The Girl and the Witch's Garden

by Erin Bowman

  Melena rolled her eyes. “You don’t care about her—you didn’t before and you certainly don’t now.” She pointed a finger at Sophia. “Tell her what you said when I told you Atticus wanted us to take her in for the summer.”

  Sophia shook her head weakly.

  “Tell her or I will make you!”

  Sophia glanced at Piper, and whatever the words were, Piper knew they would break her heart. The hurt was already plastered across Sophia’s features. Piper didn’t want to hear it. She just wanted to have this one moment—one small moment—when her mother actually cared.

  Melena raised a hand to her choker.

  And Piper dove in front of her mother.

  She knew she couldn’t do anything. Not truly. Her affinity couldn’t shield Sophia from Melena’s control; it could only make them invisible. But she reached inside and found that her affinity was waiting. She didn’t need an amplifier to channel the magic. She was the magic.

  And she let it fly.

  Only this time, it didn’t wrap around her. Instead it spilled out, blew away in all directions, rolled like an unstoppable wave. Piper knew, immediately, that this wasn’t an affinity she’d summoned before.

  The most powerful magi have always had more than one affinity.

  Time seemed to slow, and Piper watched her new affinity billow outward at a snail’s pace.

  Its edges rippled and churned.

  It seemed to crackle with energy—with power and destruction.

  She sensed, quite keenly, that she might be able to hold this expanding dome of energy in place if she were more skilled with it, protecting anyone inside its borders. Like a force field. But she had no control.

  Piper took one final look at the gleaming, life-altering elixir in her grandmother’s hand before her affinity met it.

  She felt it shatter the glass bottle.

  She felt it plow through her grandmother’s affinity, aimed now at Sophia.

  She felt it crush Melena’s grip on Julius’s and Camilla’s minds.

  And when the damage was done, when her affinity had overpowered every bit of magic it had come in contact with, Piper let it disperse like a wave crashing on a beach. She gasped, breathless, then sank to her knees, completely drained. It would take days before she could draw out her affinity—either of them—again.

  For a long moment, the garden was painfully quiet. The thunder had stopped. The rain was a soundless mist. Wisps of smoke rose from the tree, which was no longer on fire.

  The children glanced at one another, then slowly turned their attention to the center of the circle.

  Melena M. Mallory stared at her bleeding hand, the shards of glass at her feet. Her face went red with rage, and her gaze snapped to Piper. She raised a finger to her choker—a desperate, wild look in her eyes—but instead of retaliating, she stilled. Her finger trembled against the emerald gemstone. Her eyes darted toward Mallory Estate.

  Then she transformed into a falcon and fled.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven The Journey’s End

  What was that?” Teddy exclaimed, glancing between Piper and the spot where her grandmother had just been standing.

  “Is she gone for good?” Kenji asked. “We should retreat to the house while we can.”

  Julius and Camilla examined their hands, shocked by what Melena had made them do. Piper wanted to say something reassuring, but Teddy was staring at her. “You can create shock waves,” he murmured.

  “I think it was actually a force field, like a dome I can hold around me for protection, I just didn’t have much control over it.”

  “Fine, you can create force fields with destructive, shock-wave-like edges,” he amended. “That is somehow even cooler!”

  Piper turned toward her mother. Her hair had fallen from her French twist and hung around her face in stringy sections; dirt covered her hands and knees. She looked almost childlike.

  Sophia opened her mouth to say something, but Piper spoke first: “I have to go to the hospital.”

  “Yes, of course.” Sophia shakily pushed herself to her feet and touched her temple. “I remember where the keys are now. Let’s go.” Piper wondered if her mother could remember everything now that Melena wasn’t in control of her mind. Was she aware of all the horrible things she’d said to Piper? How she’d treated Julius, Camilla, and Kenji?

  “Thank you, but Kenji said he can jump me there from the patio. It will be faster.”

  Teddy touched Piper’s arm. “I’ll help her,” he said. “You go ahead with Kenji.”

  Piper’s chest swelled. She hugged Teddy and planted a kiss on his cheek.

