They found Aria, Frances, and all three of the Australian coven sisters waiting in the third Cave. The ritual set up was simple enough, and Bailey had discussed parts of it with Alkina. A smallish circle was laid out in long strips of ribbon, braided together from the colors of emotions that made up memories. All memories, Alkina explained, have a little bit of each just as all experiences inspire all the emotions in us—even if only the barest pinch.
Love especially, and hurt, was a potent mix. The joy of connection, the sadness of loss—or the promise of loss—and the fear of losing oneself. The excitement and desire of attraction, and the latent anger felt at the division that, in heightened moments, seems almost offensive.
Alkina had briefed the Coven Grove witches on the essence of the ritual and what to expect, including Chloe. Avery had relayed the cliff-notes to Leander, and they didn’t waste the precious little time they had.
“Stand in the circle,” Alkina bid Chloe and Leander.
The two of them did, and with solemn, practiced focus Sophia and Elizabeth picked up the two ends of the long ribbon braid, and wrapped them around Chloe and Leander’s chest, near the heart, and around their wrists. They were tied together afterwards, making the two of them part of the greater circle around them.
Sophia and Elizabeth stepped back.
“The trance will seem like sleep, but you will not fall down,” Alkina told the two former lovers. “Do not resist. Leander, you will have to release your wards.”
Leander opened his mouth, maybe to protest, but Chloe shot him a serious look. He sighed, and nodded. “Yes of course.”
There was an intangible popping feeling in the air that no one else reacted to. Bailey had a strong, sudden urge to reach into Leander’s mind, and see what was really there. Maybe Chloe already was. But she held back; you couldn’t trust a person whose mind you’d pried into any more than someone who refused to simply tell you what was there.
Once that was done, the ritual began in earnest. Sophia and Elizabeth both lit bundles of herbs, and walked in opposite directions around the circle, chanting softly while Alkina swayed, her eyelids slowly closing and then fluttering as her eyes rolled up. She rattled the bangles around her wrist, and whispered quietly some spell that Bailey couldn’t hear. If it was a spell at all. Perhaps it was just what she needed to do to access her native gift.
It was gentle, subtle magic. It rose gradually, and took time. Chloe and Leander’s eyes both seemed to drift and grow distant. They blinked often at first, and then less, and slower. It looked as if they were, in fact going to fall asleep.
But they never quite nodded off. Instead, their eyes merely closed, and they swayed slightly in time with Alkina’s movement.
Once Sophia and Elizabeth’s work appeared to be done, they knelt behind Chloe and Leander, one on each side, and continued to whisper their spells as they placed dried flowers, shiny stones, and even animal bones that Bailey didn’t recognize around their halves of the circle. Symbols of dreams, and memory, and youth, and releasing—the various essences made available to the current of magic that had overtaken Bailey’s parents.
At the last, Alkina took slow steps forward, almost wandering in a daze to look at her, and reached out toward Chloe and Leander. When she was close enough, she put her hands on theirs, took a sharp breath, and then went rigid along with the two of them.
Whatever was happening, it was happening now.
Chapter 12
Chloe opened her eyes.
It was evening. The breeze was warm, and the ocean churned nearby. There was sand under her feet, and she wiggled her toes in it. She took a step, her heel crunching quietly into the beach when she did, and then another, and another. She was giddy with excitement but it took her some time to realize why.
She was going to meet Leander.
A smile spread over her face.
No, her own voice whispered from somewhere deep inside, don’t smile. He’s going to hurt you. He’ll betray you. It’s not really you he wants.
But she walked on anyway. She was dreaming. Of course; Alkina’s spell. It was incredibly vivid. Not merely a dream, but a memory brought back to life in crisp, perfect details.
Stars glinted overhead, and the moon’s reflection danced over the sea. Her hair was down, brushing past her shoulders like it did in those days.
Alkina? What do I do? Her voice wouldn’t pass her lips, and Chloe realized that she was along for the ride at the moment.
