Page 27 of Thistle Thorns

“Neither did I.” Well, perhaps that wasn’t true. Maybe I’d just been a seed at Hawthorne Manor waiting for the right time and conditions to grow.

Suddenly nervous, I wet my lips. “Am I really Violet’s heir?” I had seen her in my hallucinations brought on by Flora’s moonflower milk bath, but that’s all I’d thought it was, a hallucination. Not an echo of the past.

Mom cast a furtive glance at the trap door, propped open only by the little wedge I kept up here for that exact purpose. There was a reason why we were up here and not in front of the family.

“Mom, what is it?”

Her sudden inhale sounded wobbly, like she was stifling a sob. “I’m forbidden from speaking about—” She shook her head, her springy curls bouncing. “But I’ll do the best I can. I’ll not have you unprepared. Not again.

“The Hawthornes are not hearth witches by birth. We’re green witches, through and through, and our ancestors only learned hearth witchery to disguise ourselves. To hide from him.”

When I opened my mouth, she gave me a miserable shake of her head—the gag order forbade her from speaking his name.

“There is an aspect of green magic,” she whispered hurriedly, “what Violet had, that is beyond what is considered the norm. We Hawthornes have control over the Life and Death aspects of Nature’s green magic, as is our birthright, but it is Violet’s heir who will be like Violet herself: sister to Mother Nature, if the legends can be believed. She is a primal force, Meadow, able to control not just the earth and all growing things, but aspects of water, fire, and air.”

Dread like a poisonous vine sprouted in my stomach and constricted against my heart. I had summoned true fire less than twenty-four hours ago, encircling the fiáin in a ring of green flames to prevent its escape. And air magic before that, on the outcropping of the Tussock woods when we’d made the Hunting Spell. I’d thought that was just me maturing into some latent bloodline abilities, but now I wasn’t so sure.

“It is that ability that makes Violet’s heir a target,” she said. “It’s been our job, the robed elders of the coven’s mission, to make that target as small as possible. Do you remember what I told you about horoscopes?”

I found the abrupt change in topic distracting and squeaked out a noncommittal noise as I wracked my brain for an answer.

While astrology was an honored pastime among witches and other supes, the humans of our day had made it a laughingstock. Us youngsters at the manor had always enjoyed reading our horoscopes in the daily newspaper, one of few “outside world” things Grandmother allowed us access to. Hawthorne Manor was our haven, our own microcosm of safety and harmony, but she didn’t want us oblivious to the wider world around us. Mostly.

“Yeah,” I said brightly, remembering. “You said never to read them at the beginning of the day, otherwise we might influence our own actions just to make them come true. It’s better to read the horoscope after your day is complete to really see if its predictions were accurate. But what—”

“The same can be said about prophecy. That simply knowing about it will make it manifest, like some sort of magical theory of relativity. Because knowing would influence your actions, consciously or subconsciously, all of which would expose you. That’s one of the things we were preventing by taking that vow. The less you knew, and the more you were hidden, all decreased the chances of that prophecy ever coming about.”

“How can that be? It’s about Violet being reborn, or at least her power, or whatever. Y’all been pretty sketchy about the details. Either way, it sounds like a sure thing to me.”

“The prophecy was not just about Violet’s heir.” She held my hands once again in a pleading grip, her ivy-green eyes intense. Burning with a need for me to understand. “But the one who seeks her. And the choice she will make when he finds her.”

This master Grandmother keeps talking about. “Who?” I demanded, fingers tightening. “What choice?”

Mom’s mouth formed soundless words, then she released my hands in frustration. “I cannot speak of it,” she spat, her anger not directed at me. Then she gave me a rueful sideways glance. “You’ll have to teach me how you broke that spell I had on your cuffs. Normally it’s impossible for one witch to break a spell already so thoroughly entrapping her.”

“I did a lot of growing up here in Redbud,” I replied.

She came close and smoothed a roguish wisp of rain-dampened hair away from my face, adjusted my ponytail to drop down my back instead of smear wetly against my shoulder. “Yes, you have.”

The touch brought back the memory of Arthur doing the same thing under the maple tree, and I pulled away, flushing. “Mom, this protection spell, it seems it shrouded me from detection, but did it have any other effects? Any… dampening effects?”

She gave me a quizzical look.

I touched my chest, at the top of my left breast where my heart was. “I have this… connection with Arthur. It was just like a thread, or a tether, before—almost magnetic—but when I stabbed the half-heart and broke the curse, it became so much more substantial. So much stronger. It’s like a chain now, and I don’t understand it. Do you?”

Mom shook her head. Then she said, almost reluctantly, “I know nothing of that, but it is within the realm of possibility that the protection spell shielded you from everything you might be fated to interact with, not just him. It was very strong.”

“Forsythia,” Aunt Hyacinth called suddenly.

Though it was her cousin’s voice, we both knew it was Grandmother who was summoning her.

Mom seized my shoulders. “The Circle of Nine does not have the strength to cast the kind of protection spell needed to keep you hidden. You must be careful, Meadow. You must be prepared for anything. The legends we told you at Hawthorne Manor are true. The elders are spelled to silence; no one but Grandmother can give you the whole story. But… it might very well be your ignorance of the prophecy that saves you.”

“My ignorance got us here in the first place,” I hissed.

“Forsythia!” Aunt Hyacinth shrilled.

“Hide in plain sight, Meadow,” Mom told me, opening the trap door. She checked that the coast was clear, then lowered the ladder. “If you don’t know what you are, neither will he.”

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