by Coralie Moss
Pressing my palm to the cool glass, I whispered the words again: This is my house and then added, And I am yours.
Chapter 19
A car pulled into the driveway, fast, splattering gravel. I made it to the end of the hallway as Tanner peered in the front door and jiggled the handle.
“I’m here,” I called, waving. “I’m here.” I flicked the lock and pulled the door open. The screen door that had taken the brunt of Doug’s flight was leaning against the side of the house.
“I can fix that,” he said, giving the splintered frame a glance before stepping over the threshold. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Very.” I took a couple steps back, my at-home dress swirling around my lower legs.
Tanner was suddenly next to me, wrapping one of his hands around the back of my neck and clutching me against him.
“I was worried about you,” he said, his words muffled by my hair.
He kissed the side of my head, his thumb rubbing the back of my skull.
“I locked the house tight, even the windows.” Barefooted, I closed my eyes and rooted down, and down further, searching for her presence.
“I was still worried.”
Nothing. I opened my eyes, caught the green light of the reinforced wards draped like emerald-dusted netting over the trees.
“I don’t feel her below, Tanner, but the wards. They’re shimmering again.”
“Those are the new wards settling in with the old ones,” he said. “I threw them a little test on the way in.”
Tanner wore a faded cowboy-style shirt, the kind with snaps for closures. The fabric was so soft it barely provided coverage between his chest and my cheek. I hadn’t moved closer on purpose; Tanner’s hand was the likely culprit. He was still cupping my head, massaging me with his thumb, and whether I was aware of it or not, I had taken it as an invitation.
“The lights are beautiful,” I said, letting my curves find their resting places along his more angular planes. I liked that Tanner wasn’t overly muscled, at least when he was being regular Tanner, not extremely angry or irritated Tanner.
“I could kiss you right now.” The wards are up. The boys won’t be home until close to seven.
“Then do it,” Tanner murmured. “Kiss me, Calliope.”
All I had to do was pivot on the balls of my toes and lift my heels.
Tires on gravel and the thump-thump of loud music behind closed windows alerted us another car was pulling into the driveway. I planted a kiss on Tanner’s mouth, and he held me in place until every possible inch of our bodies that could touch…touched.
“That wasn’t what I had in mind,” he said.
“Me, either.” I lowered my heels to the floor.
Tanner slipped by me and headed down the hall. I stepped out to greet my sons.
“Cool wards, Mom,” Thatcher yelled.
Harper and Thatch were standing to either side of the Jeep, extracting whatever goodies they’d picked up from working at the farm and helping out at the market. They each hefted a box, slammed the Jeep’s doors shut, and tromped up the stairs, leaving little rectangular clumps of dirt in their wake.
I didn’t have to remind them to leave the boots and boxes on the deck and hose down whatever they’d hauled home. They were on it.
“Not the pies!” Thatch laughed. He handed over two familiar white boxes with red lettering. One oozed fruit juice along a bottom seam. “Sallie gave us a broken blueberry pie. And we bought a strawberry rhubarb.”
I took care of getting the dessert into the house. Tanner had seated himself on the couch, with his leather bag nearby and his laptop open on the low table.
Thatch paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Sallie’s having a rough time, Mom.”
“Did she say anything specific to you?”
“Yes. And no. She really wants to move out of her house.”
I felt the request coming and shook my head. “No. There’s too much going on to invite her to live with us, Thatch. I hope you didn’t—”
“I didn’t, Mom, but I wanted to.” He lifted his arm in my direction. A new bracelet looped his wrist. “See what she made for us? She’s trying to see if she can afford to live on her own so she’s experimenting with making stuff to sell. Harper has one too.”
Crouching down, I held his wrist and thumbed the braid until I’d seen the entire circle once, then twice.
“Did she make this on you, or did you pick it out randomly?” I asked, curious as to how Sallie had hidden the ends of the cording.
