Page 73 of A Spell for Midwinter's Heart
What had once seemed empty was now so very, very full.
Rowan reached out for Zaide’s hand, and when she saw the expression on her old friend’s face, she was certain Zaide heard it too.
“Witch pot,” she whispered.
“Fuckingwitch pot,” repeated Zaide.
They burst into laughter, and the laughter joined the song, and in that moment, the possibilities seemed endless.
27
December 25
The Fifth Day of Yule
The second round of snow was gentler than the first—arriving Christmas morning with little fanfare. It passed in intermittent flurries, dusting the surface of the old snowfall, but not to the depths they had hoped. Rowan kept finding excuses to pass by the window and check its progress, disappointed every time, trying not to note the way her mother did the same.
Christmas was a subdued occasion in the Midwinter home, being one day among many instead of the whole shebang, but they’d always spent it focused on her father’s traditions. Joe Midwinter woke up with the dawn so that oozing sticky buns arrived fresh out of the oven as soon as everyone else was up.
Stephan arrived with a reindeer-horn-clad Ozzy and a thermos of quality coffee, and they tore free bites of steaming, cinnamon-infused dough, hands sticky with honey and molten sugar. The dog scoured the floor with his wiggling nose, catching anything that fell.
When their hands were clean and bellies full, they opened the stockings, which were full of small useful things Joe had gatheredover the year in hardware store sales. Things he assumed, correctly, that his adult children had failed to buy for themselves. Rowan shook free a glasses repair kit, jacket patching material, and a small set of hex wrenches.
After stockings came gifts. Ozzy received a fresh blanket and many bags of treats. Liliana handed each of them a jar of rose-colored candies wrapped in ribbon. Pop one in your mouth at the onset of a coming malady and the illness would likely pass with little fuss. They tasted terrible, but they worked.
Joe had built Liliana a new greenhouse, and for Stephan he’d put together a worktable. “You can’t fit anything I make onto a plane,” he told Rowan. “And I know you’ve got no room in your apartment anyway, so here.” He handed her a check for thirty dollars made out to the SunlightCorps. “It isn’t much.”
She threw her arms around him and said, “It’s everything.”
With an inhale to stave off a rush of tears, she rose to distribute her gifts. For her mother there was a bag of material for spellwork, all reclaimed from thrifted garments of significance—wedding dresses, christening gowns, graduation robes. Carefully labeled so that Liliana would know what sort of energy she was dealing with.
Stephan’s gift was similar. More thrifted items for spellwork. Her father’s present was simpler—a bag of books she’d enjoyed that she knew he would appreciate as well.
Finally, Stephan handed out a series of red and green envelopes. First up was Joe’s—an image of woodland caribou, racing away through the trees. Her brother spent nearly all his free time in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest with Ozzy, laying down protective charms for endangered flora and fauna.
As his gift to each member of his family, he focused on a species of their choosing. After all, there were only so many treks one could take, and his family’s requests helped him make the difficult decision of where to focus his energies.
Joe’s voice was thick with emotion. “You found them this year.”
“I did,” said Stephan, and the two men embraced. Rowan hadn’t been there to see it, of course. Her envelope had come in the mail for the last many years. But she’d heard he hadn’t been able to find the caribou last year.
Liliana’s envelope contained a field of golden paintbrush flowers, their thick stalks rising high on a Washington prairie, while Rowan’s revealed the curious faces of tufted penguins peering out from a rocky gray strand of coast, their orange beaks a brilliant streak of color in the gloomy landscape.
Rowan had gone with him there once—mere months before she stopped casting. They’d kayaked to an offshore island and placed warding stones around its perimeter without stepping onto land, careful not to disturb any of the nesting pairs. As they’d left, she’d looked back and spied the colony arranged along a cliff’s edge, watching them go in silent vigil.
She’d been aware of something then, something she’d let herself lose sight of. Grand designs to save the world fell apart so easily, but small concrete actions to protect who and what you love?
That was magic.
The lumbering shape of her uncle’s brown pickup, topped with a white fiberglass shell, appeared in the driveway as her uncle and cousin arrived to join them in a walk to town. Drew sidled up alongside Rowan and shoved a small bottle into her hand.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Another present from your favorite uncle,” he said with a self-satisfied grin. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets with a jaunty walk.
“It’s a love potion,” warned Kel. Their crow followed along overhead, circling from tree to tree to match the progress of the human party.
“A love potion?” sputtered Rowan, and she shoved it back his way. “You expect me to use a love potion on someone?”
