Page 70 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
“It’s not my responsibility,” Violet said aloud as she held up the gin, prepared to take another drink. She’d started with less than a quarter of it gone, now there was less than a quarter of it left. As she brought the lip to her mouth, a whistle came from the kitchen. She lowered the bottle and narrowed her eyes.
“Are you trying to tell me I’m drinking too much?”
Her apartment had gotten in the habit of suggesting Violet switch to tea on her most melancholy nights. Normally, she ignored it. When she was deep in her grief, the last thing she wanted was a clear head.
But this time, things were different.
Her niece might not be Violet’s responsibility, but she knew she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t at least try to protect the girl. All these years, Violet had blamed her sister, but if what Regina said was true, then Violet had no one to blame but herself. She’d loved too deeply, and it cost Tillie her life.
As angry as she was with Regina, Violet still loved her sister. Even if a part of her wished for Regina to feel the kind of loss Violet had experienced—some sort of penance for making those last few dayswith Tillie a fight instead of a memory Violet could cherish—she didn’t want her sister to die.
With a heavy sigh, Violet abandoned the bottle and pushed herself to her feet. The kettle whined louder.
“I’m coming.”
By the time she got to the kitchen, the stove had turned off, and a fresh cup of chamomile tea sat waiting for her on her small kitchen table, right on top of her calendar. When she picked it up, there was a ring mark over the thirteenth. If Violet left by noon, after she’d slept off the gin, she might be able to make it before midnight. It wouldn’t give them much time, but enough to attempt a spell.
“I don’t want to go back there,” Violet whispered, closing her eyes.
Tillie would’ve told her to trust her intuition, but Violet couldn’t hear it through the gin and heartache. When she opened her eyes, she found the tarot cards Tillie had hand-painted sitting on the table.
She set the mug beside the calendar and started to shuffle.
“What will happen if I go?”
After she cut the deck, she pulled the top card. The old tree that used to stand in front of Honeysuckle House stared up at her, and Violet’s heart stuttered. Across the top, one word: death.
This was where her parents’ car had crashed, the first losses Violet had ever felt. Tillie had painted the card in their memory. The tree, fallen. Honeysuckle vines wrapped around its trunk.
Violet tapped a finger against the card. It could be a literal interpretation, but the death card so rarely was. Most often, it was a symbol for something ending in order to usher in a new beginning. And if her family truly was cursed, then this could portend the end of that curse. Death was only part of the way through the fool’s journey, which meant there was more to come.
She drew another card.
Honeysuckle House stared up at her. This time, two women stood on the front steps, arm in arm. They each held a cup. People looked out from the windows, eight in all, each of them with a glass of their own.
The ten of cups. A card of family. A card of home. And a promise for the future.
Violet took a deep breath. The second card was all she needed. She stood and picked up the phone then dialed her sister’s number. On the third ring, Regina picked up.
“Violet?”
The hope in her sister’s voice almost broke her.
“I’ll try to be there before midnight.”
She didn’t give Regina a chance to reply before hanging up. Though the ten of cups promised a future for the Caldwells, Violet couldn’t ignore the warning of the first card she’d pulled. She might not be coming back from this trip, and if that was the case, Tillie’s family deserved to know what Violet feared had happened the night she died.
A part of her wanted to believe her family was cursed, that Tillie’s death couldn’t have been prevented. Another part of her was terrified of her sister. But she couldn’t leave a child in Regina’s hands.
She pulled out her stationery, addressed an envelope to Tillie’s brother at their old shop, and then, she started to write.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Florence, Now
Florence and Owen took the letter back to Ink & Pages. They found the back room much the same as they’d left it earlier that day. A fresh pot of tea was waiting for them, so they sat down and pored through the pages together. They didn’t just include Violet’s last night alive. They detailed the days leading up to Tillie’s death. Violet’s arguments with Regina, the candles she and Tillie dipped. Florence found more family history in that one letter than she’d been told her whole life.
When she’d finished reading, Florence looked up from the pages, wishing she could reach through time and take her great aunt’s hand. In Violet’s words she’d found a different story of her family than any her mother had told her. Violet was the type of ancestor Florence wished she could’ve known. She imagined sitting at Violet’s feet as a child, watching her dip wicks in the workshop, helping her pull the comb from the hives and prepare the wax to be melted. In that moment, her heart broke for what the curse had taken from them both.
