Chapter 8

The next day, Claire visited the village of Bocka Morrow with her cousins, Letty and Violet, and some of the other lady guests. Kinney insisted on accompanying her—she hadn’t left her side since Claire told her about the strange occurrences the night before.

When the other girls decided to go into the apothecary shop, Claire held back, hesitant to enter territory that was often associated with the local coven. The very witches Evelyn had told her to seek counsel from.

“You’ve got to go in, Peach,” Kinney said. “Don’t you want to know if she’s right?”

She did. More than anything, Claire wanted to believe the curse could be broken, and she could be happy with Teddy. But hope was a fragile, fickle creature, stirring in her heart and spreading throughout her body, until the desire for happiness was so paramount she did not know if she could survive without it. Wasn’t it better to stick with the known, to accept her sad fate, and never have her precarious hopes crushed?

She remembered the soft glide of Teddy’s skin against her own, that eager smile of his she found so utterly arousing. The way he had groaned out her name as he reached release.

God, she wanted him. A future with him. Children with him.

She pressed Kinney’s hand in return, and nodded swiftly. “Yes. ’Tis better to know.”

Once inside the shop, she waited with Kinney, letting the other ladies proceed with their various purchases. The fewer people who knew of her true business here, the better. She watched as the woman behind the counter helped Jane Hawkins with an order of soap, taking careful note of the woman’s physical reactions as she interacted with Miss Hawkins.

“You can’t hear from that far away,” Kinney murmured, tugging her closer. “Nothing good ever came to the tentative, lass.”

Claire allowed herself to be led forward, because she knew Kinney was right. Seven Seasons of fear had kept her from Teddy’s arms.

Soon, the rest of the ladies were ready to leave. Claire begged off of returning with them, claiming she wanted to explore the village further. Since Kinney was with her, she wouldn’t be unchaperoned.

Only when the door closed behind them did she approach the counter.

Except she’d failed in her errand, because Elethea Fairfax, whom she had met in the village before, hadn’t left. Claire hid back behind the shelves again, ignoring Kinney’s attempt to pull her toward the counter. Here, she was close enough to hear what was going on but she couldn’t be seen. Neither Elethea nor the other woman seemed to know she and Kinney remained in the shop.

She watched as Elethea and the woman behind the counter talked—they spoke far too familiarly not to know each other. They talked of the festival of Allantide, and the village practice of bewitching the apples. Young women would mark their apples in a certain way before dropping them into the vat, hoping that their true love would bite into their apple.

“Of course, it’s simple magic at best,” the woman called Brighid said with a chuckle. “But it makes them happy.”

“And it makes them less likely to hate us,” Elethea said with a wry smile. “Would that everyone viewed us with such good regard.”

“Your young man will prove his worth,” Brighid said. “Or he’ll show his heart as black, and you ought not to be with a man who’s so fickle anyhow. You deserve the best, Elethea.”

Elethea’s smile did not reach her eyes. “So my grandmother claims.”

“Then you should believe her,” Brighid said. “Maevis is the wisest of the nine in the circle.”

The circle.

Claire knew that term—it referred to the mossy clearing in the woods where the witches practiced their magic. If she’d had any doubt that Elethea and Brighid were part of the coven, the last exchange dispatched it. Beside her, Kinney wrung her sleeve in excitement.

“I know, I know,” she whispered, shaking her head at the maid’s antics. “I’m going.”

Claire stepped out from the shelves and cleared her throat. Brighid stopped mid-sentence, and Elethea dropped the bar of soap she’d picked up.

“Lady Claire,” Elethea said, somehow managing to turn picking up the soap into a fluid curtsy. “Brighid, may I present Lady Claire Deering. I’m sorry—we didn’t know—”

“Please, I don’t mean any harm,” Claire broke in, with a shake of her head. “I’m not in any place to judge you, not when half of Society already thinks me as mad as my mother and my aunt.”

A light of recognition dawned in Brighid’s eyes. “Your mother and your aunt, you say? The DeLisle sisters. Oh, my lady, we tried so hard to help them…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“So she said.”

Elethea’s brows furrowed. “Who said?”

Claire darted a glance at Kinney, who nodded reassuringly. She hated to tell Evelyn’s secret, but since her aunt herself had advised her to seek out the witches, she supposed it was acceptable. “My Aunt Evelyn. Last night.”

