Page 10 of Hidden Kingdoms

I waited for a moment as the innate calm of the clearing sunk under my skin and settled within me, soaking in the soft hum of magik which was undeniable here. I knew what she meant and as I followed Nanna's movements, I found myself reluctant to give her answers.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.” My fingers hooked into a hole in my cardigan, worrying at the threads.

“Bad dreams?”

If I told her the truth, I knew she would have a better suggestion than tea, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to take her advice. “Something like that.”

“Have you been writing them down like I told you? So you can interpret them. I can help if you need me to.”

A journal of the dreams that plagued me sat beside my bed, but I didn’t want to admit I was even contemplating that they were anything other than just regular dreams. Even to her.

“And what about the cards?” Her eyes were glued to Nanna, watching as she stared into the expanse of water before her. “They have anything to say about it?”

“Not much.” I shrugged, hoping to appear as unbothered as possible.

Nothing good, anyway.

Tarot reading had been the one thing Briar had taught me that I had held onto. Nothing else held any interest, and anyexcitement I felt for it would fade to nothing at all whenever she left.

Briar’s fingers drummed on her knee as she remained quiet next to me. The ring I had made for her the last time she had showed up glinting against her sun-kissed skin.

“The answers are always there, you know that.”

I did because fuck were they accurate.

I had practised with tarot cards for hours after Briar had taught them to me, checking and rechecking the notes she had given me. Shuffling until a small blister had formed on my thumb. I knew better than to try a reading on Nanna, and instead took them to school, excited to practise on others.

Doing so had of course added another layer of weird onto my already targeted head. Some kids thought it was fun, and Polly never said no when I asked her if I could read her cards, but mostly it gave them another reason to see me as other than them.

The little white-haired girl, who made weird things happen and would forever be different.

Her voice was barely a whisper as she hooked her finger around mine. “It’s in you, El, just like it’s in me. You have to hold it close.”

I’d lost count over the years the amount of times Briar had told me she was a seer, that she came from a long line of seers and that I, too, was gifted in the art of prophecy. As a child I had hung on her words, desperate to be something special and not the strange little girl with no parents who lived in the big house in the woods. But the time of childhood hopes were long gone, and I paid less and less mind to her insistence I was anything more with every passing year.

There were hazy childhood memories of Briar holding onto my palm, her finger tracing over lines as she showed me what they meant. I couldn’t remember much of what she had said butI did remember Nanna’s anger when I had asked for her hand to practise on. How she had ranted about Briar ruining everything while she slammed around in the kitchen.

I had been put to bed with a tea and slice of toast, feeling overwhelmingly guilty to have caused trouble between them. When I woke, all thoughts or ideas of reading palms had been gone.

Ahead of us, a gentle splash broke my musings, and I knew Nanna’s ritual here would soon be over, as would this conversation.

“I’m fine,” I insisted, deciding not to disclose the extent the dreams were haunting me. “Honestly, it’s just the usual. Teeth falling out, being naked at school.”

“It’s starting again, isn’t it?” A knot formed in my stomach as she cut straight to the heart of my issue with no effort at all. The flashes of death weren’t something I could predict; I just had to ride it out until they stop.

“I promise, I’m ok.”

Nanna turned to us then, a soft smile on her face as she started our way. Briar's hand squeezed mine, and when I looked at her, her green eyes crinkled in a concern that made me feel like shit for not telling her the truth.

“I always knew when you were lying, Elodie. Nothing’s changed.”

5

CHAPTER FIVE

ELODIE

Exhausted from the punishing climb and subsequent trek back, I dragged my heavy legs down the path that led me home, Titan close on my heels as my little cottage came into view. Nestled in a clearing of trees and ringed by a slightly rusted iron fence, I forced myself to take the thirty or so steps to the front door.

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