Still, Alkina’s gentle voice found her. Let yourself go back. Wait and see.
I already know what happens, Chloe complained.
So often we believe that, Alkina responded.
This was before Chloe and Leander laid together. Chloe wondered if Alkina planned for them to go through the whole memory.
She arrived at the little valley between two tall dunes, and saw what she knew would be there. Tiny lights danced in the air, Leander’s magic, illuminating a late night picnic in pale bluish light. Leander was there already.
“What’s this?” Dream Chloe asked.
I was so nervous, came another voice—Leander’s voice; the present one. I didn’t know if you would drink wine, or what kind you liked. There was another bottle in the basket—sparkling cider, just in case.
Just watch, Chloe said to him. We need to get this over with.
“Just a surprise,” Dream Leander said. He was young again, handsome but in a way that was only different from how he looked now. Roguish and wild, rather than dashing and mature.
Dashing and mature, is it? Leander asked.
Chloe would have blushed in her own body. At the same moment, she felt, rather than heard, Leander’s appreciation for her own youthful beauty.
You were painfully beautiful, he said. I couldn’t have helped falling in love with you.
“Anything for you, Cushlamachree,” Young Leander murmured.
That old , long forgotten tickle of excitement flooded Chloe, taking her by surprise. Had she really felt so much for him? Well… she was a child, then.
Alkina, Chloe warned, what happens next is private.
I will not peek, Alkina promised, her honest intent as plain as if Chloe were making the promise herself.
I’m not sure I want to see it, Chloe said. Much less…
She did more than see it. She felt Young Leader’s touch on her skin, felt the surge of need. It threatened to sweep her away as it had then.
It was my first time, too, Leander said. I was too embarrassed to say so. Look how I fumbled about like a young fool.
Chloe hadn’t remembered feeling that Leander was fumbling at anything. But as the memory played out, she was able to see new details; experiencing it from one point of view while watching with detachment from another. Leander hardly every smiled until nearly the end—his face was a mask of concentration and concern, as if he doubted his every move.
I had no idea, Chloe said.
That was the plan. Leander’s voice was full of amusement.
Chloe took it differently than that, whatever his intent had been. It was a well executed one.
She felt Leander’s hurt, and found herself wishing she hadn’t said that.
I didn’t lie to you, Cushla, Leander said. Not about my feelings.
Just about why you came to Coven Grove, Chloe responded cooly. Why you targeted me.
They were both silent as the two young bodies did what young bodies do when left alone for too long. Chloe realized that Leander was, of course, bound to watch and experience the event play out as well, and wished that she could turn her eyes away. She didn’t want to watch with him.
But she saw something this time that she could not have seen then. Something she wouldn’t have suspected had happened until weeks later. Chloe saw the spark. Biologically, of course, she hadn’t conceived in that very moment—that wouldn’t happen for potentially several days. But nonetheless there was a specific moment when she felt the sudden current of life, felt a sort of cosmic friction like
a match striking the tinder strip of a box, and the flash of ignition.
Our daughter, Leander’s voice came, filled with wonder. That was Bailey. I never… it was…
Magical, Chloe finished for him.
The tender moment, however, passed.
“You knew,” Dream Chloe accused.
“Knew what?” Dream Leander asked, and there was real shock on his face. Chloe had a sudden doubt. Had he actually known? “Chloe, talk to me—”
You can’t lie to me here, Chloe said. Not with our minds so connected. Tell me; did you know who I was?
Yes, Leander said. There was shame in his voice, but also firmness. I knew. I knew it was our fate to be together, as well. I didn’t come to Coven Grove to steal you away, Cushla; I came to steal your heart and give you mine and fulfill both our destinies.
He meant it. There was no way for him to hide his intentions here.
You did, Chloe said. You stole my heart, Ander. It’s what made what came next so very, very painful.
“I said leave, Leander Swift,” Dream Chloe said, and both of them felt his name vibrate from Chloe’s lips, used like a weapon of magic, which it had been. “Leave, and never come back.”