Brighid’s nose scrunched up. “Her ghost appeared to you?”

“No.” Claire bit her lip. If ever there were a statement that was going to make her sound insane, this was it. But she had to take the chance they’d believe her. “Evelyn is alive and locked in a turret at Castle Keyvnor. A manservant named Bronson waits on her and keeps her safe.”

“That’s horrible!” Brighid exclaimed, hurrying out from the counter. “We must free her.” She was already untying her apron by the time she stopped in front of Claire.

Claire reached for her arm to stop her, her grip gentle but firm. “Please, please, please don’t. If anyone finds out that Evelyn is alive, they’ll force her to leave the castle. They’ll take her to an asylum, and she’ll die there, just as my mother did. The things they do to patients—no one should ever be put through that torture.”

She’d expected the two women to disagree with her. It’d taken her a half hour last night to convince Teddy to let Evelyn be, and he’d been there after each of her visits to Ticehurst. He’d known just how upset the doctor’s methods of “treatment” made her. But instead, Elethea nodded, quietly understanding without Claire having to say more. The two witches exchanged a glance, and soon, Brighid nodded too.

“Very well,” Brighid said. “What exactly did your aunt say to you?”

After Claire recalled the meeting for them, Elethea and Brighid exchanged another glance, longer this time, fraught with tension Claire did not understand. She grasped Kinney’s hand in her own and prayed that they could help her.

“You’d better come with me,” Elethea said finally, motioning for Claire and Kinney to follow her as she headed toward the front of the shop. “You need to meet my grandmother.”

Elethea led Kinney and Claire through the woods. Even in the bright sunlight, Claire’s heart was in her throat for the entire journey—she didn’t know what to expect. Much of her knowledge of witches was gleaned from Macbeth, and the history of her family’s curse. Neither painted the coven in a good light—yet Evelyn had insisted that Hestia was not indicative of the rest of the witches. Given Evelyn’s fragile mental state, Claire wasn’t sure she should trust her aunt’s word…yet there was something comforting about Brighid and Elethea.

Elethea picked her way through the woods with easy agility, leading through thick glens with no discernible trail. Claire followed hurriedly, grateful she’d worn her sturdy walking boots for the trip into the village. Beside her, Kinney panted at the swift pace Elethea set, but still kept up.

A quarter of an hour or so later, they emerged into a clear, moss-covered grove with oak trees lining the perimeter. A fire pit sat in the middle, while off to the side was a circle made out of six stones. Claire’s stomach sloshed at the sight of the circle, but she kept on going. No turning back now.

“That’s my grandmother’s house,” Elethea said, pointing to a homey stone cottage with a thatched roof. Bountiful herbs grew in window boxes, and a teeming garden prospered outside. A wooden fence enclosed the area, with reeds stretched to bend around the posts in alternating directions, reminding Claire of a woven basket.

It all looked so peaceful. Nothing like she would have expected. The birds chirped merrily, and insects buzzed contentedly. The anxious knot in Claire’s stomach began to unwind somewhat in the presence of so much prospering nature. Kinney turned her head up to the sun, a wide smile cracking across her weathered features.

“I like it here,” Kinney declared, with a nod of approval. “Much better than that dusty old castle.”

Elethea grinned, leading them to the door. She did not bother to knock, instead pushing the door open. Claire’s brows furrowed at it being unlocked; perhaps if one was a powerful witch, one didn’t need to fear intruders.

The cottage was one large room, with a hearth off to one side, a table, a kitchen, and a loft above where Maevis must have slept. Dried flowers and herbs hung from the rafters, and it smelled like cinnamon and vanilla. The tension released in Claire’s stomach a bit more, soothed by the familiar scent. Her mother had always smelled of vanilla, before Ticehurst. In her best memories, Claire remembered vanilla and sunshine, and her mother’s wide, rapturous smile.

As Elethea called for her grandmother, an orange tabby with a broken tail let out a loud meow from its place by the fire. Beside it, a calico yawned idly, stretching out its paws.

“Well, would you look at that,” Kinney exclaimed, as a gray striped cat wove around her ankles. She stooped down, scooping up the animal in her arms. “I could get used to this place, Peach.”

