Page 81 of Strike It Witch

His expression softened. “We don’t have to go in now. I can?—”

“I’m fine. I’ve been in here since it happened, I just don’t come here … very often.” I squared my shoulders and turned the key in the lock.

I stepped over the threshold, boot heels clicking against the wooden floor. Everything was as I remembered it—not only from the day Mom died but from my youth.

She’d bought the house when I was fifteen, a couple years shy of being old enough to take her place as a travel witch. Before that, we’d lived out of an RV, though Smokethorn had been our home base for most of my life.

The living-room furniture was draped with white sheets, the fireplace swept clean. A trace of the lemony furniture polish she used for years flavored the air, along with an earthy basil and mint blend that was uniquely Mom.

Joon followed me through the door and immediately went to the fireplace. Everyone did. It was so beautiful it drew you in. “You weren’t overselling it. This is magnificent.”

“We did it ourselves. Every element was found in the park. The glass, the stones, the quartz—all of it. Mom would tell the earth what we needed, and a pile of the material would show up the next day.”

He ran a finger over the pale, glass moon offset to the left. A polished wooden beam ran across it, the mantel another giftfrom the soil. The moon was the centerpiece of the mosaic, though the gray, blue, and brown sky had taken us the longest to construct.

“This house feels loved,” he said.

“It was,” I said softly.

Once again, the question I’d asked since the day I’d found her body on the living room floor ran through my mind.

Why didn’t you wait for me, Mom?

He stopped in front of Mom’s urn. “How did she pass?”

“She took on a spell she couldn’t handle.” I don’t know why I said it that way. It made it sound like it was her fault the spell had backfired on her, and that wasn’t fair. It could happen to any of us. Except…

Why didn’t you wait for me, Mom?

“My father died the same way. A curse-lifting spell he did for a quiver in Botswana. The cobra shifters tried to save him, but there was nothing to be done.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was four, and I barely remember him.” Joon walked to the window. “But my mother’s death I remember well.”

He didn’t elaborate. We stood there for a long moment, each of us lost in dark memories. Finally, Joon spun away from the window and faced me. “Would you mind if I had a look around? The way this house is designed is fascinating. Although it doesn’t have the same magic-driven spatial properties as your garden room, it too feels larger on the inside.”

“Sure.”

I showed him the rest of the house. The rooms were easier to enter after taking the first step, and I found myself feeling more settled overall being inside.

“This is strange,” Joon said, when we were back in the living room. It was really a “great room,” as it was open to the kitchen, but I’d always thought of it as just the living room.

“Strange?”

He stood in front of the door and held up his dusty hands. Both palms were glowing. “The soil I picked up outside is reacting to something here.”

“That’s where I found her body.” I looked down and away. “It misses her.”

“Oh.” Joon dusted off his hands on his trousers. Frowned. Briefly, I wondered if he was weirded out by the idea of living in a place where a witch had died. A couple of the people I’d shown the place to had been.

“You said she died casting, but why would she have set up so close to the door?” he asked.

“Maybe she wanted to be as close as possible to the soil.”

“Then why not spell cast in the garden room? Or on the porch?”

Joon’s questions were making me uncomfortable, and not because he was being pushy. “She didn’t want to be seen?”

---