“She made one for each of us and tied them on while we waited.” He pulled his wrist away and flicked at the braid. “Hm. She really hid the ends, didn’t she?”
“Did you and Harper talk to her at all about what’s been happening?”
“Nope. Sallie’s cool, Mom, but she’s not in our circle of trust.” He shrugged. “Got a towel for these veggies?”
I ducked into the closet and handed out a stack of worn dishtowels. “Did she talk at all about why she wants to move out?”
Thatch shook his head and twisted the new bracelet around and around his wrist. “Not everybody gets a mom like you. Or a brother like Harp.”
* * *
Tuesday night was blessedly calm, and Wednesday was almost boring. After a full six hours, I left the GIAC’s office early to give myself time to prep for the great unknown of the coming ritual. I ended up in my garden, watering, weeding, and enjoying the calm before whatever was coming next.
Rounding the side of my house, I hung up the garden hose and took off my gardening gloves. An unfamiliar car slowed at the end of the driveway. When the driver rolled down the passenger side window and tooted the horn, there was no mistaking the beaming face behind the oversized sunglasses.
“Rowan!” I yelled, waving my gloves and picking up my pace.
Rowan pulled over and turned on her blinker. “Can I come in for a visit? I’m kind of curious to see the before-ceremony Calliope so I can compare her with the after-ceremony Calliope.”
I laughed. “Park your car and come inside. I have to dash, or I’m going to flood right here.”
The first floor of the house was empty, but deep voices rumbled from one of the boys’ rooms as I passed by the stairs on my way to the bathroom. Given that tonight was such a big night for me, I kind of expected the guys to be making dinner, if not seeing to my every need.
I ducked into my room, hoping to find the cluster of necklaces the witches had given me at my first ritual on my bureau. Or maybe my underwear drawer. I wanted to show them to Rowan and get her opinion on whether to wear them to my Blood Ceremony. And maybe even get her opinion on Tanner.
Ugh. I hated forgetting where I put things. And this kissing business between me and Tanner wasn’t cutting it. We were unattached adults. We also carried so much relationship baggage we could have used one of those wheeled luggage racks to help haul it all around.
I needed to stop thinking about Tanner and sex in the same breath. Maybe that werecougar was still available.
No. No, no, no.
My stomach rumbled. The fruit I had at breakfast was not getting me through this day, which only added to my woes. I found a clean pad, soaped up a washcloth, and forgave myself for being out of sorts.
Rowan must have read my body language as I dragged myself down the hall. She patted my cheeks and pulled a wrapped package out of her bag.
“This is for you,” she said, taking me into a quick, hard hug that crushed the paper package between our chests. “It’s for your special night.” She pulled another package out of the bag and undid its twisty tie. “This is also for you. Hibiscus flowers. For tea.”
“You read my mind,” I said, grateful one of us was thinking ahead.
“How’s your belly?”
“Ugh. Feels like my organs are battling. Remind me why I missed this?”
She shooed me toward the living room. “Go. Take a load off. I’ll bring this over when it’s ready.”
I rearrange
d the pillows on the couch and plopped myself down. The pink tissue paper wrapping called to be crinkled and pinched. I answered the call and stared at Rowan as she poured water over the hibiscus flowers and stepped back to admire the color of the steeping petals. I toyed with the pink-and-silver bow, considered repurposing it for my hair. One of my fingers poked through the paper, and as sure as night follows day, a torrent of feelings made random stabbing motions at my heart.
I wanted to cry. My love of the color pink had been leeched out of me when I was a little girl. Pink—and orange and turquoise and anything flowery or bright in my clothes and accessories—had slipped away after I lost my mother. My aunt’s drab outlook on life extended to the clothes she wore, as well as the ones she bought for me. I never had the drive to challenge her, and I never felt like I had permission to play with the baubles my mother left behind.
“Honey?”
It took me a moment to connect the voice to the request. Neither had anything to do with the color pink or my mother, except that honey and sweetie-pie were endearments I stopped missing a long time ago.
