Page 75 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
What she didn’t say was she’d already prepared the candles she needed, well before the changes to her magic took hold. Now, it was only a matter of time before the curse day arrived. Then, she could light them, and all would be as it should.
Chapter Forty-Two
Honeysuckle House, 1986
Though Regina may have tried to ease Linda’s fears about the curse, the house knew Linda was worried about what the day’s magic might bring. Just as worried as Honeysuckle House itself. It had lost so many of the people it loved. It didn’t know if it could handle any more deaths. When the sun rose, it pulled Linda’s quilt from her sleeping form. She tried to tug it back up, but the house wouldn’t let her. Linda rose from bed with a hand on her lower back and threw a robe over her nightgown, then slid her feet into a pair of slippers.
The house watched as she made her way downstairs, carefully cradling each of her footsteps to prevent even a single creaking floorboard. When she reached the kitchen, a steaming cup of raspberry tea waited for her on the counter beside still-warm toast.
“Thank you,” she said.
The house was glad to offer her this comfort.
“Mom wants to deal with the curse herself, but I’m not so sure,” Linda said, hands wrapped around her mug. “She has only me to lose. I have Robert.” She set the tea down and held a hand over her belly and, with a certain reverence in her voice, said, “I have Florence.”
The house opened the window above the sink, sending a gust of cold October air into the room, trying to draw Linda’s attention to the yard.
“A little chilly, don’t you think?” Linda started to close the window, but the house wouldn’t let her. Not until she saw her mother outside making her way toward the apiary. Because if Regina was at the apiary, it meant she wasn’t in the attic with the spell she’d been preparing all week.
The house made the lights in the kitchen glow a little brighter.
“You wanted me to see her?” Linda asked.
The kitchen bulbs blinked off then on. Behind Linda, the house dropped a frame from the wall, drawing her attention back to the doorway. When she turned, the house turned off all the lights save one in the hallway.
Linda set her cup down and walked toward it; as she did, the house made the next bulb glow and the next, leading Linda all the way up to the third floor. She paused at her mother’s bedroom, gripping the doorframe as she took several steadying breaths. If the house could’ve, it would’ve carried her the rest of the way.
“Just hold on a little longer,” she said as she rubbed her belly before she made the final climb into her mother’s attic room.
Part XIDeath
The end of something old to make way for the beginning of something new.
Chapter Forty-Three
Clara, Now
The day after the house lost control of the gas stove, Clara held Angela’s hand as they crossed the street from the coffee shop to Ink & Pages. Angela’s mom had put extra whipped cream on Clara’s hot chocolate. All down Main Street flags hung from the lampposts. Though Clara was still learning to read, she had no problem piecing together the words “Burdock Creek Fall Festival,” which curved over and under an illustration of Honeysuckle House. She hugged Ink tightly to her chest as she tried not to cry reading them.
She’d kept the kitten overnight. Angela had called Florence and told her about the second fire while her mom sat at Angela’s kitchen counter with a cup of tea and the look she only ever got when Aunty Flo “was being particularly difficult.”
Clara had shouted, loud enough, she hoped, that Florence could hear, “Do you want us to bring Ink back to the shop? I don’t want you to be lonely!”
With a smile, Angela handed Clara the phone.
“Aunty Flo!” Clara said.
“Are you and Ink okay?” Florence asked.
“It was scary, but I know Mom will protect us.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “It sounds scary. I think maybe you should hold on to Ink for tonight, so he feels safe.”
Ink hopped onto the counter beside her and butted his head against her hand.
“I can do that,” Clara said.
“Then tomorrow you can bring him by the shop,” her aunt said.
