Page 29 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
“It sounds like I may need to get another room for the night,” Owen said. “I can give you a ride.”
Florence glanced up at him. If ever there was a time to try to visit the house again, it was now. She was going to be thirty-nine in a few days. She needed to lay her old ghosts to rest.
But she couldn’t do that with Owen, not with the curse closing in on her.
“I need to watch the shop,” she said.
Owen took a quick look around them. The room was empty save the two of them and the cat.
“Are you sure?” Owen asked. “I’m already headed that way.”
She opened her mouth and almost agreed to go with him. Then she shook her head.
“I’ll put these here, then.” He set the cat food on the counter. “See you around?”
Florence nodded. “Thanks for this.”
His answering smile only made everything much worse. Florence watched him turn and walk away. Once he was well out of sight, she took a long, slow breath. Then, she flipped the sign to Closed and grabbed her bag, leaving her new kitten in the shop’s capable hands.
The fall chill still hung in the air. Florence let a breeze blow her loose hair across her face and opened the car door. She dropped her bag in the passenger seat, then took a steadying breath before she turned the key. The rain started up once more as she leftdowntown and followed the winding road that would take her to her childhood home.
With each passing second, her heart rate kicked up. Her hands felt sweaty, her chest and throat and face, hot. “You can do this,” she whispered to herself. As she neared the last bend in the road, her breath came in shallow gasps.
Her vision began to spot over.
Her throat constricted.
Her chest burned.
She moved the car to the side of the road and cut the engine. She dropped her head as she tried to catch her breath. Her tears fell hard and fast as rain pounded against the roof, and a sob tore through her throat.
“It’s not fair!” she shouted. “I’m supposed to be past this by now!” She cried, and she cried, and she cried. The house was only a few hundred feet away, just out of sight, but she couldn’t bring herself to see it. She closed her eyes tight, let the panic take her. It coursed through her hot and sharp until her breath came in shallow gasps and her whole body shook with the force of it. Then, the anger came.
“You did this to me!” she screamed as if her mother could hear her. “You made it impossible for me to go back there. I used to love that house. Now I can’t even look at it!”
She slammed her fist into the steering wheel, and the horn blared. “Dad is dead because of you. You kept us here. You knew what could happen to him, to any of us, and did nothing to stop it.”
Her voice had gone hoarse, but still she carried on.
“I’m supposed to be free from you. You’re gone, and I’m glad. I’ve been glad since the day it happened and I knew I’d never have to hear your voice again. You’d never get another chance to twist me up inside and make me doubt who I am and who I’ve become. You’d never get to hurt me. But here I am, still hurting and still broken and still unable to be who I need to be for Evie.”
Florence threw back her head and screamed. Everything she’d done to protect her family had been for nothing. She was as lost as she’d always been, still living in her mother’s shadow.
As she sat in her car on the side of the road weeping and raging and feeling more alone than ever, something warm brushed the fabric of her skirt. Then, a gentle kneading. She blinked her eyes open and swiped at her still-falling tears to find Ink—who she thought she’d left back at the bookstore—had crawled halfway out of her canvas bag and set to making biscuits out of her thigh.
He looked up at her through wide yellow eyes and meowed softly. Florence laughed through her tears and dropped her hand to scratch between his ears. He immediately butted his head against her palm and started purring. Though Florence worried after her niece and her magic and what it might mean for the curse, she found herself grateful for Clara’s spell.
She lifted Ink and held him to her chest as she looked out over her steering wheel, where she knew, just beyond the trees, Honeysuckle House waited for her. Ink rubbed his head against her chin, and she wept into his fur.
Part IVThe Five of Cups
A symbol of loss and grief and regret.
Chapter Fifteen
Florence, 1999
Unlike most twelve-year-old girls, Florence had never particularly cared for her birthday. It came every October, and every October her mom became stormy. At the slightest provocation, Linda would yell, slam a door, and fly out of the room, only to come back hours later and hold her children close and whisper apologies into their hair. Florence’s father would wrap his arms around them all and tell Linda they’d make it through this.
