When he left, she was still clutching the spoon in her hand.
And every day her magic caused some kind of minor catastrophe.
The upstairs bathroom flooding when she tried to wash her face.
The coffee urn shattering when she filled the filter with ground coffee.
She would wake to find dirt in her bed with no idea as to how it got there.
And always there was an internal clock counting down the days until the full moon.
On the one-week anniversary of Gigi’s passing, Sadie woke on the verge of retching. Her breath came in hitches as the panic made her vision go blurry in the early dawn light. She had dreamed of the full moon, of Seth dead and cold on the ground after they’d been unable to find a way to satisfy the curse. He’d sacrificed himself, and it broke Sadie’s heart. She wept and where her tears fell in the frosted grass, black obsidian sprouted up. She tried to bring him back, but his death was the fourth heartbreak, and her magic was gone. Her stomach churned as she tried to rid herself of the images.
Twenty-three days, Sadie thought. Twenty-three days, and I might never hear that voice again.
They took turns being strong. But it was hard, in that first week, to become accustomed to the truth of death, the reality of it.
Tava, Brian, and Suzy went home, promising to return when Seth had collected Gigi’s ashes.
“Where are you going,” Sadie had demanded wildly. She needed them there. Needed the anchor.
“We’ll be back,” Suzy said again. “We don’t want to spoil the surprise. But it’s a good thing, I promise.”
Kay and Anne stayed.
“I’m sure you’re tired of people asking,” Raquel said one afternoon, “but how are you doing? Really? Slow descent into madness?”
“I don’t know,” Sadie answered honestly. “It’s like I don’t know how to feel. Or maybe I forgot how to feel. But I know that can’t be true because it hurts. All the time, it hurts.”
“It was always going to hurt, cari?o. All you can hope for is that the love is worth the pain. And I know it was.”
Raquel was talking about Gigi, but Sadie involuntarily thought of Jake.
“Have you tried gardening?” Raquel asked tentatively.
“No,” Sadie answered automatically. “I can’t go out there.” Every time she’d tried, the closer she got to the back porch, the more she felt rooted to the spot, until her feet tingled and her soul seemed to stretch in the opposite direction. The magic of the garden seemed, in her mind, tied to Gigi. And Gigi was dead.
“You’ll get there,” Raquel told her, holding Sadie’s cold hand in her own warm one.
“And speaking of getting there,” Seth said, walking into the living room on the tail end of their conversation, “we need to talk about the sacrifice. The conduit.”
“I’m not losing you too,” Sadie said with vehemence.
“Sade, it was just a dream,” he said softly. All she had to do was look at him and know he’d somehow seen her terrible vision.
“You’re my priority now,” Sadie said. “The thought of losing you—” She broke off.
“I know,” he said. “It makes you furious and bitter and terrified. I can feel it rolling off you. But that’s not how we tackle this. You’re the one with systems and solutions, okay? I’m the ideas guy. We’ll fix this together.”
“I’m the moral support,” Raquel chimed in. She tried to make her voice light, but Sadie could see the fear buried in her eyes.
Seth gave her a grateful smile and then stood, pulling Sadie to her feet. He put his hands on her shoulders and leaned his forehead against hers.
“I’m here,” he said. The words echoed in the chaos of her brain. “Neither one of us is going anywhere.”
She nodded and tried to believe him.
“Now get your ass into the garden,” he said. “Get your hands in the earth. You know it always makes you feel better.
“Why is everyone trying to get me to the garden? It was destroyed, remember?”
“Because sometimes we know what’s better for you,” Raquel said with a smile that formed itself like a secret.
“Sometimes?” Seth asked.
She didn’t go into the garden that day. She spent each hour obsessively working through all aspects of the curse, every morsel of information they knew, and making plans. And constantly she fought the urge to heed her brother’s and best friend’s advice until, finally, the evening light called to her too strongly to ignore. The smell of fresh earth and green stalks had been following her around too long.
She cautiously opened the back screen door, her chest tight and lips pursed, bracing herself. Maybe if she could just feel the dirt against her skin, it would make her feel closer to Gigi. Give her some kind of inspiration about the sacrifice. She braced herself for the devastation, the uprooted plants, the scattered bushes, the work she’d need to do to get it back in order. Maybe that was what she needed. Something to do with her hands, to keep her thoughts at bay.
But some kind of miracle had been wrought. Nearly everything was replanted or fixed. She walked down the tight rows, brushing her hands along velveteen leaves, soaking in the comfort of the wild sweet peas that had been reattached to the arbor. The scent of sage and rosemary mingled with mint and thyme, soaking into her skin like a homecoming. She marveled at the squash and zucchini plants, all the trampled leaves and crushed vegetables cleared away. Already there were new blossoms peeking through the foliage. Who had done it?
Certainly not Seth—the garden still wouldn’t let him in—and Raquel could kill a plant just by looking at it. It had to be Revelare magic, Sadie concluded in wonder.
Sitting down right in the center of the garden, the early September sunshine warming her skin, she sank her hands into the earth. A peach plopped off the tree and rolled toward her, stopping just within arm’s length, like an offering. She wanted so badly for it to be a good omen, but it was hard for her to believe in goodness just then. Even so, the garden welcomed her back. Emerald-green leaves reached toward her, and tight flower buds opened into blooms in a wave of hello. Some of the brokenness inside her began to knit back together as the very dirt seemed to call to her. She had almost forgotten what pleasure felt like, but as she picked up the peach and inhaled its fuzzy skin, the scent of summer memories and childhood mixed with the earthy soil, and it smelled like a promise.
She heard a low, grumbling meow, and a fluffy black cat slunk out from behind the sweet peas. He came straight toward Sadie, rubbing against her legs, calling out in a gravelly meow. His fur was so downy and wild, particularly around his neck, that he looked like a lion in cat form. And Sadie was instantly drawn to him. He peered into her eyes and seemed to see her sorrow and reflect it, absorbing it as he crawled into her lap, turned in a circle, and lay down. She knew without understanding that this cat was now hers. Maybe she’d have to give Jake his dog back. But probably not. Maybe we could have shared custody of him, she thought with a wry smile that felt foreign on her face.
“I think I’ll call you Simon,” she whispered, stroking his ears and head as he purred louder than a motor. And from that moment, there was nowhere Sadie went in the garden that Simon wasn’t. Every time he meowed in his gravelly voice, it reminded her of Gigi’s bullfrog laugh.
“Hey!” A voice from the fence line startled her. Jake.
“Hey,” she answered.
“Can I come in?”
She nodded, and he pushed the old gate open. Sadie made a mental note that she needed to repaint it.
“Stupid question, but how are you doing?” he asked, and it reminded her of the way Raquel had asked it. Like they both knew there was no good answer, but they needed to know she was still in there.
She shrugged again, her throat growing tight, the ground growing warm beneath her knees. She’d been asked that question so many times, it had started to lose meaning.
He came over and sat down near her, wrapping his arms around his pulled-up knees.
“How’d I do?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Her voice was brittle.