Page 30 of A Spell for Midwinter's Heart
“Ground,” said her mother. Her voice always took on a distinct quality during a ritual—high and clear—and it was impossible to ignore. Like the one who had blazed at the head of the Solstice parade, this Liliana, the one who had stood at the head of their circle since her own grandmother had passed, was impossible to deny.
Rowan closed her eyes. This first part would be the easiest. In her mind’s eye, her spine appeared as a glowing root, and she urged the energy to travel down into the ground, where it sprouted tendrils to link with the many networks beneath her feet—twining roots, fragile hibernating insects, subterranean lichen colonies, strings of fungus binding it all together.
There was a sensation almost like a snap, and she connected. Connected to every centuries-old tree, every bush, every blade of grass holding strong against the winter chill, and the members of her coven were there as well, their own tendrils already below, waiting to entangle with hers. The more witches involved, the easier it became to raise power, as everyone pooled their vital energies for a common purpose.
And they would need it. A spell to affect the weather was big magic. Magic didn’t make things out of nothing. It shifted the world’s weave in the direction the caster asked. This spell would mean changing entire weather systems, shifting barometric pressures, drawing precipitation bound somewhere else to their mountains instead.
She wove into the spell a specific intention: that the water would come to them from somewhere that didn’t need it. Better yet, wasn’t even prepared for it, instead of coming from a landscape as thirsty as Elk Ridge.
“With that done,” said Liliana, “let’s form a protective circle.”
This was where things would get sketchier, and anxiety clawed at the back of her mind. As they got closer to actual spellwork, the intrusive thoughts poured in.
You’re going to mess this up. You’re going to let everyone down and become something terrible.
She drove off the thoughts with deep breaths, pushing down with them the rising sense of nausea, the shake of panic. When her head cleared, she visualized a ball of light in her center, nestled in the same spot from where the roots had emerged. With eachinhale, she pulled energy up from beneath her feet, and with each exhale, she formed that energy into the ball. It slowly grew in size, expanding to fill her hands.
When it was large enough, she pushed it out into a ring shape. It expanded to join the glowing circle the others had already been forming.
Rowan was almost ready to let it merge when she hit that too-familiar wall, and the physical symptoms of her panic reaction intensified. Her chest closed, and it became difficult to be sure she was still breathing.
Her protective circle dissipated in an instant. More than that, her roots disappeared too. Everyone else would have felt it as well. It took all she had not to tear her hands from Drew and Stephan and retreat into the forest.
A flush of hot, comforting energy passed through her body. She peeked at Zaide, whose eyes were closed, lips upturned in a knowing way. The energy was chased by another, which came on like a cleansing spring rain sprinkling on her skin, and then it was as if the ground rose around her feet protectively. All the coven’s magic came to her aid, reminding her they were there beside her.
We’re doing this together. It’s not me—it’s us.
She settled back into place, focusing on the touch of hands, the smell of burning incense, the lingering taste of cardamom, and the sight of the clearing full of witches. Birdie hummed in a rumbling contralto, and the rest of the coven joined in. Rowan lent them her voice, and in doing so remembered her place here.
Her family had been using this spot for more than a century to practice magic. Dozens of them had walked this ground, had let their energy bleed into it, had left parts of themselves as threads in a tapestry to which her spirit was inextricably woven. Countless plants and animals had lived and died there, exchanging energy with every meal, every death, every exhale.
The coven believes I’m capable of this. If I can’t trust myself, I can at least trust them.
Something in her body gave way in a great snap of release, painful at first but then clear. Her head emptied, her shaking subsided, and her stomach settled.
Roots of golden light shot down through her back, plunging deep into the ground. A new ball of protective magic formed so fast that it outpaced her breathing, and it flowed out to join the others. In channeling air, her magic was bright and intellectual, providing clarity to the passion of fire, the resolve of the earth, the insights of water. With Drew and Stephan on the assist, her magic gave the ritual shape, a shape in which the others could soar.
She retrieved her athame from the altar and raised it to the sky as her mother’s voice began the chant of the ritual.
“Goddess, hear our voices. Please, the land is parched, and the people need you.”
Her voice traveled into the night, the spell carrying all of their energy with it, and Rowan focused on the image of water condensing overhead, cold and heavy, leaving the clearing blanketed in feet of heavy snow. Then she imagined the whole of Elk Ridge covered with a layer of glittering white.
As they finished the spell, Rowan was left breathless and charged. Her eyes scanned the inky night.
Nothing had changed.
Worry must have shown on her face, because Stephan squeezed her hand and said, “Won’t know anything until at least tomorrow.”
“But we did what we needed to, right? Everything was all right on our end?”
While she might have saidwe,it must have been obvious she meantI,because Zaide looked her in the eye with a gentle smirk and said, “You did the thing, Rowan.”
She exhaled. “I did, didn’t I?”
And then the anxiety was back but not quite the same, and sheremembered something she’d once read—that the chronically anxious have a hard time distinguishing anxiety from excitement.
So she let herself feel the tender excitement that this just might make the difference for Elk Ridge.
