Page 64 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
Florence released his hands and turned toward the front door. She squared her shoulders and, with a deep breath, crossed over the threshold.
She took a halting step and stopped, one hand on the banister. It warmed beneath her touch. She rubbed the wood gently and reminded herself while her memories were true and awful, they were in the past. Florence was in the present moment. Her mom was gone, and the woman wouldn’t ever be able to speak a harsh word or lay a heavy hand on her again. The thought brought a weight to her chest, a mixture of sadness and relief. She’d lost so much time because of what her mother had done. But those days were gone. Florence was finally moving forward, and she wouldn’t let her mother’s decisions keep her from the people and places she loved ever again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Evie, Now
Evie stood in the old attic room in a pair of jeans and a loose gray T-shirt; she’d pulled her hair back beneath a scarf to protect it from dust and plaster. She lifted a sledgehammer, holding it with both hands, and prepared to swing.
“You’re taking a wall down?”
Evie whirled around to find her sister standing at the top of the spiral staircase. Were it any other house, she’d have heard Florence coming, but even with everything that had happened, it seemed Honeysuckle House still enjoyed surprises.
“You’re here?” Evie asked, shock clear in her voice.
“I should’ve been here yesterday,” Florence said.
“You should’ve,” Evie agreed.
Florence opened her mouth but waited a few moments to speak. Finally, she said, “I’m here now.”
She took a few steps forward until she was right next to Evie, her height forcing Evie to lean her head back to see her. Evie did her best to look like she was staring down her nose at her all the same.
Florence held a hand over her mouth as she surveyed the damage. “This room isn’t how I remembered it.”
“That’s because there’s a hole in the wall,” Evie said as if it were obvious.
Florence cut her a look. “No, I mean …” She stepped back and turned in a slow circle. “It felt smaller the last time I was up here. I thought it was because I was older; before Mom died, I hadn’t been in this room since Dad …” she trailed off, not finishing the sentence. “Mom must’ve put this up after that.” She rested a hand against the damaged wall. Then, she ducked down and stepped through it.
It took Evie a few moments to process what her sister was saying. She set the sledgehammer down and followed after her. Already, Florence stood at their mother’s altar, staring at the small table where Linda had done her spellwork. Evie had no memories of it. The only thing she remembered about this room were the warnings to not go in, and after that first time her mother grabbed her by the hair, Evie always listened to her sister’s warnings. At least, she had when they were kids.
“You mean you knew this was here,” Evie said.
“I’ve only been up here twice,” Florence said. “Once with you.”
The day their mother died.
“The answers we needed to end the curse were hiding in plain sight, and if you’d come by Honeysuckle House even once, you could’ve told me the room looked wrong. We could’ve broken this wall down and put an end to all of this. We could’ve been a family.”
“What do you mean, the answers to end the curse were right here?” Florence asked.
This was Evie’s chance to tell Florence what she found, but she didn’t know if Florence would see things her way. Evie wanted to bind the darkness in the house while protecting the part of it she loved. But the house had attacked Florence thirteen years ago. Evie knew her sister had never looked at it the same way since, and if she knew what Evie had discovered, she’d want to raze Honeysuckle House to the ground.
Evie dodged Florence’s question by waving a hand as if to encompass the whole room.
Florence reached for one of the crystals on the altar. “It looks like Mom was in the middle of a spell.” Then, she paused and glanced backat Evie. “Wait, did you just admit you didn’t break the curse with all your candles?”
“It’s kind of hard to pretend otherwise,” Evie said. As much as she wanted to believe her work would’ve broken the curse had Florence been at her side doing the same thing, the binding spell suggested neither of them had been right about that tarot reading.
Florence set the crystal down and turned back to face Evie. “Does that mean you’re canceling the festival?”
“For now.” Evie took a deep breath. Florence may have been gone for years, but she’d finally come home. This was their chance to work together. Evie tried to center herself, to convince herself Florence might actually help her if she told her the truth.
“I’m so relieved,” Florence said. “I thought I was going to have to drag you from here kicking and screaming so you wouldn’t be in the house on the thirteenth.”
Evie rolled her eyes. “I’m not a kid anymore, and we don’t even know if that would keep us safe. We weren’t able to leave when Dad died.”
“Becauseyouwouldn’t leave without your necklaces,” Florence said. As soon as the words left her mouth, the color drained from her face, but the damage had been done.
