I dream that I’m back in Spencer’s living room.
He’s seated opposite me, body language relaxed, sandy hair so gelled that it appears to be wet, his shirt ironed. He once told me he didn’t know how to iron shirts, which is why I’ve been doing it for him, but he’s suddenly picked up the skill to impress his ex-wife. I stare at the gold fibers in the love seat, on which I must have changed a thousand diapers. Little feet jump around in the playroom just on the other side of the open door. My heart rate kicks up so fast that the walls press in. I’m being buried alive.
“Please don’t take her away from me,” I beg.
“Romina.” That horrible, false smile twists with false concern, and this is the moment I know he was never serious when we had all those talks about me legally adopting his daughter. “She was never really yours.”
I sit up in bed, pulse slamming, pillow soaked in sweat and tears. I haven’t had a bad dream in ages.
Remember the positives, I hear my therapist say. List them one by one. I flip my patchwork quilt off me and stand up, legs shaky. My carriage house is essentially a studio apartment, with a kitchenette along the eastern wall. I’ve painted it bright colors to cheer myself up: Everywhere my eyes land, there is soft fabric, Follow Your Heart thyme candles, monstera plants, tapestries of fairylands.
I riffle through herbs in my cabinets, forcing a change of mental direction.
I no longer have to pick up after a grown man.
I am no longer excluded from his family functions.
In hindsight, I can see exactly where I should have kept my boundaries firm, should have kept the relationship professional.
“Can Adalyn and I take you out for dinner sometime?” I didn’t recognize his intentions then. He must have clocked my obligatory, wary smile, but pressed anyway. “I hope that isn’t crossing a line. Am I allowed to ask you to dinner? As friends, and mutual Adalyn fans?” He’d bounced Adalyn on his hip, knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist her smile. “You want Miss Tempest to hang out with us, too?” Then, leaning close to her as she burbled. “What’s that? You’d love to spend more time with her?”
I’d said I wasn’t sure, but somehow ended up at a restaurant, the focus of Spencer’s charming attentions, and he made me feel special. Spencer tried to feed Adalyn in her high chair while applesauce dripped off the spoon. He asked me for help, and when she ate for me, he was effusive with praise.
“You’re so good at that. Such a natural.”
He didn’t try to feed her again, raising his hands as if he didn’t trust himself.
“Let’s not jinx this. Adalyn will only eat for you, it seems. I don’t want her to go hungry.”
And that’s what had captured my heart. Aside from being charismatic and handsome, Spencer made me feel needed. Of course, that twisted itself around eventually and became what I resented most.
While preparing chamomile tea, I pull out jars of dried juniper, lavender, and bay laurel, then dig my old dream pillow out of a chest. I haven’t had to poke herbs into the small satin case and sleep with it beneath my regular pillow in a long time. It can’t be a coincidence that a figure from my past drops into my life again and now my subconscious is in upheaval.
My house is quiet save for raindrops pitting the roof, the hum of my oscillating fan, the low whir of a car engine. I peel a scrap of diaphanous curtain from the window that faces the back alley, where a black truck is idling, puffs of smoke juddering from the tailpipe. It’s just before six in the morning, gloomy night rain beginning to abate as a diamond of rising sun sputters through the trees. Farther down the road, a trash truck’s beep, beep, beep helps to tug me into the present.
When I push my door open, I hear the black truck take off, which prompts my chickens to cluck lowly as they toddle down from their coop to explore the garden. I scatter their feed, collect their eggs, murmuring softly. My chickens are Silkies—sweet, fluffy, domesticated birds that are perfect as garden pets because they’re happy to be kept in confinement and they’re gentle with my plants. They also love cuddles and attention. I say hello to Rosemary, Chickpea, Violetta, Suki, and Miss Fig, giving the ever-demanding Suki a disproportionate amount of nuzzling. For now, I’m a bird and flower mom.
