Page 36 of A Spell for Midwinter's Heart
“I’m well aware of your grandmother’s feelings on the subject. And yours.” Birdie gave Liliana a look. They’d had this debate many times. “But as far as I’m concerned, the magic exists. People can choose to wield it. Sometimes hard choices need to be made. If the harm prevented is less than the harm done, the Rede is satisfied. Your neighbor had violence on his mind—your mother removed it.”
“She left him in a daze,” said Liliana. “He remembered nothing about what he was doing or where he was. He fell into a ravine on his way home. He almost died.”
“She couldn’t have known that would happen,” said Birdie, bristling.
“Which is exactly why she shouldn’t have done it.” Liliana shook her head. “There’s a line we don’t cross. People’s minds belong only to themselves.”
“Would it have been better if I’d pulled the water from his body to flood his lungs?” asked Birdie, folding her hands together and taking on a different cast. “Suffocating him until he agreed to leave us be?” Her shadow expanded behind her as if a much larger being sat in her place. It was a reminder that the bubbly old woman was, in fact, a powerful elder witch.
“Of course not,” said Liliana, her eyes widening. “But no one would claim that wasn’t doing harm, and all I’m saying is what Mom did was no better. And she did it all the time, in countless ways.” Drew stepped over and put an arm around his sister’s shoulder. She leaned into him gratefully.
There was a long, awkward silence.
“It’s hard to imagine her even being capable of magic that big,” murmured Stephan. His expression was troubled, rememberingMadeleine Midwinter in her last decade of life. They all were. By the end, she’d barely been capable of the littlest magic. She’d weighed eighty-five pounds at her death. The official diagnosis was cancer, but Liliana swore it was the magic that had hollowed her out.
The feeling Rowan had only started getting comfortable with, of the vibrant possibilities of magic all around, diminished at the stark reminder of how easy it would be for her to go terribly wrong.
Just like your grandmother.
She got to her feet with a start and headed toward the door to the deck.
“Rowan,” called her mother.
“I need some air.” She slipped her feet into heavy boots and, without even bothering to lace them, clomped out onto the back deck.
Rowan stopped as soon as she was outside, sweeping her gaze across the glittering white expanse of the forest, and took the first calm breath she’d managed since the conversation had turned to her grandmother.
The night was brighter than expected, lit by the luster of the moon on freshly fallen snow. It had continued to fall all day—at times in gentle showers, at others in torrents. By evening, the streets had filled with cars, crawling bumper to bumper. Every empty hotel room and vacation home had filled in the surge of people heading to the mountains in search of last-minute holiday memories.
It was everything they’d hoped for. Exactly what the town needed.
So why was she still so unsettled?
Every sound of the forest had been muffled, every cracked and uneven surface made smooth. Snow surrounded her boots to envelop her feet with every step across the unshoveled deck.
Joe Midwinter leaned against the railing, vanilla smokecurling from a dangled pipe. He straightened as she came to stand at his side, giving her a quiet nod. They enjoyed the pensive silence for a few minutes. Finally, Rowan glanced his way. His expression was melancholy, in stark contrast with the celebrating coven inside.
She nudged him with her elbow. “You don’t look happy. Why aren’t you happy?”
“Things’re back the way they should be,” he said with a nod.
But he stopped himself there, and she got the sense it was for her benefit. Whatever was eating at him, he didn’t want it to cast that shadow elsewhere.
Not one to let things lie, even if she were better off, she prodded, “But…?”
“Your mom’s banking on this to turn things around financially, and that’s…not realistic.”
Rowan’s heart fell as he gave voice to her own terrible cynicism, the underlying logic of the intellectual rebellion she’d gone through before agreeing to take part in the spell—quashed for her mother’s sake. Quashed because the last time she’d presumed to know better, she’d been terribly wrong.
“Most of the season’s gone. Christmas is three days away. Even if people flood us till New Year’s…” His voice trailed off, but Rowan knew what he wanted to say. It wasn’t enough time. “The festival’s showing its age. Same as us. It needs an update, but we don’t have the money to do it.”
“One person does,” muttered Rowan.
“You don’t want to hear this, but that one person has put a lot of money in over the years. Far more than his share.”
“Really?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
He nodded. “Whenever an expense too big popped up for the rest of us, he forked it over. He might’ve resented it, but he did it anyway—for Sarah. Dennis has got his flaws, same as the rest of us, but he’s deeply devoted to who and what he loves—her memory, his son, the mountain.”