  “Ugh, what was that for?” he asked, rubbing off the spot her lips had touched.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.” She sprinted for the exit.

  * * *

  Teleporting was sort of like stepping through a portal. Blackness closed in around Piper, and for a moment, all she could sense was Kenji’s arms wrapped around her middle. Then the darkness folded away and she was standing in a hospital room. It was identical to the one she’d reached using the infinity pool’s portal.

  “I’ll go get your mom now.” Kenji paused, then asked, “Assuming you want to have her here?”

  Piper considered it. “Maybe leave it up to her?” she said finally.

  Kenji nodded, and with the flip of his collar, vanished. A moment later he was back, and Sophia Peavey was with him. She’d brushed her hair out of her eyes and wiped the sweat from her brow; she looked more like herself again. The woman smiled meekly and stepped toward the bed.

  Piper, however, remained rooted in place. Even after Kenji left, mentioning that he’d be in the waiting room, she couldn’t bring herself to approach her father. Instead she watched as Sophia sat on the edge of the bed and squeezed her ex-husband’s hand. He stirred and slowly turned his head toward her.

  From where Piper was standing, she couldn’t see her father’s face, but she was reminded of that morning when she was very small and had come to her parents’ bedroom. Her mother had been sitting just like this, telling her father that she had to leave. For all the years they’d been apart, for all the hurt between them, the moment was shockingly natural. Perhaps there was no time for grudges or bad blood.

  Atticus spoke softly—words Piper couldn’t hear—and Sophia responded with something that sounded a lot like, I’ll take good care of her. I promise.

  A nurse bustled into the room. “Oh, good. You’re here,” she said, noticing Piper and Sophia. “It won’t be long now. I was worried you wouldn’t make it in time.” She checked something on one of the machines, then exited quietly.

  Sophia patted Atticus’s hand and stood. “I’ll give you two some time alone,” she said to Piper, and then she followed the nurse into the hall.

  The room suddenly seemed very big, the bed very far away. Piper wanted to walk toward it, but she knew the conversation that waited. And what it meant.

  Atticus patted the mattress, and Piper made her feet move. The sheets were warm where her mother had sat. Piper threaded her fingers through her father’s. They were so bony now, the skin paper thin. “I don’t want you to go,” she said, tears sliding down her cheeks.

  “I know. But we talked about this earlier, remember?”

  “What?”

  “You had that drink with you.” Atticus glanced at Piper’s empty hands.

  So she had been here. The portal had brought her directly to him. She thought it hadn’t been real, that it was some sort of illusion. And it must have been, partially. Frederick Mallory had appeared, after all, and he was dead. But everything she’d said to her father after stepping through the portal, he’d heard.

  “Is your journey over, Dad?” she asked quietly.

  “Almost, I think.” He swallowed, grimaced.

  “Will I be able to come there too, wherever you’re going?”

  “I hope so. But not until … you’re old. Really … old.”

  There was a long pause. Piper
wanted to say a million things. About Grandma Mallory and the estate and her mother. About her new friends and how Atticus couldn’t go yet, because he needed to meet them all. She wanted to talk about the bungalow and Carl the penguin and crosswords and aquariums and all the new powers growing inside her. Most of all, she just wanted more time. To talk about everything—especially the meaningless stuff.

  “Do you need a copilot?” she asked finally. “On the final stretch?”

  “I would like that … very much,” he said.

  Piper lay down and curled up beside her father, as she had after each nightmare as a child.

  “I love you, Dad,” she said.

  “Love you, too, Pipes,” he managed.

  She stayed there, holding his hand until the very end.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight Another Heart-to-Heart

  Things were different when Piper returned to Mallory Estate, but she didn’t notice them. Not at first.

  She went straight to her bedroom and cried—for a day, a week, a month. She couldn’t be certain. She cried through the funeral. That, she remembered.

  It had been a sunny day, which felt right, even if Piper had been a rainfall of tears. Sophia stood by Piper’s side, and Aunt Eva kept a hand on Piper’s shoulder as the casket was lowered into the ground. Then she was back at Mallory Estate, because Aunt Eva had to see to Atticus’s will and then to her clients, and the days blurred together, time continuing to pass even when Piper’s world had stopped.