I perform my morning garden inspection, pruning spotted leaves, counting blooms, dreaming of a someday in which my home is loud with voices, footsteps, noisy toys. When I’m all alone, I allow my little envies to pass over me like clouds: the parents who send their kids off to preschool with their shirts on backward because they’re busy with so many kids, and perhaps their job’s calling them about a problem they need to fix, and maybe they’ve got to tidy up because their in-laws are about to pop by with little notice, while two dogs are going wild with zoomies.
I know I’ve probably idealized this, that busy parents probably wish they had more quiet time alone, so I’d never voice these thoughts aloud (I know exactly what Luna would say), but I’m wistful for it, anyway. I do love my life, and it certainly isn’t dull. It’s rich and wonderful even without children. It’s just that . . . I want kids so much that it’s a bit like sitting in a waiting room or being on hold for a really long time, waiting for my favorite part of my life to begin.
Whenever I voice my desire for a good, solid, dependable man (usually in the most detached tone I can muster, so that I’m not perceived as desperate), the replies usually roll in like this: What’s the rush? Love arrives when you’re not looking. Date yourself! You don’t need a man to be happy. Just get some sex toys. As if it’s such a bad thing, wishing I were in a relationship, that I had someone I could be close to all through the night, who would trust me with their secrets, their fears, their happiness, and who I could entrust with my own. It’s the same whenever somebody asks where I see myself in five years, ten years, or what I want the most—the answer is to be a mom. I have other desires and interests, of course, and I’ve started to reply with those instead—that I want to branch out in my fortunes, maybe at Ohio carnivals and fairs, as well as putting together a family grimoire. The sort of goals that I could achieve on my own. Because whenever I admit that I want to be a mother most of all, the responses to this, too, can be awkward.
What’s the rush? Enjoy being single and not having kids, because once you have them, you’re locked in it for life! Basically telling me to be grateful for not having what I really, really want. And almost always, this unhelpful retort falls from the mouth of a parent. Only other nonparents, ones who want to be parents, tend to validate this deep longing. Even Luna, who I love with all my soul, slings back a sarcastic “Take mine” whenever I mention wanting kids. I know she’s just joking, but she can only joke about it because she’s lucky enough to be a mom already. We are a vast population of hurting hearts that miss people who haven’t come into our lives yet.
I want to give my little ones piggyback rides and play hide-and-seek with them and teach them how to tend a strawberry garden, help them trace the letters of their names, take them on nature walks, listen to their dreams, show them the best parts of the human experience and help them to navigate those parts that aren’t so light and easy. I want a family that is loud, goofy, exuberant at home because they know this is their place, where they can be themselves through and through, and be loved for it.
Someday. For now, I still have today, and I will make it a lovely one.
The next few hours blur: Good morning and I’ll give you a dollar if you bring me a bagel to Aisling; Yes, I took those to the post office yesterday to Luna; Put that down to Morgan; You’re late to Trevor. My thoughts cut into a dozen facets—the little girl in her playroom, the man who stared directly at me and said it was all for my own good; and of course, a different face that’s aged a decade somehow, with thick, lowered eyebrows, a questioning air. A mystery, when I used to know him inside out, translucent as a glasswing butterfly. I’m concentrating so hard on that face, trying to dissect it, that I must summon his image from memory, transplanting it onto the sidewalk outside The Magick Happens.
When my eyes connect with Alex’s through the window, it’s a lightning bolt hurled from the sky, directly down my spine, radiating outward to every bone. His chin is tilted down, face forward, a grim set to his mouth. His mother stands at his left, fiddling with her purse, eager stare devouring our sidewalk sandwich board, our sign, our hundreds of candles on display.
When Alex sees me watching, he automatically opens the door for Kristin, both finally entering. I’ve been taping primroses to florist’s wire for a customer who called the shop to tell me about two men she’s torn between, and she’s hoping for a flower crown that will help bring clarity.
“Hi, there!” I gesture to a familiar black truck parked out front. “Did you happen to drive down the alley earlier?”
“No.” Alex cuts our eye contact, focus shifting to Dottie’s crystal ball on the mantel, the dusty purple candle beside it.
