Page 11 of A Bond with the Dark

“If we can, we will,” Hilda answers.

“Well,” I add, putting the picture into the pile I want to show, “we can do something in the meantime. Like a balloon release or something.”

“Oh, that would be lovely,” Maggie responds. Her voice sounds strained, as though she’s trying to sound excited, but it’s taking every ounce of her to do it.

Hilda stands, putting the pictures she’s looked through into the box and grabbing a new one. “I’ve never done one of those,” she replies, sitting with her new pile. “I’ve always thought it’d be cool.”

We lapse into a comfortable silence, pictures sifting and a dog barking outside the only sound.

An emptiness in the shape of Mama that weighs heavier than anything I’ve ever lifted pulls at me, and I fight with every ounce of who I am to not be pulled down to wherever that force wants me to go.

I know once I fall apart, it will take me a million times as long to put myself back together.

Seeing a beautiful picture of my mom in her twenties, before my sister and I came along and left lightning in her skin and wrinkles by her eyes, sets my heart to the metronome of life without her. Ticking by and empty, drifting aimlessly and heedlessly into the unknown.

Tears accumulate and fall onto the table.

The chair squeaks on the floor as Hilda rises, grabbing a tissue before she hands it to me, enveloping me in a hug.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without her,” I cry, holding the picture before me and letting my aunt rock me.

“So, let’s do some magick,” Hilda says, releasing me from the hug and playing with my hair.

Dabbing my eyes, I look up at her skeptically. “Really?”

“Yes, later tonight,” she says, combing my long locks with her fingers. “We’ll do a safe passage spell for your Mama and Dan and one for us for healing.”

“That sounds wonderful, Aunt Hilda,” I reply as she takes her seat, resuming her walk down memory lane with the pictures. “I found her runes and rowan wand in a box I had downstairs.”

Maggie’s eyes grow inquisitive. “The rowan wand she inherited from Grandma?”

“I believe so, yes. It was with all the other magickal things she gave me when I got cancer. Since she didn’t practice much after she met Dan. I can grab the box if you want to see it.”

“Would you please, sweetie?” Hilda requests, pouring more tea from the glass pitcher into her cup.

“Of course,” I say, scooting my chair back to get out.

I bound down to the basement to retrieve the box and return, setting it down on the dark stone dining table. “She’s got a bunch of stuff in here,” I say, shuffling through the contents until I find the wand and velvet pouch of runes.

When my skin touches the wand’s wood, a zap of electricity moves through my body like a live wire, a flash of those crystal blue eyes and thick dark lashes take over my vision. It stuns me for a few seconds, and when I look back at the aunts, they stare at me as though I’ve grown another head.

“What?” I ask.

“You’ve just been staring at nothing for a few minutes,” Maggie says, her magnified eyes behind her glasses all the larger to stare at me strangely. “Wondering if you’re all right.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m fine,” I stutter, trying to hide my confusion about what happened.

Sitting down to join them, I hand Maggie the red velvet pouch, and Hilda takes the wand.

As Maggie unties the pouch and pours the stone runes into her hand, I pick up the pictures I was looking through and pull out one of my mom and Janet.

Teenagers. Babies. At the beach in New Jersey. Mama’s curly golden locks are alight by the sun, and Janet’s fiery red hair burns just as brightly.

“They were so beautiful,” I say, turning the picture to show my aunts.

Maggie moves her glasses to her head and squints at the picture. “They were,” she says, her mouth turned upside down in concentration. “Otherworldly.”

“I wish I had a sister I was close to,” I reply, adding the picture to the Yes pile.

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