“But, it’s your future. You have no idea what this is going to take from you.”
“Look, just . . . take it, okay?” When I open my mouth to argue, she keeps talking over me. “You’re right, we have no idea what it’s going to take. Which means I should be the one to do it. You have so much going for you. You’ve got a guy who’s clearly falling for you, a town that loves you, and a successful business. What do I have to lose? A job as a barista? A reputation as the town screwup? My family moved away years ago, and I barely talk to my mom anymore. You and Grandma were all I had, so I’m not going to let you take on one more thing when I can do this. Let me do this for you. You deserve to be happy.”
“So do you,” I whisper, tears burning my eyes.
Lucy gives a small, half-hearted shrug before she forces a smirk that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Oh please, I’m never happy.”
I stare down at her shakily scrawled name one more time, tempted to tear the paper to pieces. But I know Lucy, and I know that once she’s set her mind to something, there’s nothing that can stop her. Either I accept her sacrifice or she’ll continue to fight me on this whole idea.
So with a heavy breath, I fold the paper back into a small rectangle, deliberately running a nail over the creases as I do, then I throw my arms around Lucy’s neck and pull her close. Her arms tighten around me, holding me in a rib-crushing embrace.
“Thank you,” I rasp, fighting down the lump in my throat that won’t go away.
She pulls away, swiping at her eyes with the sleeve of her flannel, smudging liner and mascara across her cheek. “Yeah, yeah. I’m a good friend and all that crap. Let’s get this over with.”
I nod frantically, turning toward the circle we’ve created, the paper and diary held tight between my shaking fingers. Eyeing it all, my heartbeat starts to hammer in my ears, drowning out Lucy’s fidgeting and my buzzing phone. One last chance to turn back. To change my mind.
I step into the circle.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes, muttering under my breath until the candles flicker to life one by one. All around me, I can sense the magic coming alive with a rush of energy. Though I can feel it there, the magic never passes over the bounds of my circle. Instead, it stalks around the edges, watching like a hungry mountain lion waiting to pounce.
I kneel before the burn bowl, and as I place the paper in it and light a match, I say the words of the ritual. They’re thick and heavy on my tongue, sticking to my teeth and making it hard to speak at all.
“By willing heart a future sworn, a thread of fate is freely mourned.” The flame of the match touches the paper, and the fire begins to consume wood, salt, and paper. “For love and soul, strong and vast . . .” I pause, watching the paper burn, and force the last words through my teeth, barely audible above my racing heart. “We trade tomorrow for the past.”
The flames flare, growing in size as they’re fueled by magic. I open the diary, which automatically opens to the October 31st, 1967 entry. The one with the curse scrawled across the bottom. I tear out the page and hold it to the flame.
“By bond and bone, by flame and thread, I call the spirit of one long dead.”
A bone-deep cold washes through me, and I have to bite back the urge to shiver. Because when I look up, I’m met with familiar brown eyes that sparkle with mischief and love.
“Grandma?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It takes all my self-restraint not to rush the phantom floating before me, to not pull her into a hug. All I want is to feel her strong arms around me once again and breathe in the scent of lilac and lemon, touched with the after notes of aged parchment. The scent I’ve associated with her since before I was old enough to put a name to them. Because the moment I go to grab her, I’ll pass right through, and my heart will be broken.
The Grandma before me is only half here, transparent and lacking substance, but still so full of life.
Grandma reaches out to me, placing her palm against my cheek to cup my face. Though I can’t actually feel her touch, there’s a shadow of feeling . . . a memory of what it felt like before.
“Bug,” she starts, the nickname slicing through my chest like a villain pulling out my heart. “Every day we spent together, I taught you lessons I fully intended you to ignore. But of all of them, why would you ignore this one and bring me here?”
I can’t stop the sad smile that tugs at my lips, and I can hear the chuckle-mixed sob that busts from Lucy at the same time. Yes, Grandma taught Lucy and me about magic and all the rulesthat go along with it, but we both knew her rules were more like suggestions. She herself wasn’t exactly a straight-laced witch, and she never expected us to be either.
I take a deep breath, preparing myself to delve straight into why I brought her here. There are so many things I’d rather talk about, so many things I’d rather ask, but we only have a few minutes before she’ll disappear from our lives again, and I can’t waste a moment of them.
“Oliver Blackwood, Richard Blackwood’s grandson, has moved to town.” At the mention of Richard, Grandma’s face falls, a sadness I’d never seen from her before taking over her features until she’s aged years right before my eyes. “Grandma, I need you to tell us how to break the curse. What are the lies? What do Oliver and I need to admit to, or own up to, in order to break this thing? What did Richard do that was so awful? The magic is trying to run Oliver out of town, and he hasn’t even reopened the bakery yet.”
Grandma sighs and bows her head. “It wasn’t Richard who did anything. Richard was perfect; he did all the right things for the time. It was me, bug. I was the one who lied, and by the time I understood that, it was far too late.”
I furrow my brows at her, trying to understand. “You . . . cursed yourself?”
Grandma shook her head. “Many things are missing from those diary entries, bug. I assume that’s how you found the curse at all, since that’s the only place I wrote it down.” I nod, staying quiet to give her the space to explain. “We don’t have much time, but I think you deserve to know the whole story. As you know, on Halloween night, 1967, I was hurting. As the last of my family, and newly broken up from my first and only love, I was more alone than I’d ever been in my life. I was desperate for one last chance to talk to my family.”
Understanding dawns on me immediately, because I’m achingly familiar with the feeling she’s talking about. “You did the ‘Through The Veil’ ritual,” I whisper.
“I did,” Grandma admits. “In a drunken fit of pain, I willingly sacrificed a piece of my future in exchange for a chance to talk to my mother one more time. I didn’t realize until the ritual was over that the piece of my future I sacrificed was Richard. I didn’t cast the curse, bug. The ritual cast the curse on me as the cost to see my mother. That’s why I never wanted you to even consider doing this. Not even as a last resort. This ritual will take everything from you, and it will forever be my biggest regret. Seeing my mother, feeling her love, and hearing one last piece of motherly advice was wonderful, but it wasn’t worth the love of my life.”