  Her friends tried to cheer her up. Camilla brought meals to Piper’s room. Teddy sat at the foot of her bed and read her books from the library. Julius visited with updates on how everyone was doing, and Kenji would teleport into her room to tell her jokes and riddles, desperate to coax out a smile.

  Sometimes Piper would scream at them to leave, and they would, and other times she’d sit there and pretend she couldn’t see them, but they carried on as though she were treating them well, because that’s what friends do: they see you at your worst and keep being your friend anyway.

  Aunt Eva even visited a few times, asking Piper if she wanted to come stay with her, leave Mallory Estate behind. But Piper didn’t want to leave, especially not her bed. Going anywhere felt like a monumental feat, and all she wanted was to be left alone.

  Eventually, ever so slowly, Piper came back to herself. She began to taste the food Camilla cooked, and hear the stories Teddy read, and laugh at the jokes Kenji told.

  Julius’s updates proved the most surprising.

  As it turned out, Frederick Mallory was alive. And immortal. Before concealing the elixir in his garden all those years ago, he’d sampled the drink; it took only a small sip for the magic to work.

  Then, after watching everyone he loved and admired die by the time he was ninety-four, he’d gone into hiding, content to be forgotten. In many ways, he longed to pass on like his friends. The newspapers had assumed him dead, the magi community as well (which explained the article Piper had found in her grandmother’s briefcase). But when Piper had stepped through the infinity portal, Frederick had sensed it. Using his affinity of incorporeal mirroring, he cast an image of himself to the very same spot, advising Piper as he wished someone had once done for him. Then he projected himself into Mallory Estate and waited for the children. While Kenji teleported Piper and Sophia to the hospital, Frederick explained everything to Julius, Camilla, and Teddy.

  “I can’t believe you spoke with him in the portal and didn’t tell us,” Julius said. He frowned. “Actually, I can. A lot was going on.” He glanced at Piper’s nightstand, to a framed picture of Piper and Atticus sitting on the front steps of the bungalow.

  “Frederick promised to get us into proper homes,” Julius explained, “but we already have a proper home here. We want to stick together—with Mrs. Peavey. She’s back to her old self again.”

  Julius went on, explaining that Frederick had decided to come out of hiding and serve the Order once more. If he was going to live forever, he might as well do good with all that time. So he’d reemerged in Washington, DC, where the HOM was headquartered, and was currently assisting in their search for Melena. He’d promised to visit Mallory Estate in the flesh sometime soon and was looking forward to speaking with Piper then. In the meantime, Sophia wanted to see Piper. “When you’re ready,” Julius amended.

  * * *

  One day in early August, about six weeks after Atticus’s passing, Piper woke feeling different.

  How, exactly, she wasn’t sure. There was still a gaping hole in her heart. She still missed her father terribly, and suspected she always would, and it felt completely and utterly wrong that he was gone. But she also wanted to leave her room. To walk the estate grounds. To journey. Above all, Piper wanted to see her friends.

  So she took a shower, got dressed, and headed for the kitchen. It was at the base of the grand staircase, standing in the estate’s massive entry hall, that she first noticed the garden. All those days spent crying in her room and it was waiting just outside her window.

  Piper froze, staring through the French doors’ glass windows and past the patio furniture, to where the two stag statues marked the entrance of the garden. They were no longer headless. In fact, they looked exactly like the statues Piper had seen inside the garden, where everything was alive and flourishing. She rubbed her eyes and looked again.

  The heads remained, antlers reaching toward a cheerful sky. Beyond the stags the oak alley towered, green and lush. Flowers blossomed in beds. Grass fluttered in a light breeze. Piper couldn’t see it from where she stood, but she knew the pools were now clear of algae and that the crumbling statues were whole once again.

  Removing the elixir, unlocking the concealment—it had undone everything. The garden was no longer hidden. Mallory Estate was just an estate. No portals or talking statues or hidden trials. Just a gorgeous home with a beautifully manicured garden.

