Page 53 of Thistle Thorns

With a panicked cry, I snuffed out my magic and stumbled back.

Twang. Twang. Twang-twang-twang went the portal thread as it popped loose of its holdings and vanished from sight.

The mirror shuddered, snapping and creaking like an old house on the verge of collapse as it returned to its original shape. Uncle Badger rushed forward with glowing brown-green hands to assess the damage.

Meanwhile, Aunt Eranthis was bent over, hands on her knees, her glasses held pinched between two fingers as she fought for breath. With a start, I realized the rest of my family was doing the same. I’d never seen them so weakened before. Then again, it wasn’t like contacting a demon in the Unseelie Court was a daily occurrence. I was panting a little, more from the anticipation than anything else, and Grandmother stood ramrod straight nearby, obviously nearing the end of her patience by the way her fingernails dug into her trouser legs as she waited for Aunt Eranthis to collect herself.

“The frame won’t hold if we do that again,” Uncle Badger informed quietly, coming away from the mirror. He’d retrieved the censer with the hearth ember too, the little coal looking somewhat pitiful with its muted glow.

“Why did you stop?” Grandmother finally demanded of her niece. She snatched the ember from Uncle Badger and gave it a magical boost.

“You couldn’t feel it?” Aunt Eranthis answered, giving Grandmother an incredulous look. “The portal thread was fraying under our hands!”

“Meadow was tacking it perfectly.”

“That has nothing to do with it—it was fraying. It’s too thin. The hour it is to disappear is imminent, and the strain of drawing it here from its origin point is putting too much stress on it.” She shook her head. “It’ll snap if we do that again. We… we must do this on site.”

Grandmother stiffened, but it was Mom who verbally protested. “Meadow can’t go outside the protection of the hearth!”

“But it takes nine witches to do this spell,” Aunt Eranthis said miserably.

“Is there any way we can pare it down?” I asked. “Take out something that’s not needed, that doesn’t require magic to activate?”

“Not unless we want an In-Between creature slipping through or another demon seizing hold of our connection,” Dad said grimly. “We’re getting Marten back, not releasing an eldritch being on the world.”

Grandmother released an agitated growl from the back of her throat, realizing there was nothing to be done, and sliced her hand through the air. I felt the spells of my house arrest disappear. “Take the mirror,” she barked. “We’re going into the woods.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

My family moved quickly. We hadn’t spared the time to don winter boots or coats or hats and gloves, so the night nipped at our ears as the unyielding ground pressed hard against our house shoes.

Our late-night trek across the wildflower fields roused the pixies hibernating in the birdhouse, but only the big one, the one who’d taken the most offense to my snubbing of their gifts of marbles and feathers when I’d first come to Redbud, left the comfort of its coyote-fur-lined nesting box. With a curious and sleepy trill, it fluttered on dragonfly-like wings to land on my shoulder. It was as light as a hummingbird, and I barely felt it as its tiny fingers took hold of my ear. It chirped its question again, wondering why I wasn’t asleep.

“Witchy business,” I murmured. “Go on back to bed, Dart.”

The pixie did no such thing. We were friends now, after all. It rose from my shoulder and flitted higher, scouting the way to the eastern woods.

Otter and Uncle Badger carried the mirror, and the rest of the Hawthorne witches formed a defensive circle around them with me in the center beside them. I held the Hawthorne ember in one cupped palm—for my protection, Grandmother had said.

Sawyer, in his infinite feline sneakiness, dodged between Aunt Peony and Aunt Hyacinth’s legs, and I pretended to trip over the flattened wildflower stalks to dip low and snatch him up. He disappeared into my foraging bag within seconds, his weight comforting.

There was a single light on in the hobs’ barn, and it bobbed as it was brought to a frosted window and illuminated a few faces pressed up against the glass. Lifting a hand, I waved them over.

The barn door slid open just enough for a hob to slip through the opening, and Roland hustled over, his thick brown eyebrows disappearing beneath his hat in mute question.

“Everyone to the farmhouse,” I told him, never once losing stride.

His shorted legs quickened into a jog to keep up with us. “What’s going on, lass?”

“Just a precaution.” The hearth’s wards weren’t extending past the porch now, and I didn’t want them unprotected. Our recent summoning efforts had not only weakened the Hawthorne ember, but the farmhouse hearth too. With the Hawthorne ember in the censer on this little field trip into the eastern forest, it was up to the farmhouse flames to pick up the slack even as it recovered.

The forced calm in my voice alerted him to the possibility of trouble more so than my words did. Roland gave me a crisp nod and broke away from the pack of witches, whistling sharply to gather the hobs’ attention.

The light of the crescent moon proved strong enough to light our way to the moonflower grove without anyone twisting an ankle on the black walnuts I or the squirrels hadn’t harvested. Grandmother and Aunt Hyacinth slapped aside some of the spindly elderberry shrubs to make room for the mirror to pass through without getting scratched, using their hands for the task in order to reserve their magic.

The clearing was alive with pearlescent light as the flowers eagerly stretched up their many-petalled blooms to the night sky. Nearby, the red thread of the portal’s echo flickered as it steadily dimmed, destined to vanish all too soon.

As quietly as they could, Uncle Badger and Otter set the mirror down as close to the portal thread as they could get it without interrupting the beam. The leaves crunched under the stand, their crackling seeming to echo far louder than it had any right to. But the eastern forest was quiet, bare trees and silent conifers standing tall in a breezeless night. I found myself staring into their depths, the familiar pull of curiosity to explore the wilder, darker places of the world rising from where it had lain dormant.

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