“Okay, first we need to bruise the materials we’ve gathered,” I say. I demonstrate by putting the petals of the wildflowers on one of the rocks, then grinding them down with the other. Wolfe does the same, and soon we’ve gone through everything.
“What do you want the base notes to be? These will be the foundation of the perfume.”
“I suppose the grasses, since that’s where I met you.” He says it casually, but it still makes my heart pick up speed. I set aside enough material for the base notes, and then we move on to the middle and top notes. Once he’s made his selections, I measure everything out and bundle it all together.
“Now it’s time to spell it,” I say. “Is there anything in particular you’d like?”
“You decide,” he says.
I place the bundle between us and decide on peace. I didn’t understand until tonight that it’s something he’s missing, something he can’t have because he lives in terror of his way of life being destroyed. And while a perfume can’t fix that, it can give him moments of respite.
I close my eyes and pour my magic into the flowers, but Wolfe stops me. I look at him.
“Speak it out loud,” he says. “I want to hear you.”
I swallow hard, his words affecting me in a way I can’t name. I can feel it, though, moving through my body, slow and warm, blooming from my center, and I have to look down, scared that he’ll see what I’m feeling.
“Okay,” I say quietly. I close my eyes and start again. “Worries cease and tensions ease, when he smells this fragrance, surround him with peace.” I whisper the words as magic drenches the bundle, infusing it with the spell. Then Wolfe’s voice joins mine, and we say the words together, his magic softening, molding itself to the rules of my world. I’m shocked when my eyes begin to burn, and I keep them squeezed shut, pushing down my emotion so Wolfe doesn’t see it.
We speak the words many more times than necessary, but I don’t want to give it up, this moment that has somehow imprinted itself on the deepest part of me. I know it must end, though, and I go through the words one final time before falling silent.
Wolfe is watching me when I open my eyes. His back is to the shore, and with the moon high above the sea, it’s hard to make out his features. But he almost looks overcome, moved by the experience in the same way I am.
“Why did you choose peace?” he asks me.
“Because you deserve it.”
He nods, and I pull from my pocket a linen handkerchief that my mother insists I carry around for emergencies. I doubt this qualifies, but I carefully wrap the bundle of flowers and herbs, leaves and grasses with the cloth before handing it to Wolfe. He takes it from me and gently places it in the pocket of his jacket.
“I should go,” I say, standing. “When you get home, put that bundle in oil and let it sit for a week or two. Then pour it into a bottle, add some alcohol, and spray it whenever you need. Instant peace.”
I think he’ll roll his eyes at that last part, but he doesn’t. “I will.” He says it in a way that makes me believe he’ll follow each instruction perfectly.
“Good.” I begin my walk up to the road, but something stops me. I turn. Wolfe is still standing where I left him, watching me. “I’ll keep your secret,” I say. “You have my word.” Because as much as it hurts him to be kept a secret, hidden away from the eyes of the mainland, he knows that it’s necessary to his survival. To the survival of his coven.
“I believe you.”
I nod and try to make myself walk again, but it feels so hard, as if I’m standing in quicksand and can’t get out. But I have to. I force myself to move, and when I get to the road, I fight the urge to turn back and see him one more time.
I keep my face forward and make my way home, but I can feel his eyes following me, watching until the road bends and the connection is finally lost.
twenty
I’m exhausted when I wake up the next morning, my head throbbing. Another night of magic no one can ever know about, and I justify it by telling myself we only practiced low magic. But even as I think it, I know it is beyond justification. We were still practicing at night, and Wolfe is still a member of the old coven.
Nothing will change that, not even making something as harmless as a perfume.
When I get downstairs, my dad is fixing breakfast and my mom is nursing a cup of tea. “Morning, baby,” she says.
“Late night last night?” Dad asks, and for one awful moment, I think they know. I’m silent, my mind racing, trying to figure out what to say, how to apologize, what to admit to, but then he speaks again. “It isn’t like you to sleep in this late.”
His voice is casual, teasing, and my whole body relaxes as I realize my secret is safe. Wolfe’s secret is safe.
“I was just thinking,” I say, making myself a cup of tea, then sitting next to my mother on the couch. She tosses half of her blanket my way, and I curl up under it with her.
“What’s on your mind?” she asks. I’m about to say something about my Covenant Ball or the perfumery when Wolfe’s words jump into my mind unbidden.
You were ignorant.
You should demand to know the truth.
My heart begins to race as I work over his words, wondering if I can actually summon the courage I need to ask the question that’s been plaguing my mind. Why didn’t it hurt?
My palms are sweaty, and I rest my mug on my thigh so it doesn’t shake.
“Have you ever seen a moonflower?” I ask, trying to keep my tone casual. Curious.
“A moonflower? What ever made you think of that?” Mom asks, but she doesn’t sound upset or suspicious, so I keep going.
“I thought I saw one on the island,” I say. “I was wrong, of course, but that’s what made me think of it.” I hate lying to her, but I want to have this conversation, need to have it, and the only way is for my mother to believe it’s innocent.
Mom leans back on the couch and looks past me. “Once, when I was a young girl. The flowers had been eradicated by that time, but every once in a while, a stray seed would survive in the earth and bloom. That’s why we’re so adamant about teaching the risks of the flower. It’s extremely difficult to get rid of a plant once it’s made a home somewhere, and while we’ve done a very thorough job, it’s never a guarantee that they’re completely gone.”
“What did you do when you saw it?”
“I was with your grandmother, and she noticed it at the same time I did. She roped off the area until an official from the mainland came over and uprooted it. They’re beautiful. I wish I could have seen it at night, when it was blooming.”
“What if another one appears on the island?”
“Oh, honey, I wouldn’t worry about that. The one I saw as a girl was one of the very last sightings. And if you did see one, you would know how to react. You wouldn’t touch it, and you’d come to me.”
“But what if I did touch it?”
A heavy silence settles in the room. The noise of my dad preparing breakfast has stopped, and my mother looks at me with interest.
“Why would you ask such a thing?” she says as my father slowly steps out of the kitchen, waiting to hear how I’ll respond.
“I just want to know what would happen.”
“You know what would happen. It would cause you unimaginable pain, and you’d die within the hour. Those flowers are extraordinarily dangerous, and that’s why we went to such great lengths to get them off the island.”
There is nothing in her tone that sounds off, nothing that makes me think she’s being anything but honest, and I realize she doesn’t know the truth. She has been told the same thing I have since she was a child, the same lie, and she knows nothing different.
I grasp for some kind of explanation, something to make sense of a falsehood this far-reaching, but I come up short. My mother has always been a steady foundation for me, has always had the answers, but she doesn’t have this one, and it feels like the ground I stand on is beginning to shake.