At the foot of the porch steps, I paused. It was well after midnight, closer to two, and though the night was peaceful, my insides were as jellylike as the contents of those cheesecloth bags.
What the heck have you done, Calliope Viridis du Sang?
You said yes, I reminded myself.
I said yes to a dream, I said, playing the Devil’s advocate to myself as I meandered to the end of the driveway, crossed Fortune’s Folly Road, and leaped over the ditch by the side of the road.
My feet continued to propel me forward, step after step, as I bushwhacked through the brush, up the rise, and into the wooded area on what was soon to be—legally—my property. I wasn’t done talking to myself, and continued on until the broad, eternally reaching limbs of a bigleaf maple split the sky in front of me, blocking out the stars.
I’d made it to the abandoned house, with its never-used aquariums and ghostly rocking chair. I walked around the side of the decrepit house, still arguing with myself in my head, until my booted feet met the trammeled path between the back of the house and the marsh.
Calli.
Mama?
I shot the hood of my sweatshirt off my head and quickened my pace, sure my mother’s voice was coming from the marsh.
I’m coming. Wait for me.
By the time I was splashing through the mud in the shallow area nearest the house, I had shed my sweatshirt. The muck helped me to pull off my boots. I waded in farther, still calling, both in my head and out loud.
I tried to get my stretchy bra over my breasts but by then it was soaked and uncooperative. For some reason, I’d pinned the enameled wolf to the strap. It poked my collarbone when I landed chest-down on a submerged rock and got dislodged as I scrambled to disentangle my arms from a thick mat of weeds.
I’m coming. Wait for me, Mama.
Please.
All those dreams where I followed my mother’s feet flashed in front of my eyes. I couldn’t see through the mud and the stalks of cattails, much less move.
I stopped talking to myself. Embraced the silence. Gave in to the growing cold of my muscles and the taste of rotting plant matter on my tongue.
You smell like the in-between.
Maybe this marsh was the in-between. I’d ask Wes the next time I saw him.
You smell like death.
Maybe this was.
“Does anyone know if she ate the apples?”
“Yes. Well, I never actually saw her eat the apples, but she was making apple jelly when I went to bed.”
I nodded.
Of course, I ate the apples. Though my aunt had warned me, every year and with every batch, to never eat the apple jelly until after the sugar had been added and the jars had been filled and processed and left to sit on the shelves in the cellar for a full three months.
Then, I could have the jelly. As much as I wanted.
While Aunt Noémi was washing, cutting, and boiling the Old One’s annual offering, every wooden spoon in the kitchen was off-limits.
I could wash jars and lids and sterilize them.
I could melt the wax to pour on top of the jelly once it had been ladled into the jars. But I could not taste the thick, sour pulp Auntie Noé carefully—religiously—poured into cloth sacks and set to dripping overnight.
But I had.
I’d snuck out of my bedroom and down the stairs and skimmed off enough unsweetened crabapple mash to fill a small glass. I’d snuck it back up to my room, savored each thick sip under the patched and repatched quilt. Then, I’d washed and dried the glass and returned it to its shelf in the kitchen cupboard.
“Of course I ate the apples.”
Alabastair’s face was inches from mine. He jerked back when I unstuck my eyelids and tried again to speak. The dried mud in my mouth made articulation next to impossible. Bas rolled me onto my side, stuck a finger into the side of my mouth, and forced a stream of water over my tongue.
I tried not to throw up, I really did.
“I’m glad you weren’t wearing your nice shoes,” I said, when my mouth was free of debris.
Chaos erupted. Harper and Thatcher. Alabastair, Maritza, Christoph, and Rowan. Belle’s trill. Which meant Kaz was somewhere in the mix, along with Wes.
“What’s all the fuss?”
“Mom, you were dead.”
Oh.
“I was?” My big, beautiful sons hauled me to sitting and sandwiched me between their chests. “I’m sorry.”
Christoph took my face in his hands and squeezed until my cheeks and lips and nose were smashed together. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever do that again, Calli-lass.”
“What did I do?”
Maritza peered around my grandfather’s shoulder. “You ate a strain of apples related to the Apples of Immortality, you smart little witch, and managed to not die a complete death, thanks to your wolf being a very light sleeper.”
Oh.
“Tell me,” the needle witch said, “did you have to sneak the pulp when you were little or did your aunt give it to you?”
“I snuck it,” I admitted, still wedged between my sons and Christoph. The three of them were quietly crying. I wasn’t entirely clear on what all the fuss was about.
Maritza beamed at me, raised her gaze to the ceiling and crossed her hands over her chest, and laughed. Wolf howled and jumped up on the exam table.
“Where am I?”
“Belle’s,” Rowan said. “She was already set up to treat Benôit. Another five minutes and we were going to call Jack to meet us at the hospital and fire up the Medivac helicopter.”
Wolf nuzzled the back of my neck and jumped back down.
“Can I go home?”
“Calliope Viridis du Sang, no you may not,” said Belle. “There’s room enough for everyone right here.” She harrumphed for good measure and muttered under her breath.
“Can I have something to drink? I’m so thirsty.”
“That you may. Kazimir, the elixir?”
Harper and Thatcher stepped away enough to give Kaz room to deliver a shot glass filled with a whisky-colored
