Page 97 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
“Then how do we still have our magic?” Evie asked. “Why is all of this happening?”
Beside her, Florence clapped a hand over her mouth. “The house,” she whispered. “The chandelier.”
“It stopped her,” Evie said.
“Itsavedme,” Florence replied.
“But not in time.” Evie had seen the remnants of the completed spell on her mother’s altar.
Florence nodded slowly. “The spell took Mom’s death as the offering.”
“And the house has been siphoning our magic ever since,” Evie said.
“Is that why it’s been so scary?” Clara asked.
“I think so, honeybee,” Evie said.
From what they’d read in those journals, completing the spell hadn’t only put their magic at risk, it changed the witch who cast it, twisting them. Tillie’s death had been unintentional. Yes, Regina had offered Violet’s love. But she hadn’t meant to kill her—like what Evie had almost done to Angela. But Violet’s death had been calculated. The very person Regina wanted the most, she’d murdered. Linda, too, had gone from protecting Florence and their dad only to take Robert’s life thirteen years later. Though the house hadn’t tried to hurt them, it had changed in other ways. The paint chipped; the cobwebs ever present. But the past week had been different, almost like the house couldn’t control itself.
“It’s about to lose its magic,” Evie said. “And mine and Aunt Florence’s along with it.” The two of them would live, but it would be a magic-less existence. The same one her grandmother and her mother had been unable to contend with.
“That’s why it gave you Mom’s journal thirteen years ago,” Florence said sadly. “It knew our magic would end, and it wanted you to use it to the fullest.”
Evie gasped and held a hand over her mouth. “And our tarot reading,” she said. “The hierophant was never about the house at all.”
Her sister had thought it meant the house couldn’t be trusted as a guide. Evie had thought it meantFlorencecouldn’t be trusted as a guide. But more than a helping hand, the hierophant was a card about the passing along of tradition, and it seemed the only tradition their family had was one of abuse and control. The card had been a call to put an end to the siphoning spell.
“Temperance reversed pointed to our magic being out of balancebecauseof the spell,” Evie realized.
“And the hermit never meant that we needed to give up our magic or to stop hoarding it,” Florence said. “It was telling us the house planned to give upitsmagic by not repeating the spell.”
Clara shook her head, hard. “But magic is what makes the house alive!”
“It is,” Evie said, the weight of it almost too much.
“You mean …” Clara paused, her voice thick. “The house is going to die?”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Florence, Now
Florence had given up on Honeysuckle House long ago. She never believed the house had hurt her on purpose, but it had still hurt her. Even so, there had always been a part of her that hoped by not using her magic, she’d put an end to the curse. That one day she’d feel safe enough to go home. The house would open its doors wide and welcome her in with the sort of warm embrace she’d never had from her mother. She’d lost so much time with Honeysuckle House, so many years gone because she’d thought she could stop a curse that ended up being nothing more than a twisted need to control. Her grandmother and her mother had been so desperate to hold on to their magic, so unwilling to imagine a world without it, that they’d killed to keep it. Generational trauma was its own sort of curse.
Their tarot reading from a few hours ago came back to her. The woman cutting the vine in the seven of swords represented how the curse began, and the tower—the destruction of Honeysuckle House—was how it would end.
“What do we do now?” Evie asked. “We can’t let the house die and take our magic with it.”
But that was exactly what they had to do.
“You can’t complete the siphoning spell,” Owen said.
“Obviously I know that,” Evie said, exasperated.
“It isn’t easy,” Florence agreed. “I know how much your magic means to you.”
What Florence didn’t say was how much she’d missed casting spells of her own, how the thought of never being able to dip a candle again opened something wide inside of her. Yes, she’d given up her magic. But that had been her choice. Now it was being taken from her. Even in death, her mother still found a way to control her.
“Don’t you get it?” Evie asked. “Losing our magic doesn’t just mean Honeysuckle House dies and my candles don’t work. You’ll lose the bookstore, too.”
