Page 76 of Witchlore
My phone buzzes, interrupting my thoughts. It’s Bastianagain. I look at the clock. It’s two in the morning. I’m surprised he’s awake.
I know I lied to you but I didn’t lie about what I feel for you.
I turn my phone face down and my lamp off, rolling over and burying my tears in my pillow. For some reason, that’s the hardest part of all of this, because even if that’s true, does it make it any better? All it means is that despite what he thought he felt, he didn’t feel it enough to be honest with me. Only Elizabeth, I realize, has ever truly been honest with me. It’s time to get her back.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
At seven o’clock on Samhain morning, I am standing with Kira Tavi, looking down on the grave of my dead girlfriend. I’ve never been here before. I couldn’t go to the funeral and I’ve not really had the heart to come on my own, worried about running into her parents. The headstone is bright white marble, so fresh it looks like it’s made of polystyrene. There are all sorts of mementos left around it, drooping balloons and dying flowers turning brown in plastic wrappers and, a clear sign of witch visitors, a row of small semiprecious crystals and gemstones on top of the headstone.ELIZABETH TOPPINGS, BELOVED DAUGHTER. It’s weird that it’s the only thing people will know about her in the future. Not that she loved history and could do backflips on the trampoline and was obsessed with red and green gummi bears. I feel a flash of mourning for all of those lost tiny things and that one day she’ll disappear in history, just like my shifter’s name. Beside me, Kira pulls a polished rose quartz out of her pocket and leaves it on the top, touching the headstone respectfully.
“No one’s ever told me why covens do that,” I say.
“It’s a superstition, really.” Kira looks a bit uncomfortable. “It’smeant to… I don’t know, mean her magic goes on through other witches.”
I nod.
“Well, if we get her back she’ll have to redistribute them,” I say, trying to joke, but Kira only frowns.
“No, she’ll keep them. They are well-wishes for her magic. Obviously.”
I glare at her for assuming that everything in witch culture is obvious to a person who isn’t even allowed to be part of a coven.
“I should warn you, every time I’ve touched an ingredient for this spell, I’ve shifted,” I say, pulling a jar for the dirt out of my backpack.
“Well, why don’t I get it, then?” She kneels down to scrape up some dirt.
“Oh. Yeah. Right.” It’s pretty sensible when I think about it, but I don’t want to think about it, because then I’m going to think about Bastian pushing me away from a boggart’s path, pulling me out of the ocean, holding the summoning spell so steady while I reached for the Black Shuck.
“So your shifts, they’ve been because of this spell?” Kira asks, taking the jar from me. Looking at it reminds me of Shasta’s jar. I imagine Bastian at Shasta’s grave collecting it, kneeling in front of a headstone by himself. I feel a pang for him then, lonely and stressed, missing Shasta, searching for a way to get him back. Then I remind myself I don’t care because he’s a liar.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Interesting.” She drops a handful of dirt into the jar with a frown. “Do you have any other magical symptoms? Dreams? Nightmares?”
I nod mechanically. Soon, however, it will all be over, and then I won’t care about the dreams or the shifter from long ago. I’ll have Elizabeth back.
“What are they about?”
“That’s not important.” I’m not about to share dreams with Kira Tavi. She’d probably make me journal about it.
“It might be.”
I shrug. I can hardly tell her that I’ve dreamed about her great-aunt’s death. I might not like Kira very much but I’m not a dick.
“Do you think it’s possible that your great-aunt’s shifter could have tried the resurrection spell?” I ask instead.
Kira leans back on her heels and stares at me.
“Why?”
“Because I wonder… if that’s how they died.” I glance at all the headstones around me. For all we know, they could be buried here, an ivy-covered gravestone with no one left to visit it. “You said they disappeared after your great-aunt died, but I wonder if they used the spell to try and bring her back and died, just like Bastian’s friend did.”
Kira stares at me and then screws the lid on the jar.
“Can you expand on that?” she asks. That’s a question that takes me straight back to the hospital, to sitting in a room with Counselor Cooper, and I smile dryly.
“You really do want to be a counselor, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she says, without a hint of irony. “Can you? Expand?”
