Page 53 of Bewitched By the Headless Horseman
Roxy followed Stevie as she pulled out the pasta and two different sauces to start cooking for her mom. While filling the pot with hot water, the doorbell finally rang.
“White or red sauce? That’s the conundrum I’m giving you.” She grinned as she opened the door. “So—”
Stevie’s mom grasped her chest through her blouse, beads of perspiration dotted her brow, and her skin was as pale as snow. “My heart. It just hit me,” she stuttered, her breath ragged. “It’s slowing.”
Stevie’s own heart stilled and she wrapped her arm around her mom’s waist as she collapsed forward. “We have to go to Ginger’s. Let me get you to my car.”
“I’ll be fine,” her mom promised. “Your dad can take me later.”
“There isn’t time for that!” Stevie wouldn’t wait around for the organ to slow further. It had only been inside her mom’s rib cage for half the month.
Her mom didn’t have the strength to argue, and so Stevie helped her into the passenger seat, then called Ginger as she drove toward the witch’s house.
“Hello?” Ginger answered.
“Ginger, are you home? It’s my mom. Something’s going on with her heart,” Stevie said hurriedly.
“I just came back from the apothecary, so you can bring her straight here. I’ll meet you outside.”
“See you in a couple of minutes.” Stevie ended the call and was about to scroll to her dad’s name when her mom’s trembling hand gently pressed to Stevie’s. “Don’t call Jack. You’re already taking me there. No need to worry him just yet.”
Stevie still wanted to call her dad, but she didn’t want to stress her mom out more and make matters worse. She would wait and see how things played out.
For the first time in ages, tears stung Stevie’s eyes, and she blinked them away. Her mom had always been there for her, through tears, heartbreak, holidays, nervousness, excitement. Stevie wouldn’t go down the dark path of possibilities.
As promised, Ginger was waiting on the porch when Stevie arrived. The witch rushed to help Stevie’s mom out of the car,and Stevie looped her arm around her mom from the other side. Her mom’s body trembled, her balance wobbly. Not once when her mom’s heart was due for another had she ever seen her this frail.
“You know where to take her. I’ll retrieve the pig’s heart,” Ginger said after they crossed the threshold.
Stevie walked her mom to the basement door as Ginger fled out the back. They slowly descended the stairs and Stevie led her to a wooden chair near the cauldrons. She then grabbed a smock from a hook on the wall and draped it around her mom.
“Do you need anything else?” Stevie asked after snapping the smock at the back of her neck. “Besides a heart.” She tried for humor, but her tone only came out worried as she knelt in front of her mom and held her shaking hand.
“Tell me about the meeting with the Crowned Witch like you were going to over lunch,” she urged, her breath growing more ragged.
Stevie nodded and told her everything, and instead of becoming distressed, her mom only nodded. “You like him.” Concern slipped out in her tone. “The Horseman.”
“Are you worried because he’s centuries older than the both of us?” Stevie drawled with a small smile. “Because really, he’ll still look young. I’ve seen his head, remember?”
Her mom frowned. “I don’t care about that. I just care about you getting hurt if you can’t save him.”
Stevie’s smile faltered, but before she could reply, the basement door creaked open and Ginger’s footsteps pounded down the steps. Blood smeared her hands, and a few drops spilled to the floor. “We don’t have time to be nice and tidy. Grab the yellow powder just above the jar of bat eyes over there, then sprinkle it on the heart for me.” Ginger pointed to the shelf in the corner.
Stevie fumbled through a few glass jars until she found the necessary one. She unscrewed the lid and sprinkled the powder on top of the bloody organ. Ginger then chanted a low incantation, the heart rising and falling as it beat in the witch’s hand, before holding it out to Stevie’s mom.
Shakily reaching out, her mom grasped the organ. Her lips parted, her jaw stretched, and her mouth opened wider and unnaturally wider. Every instance she’d ever seen her mom do this, it wasn’t horror that coursed through Stevie but awe.
Her mom placed the beating heart inside her mouth, swallowing it whole, the squelching sound echoing throughout the basement. Stevie watched her mom’s throat bulge as the organ slid down to replace the dying heart.
“I hate that you had to see me like this,” her mom said, catching her breath, her blood-splotched hand on her chest. Already color returned to her pale face, her posture straightening.
As tears streaked Stevie’s cheeks, she folded her arms around her mom. “I’ll take you any way I can. It’s part of you, and I love you.”
Stevie drove to her parents’ house even though her mom said she was fine to take the car home. But just in case. She called her dad and Gideon, and her brother said he would bring their mom’s car later. Once her dad walked through the door, his face more worried than she’d ever seen him, he sank to his knees beside Stevie’s mom. Stevie stayed a little longer before letting her parents have some alone time together.
Near the apothecary, a familiar white form, that she could easily spot anywhere, and no, not only because of his missing head, but by the way Kit sauntered down the sidewalk, assuredin his movements as if he owned up to his name the Headless Horseman. She slowed the car into a parking space along the curb and rolled down the window. “Need a ride, stranger?” she called, making her accent come out deeply Southern. “I think you know these parts better than I do.”
Kit’s steps halted and his shoulders racked with laughter as he whirled to face her. But then he stilled, coming to her car in three long strides. “What happened? You’ve been crying.”
