. “Soothsayer’s cards. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Fiona rolled her eyes. “Do you even know how to use them?”
The cards gathered into a stack on their own and bound themselves together. “I…” My face flushed crimson. I totally didn’t. I could whip up a potion, cast basic spells, and grow some mean hyacinth, but that was about it.
“That’s what I thought,” Fiona said.
“I’ve never actually tried. Maybe I can.”
“You can’t,” Eliza said flatly. “It’s impossible. You are a Lesser Heir. None have ever had the gift of Foresight.”
“We’ll just have to find out.” With that, I turned around and started to leave.
A cackle rang out behind me and my footsteps slowed. I felt the magic binding my feet and looked down to see a shimmering snake circling around my legs. My heart beat faster, but I knew the snake wasn’t really a threat. It coiled around my shins tighter as my aunt’s protested, getting ready to cast a counter spell of their own. With their hands entwined together, they muttered something in Latin and tossed a yarrow blossom at my feet. Nothing happened.
“You didn’t honestly think that would work, did you?” Eliza laughed.
“You didn’t honestly think you’d be able to keep her here, did you?”
Dot stepped out from behind my aunts and I sighed in relief. I knew she wouldn’t abandon me. She tossed a bottle and it shattered on a rock near my feet, releasing a cloud of green vapor. When it faded away, the snake was gone. My aunt’s looked at her, clearly impressed.
Eliza readied her wand to cast again, but Cassandra slapped it from her hands. The bold move was more effective than any spell she could have cast because no one saw it coming. Under different circumstances, I would have found it funny.
“Those cards are a family relic,” Eliza snapped. “They cannot be wasted.”
“That is not for you to decide.” Cassandra pulled her hood over her head. “We have enough to worry about after tonight. We must root out the source of Hetty’s disapproval.”
“What if it’s her?” Fiona offered, pointing at me.
“It clearly isn’t. You just want the cards for yourselves. Selfish! Just as Hetty said.” Cassandra turned to us. “I suggest you leave.”
And that’s exactly what we did, as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Captain Brian Blue Eyes Kavanagh walked out of the woods and stumbled into the cemetery, his clothes and hair sopping wet. My family dismissed him as a tourist, but my feet wouldn’t take another step. I almost fell on the ground entirely when Officer Gavin aka. Not-So-Secret-Agent-Man strode out of the forest, on the opposite side of the graveyard.
Of course the cops were hanging out in the woods. Why wouldn’t they be? But they didn’t appear to be snooping together, with Gavin standing under a real umbrella with a smug look on his face. Brian on the other hand was completely dumbfounded and looked like he’d seen a ghost. Must have been his first time.
“Have fun writing that up in your report,” Gavin said, chuckling as turned to leave. “Gemma.” He nodded at me with a smirk, then left.
Captain Kavanagh took a step toward me, because of course I had to be the center of everyone’s attention today, living and dead. My brother stepped between us.
“You stay the heck away from my sister,” Wesley said, his voice nearly a growl. And he didn’t actually say ‘heck.’ He used a much stronger four letter word.
They glared at each other for a moment until the captain whispered, “Wesley. I was going to—”
“Just stay away from Gemma.”
“She’s a—”
“You need to talk to us? Get a court order. Or a warrant.” My brother grabbed my arm and started dragging me away.
“Wes!”
Fantastic. So my brother knew Captain Blue Eyes. Well enough to borderline threaten him. Why not? You know, because this weekend couldn’t possibly get any more complicated.
Chapter 14
The rain let up as we walked through the cemetery gates. My aunts and cousins were speculating all around me, an annoying hum in the background of my thoughts. At the crossroads
, I told Luna and Soleil that they should just go back to their mother’s. I didn’t want to talk. I could tell they were reluctant, but they were also really good at sensing when people needed space.
I felt shell shocked, like this all had to be a dream. Why on earth did this happen to me, of all people? I wasn’t worthy of such a gift, let alone qualified. Maybe I should have just given the cards to Eliza.
When we got home, Aunt Maudrey cast a drying spell and Aunt Clea put on a kettle of water for tea. I wasn’t in the mood, but sat down at the table in my aunt’s kitchen next to my brother all the same. Dot goaded our elders into joining us and took over crushing bundles of dried lavender, chamomile, and anything else that would mellow the brew and lift the mood in the room. She sat a lazy susan on the table with a variety of potions and reagents for us to customize our blend.
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