Page 106 of A Spell for Midwinter's Heart
Again, Hayleigh just looked at her, sharp, caught. It seemed Rowan didn’t need magic to get her to stop lying. Just plain, hard facts.
“So, yeah, maybe things go your way tonight, and you turn back the clock here, and take away our businesses, and drive us out of town, but after all of that? I’ll still have my magic. A magic so powerful it cut through your lies and erased my entire existence from your head? What willyouhave?”
Not waiting for a reply, Rowan turned and left. Maybe Hayleigh would listen, maybe she wouldn’t, but Rowan hoped at some point, one way or another, she would realize that greed’s hunger was a pit with no bottom, and that those driven by it would always want more.
But Rowan couldn’t concern herself with that.
There was one last thing she needed to do, and then all her unfinished business would be complete. She would face her New Year with a clear conscience, knowing she had done all that she could.
41
Rowan paced behind the public house, hands clasped at her back, readying for what was to come. Outside, the sounds of a gathering crowd swelled, but she didn’t dare look. No good would come of it. Tiny crowd, massive crowd—either would intimidate in its own way.
Stephan arrived, Zaide at his side. “It’s time!” said her big brother, clapping his hands. “You ready?”
“Never.”
“Too bad, bitch,” said Zaide, grinning. She walked up and tapped Rowan on the nose. A flush of warm magic flowed out of her touch.
“What was that?” Rowan asked, clapping her hands over her mouth as her voice came out loud—very loud.
“That,” cackled Zaide. Rowan shook her head and leaned over to embrace her oldest friend. Stephan followed with a bear hug, squishing them all together.
“All that’s left to do is do it,” said Stephan.
“Good one,” said Rowan. “You read that on a candy wrapper?”
“A meme, actually,” returned Stephan.
“We are well and truly fucked as a species,” said Zaide.
They released, laughing, and Rowan turned to face the ladder that would take her to the top of the public house. A flat expanse of field stretched between it and the warehouse where the meeting was taking place. If fortune was on their side, it would be full of people who had gathered to protest the Goshen Group’s acquisition.
Hand by foot, she made her way up and finally clambered to the roof. They had swept it clean, but she was still careful to test her footing. Finally, she stood on shaking legs.
The sight ahead took her breath away. As far as she could see, in all directions, stretched a crowd. They’d filled the field and spilled into the festival grounds and even into the streets. In the low sun of the retreating day, every face was lit with a light—lanterns, candles, flashlights, glow sticks, even an unwise flare or two, whatever they could get their hands on—the coven had been busy gathering and distributing them, and they’d done their job well.
Rowan opened her awareness, viewing the crowd as dots of brilliant energy, utterly entangled.
Her white hair curled around her like a storm cloud as she leveled her gaze at the windows of the warehouse’s second-floor meeting room. Figures huddled there in silhouette, peering out at the gathered crowd. Her eyes traveled to one in particular, and though he was too far away to make out every detail of his face, she could sense his eyes on her.
He’d shown up.
“Thanks for coming, everyone!” she called, voice amplified by Zaide’s magic. A cheer erupted in reply. “Up there, right now, the Goshen Group is trying to buy our future.” A strong chorus of boos. “Yeah, that’s how I feel about that too.”
She sobered a little, the energy of the crowd following her. “Things are hard out there right now, but Elk Ridge has been herebefore. We’ve done what we needed to do, risen to the occasion, adapted and survived, together as a community. Thirty years ago, everyone came together to build this…” She gestured to the festival grounds. “We can do it again. I know you’ve seen what we’re proposing, and that you’re excited. Because some of you have already sent usa lotof messages…Yes, Roy, I promise we’ll have some senior-friendly Samhain treats.”
“Broke my last pair of teeth on a damned candied apple!” came a reply from the crowd.
She continued, “But I want to make sure you understand something—no one here can promise this is going to work. No one can ever promise that anything truly important is going to work out, and that’s really scary. Like existentially terrifying. And it is so much easier to shut down, give up…” Her voice momentarily lowered, but it picked back up as she gestured toward the conference room. “Or hand over everything to someone with an easy answer, so you don’t have to try so damn hard anymore.”
She paused, and the pause emphasized the silence that had fallen over the crowd.
“People take a lot of different meanings from the winter holidays, but what’s consistent is—never give up. Don’t give up on yourself and don’t give up on each other. Trust that you can do it, that we can all do it.”
Rowan lifted her chin to the sky and looked back at the figure in the window. “Because like someone once said to me, it’s worth taking chances for ourselves, and for the people we love.” Her voice quieted as she said, “It’s worth everything.” After a beat, she continued, “So, if, after all that, you’re still with me, I want you to look right up at those windows and chant. Tell them you want to keep these festivals by, for, and of Elk Ridge! By, for, and of Elk Ridge!”
There was a brief, terrible moment in which it seemed like no one would join in, but then the window of the conference room opened, and Gavin’s rich voice called, “By, for, and of Elk Ridge!”
