My hands were shaking enough that the glass carafe bounced against the side of the sink. “I think this is a sign I should call her today and get this over with while I have you and Christoph here in case anything gets stirred up. And I like Christoph’s idea of starting fresh, making something useful of that space.” Turning my back to the sink, I gripped the counter edge and looked into Tanner’s eyes. “You’re a druid. Can soil have or hold memories? Can it share those memories?”
I already knew the answer. I just wanted hear Tanner’s reassuring voice spreading some science between layers of magic.
“Yes, and maybe,” he said, lapsing into his instructional voice. The rich timbre worked its way into my sympathetic nervous system. “It’s not the soil so much as what’s growing in the soil, Calli. There’s the whole mycelial layer, which druids and other Magicals—especially earth witches—experience as a communication conduit between living things with soil-based root systems.
“Then there’s the stuff that gets mixed in with the soil due to location and usage. Around here, you’d find localized plant matter, blood, bones, decaying animal fur and feathers, sometimes human tissue.” He crossed his arms, got a thoughtful look on his face. “Why do you ask?”
“Just something House showed me one day.” A shiver rippled over my skin at the memory.
“Tanner! Got your belt ready.” My grandfather’s voice boomed through the house and put a welcome end to my musings.
Tanner nuzzled my cheek and brushed his lips behind my ear. “Think a man wearing a loaded tool belt might take your mind off things?”
I patted his cheek and grabbed a quick coffee-laced kiss. “Absolutely.”
Once the druid’s distracting backside was fully out the door, I reached for my cell phone, texted L’Runa to see if she was available to come to the house, and went to straighten my bedroom. The enameled pin with the wolf’s face sat in its box, surrounded by crumpled black silk. I lifted the glorified thong to the light, then carefully folded it in thirds and placed it atop the stack of utilitarian cotton underwear in my drawer.
I loved that Tanner had gifted me something decadently sexy, but the dagger and the pin held more meaning. Propping my butt against the edge of the unmade bed, I lifted the stylized wolf and had a closer look at it in the sunlight. The circle was slightly larger than the Witchling Way pins my mother had collected for her achievements. My first thought was to utilize the wolf as I had the bear and apple pins, as a kind of a personal crest, or a conduit to a magical connection.
I found the seal pin that had yet to leave my bureau top. Tiny drops of black enamel gave the mammal soulful eyes. As I passed a fingertip over the smooth surface, it occurred to me I might need a symbolic reconciliation with my father before I could call upon the harbor seal as one of my allies. Benôit choosing a selkie over my mother was hard for me to accept. But then again, I had a pitiful lack of details about both my parents and their relationship.
Clearing a space on my desk, I set out the Witchling Way pins I had first chosen—and the wolf I had been given—and mused on the words my mother had penned on the inside of an old book she had dedicated to me.
Nurture your Garden
Know your Roots
Watch for the White-Winged Man
Beware the…
…Water’s Edge
What was my mother hoping to warn me away from? If I heeded the visions House shared of my mother, her sister, and my ex-mother-in-law arguing in the cellar, it behooved me to be wary of anything connected to the Flechettes. I included Odilon Vigne with my ex’s extended family and excluded my innocent offspring and Sallie.
Then there was the last line of my mother’s dedication, the one that ended with water’s edge. Was it a reference to Benôit? Or a specific location? With most of my memories of my mother centered around being underwater, that last line felt weighted with portent.
I sighed, palmed the four pins off my desk and squinted at them, then darted my gaze to the shelf underneath my desk. The doll-sized trunk housed my mother’s Witchling Way sash and the rest of the achievement pins she earned. Cursing at my crowded personal space, I moved the desk chair and lifted the rounded top of the trunk.
The basket of finely woven sweetgrass was right where I had tucked it. What I really wanted was something like a manual, or a booklet that explained each pin’s requirements—anything that could offer more clues to my mother’s magical abilities. What were her primary interests? Where did her magical strengths lie?
I opened my laptop, bookmarked the Encyclopedia Magicka page, and emailed Rose to inquire where I might get my hands on information related to the Witchling Way, its history and purpose, and why it was no longer an active organization.
“Mom?” Harper’s knuckles hit my unlatched door twice.
“C’mon in, sweetie.”
“Can we talk?” he asked. His broadening shoulders filled the doorway more than they had when he finished eleventh grade and wanted to have the safe-sex talk about him and Leilani.
I sent the desk chair rolling in his direction. He closed the door, settled into the seat, then scooted to the front edge. “Still feels weird when my back makes contact with solid surfaces.”
“I bet. What else are you noticing?” I asked.
“I feel good about the decision I made. Most of the time.” He rested his elbows on his knees. “What do you think, Mom? Should I have waited to let my wings develop until I finished high school? Or college?”
“This
