Page 42 of The Witch's Rite
“I took Lucy out on the ice, thought it would be fun. It was sunny, a warmer day than we’d yet had that winter. The ice broke. She fell through.”
I can still remember her scream as the ice splintered and gave way, then the deafening silence after she slipped beneath the frigid surface.
Tears spring to my eyes, and I wipe them quickly on my forearm. Aurora’s brows pull together, her lips twisting into a frown.
“Rowan,” she whispers, bathwater sloshing as she leans forward. Her lips press against my cheek, then my forehead. She smells of roses and warmth and sunshine.
“My mother could scarcely stand to look at me after that,” I continue as Aurora presses more kisses to my face and along my jaw, “so my father sent me off to serve as a page for the royal court. I’ve not been home since.”
“You’ve not been home . . .at all?”
I shake my head.
“How long ago was this?” she asks.
“They sent me away when I was seven, so...” I do a quick count of the years in my head. It feels like a lifetime. “Eighteen years.”
She lets out a sound of surprise, then sits back in the tub. “Do you wish to return home?”
My shoulders rise in a shrug. Many evenings I’ve dreamt of home, of the rolling fields sprinkled with yellow-headed dandelions. I recall sitting in my mother’s lap while she read to me, then lying before the hearth in my father’s study, napping upon the plush rug bathed in the warmth of the flames.
But then I see Lucy’s face and remember the hollow ache of knowing she’d never again explore the woods with me or tiptoe down the moonlit corridors at night when we were supposed to be asleep in bed.
“I don’t know,” I say finally. “I’m not so sure it would even feel like home anymore.”
I let my head droop slightly, watch the pink-tinted soap bubbles swirling across the surface of the water.
“Lucy,” Aurora whispers softly. I glance at her just as her lips turn up a bit in the corners. “I wondered where you came up with that name. It’s lovely.”
I’d worried Aurora would find it odd that I named the hen after my late sister, but she just smiles some more and tilts her sudsy head. She looks a bit like a child, all covered in soap bubbles, and it makes me laugh, loosening some of the grief from my heart.
“Come here.” I wave her over. “Let me rinse that for you.”
She scoots back again, and I use a cup to pour water over her head, shielding her eyes from the soap suds with one hand.
Having shared this with her, I feel a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I’ve always felt such shame, such guilt for what I did. And though this doesn’t alleviate it, having spoken the truth out loud seems to be a balm of its own.
“What’s your secret?” I ask as I rinse. Her shoulders bunch up, and her fingers curl into fists. Again, I find it odd. She’susually a twirling, giggling ball of energy, her eyes like windows into her soul. Why is she acting so... nervous?
“Aurora?” I finish rinsing the soap and set the cup aside. “What is it?
Not meeting my eyes, she brings her legs up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “I... went to see the oracle today.”
The oracle, who’s also Faunwood’s healer.
My eyes narrow. Why didn’t she tell me earlier? “What happened?”
One of her shoulders lifts in a shrug. “I was out in the woods with Alden, collecting ingredients for the vine whisper elixir.”
“The what?”
She waves a hand like it’s not the point. “For the thornbugs. While we were out there, I got sick. So Alden took me into the village.”
Heat rises in my chest. Why didn’t Alden come find me? Aurora was sick, and she was right there in town, but he didn’t bother to seek me out. My jaw tenses. Sure, this whole “sharing Aurora” thing certainly isn’t a walk in the park, but I thought we were—
“Rowan.”
Aurora has turned to look at me over her shoulder, her green eyes serious as they hold my stare. Her use of my name refocuses me.
