Page 22 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“Where are you parked?” I asked as I followed her toward the crosswalk. “You can just drop me at Union Station on your way home. There’s a bus to Manzanita at three.”
Reina stopped at the curb. “What kind of friend do you think I am? You just lost Pennyandhad to endure air travel. The least I can do is give you a ride home.”
I blinked. “Rein, you don’t have to do that. I know you’re busy, and you have a life.”
She nudged my shoulder with so much empathy that even the residual Xanax couldn’t stop it. “I’d never let you do this alone. At the very least, you need help cleansing the house, don’t you? I just got a new box of copal.”
My shoulder sank. So far, I’d avoided thinking about the tasks ahead of me. Collect Gran’s body from the morgue in Tillamook and arrange for its cremation. Clean the house in more ways than one and get it ready for immediate disposal. And at some point, I’d have to make my way up to Seattle and find Sibyl to...I honestly wasn’t sure. Whatever normal families did when someone died.
Some things, I already knew. Gran had never been quiet about her final wishes. In fact, sometimes she was downright morbid. Her trust was already taken care of, she had told me from the time I was young enough to understand, and in the event of her death, she was quite clear:alltraces of her were to be removed from the house and property as soon as possible. Every. Last. Bit.
I’d never asked why. It was Gran, after all. But in light of the horrible box currently sitting at the bottom of my closet, and now this…I suppose I’d have to start asking that question and more.
Nothing of concern, the coroner had informed me over the phone. She was old. Her heart gave out in the kitchen. She was found on the floor by the mailman.Natural causes.
I wasn’t so sure. Nothing with my grandmother was ever as it seemed.
“I should have been there,” I mumbled.
The hand on my shoulder gripped tighter. Sympathy again, paired with love. And pity. Reina wanted me to feel the depth of her sorrow, the understanding that lay there. She knew it wasn’t fine, but she also wanted me to know that no one blamed me for anything. At least not her.
“You don’t get to beat yourself up,” Reina said, even as I felt the truth of her words through her fingers. “Penny didn’t ask for a protector. You were living your life, and she was living hers. Her time was just here.”
“Thanks,” I said, leaning my head against her ponytail, which rose to approximately my shoulder. “I’m glad to see you. But you don’t have to come if you don’t want.”
“Shut up, Cassandra. I can’t stay because I have a shift at the hospital tomorrow night. But at least I can give you a ride in the morning.”
Considering the barrage of shadows that awaited me in my childhood home like gargoyles ready to pounce, I was suddenly more than happy to accept Reina’s offer.
“Thanks, Rein,” I said as I hiked my duffel farther up my shoulder. “I owe you one.”
“Try twenty,” Reina said, having already read my thoughts. “No one likes visiting houses of the dead, even when we loved them. Besides, it’s been almost a year since you’ve been home, you know. You owe me some ‘us time’ too.”
8
THEY CALL IT AQUA VITAE FOR A REASON
I was sober a while, but I’ll drink and be wise
For fear I should die in the end of thirst.
— THOMAS MACDONAGH, “THE YELLOW BITTERN”
“Are you sure you want to go out?” Reina called from her room as I got out of the shower.
I was struck with déjà vu, as much because I was back in the little greenhouse we’d shared the last two years of college as from the nature of the question. More than most, Reina knew how out of character my request was.
I paused in her doorway and cocked my head, heavy in a turbaned towel. “Now you ask me?”
My best friend chuckled from the bed, where she had been waiting for the shower to free up. “It feels like the right thing to do. I don’t mind if you want to spend the evening crying at ghosts roaming the bar, but it doesn’t seem like your favorite thing to do on a good day.”
I chuckled. I’d been imagining myself doing just that while I was in the shower. As soon as we’d arrived from the airport, I’d beelined for the bathroom while Reina lit a bundle of sage out of deference.Touch the water.
Normally standing under running water would calm the voices and dim the visions. And did. Except one.
Gran.
Touch the water.