All these years, Chloe said, it never occurred to me that it wouldn’t have happened that way if you hadn’t given me your real name.
When we first met, Leander said, I almost didn’t. I did worry that you might use it against me somehow.
Your mistake, it would seem.
Leander grew warm. No. Not a mistake at all. I let down all my defenses for you. How else do you think you managed to lay your curse on me?
Chloe looked closely, once she realized she could. The moment slowed almost to a stop, so that she could, in the dream, almost see the tangled mess of inexpert magic settling on Dream Leander’s form and sinking into it unhindered.
I couldn’t read your thoughts, Chloe countered.
You didn’t try, Leander said. I was wide open. I dropped all my wards when we… I wanted to be closer to you.
Chloe let the dream resume.
“Chloe, please… I love you,” Young Leander begged. His voice was ragged, and if she’d seen this from a distance she’d have known precisely what was happening. That was the sight of a man with a truly broken heart. How it must have hurt for him to throw him away so quickly.
We were young, Leander said. Volatile. Unprepared. I couldn’t have known what I was doing—I was a student of magic, and academia; not of people’s hearts and emotions.
That’s not an excuse, Chloe said.
The two dream versions of them parted finally. Young Chloe marched up the slope to town, feeling hurt, and violated, and roiling with fury that would soon open her native magic up wide and cause her months of migraines as she blossomed too quickly.
But Chloe didn’t follow her younger self. This time, she stayed behind. She saw what happened when she’d gone.
Young Leander staggered away, toward the ocean, until he was knee deep in it. He produced his wand, and began waving it wildly.
I tried every dispell and unraveling in the book, Leander said ruefully. It wasn’t any kind of magic I could overcome. To this day, it’s a mystery to me.
Chloe couldn’t help but smile a little pridefully. She’d always been something of a prodigy, though in the years after this moment the Hope sisters had thoroughly beaten the pridefulness out of her, undermining what she believed she knew at every turn.
I loved that pride, Leander told her, butting in on her musings. I’m not sure I could have gone through with it if I’d come here and found you to be anything less than what you were.
And what was that? Chloe asked.
Exceptional, Leander said wistfully. Uncommon. You were so rare. You still are.
As she watched Young Leander try to remove the curse, she felt for him. He was trying to remove it so that he could go after her younger self and explain further—he wanted to fight for her, and she had robbed him of the ability to do so.
When the young man could no longer resist the curse, he started walking along the shore. They followed him for miles as he walked in a daze, senseless, until he finally reached the edge of Coven Grove and returned to himself. He looked around, searching his surroundings until he realize what had happened.
When he did, he fell to his knees, put his face in his hands, and cried.
Chloe’s heart broke a little all over again to see it.
Young Leander pulled a photo out of his pocket. A photo of Chloe.
What’s that? Chloe asked. When did you take that?
It’s a simple charm, Leander said. One I learned when I was first coming into my magic. I made it the day I realized I was in love with you.
It was of Chloe, at a table in the Bakery, through the window. She was bent over a notebook, her face scrunched with concentration. It wasn’t a very flattering picture.
It was perfect, Leander said. It still is.
You don’t still have it, Chloe said.
I’ll show you when we wake up, Cushla.
Alkina’s voice spoke to both of them. Was your vengeance satisfied, Chloe?
It wasn’t vengeance, Chloe said. But in the dream place, she could hear the lie in her own words; the way they were at odds with her heart.
It’s alright, Cushla, Leander said. I forgave you in that very moment.
Forgave me? Chloe snapped. You were the one that… robbed me of my own future! You wrote my destiny for me and you had no right, Leander Swift! You took what wasn’t yours to take.
And did you take nothing in return? Alkina asked.
The scene changed.
Agony lanced through Chloe’s body, as if she were being torn in half from the inside. She was in the eighth Cave, surrounded by the Coven. She was screaming, and sweating.