“Really? Because that truck looks exactly like—”
“The roads here are ridiculous,” he interrupts. “Too narrow. I’m going to get a mirror broken off.”
My nose wrinkles. Moonville born-and-raised, and after a few years away, he thinks he can insult our inconveniently narrow roads. Who does he think he is?
“Is that a cat?”
I follow Kristin’s line of sight to a black lump with yellow eyes, curled up in a loaf on top of a shelf. She extends her fingers, but Jingle backs away, hackles raised.
“Jingle’s not much of a people person,” I tell her. “Our people person is Snapdragon. Don’t worry, he’ll find you and force you to pet him. We have another cat, Mellow, but he’s a ghost, so you probably won’t notice him. My niece says he mostly sleeps in the front window.” I smile broadly at Kristin. “Good to see you again.”
“I haven’t been in this store since your grandma ran it.” She cranes her neck to get an eyeful of everything. “Goodness! So many candles. How is Miss Dottie doing, anyway?”
I feel Luna’s eyes on my back, from where she sits in quiet conversation with a customer.
“She passed last year.”
Kristin hugs her purse tighter. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
I nod. There aren’t words that pay justice to Dottie, to how badly she’s missed, so I don’t insult her memory by offering paltry ones. The truth is that it feels like she’s been gone for much longer than a year. By the time she departed this world, the only person she could consistently recognize was Luna.
My grandmother taught us that the world is more than it seems, and so are we. That we all have a little bit of stardust inside of us.
Trevor springs from out of nowhere. “Crystal! What’s up!”
She doesn’t know what to do with his proffered fist bump, so she closes a hand around it. “Kristin.”
He casts around. “Is Dad here, too?”
Alex and Kristin exchange a loaded look. “Unfortunately, he was busy,” Kristin answers with a polite smile. “But he’d love to stop by at some point while we’re in town.”
“Excellent. Well, let me give you a tour!”
I follow them awkwardly while Luna reintroduces herself, her eyes two round globes, flickering to me every other second to assess my reaction. She prattles on for a bit about how tall and mature Alex looks, until I realize there’s no reason for me to hover and I return to the sunroom to work on my flower crown. I’m so addled that my nervous fingers keep snapping the myrtle in half.
Trevor’s voice drifts in my direction, footsteps nearing. “Zelda does all the book stuff. Even arranges book signings with other paranormal mystery authors—we’re part of Catriona Boyd’s virtual book tour next month, which’ll bring good business.”
My ears perk up. Trevor’s either mentioned the loan already and is trying to talk us up, or he’s leading to the subject.
“Right this way, you have the Garden.” An arm in the doorway gestures, and the second Alex enters my personal haven, my hands forget how to work. A roll of tape and sprigs of lemon leaf fall to the floor. Trevor hides his laughter behind his sleeve, but Kristin and Alex barely notice. The former has buried her face in white dittany, breathing in its fragrance; the latter’s face is a smooth void.
“You’re pretty much like a florist, then?” Kristin says.
“I’m a practicing magical-floriographer, or flora fortunist.” My speech is well-practiced. “Meaning, if a customer tells me a little about their romantic state of affairs, I create a custom flora fortune for them that helps coax their needs and wishes to life. While I can brew teas and put together charm bags promoting health, prosperity, peace, et cetera, my specialty within flora fortunes is romance.”
Kristin blinks. “Do you . . . but do you actually think you’re a . . . ?” Her voice falls to a hush.
“A witch?” I prompt. “All the Tempest women are.”
Alex frowns. “You believe in that now?”
“Yes,” I reply primly.
“My Romina is the real deal,” Trevor boasts, poking my cheek. I slap his hand away, before remembering that I’m supposed to be head over heels in love with him. Faltering, I give him a lively pat on the bum.
“She knows all the local folktales, too,” Trevor continues, once he’s recovered from that. “Some are even folktales about Romina herself.”
I send him a questioning glance.
“The moths!”
“Oh.” I fiddle with my plants, then fill up a watering can. It isn’t a watering day, but I need to keep busy or I’ll detonate. I can’t believe Alex is in my shop. This is my sacred space. “That one’s about my sisters, too.”
