Jack walked me to my car. He made me promise I would keep him apprised of everything related to the Pearmains. Now that I was all the more aware of Magicals, my curiosity was piqued. I tried to picture what kind of wolf Jack shifted into. I almost asked, before deciding the whole segment of our conversation devoted to body odors had been enough revelation for one day.
Once at home, I stripped the labels I’d affixed to the tea cups and saucers. Thatch left a note under the tea pot, letting me know he and Sallie were off on a “lumber acquisition” mission with Christoph and Wes. Returning everything to the cupboard generated a lot of noise, as my hands shook and the thumping coming from my heart echoed in my ears. I turned on the tap until the water ran cold then filled a glass and drank.
A quick tour through the house showed the guys had made an effort to straighten furniture and fold and stack blankets and pillows. I decided to pack up my office while they were out shopping and move everything across the hall to my bedroom. While sorting, I could search for an empty notebook to use as a grimoire.
Stepping into my office and closing the door enfolded me in a sensation of being safe. For a little over two years, it had been just me, Harper, and Thatcher living in this cozy A-frame. When I mentioned I lived in a three-bedroom house with two full bathrooms, people imagined a far more palatial property. But I—we—loved this house, and it represented so much more than a bunch of walls and a roof that gave us shelter and kept out the rain.
Palms pressed to the wood at my back, I closed my eyes and coaxed my way into my house’s straight, smooth beams and bones. Followed along as neurons fired through the wiring we had updated when we moved in. Stroked its shingled skin, warmed by the sun and defended by a supple overlay of energy.
My eyes flew open. I had never tried to describe my relationship with my house to anyone. Not even my sons. If the boys felt any of this, they had never mentioned it to me.
“Where did she hide her things?” I asked, my voice a cajoling whisper. “Her magical things.”
On the surface it seemed silly to ask a house if a former occupant had stashed any belongings in places not obviously visible.
I took in a long, deep breath, let the oxygen expand my lungs, and softened my gaze so I could see the entire interior of the room. A response from my house could show up anywhere, though if I was waiting for something dramatic, like an object toppling from a shelf or sliding down a wall, I was likely not going to get it. The few framed watercolors and embroideries on the walls had been added after I moved in, the room had no closet, and the only shelf was the one I’d rigged underneath the desk.
My eyelids started to twitch. I stopped with the attempt at becoming all-seeing and all-knowing and spoke the obvious.
“Okay,” I said, “this isn’t working.”
A chittering Kingfisher, hot on the tail of an interloper, swept past the open window at the end of the narrow room. I tracked his movements by following his urgent voice, up until the moment he collided with an upstairs window. A dull boom sent me running out of my office and into the yard.
The brave, big-headed boy lay on the grass, stunned. I cupped his body in my palms before tucking him under a clump of scarlet bee balm.
The Kingfisher must have hit one of the upper windows. I scanned the A-frame’s façade and smacked my forehead.
Because, of course. A doll-sized trunk containing my mother’s things was stored in the attic, as was a shelf full of moldering books that were dated and dusty when I first played under the low eaves at age six.
Chapter 12
I grabbed a cleaning cloth out of the supply cupboard and ran to the second floor landing. Snagging the length of rope that dangled from the door panel laying flush with the ceiling, I gave a tug. The tiny bell on the end of the string tinkled, and as the stairs unfolded with rusty groans and squeaks, a lightbulb clicked on overhead.
No one had been in the attic since my last visit, if the undisturbed drag marks told the truth. I bent at the waist to avoid hitting my head on the cross beams and activated my phone’s flashlight when I got close enough to read the book titles.
A handful looked old enough to have been printed and bound two or three generations ago, and most looked to be volumes dedicated to creating the model housekeeper.
I hooked my finger over a spine marked Winter Celebrations and rested the book on my lap. A swipe of the flannel rag revealed an embossed illustration of holly leaves and berries centered on the book’s cover, with faint touches of gold visible in the title’s lettering. Inside were chapters devoted to every aspect of winter rituals from the Solstice onward, all of them based on the witch’s calendar.
I’m not sure why I was surprised. I knew so little about either side of my family. Maybe it shouldn’t have felt newsworthy to discover I had been born into a line of magic practitioners. Inside the book’s front cover was a name and a date, but the ink was too faded to decipher and my sensitivity to dust was beginning to irritate the insides of my nostrils.
I swept the flashlight across the rest of the books. The ones that caught my eye were two more with Good Housesweeping in the title and