  Piper hurried on to the kitchen, but paused when she spotted her mother in the library. Sophia was sitting in an armchair before the empty fireplace, stroking a ball of white fluff in her lap. Wolfe.

  Piper put a palm to the library door and pushed her way inside. Sophia didn’t look up, and for a moment it seemed as if she were still under Melena’s spell. Then Piper slid into the seat opposite her, and her mother tore her eyes from the empty fireplace, finding Piper.

  “I’m sorry. I was having a thought.”

  “About?” Piper asked.

  “Oh, everything,” Sophia said, and set Wolfe on the floor. The cat meowed unhappily and rubbed against Sophia’s legs before relocating to a plush pillow-bed at her feet. He closed his eyes and purred happily.

  “What happens now?” Piper asked.

  “I suppose that depends on what you want, Piper.” Sophia reached across the space that divided them and took Piper’s hand in hers. “Your aunt Eva will gladly take you in. But so would I. Mallory Estate can be your home.”

  “And I’d live here with you?” Piper said uncertainly.

  “Yes, with me.”

  Piper considered Sophia for a moment, this stranger who was actually her mom. She was still polished and professional—today in a navy-blue pantsuit, her hair pulled into a tight bun—but her eyes looked different. Greener, and more vulnerable, too. The way they had when Melena’s spell had broken and the gold flecks disappeared. It changed her entire face. She looked like the woman in Piper’s locket again.

  Piper reached for her breastbone, her fingers coming up empty.

  “You never needed it,” her mother said.

  “It feels wrong not wearing it, though. Like I forgot to put on underwear or something.”

  Sophia smiled. “The other children have been combing the garden. I’m sure it will turn up.” There was a long pause before she added, “So what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Would you like to stay here, or with your aunt Eva?”

  “Julius said everyone else is staying here.”

  “Yes, for now,�
�� Sophia said. “Frederick pulled some strings to arrange it. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to offer them adoption, but I hope to, and time will tell.” She paused a moment. “So?”

  Piper bit her lip. Her mother hadn’t proposed an option where Piper could go home, but then again, the bungalow would never be the same without her father. It would always feel empty, like something was missing. Moving in with Aunt Eva meant returning to her old school in the fall; her father and aunt were close and had always lived in the same town. Staying at Mallory Estate meant a new school but not having to say good-bye to the friends she’d made. Mallory Estate also meant more time with her mother, but that possibility didn’t bring Piper the joy she thought it might. In a strange, horrible way, staying at Mallory Estate felt like Piper would be replacing one parent with another. A parent who hadn’t cared about her for her entire life. It was an insult to Atticus.

  “Why’d you leave?” Piper asked sternly, looking her mother in the eye.

  “For all the wrong reasons,” Sophia said sadly. “My own mother never saw me as worthy, and all I wanted was to impress her. Part of me feared I would never be able to be a decent mother myself until I had. Growing up, I knew about magi and the HOM and hidden artifacts, but because I was a hollow, my mother never told me the truth about the garden. I could sense something odd about it, though, and I thought that if I could prove, scientifically speaking, that Mallory Estate held magic, it would be the next best thing to my having an affinity. It would show her I could at least recognize the work of magi, even if I wasn’t a magi myself. But that backfired. I was a hollow who had betrayed her mother’s trust, and if anything, she despised me even more after I published my paper.”

  “Then why didn’t you come home—to me and Dad?”

  “I’d been gone so long, I didn’t know how. So I agreed to help her find the elixir after she told me what was at stake. There were times I considered coming back—when I wanted to, even—but something made me stay. Maybe it was your grandma in my head. Maybe I was just a coward. By the time we started fostering, it became obvious she was using me just like she was using the children. I was teaching them, cooking their meals, answering their questions. I was their parent, because the only time she bothered to meet with them was when she was nurturing their affinities or selecting their amplifiers—all to find an artifact that I was starting to suspect the HOM hadn’t really told her to extract.” Sophia shook her head. “I stayed at the estate because the children here needed me—they needed a mother who cared. But you needed me too, and I want to make up for that now. I would like to be your mother again, if you’ll let me. I never stopped being her, really; I was just doing a terrible job at it.”