Alex’s words are hot, dragging down my skin. “I thought you didn’t believe in that.”
“I was narrow-minded.”
“Your mind seems to have . . . expanded . . . quite a bit.”
I glare at him, because I can tell that isn’t the word he wanted to use. But I make myself say, pleasantly, “It has! I’ve grown up, embraced my identity. Turning into exactly the person you see standing before you was my destiny.”
Kristin divides an odd look between Alex and me. “I don’t understand. What’s this about moths?”
“My grandma had prophetic dreams. Her dreams almost always came true—that my dad would step on his glasses and break them, that Luna’s child would be a brown-haired girl, that Zelda would be stung by a bee on her thirteenth birthday. She dreamed that my sisters and I would someday, all in the same year, fall for the men we’re meant to spend the rest of our lives with. We’ll know it’s our year of finding the one once we see a silver luna moth.”
“Which you didn’t used to believe in,” Alex inserts, “not only because those moths aren’t silver, they’re green, but also because when she had that dream, you were already in love.” Something in his eyes shifts. “You never saw any strange moths at the time.”
“The prophecy wasn’t about falling in love with just anybody, it was about falling in love with the people we’re going to spend the rest of our lives with.” I give him a bland smile.
His mouth tightens. I watch shadows roll over Alex, a coolness settling in their wake. “Have you seen the moth since you started dating Trevor? Because if you haven’t, apparently, then you two aren’t going to last.”
“Alex,” Kristin chastises gently under her breath.
“I’ll take this,” Morgan announces, reaching around foliage to pluck a small herbal sachet from Alex’s hands.
Alex’s forehead furrows. “Luna said that was a free sample.”
“You don’t have the right aura for this one, sorry. Doesn’t work for nonbelievers.”
Alex is disgruntled. “You used to say you didn’t believe in magic, Romina. I don’t understand.”
I tamp down my own aggravation. Yes, I used to not believe, but that was a long time ago. I’m tired of people walking into our magic shop and questioning it, demanding we defend and explain ourselves. “There is a lot about this universe you do not understand, Alexander. You have to open your mind.”
“He won’t, with an aura like that,” Morgan adds loudly, from elsewhere in the shop. The man reads one pamphlet and now he thinks he knows all about auras.
“I’m not surprised you’re a skeptic . . .” I give Alex a slow once-over, filling my expression with palpable disappointment. “Little boring of you, though.”
He recoils. Stands up straight and tall, which for some reason reminds me of videos of raccoons, who stand on their hind legs when threatened. I try very hard not to laugh. “If logical is boring, then yes. I live in reality.”
I take a forward step, watching his eyebrow raise an infinitesimal fraction. A twitch. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Is this the same person who hugged me yesterday, who couldn’t stop staring? It’s like he evolved into a different species overnight.
He shrugs.
My eyes are slits. I blurt the first thing that pops into my head. “It’s a crime that you cut all your hair off.”
He’s unfazed. “Like it better this way.”
Kristin steps between us, but she isn’t tall enough to block our burning gazes—both of us offended, trying to pretend like we’re not. “Your flowers are lovely,” she tells me. “The shop looks like it’s doing well; I’m so glad to see it. So glad to see you and Trevor are both happy and successful. But I wanted to drop by for another reason, too.”
Alex scrubs a hand over his face. That momentary stomach drop I can feel from feet away, his internal ugh, please, no has my lips involuntarily curling into a feline grin. “Yes?”
“Remember those wedding festivities I told you about? I made up a scavenger hunt for wedding guests who’re staying in the area. I thought it’d be fitting, what with celebrating our love, and this being such a romantic little town. You know? Isn’t it just the most romantic little town? Daniel doesn’t believe in any of that stuff, calls it nonsense, but I confess that while I don’t totally understand all the stories myself, I think they’re fun. Anyway, I remembered how much you used to love games. Do you still?” She claps her hands together, hopeful. “How about another game, for old times’ sake?”