Claire laughed, the maid’s delight contagious. But before she could truly relax, an old woman emerged from the back entrance to the cottage, followed by Elethea. The witch’s keen, unwavering gaze leaped from her granddaughter to Kinney before finally settling on Claire. She had a regal bearing; were her dress less shabby, Claire would have expected to see her holding court at Almack’s.

“Welcome,” she said, making a sweeping motion with her hands. “I’m Maevis Grayson, and you must be Lady Claire. You’ve come just in time for tea.”

Claire blinked, surprised at her crisp, polished speech. She didn’t know what she’d expected—perhaps something folksy or babbles tinged with dark references.

“I am.” Claire nodded, and then gestured to Kinney. “And this is my maid, Kinney.”

Maevis nodded at Kinney, motioning for them to take a seat at the thick-planked oak table. She took a canister of chamomile tea down from a shelf. She deposited leaves into four china cups on the kitchen table, going next to the kettle that had been heating over the fire and pouring water into the cups. Pulling out a chair for herself, she passed a cup to each of her guests and then looked at Claire expectantly.

“I know you have something to tell me, daughter,” she said. “Whenever you are ready, we can begin.”

Claire’s mouth fell open. Maevis spoke as though she already knew Claire’s mind—but how? The elder witch’s gaze was kind, caring, but so very perceptive. Under the weight of her stare, Claire found it hard to believe that Maevis didn’t see and know all.

And there went the last bit of nerves clawing at her insides, for if Maevis already knew of her curse, and didn’t want to be rid of her, then perhaps there was hope after all. Slowly at first, then quicker as she grew more comfortable, the particulars of the past spilled out of Claire’s lips between sips of the flowery, aromatic tea. The more she talked, the more Maevis’s gaze softened, until Claire couldn’t remember why she’d ever viewed this meeting with trepidation.

“Elethea was right to bring you,” Maevis said, once Claire had finished with the story. “What Hestia did caused our coven great distress. Magic never should be used in that way. I am so sorry for your loss, my child.”

“Thank you,” Claire said wistfully, unable to shake the memory of her own mother—on her good days, when the sickness was slight—in the presence of such a maternal figure as Maevis.

“All we’ve wanted for decades is to right the wrong Hestia did to your family,” Maevis said. “But it took us time to discover what she’d done. Only when the magic came back against her, and she died in such a violent manner, did we understand what had truly happened.”

“The rule of three,” Elethea explained. “Magic always comes with a price, and such dark arts demand a heavy payment from the practitioner.”

Claire nodded, as a small, spiteful voice in the back of her mind said Hestia’s death was justice for what she’d done to them.

“Well, she got what she deserved then,” Kinney declared without shame. “I served Lady Madalane before that wicked woman’s curse, and I served her after. If you ask me, Hestia got off easy with a bad death. Worse is living, entombed in one’s mind.”

“And that’s my fear,” Claire murmured, her grip tightening around the china cup’s handle. “How can I possibly marry Teddy when I don’t know if or when I’ll become a prisoner of my own mind?”

Maevis reached out, patting her hand. The woman’s skin was wrinkled, yet soft; her touch as soothing as the blanket Claire had insisted on sleeping with as a child. And her next words—those were the most wonderful Claire had ever heard.

“There’s a ritual,” Maevis said. “It should break the curse’s hold on you. But I must warn you, Lady Claire, it is not for the faint of heart. You must truly believe in its power for it to work, do you understand? If you do not…it will be of no use, and you’ll surely descend into the fate you fear the most.”

Claire’s breath caught in her throat at the solemn warning. But if there was any chance it could work, then she had to try.

“I understand.”

“You and your beloved must meet my coven in the woods at our most powerful circle, by the light of the moon.” Maevis pursed her lips, thinking for a moment. “Yes, tomorrow night will do nicely. It is All Hallow’s Eve, when the spirits can pass from this world into the next with ease. The magic will be strongest then.”

“How will I know where to find this circle?” Claire asked.

“Elethea will show you, before she escorts you back to the castle.”

Elethea nodded.

Maevis rose from the table, wiping her hands on her apron. “We will help you, Lady Claire, but heed my words. You must believe—and so must he. Believe in your happily ever after, and so it shall be.”