Is this…? Emotion welled up from Leander, and Chloe was overcome by it as she saw and felt, again, that moment when the pain sublimated into ecstatic relief as Bailey passed through her and into the world.
My God, Leander breathed. Our daughter… Oh, Cushla…
Chloe reeled. Seeing it again, experiencing it again… had she ever felt a joy like she had the moment Young Aria took Bailey from Rita Hope’s hands, wrapped her in linen, and passed her into her mother’s arms?
She could feel the slight weight of Bailey’s tiny body against her chest. She could see the green eyes peering up at her sleepily, as exhausted by the ordeal as Chloe. She remembered the thought she’d had in that moment.
She had her father’s eyes…
I would have been a good father, Leander said. I promise you.
What is done is done, Alkina said.
She was right. Chloe watched as her younger self nuzzled Bailey’s tiny nose. As she enjoyed the few moments of motherhood she would experience before she took Bailey to meet her adoptive mother. She felt the loss again, as clearly as she had that night.
I couldn’t risk that you would come back, Chloe said. That you would try to use her like… like I thought you had used me.
You did what you believed would keep our daughter safe, Leander said. I know that; I can see it now—feel it, even. You did the right thing, under the circumstances.
Chloe wasn’t sure she had. I can never undo this.
But you can move forward, Alkina said. You can rewrite your future if you can release your past.
Chloe stepped back from the dream. It became distant, and almost insubstantial. Leander was there, a solid thing in a world of smoke and light. I’m sorry that I took that from you, she said quietly.
You don’t have to be, Leander said. I understand why you did. I’ve never loved another. And I never will. No matter what you do now.
Chloe took his hand. Maybe… maybe we could write a new future.
I’d like that, Cushla.
Chloe closed her eyes, and took a long breath. She felt it back in her real body, as sensation gradually returned, and the air grew colder, and the dwindling sound of chanted spells retu
rned and then faded again as Sophia and Elizabeth finished.
Chloe opened her eyes, and looked into Leander’s.
She placed her hand on his chest, and summoned up the same raw magic she had when she was young, pouring it into her words. “Leander Swift,” she said, her voice vibrating with magic, “I release you.”
Chapter 13
“I release you.”
Bailey felt the thrum of magic in the words, and the quiet unraveling of old magic as Chloe’s curse unwound. She had wanted to see what was happening in the dream world Alkina took Bailey’s birth parents into, but wherever it existed it was beyond Bailey’s ability to casually detect.
Whatever had happened there, though, it had worked.
Chloe and Leander watched one another for a long moment, their hands still clasped. Well; that was one step down. Only about fifty to go.
“We should—”
Leander leaned forward and kissed Chloe.
Bailey’s eyes widened when Chloe only leaned into it instead of slapping the rogue. What exactly had gone on in Alkina’s dream?
“Well, that’s new,” Piper muttered. “Must have been some trip.”
“Tell me about it,” Bailey said. She cleared her throat, and the two… lovers… parted. Chloe looked sheepishly self-conscious, while Leander looked like he’d just scooped the moon out of the sky one-handed.
“Sorry,” Chloe said. She removed the ribbons from her hands, and helped Leander do the same so that Sophia and Elizabeth could carefully roll the whole of it back up.
“I’m sure you two have some catching up to do,” Bailey said, “but right now we’re on a bit of a time crunch. Gid—fath—uh… Leander, are you okay to cast?”
Leander pursed his lips, regarding Bailey with a different sort of pride than he’d shown before which made Bailey uncomfortable. “I believe so, yes.”
“Well… good,” Bailey muttered. “Can we get to it, then?”
Each of them had a different role to play in the work. The Australian witches stepped back but remained observant and quiet, while Bailey coached Piper a bit to get them connected in their own way. It was new to Piper, but relied mostly on the ability that she was already developing, and she managed to reach out a mental hand to Bailey.
Witching for a Miracle (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 7) Page 6