Page 47 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
“The major ones,” he says, frowning. He points across at Orion. “We all know that one. I always search for Orion’s Belt, then the bow and arrow. And the plow, of course. But my favorite is the Pleiades.”
“The Seven Sisters?”
“Yes! You know it too?”
I grin, still staring skyward. “It’s the first constellation I always search for, wherever I am, wherever I’ve traveled to. I always hope I’ll see it, because it’ll make me feel like I’m home.”
“Have you heard the myth?” Matthieu asks.
“Tell me.”
He bites his lip, then pulls me closer. “Well, they supposedly represent the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas. As he held up the world, he could no longer protect them from Orion...” He points to Orion, and my eyes track to the constellation. “... so Zeus turned them into stars. It’s the brightest cluster in the night sky.”
“Who told you about them?”
“My mother,” Matthieu says softly. “She loved stories of all kinds, myths, legends, the ones that traveled the world appearing in many forms and languages. They were the ones she sought out, and then she would tell them to me. And... Henri.”
“She sounds wonderful.”
Matthieu hesitates. “She was.”
I take in the enormity of the past tense, keeping my gaze fixed on the stars. He’s told me a little about his brother, but I didn’t know his mother had also passed.
“She—she liked it here. She said the mountains are so old that they are somehow alive. Neither malignant nor good, but with moods and stories of their own to tell.” He sighs. “She would have liked you.”
I let those words hang in the air between us, not wanting them to blow away.
“If you could wish for anything, what would it be?” I ask, glancing at him.
“Anything?”
I lie back against the pile of cushions, and he settles in beside me. “Anything. The next shooting star we see, we both have to make a wish, then remember it until tomorrow. And if we do that, it’ll come true.”
“All right,” he says, reaching for my hand. “And we don’t tell each other?”
“We keep it a secret. Or it won’t come true.”
Our breath fogs up in front of us, the sounds of the mountain becoming louder in the silence. I listen to the scurry of hidden creatures, to the creaks as the mountains shift and stretch. And then, under that blanket of starlight, the longest trail of a shooting star I’ve ever seen crosses the night sky. I breathe in softly, hurriedly whispering my wish in my mind. Then I close my eyes and smile, letting that dream sink in, hoping with every fiber of my being that it will come true.
Matthieu’s arms come around me, and I feel the softest kisses gently grazing my mouth. “I made my wish,” he says before giving me one final, longer kiss. Then he moves away to pull his backpack toward us and starts to unpack the thermos of hot chocolate and the cookies. He pours me a mug, and I sip it slowly, savoring the bitter richness of the chocolate.
“I never talked much about what it was like growing up in Woodsmoke,” I say, realizing it’s time. That I can’t shy away fromit, that someday he’ll find out, and I want him to hear it from me. He shared about his brother Henri, and I feel like he’s been making this space for me to share when I’m ready. That this is the way this relationship works, with a transaction of shared details about our past lives. “My family has a complicated history in this town, and it’s part of the reason why I left.”
He pours his own mug of hot chocolate, giving me the space to speak. “Tell me.”
So I do. I tell him about theMorgan Compendiumand Ivy’s neglected candle shop. He asks if Cora still has the book, and I say yes. I tell him that one day it’ll pass to me. Then I tell him about Jess and how we grew up glued together. How I thought it would always be that way between us. I show him the sliver of scar on my hand, the twin to hers, carved the night we promised to always be sisters.
And then I tell Matthieu what happened in the end with Tom. My voice cracks as I recount the moment of realizing that we were too different, that we weren’t meant to be. But then it hardens like granite when I tell him about hitching up my wedding dress and running. About how I’ve been running ever since then—seeking, never stopping, trying to fill the gaps in my heart. I tell him that I was afraid of coming home, even though I desperately wanted to, and that finally doing it has been both a breaking and a healing. I admit that I haven’t been able to reconcile those divided feelings.
Then I stumble and go quiet as I think about trying to tell him that meeting him has changed me, enabled me, like some wayward weed, to plant myself and take root in the harsh winter ground. This homecoming has not been easy. But each day I wake in Woodsmoke, I feel the thrum of the place in my bones and my restless heart settling. I feel that I belong here now in a way I never felt growing up. Maybe, as I learn to love this place andembrace every facet of it—and myself—I will accept the magic and the mountains as a part of me in a way I never did before.
I will tell him. I will. But tonight is for starlight, and tomorrow belongs to the future.
He listens to it all, and by the time we finish our hot chocolates, the mugs are cooling to stone in our hands. When the clouds plume over the stars, casting us in a thicker darkness, I am renewed—whole in a way I didn’t think I’d ever be again.
“Carrie, the more I learn about you, the more I see how you’re meant to be here. How much you love the place.” He takes the mug from my hand and turns to me, trailing soft, fluttering kisses over my mouth. I relax into him, into his touch, his warmth, as he lays me down on the blanket. And under that velvet sky, he takes his time, as he said he would. My heart fuses to his as I wrap my arms around him, knowing that I belong.
Later, as we take the trail back down the mountain, making our way home to the cottage and the caravan, I ask Matthieu if he wants to stay with me tonight instead of returning to his cabin.