“I’m a mess.” I couldn’t stop the tears rolling over my cheeks or my sweaty palms from sticking to the beautiful wrapping paper.
Rowan stopped her tea preparations and ran over to the couch, embracing me in the sisterly hug I’d been craving since I first blurted out my sexual escapades from the safety of her office chair. “What’s wrong, Calli?”
I lifted up the ruined packaging. “It’s the pink. And the honey. And I kissed Tanner, and his old girlfriend’s not happy about that, and I cut off Doug’s hand…” I burrowed my face into her shoulder and let the tears go where they wanted, which was mostly out.
“Calliope? Who’s Doug?”
I started giggling. “My ex-husband.”
Rowan patted my back. “He must have really pissed you off.”
I giggled more and released Rowan from our very soggy embrace.
“Let me go clean my face,” I said, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
When I emerged from the bathroom the second time, Rowan had finished setting up the tea tray and brought it into the living room. She waited for me to sit down, and handed me a cup and saucer. “I was going to ask if you were a tear-it-open or a recycle kind of gal when it comes to wrapping paper, but I think I have my answer.”
I giggled and tried to not slosh the tea and ruin the paper even more.
“Under normal circumstances, I’m a recycler,” I admitted, wiggling my toes and feet.
“Shall we try this again?”
“Yes.”
Rowan handed the mangled package to me.
I cooed and oohed and aahed and attacked what was left of the pretty wrapping until my fingertips caressed silk and beading. I drew my brows together and whispered, “This feels expensive.”
“Oh, it was!” Rowan laughed and squeezed my calf. “But we all chipped in.”
“Who is ‘we all’?”
“Me and Rose and the other women who were at your first circle.”
I held Rowan’s gaze and clutched the silk to my cracking chest. “Thank you.”
“Don’t stop there. See what it is.”
Swinging my legs off the couch, I stood and let the cloth unfold until a dress unlike anything I had ever worn or even let myself covet hung from my upraised hands. Tears threatened to spill over again, more out of joy than hormonal frustration. “This is so beautiful. Where did you ever find it?”
Rowan clapped her hands and danced in place. “I have connections,” she trilled. “Come on, come on, put it on!”
The garment was simple in design. Narrow straps led into a bias-cut, ankle-length dress of layered, gauzy silk and cotton. A smattering of glass beads decorated the entire outer layer, like tiny stars in a blood-red sky.
“And don’t forget these.” She handed me something that had dropped to the floor in my emotional melee.
“Oh my Goddess, Rowan, underwear too?”
She nodded. “I was working with a theme.”
Grateful the bit of satin wasn’t one of those skimpy thongs, I hooked it over one finger,
“What time do you have to leave?” she asked. “I so wish I could go with you. I haven’t been to a Blood Ceremony in a long time.”
“Belle’s picking me up at nine. And I wish you could be there too.” It had occurred to me that somewhere along the way I’d neglected my friendship-building skills. Another thing I could change, beginning right now. “It’s probably too late, but I could ask Rose.”
Rowan’s eyes went wide. “Rose terrifies me.”
“Me too! Is she the head witch?” I asked. “The leader of the pack?”
“Mm, I think ‘leader of the pack’ would refer more to shifters. Rose is the head of all the covens in the Pacific Northwest, which means she’s also in charge of organizing and leading the big rituals.”
I relaxed back into the support of the lumpy pillows. “I wish I knew what exactly was happening tonight. Do you know?”
“One of the purposes of the blood ritual is to tie you to this place, symbolically and magically. Using your menstrual blood adds more layers of meaning and connection.” She shrugged. “One of these days, I’m going to talk to Rose about guiding my initiation. I haven’t had one, but I would like one. My life since I was sixteen, seventeen has revolved around caring for women at the physical level. I became a gynecologist so I could practice in the human realm as well as the magical one. But I don’t want to do my Blood Ceremony here until I know this is a place I want to stay.”
