May’s stance was rigid at first, the bones of her spine and neck still stiff with cold and a lingering sense of indecision.
But as she tapped the heels of her boots against the wellworn rag rug and took in the sight of the teapots displayed across the shelves, each so colorful and distinct in its own way that she couldn’t help choosing her favorite, the stern set of her shoulders began to loosen.
“It feels just like coming home again,” May whispered as her eyes continued to catch on all the details of the room.
Eventually, though, her gaze left the comforting clutter stacked along the cabinets and settled on Violet.
“I’ve remembered something important,” May said as she took a careful step toward her.
“And what is that?” Violet asked.
“What it truly means to be a sister,” May replied as she reached for her shoulder, just as she had the day before when it looked like she was trying to grasp a hand that had settled there.“I’m here to save him. To let him go his own way so they can finally be at peace.”
The fragrance of warm cinnamon bread and citrus scones was overpowered then by the scent of rosemary and chrysanthemums, and the Quigley sisters knew that they had just welcomed two more guests.
“You don’t know how much this means,” Anne said as she stepped forward and grasped May’s free hand in her own. “For all of us.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand,” May replied with a nod as she gave Anne’s palm a gentle squeeze.
When her fingers brushed against the ring, though, May grew still, and her eyes shot downward.
“It can’t be,” May murmured as she lifted Anne’s hand and drew it closer to get a better view of the hourglass etching. “This is Philip’s ring.”
“You recognize it?” Anne asked, surprised.
“Of course,” May answered as she ran her thumb along the smooth surface, the familiarity of the gesture hinting that she’d done the same thing many times before. “He wore it on a chain around his neck when we were children, but when he grew big enough, he never took it off his left hand. I’ve always wondered where it went after he passed.”
The room felt thick with memories as May continued to gaze at the ring.
“Philip used to tell me a story that he’d made up about it when I was a young girl,” she continued. “After we’d read through the fairytale book so many times that the pages seemed like they were going to give way from the spine.”
“What kind of story?” Anne asked.
May paused then and closed her eyes, distancing herself from the current moment so that she could better draw out a tale thathad been tucked in the very back of her mind, waiting for just the right moment to emerge again.
“I’m sure I won’t be able to tell it quite like him,” May said hesitantly.
“That’s the way it’s meant to be,” Beatrix reassured her. “Stories are living things, after all, just like people.”
The candles in the kitchen flickered strangely then as the house leaned in to listen alongside the others. And as May’s memory of the tale grew stronger, so did the shadows cast along the walls, the light dimming when the Crescent Moon closed its eyes so it could better imagine the story that was about to unfold.
“Once upon a time,” May began, the familiar words carrying a kind of magic all of their own, “there was a family who had the power to speak to those who had passed on. They brought comfort to the living and the dead, tying up ends that still needed to be trimmed or tightened.”
Anne heard Vincent take a step closer then, drawn to May’s words like a moth to a flame. He was standing so close to her now that Anne was tempted to lean back so that her shoulders would graze his chest.
“One day, they were called upon by a witch who no one else would help,” May continued. “She’d lost something close to her heart, and darkness had seeped into the gaps left behind. Her grief had made her a bitter creature, and she was met only with fear and repulsion from those she stumbled across. The family gave her peace so that she could find a new purpose: helping others recover the things that seemed to have slipped away. And in return, the witch gifted them a ring.”
May smiled then, as if speaking the story aloud again was helping her find something that she thought had been lost as well.
“It was no ordinary ring, of course,” May said, her voice taking on a more confident hue as she drifted deeper into thetale. “The witch had enchanted it so that the family’s magic would grow stronger the longer her gift was in their possession. But as it always is with fairy tales, there was an important instruction. The ring would only work if passed down to the person who’d been born with the most power and the greatest willingness to share it. They would be the ring’s keeper and ensure its history remained a secret. For even the best of families will begin to bicker over an heirloom, and then the witch’s magic would destroy the very thing it wanted to reward. The person who wore the ring would reveal the truth only when they passed it on to its next keeper.”
The ring grew warm then, and May’s eyes widened as she seemed to notice the change.
Carefully, Anne removed it from her hand and gently placed it in May’s palm.
“Did Philip say how the ring’s keeper knew who to pass it on to?” Anne asked as May ran the tip of her finger along the gold.
“It would let them know by growing warmer beneath their touch,” she answered in wonder, confirming Anne’s suspicions.
