Page 78 of A Spell for Midwinter's Heart
“I am happy to do it,” insisted Rowan, surprised at how defensive her voice came out. It was theweof the sentence. It felt calculated to remind Rowan she wasn’t a part of their number. She cleared her throat. “You know I’m not great at sitting still. What else am I going to do—sit around and watch Hallmark movies and eat everything in sight?”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” murmured her mother, once again looking tired.
In the quiet that followed, Stephan’s warning repeated in Rowan’s mind, and she made a decision.
“Mom?” She scooted eggs around in the pan to avoid meeting Liliana’s gaze.
“Yes?”
“I want to show you something…” Rowan dropped the spatula and whipped out her phone to reveal her social media feed. Liliana looked puzzled from across the counter. “A few of us put something together…”
She slid her phone over, noting the exact moment her mother realized what she was looking at when the woman’s face shut down.
“Please, just keep an open mind. I promise if you do, you’ll see the purpose of this is to show off the festival as it is—not to distort it, or to trick people.” Liliana’s face was still a solid mask of refusal. “What you’ve built is great, but we need more people to know that.”
The mask finally cracked, and with a sigh of resignation, Liliana picked up the phone and flicked through images and videos. Her expression softened, first toward acceptance and then, finally, to quiet appreciation.
One in particular got her attention—a montage of childrenpreparing to march in the Solstice parade, goofing around and giggling. It transitioned into the vibrant solemnity of the parade, all set to a stirring track. By the end, her eyes were wet with tears.
“I guess Kel must’ve been on kid wrangling duty,” said Rowan. “And got all this footage. They’re an amazing video editor. Kids these days, huh?”
Liliana grunted. “Don’t start acting like you’re an old lady, because if you are, that makes me ancient.” She continued to study the feed before finally lowering her hand to the counter. “This is a…love letter to what we do.”
“And people are responding. I know you have no context, but those are good numbers.”
Her mother was quiet. Finally, she said, “Well, I guess you proved me wrong.”
Rowan stiffened. “It wasn’t about that. I wanted to help the festival…”
Liliana held up a hand. “I know. You’re doing it in your own way…and I don’t mean that as a bad thing.” The statement was hard to swallow, given how often her mother had levied that exact phrase as an attack, but Rowan tried to relax her defenses as Liliana continued, “I should have listened to people telling me to do this exact sort of thing years ago, and now…it’s probably too late.”
She once again lapsed into a depressive state, and Rowan charged in on the defense.
“It’s not. You don’t have to give up. Gavin and I…we’ve got a pitch. It needs to be fleshed out, but it’s good, I think.”
She let her mother in on the plan, finishing by saying, “We could really use you to tell us where to go from here. You’re the only person here who’s done this before. How do we make this real? I realize you are incredibly busy, so we are going to do as much as we can, but your input would be…everything.”
For a long moment, her mother didn’t speak. Was history set to repeat itself?
Finally, Liliana reached across the counter and squeezed her hand. A delicate tenderness bloomed in Rowan’s chest. “I think it’s a great idea…You know, we talked about this—Sarah and I—but after she died, it was all I could do to keep the one festival going, especially once I took the shop over from Grandma. Well, with all of that, the coven, you two—”
“Let me stop you there.” Rowan held up a hand. “You have listed like three people’s worth of things, and I know you could keep going. You have leaned way too far in, and no one here is questioning why you didn’t sign up to do the work of six more people. So let us do it for you, because we’re in this together.”
Her mother squeezed her hand one more time. “We are, aren’t we?” The stress that had been pinching her tight all but vanished. She still looked tired, but calm.
Before Rowan could celebrate the victory, Liliana was on her feet. “Well, we’d better eat good, ’cause we’ve got a long day ahead of us.”
“What do you mean?” asked Rowan.
Her mother leaned in, smiling with a mischievous look about her.
“You are going to shadow me today. You want to know how it’s done?” Liliana pulled her gray-streaked auburn hair up high and tied it tight. “Put on your boots, girlie, ’cause it’s time to do the work.”
As her mother promised, the day was a flurry of activity. Helping to resolve disputes between vendors and customers, restocking the concessions, cleaning up the trail of poop left behind in casual lifts of sleigh horse tails—the walkie-talkie at Rowan’s belt continuously buzzed with new tasks to keep her busy.
As it was the first day of Kwanzaa, she spent most of her morning helping with the paper kinara children’s craft. At midday, shetook a break to watch Pastor Matthews speak about the Kwanzaa theme of the day—unity. The pastor was brilliant in a red-and-green headdress and kaftan, and she spoke with the practice of the pulpit.
Her voice urged the crowd to remember how much stronger we are when we come together to work, share, and learn.