My phone buzzed with a text from Belle, reminding me she’d be at the house at nine. “I’m sweaty again,” I admitted. “I’m going to take another shower and then I’ll put on the dress.”
“Would you mind if I took your picture once you’re dressed?”
“I would love that.”
In the privacy of the bathroom, I dropped whatever pretense remained and let the weight of what was coming sink further into my body. I was nervous. My hands trembled as I put my new dress and underwear on a hanger. Pulling my hair up and away from my face, I formed a small topknot to keep it out of the shower’s stream and pinned the loose tendrils at the sides.
When I’d prepared for the ritual beneath the sacred Sitka trees, I’d been coated with dust and feeling a bit tossed around from the long drive over the logging roads. This evening, I had time to think. Which also meant I had time to stress about all the unknowns. As I stood under the stream of water and soaped up my washcloth, I pictured washing away things I wanted to be rid of and notions of myself that no longer felt right.
Such lofty thoughts for a shower.
Clean water sluiced over and down my limbs and torso. I turned off the faucets and paused to take a deep breath; I couldn’t hide in here all night. A thin stream of bright red blood trickled down my inner left thigh. Another wave, sent from the Sea of Transitions, gathered. I tensed my thighs and let the wave curl itself like a cat’s tail around my legs and eddy down the drain.
A text from Rose waited for me on my bureau top, instructing me to gather soil from the different quadrants of my property and put it into clay pots. It would have been nice to get that before showering. I threw my summer dress back on, let Rowan know what I was doing, and made the ambit of my yard with trowel and pot in hand. I managed to keep myself relatively dirt-free.
By the time I maneuvered myself into my silky underwear and dress, it was after eight. The five people standing in a half circle at the open end of the downstairs hallway had apparently been patiently awaiting my emergence.
“I clean up rather nicely, don’t I?” I asked, giving a slow twirl and dropping into a half-curtsy.
Thatcher grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward. “We have something for you, Mom.”
I pressed my hands to my cheeks to cool my face and to keep from crying. Harper was holding something tied together with the repurposed pink and silver ribbon.
“It’s my day for presents
.” I took the gift to the table, removed the ribbon, and gasped. Red leather gauntlets, decorated with an intricate pattern of embossed symbols and all the charms presented to me by the other witches. I was overcome. “Where…who did this?”
“We all did,” said Thatcher, gesturing to Harper, Leilani, Tanner, and Kaz.
“Is this what you’ve been doing upstairs?”
They all nodded, teens and grown men alike. “Bet you thought we were playing video games,” said Harper.
I laughed and extended my arms. I couldn’t wait to wear my custom-made armor. “The thought did cross my mind,” I admitted, “but I never would have guessed you were doing this.”
Tanner wrapped one gauntlet around my right forearm and laced it on, while my sons worked together on the left.
“Thank you. All of you.” I hugged each of them in turn. “I feel so different.” From my sparkly red dress to my new, red gauntlets, I was different. I was adorned in a way I’d never been, not even for my wedding, and it was a feeling I would never forget.
“Picture time!” Rowan shooed everyone out of the hallway and into the living room and managed a handful of shots where everyone’s eyes were open at the same time. Leilani insisted we get pictures of me and Rowan and another of the three “girls.”
A car horn sounded from the road, breaking up the love fest and reminding me I had a long night ahead. “That’s Belle, and I bet she can’t get in because of the wards.”
“I’ll see to her,” said Kaz. He strode up the driveway, made a line of marks in the packed dirt with a stick, and waved Belle in.
“Halloo, Calliope, are you ready?” The fancily-attired witch enveloped me in a lavender-scented hug before admiring me head to toes and wrists. “Those are smashing,” she cried, peering closely at my forearms, “and now I want a set too. In yellow.”
“The guys made them for me,” I said. “I think I have everything.”