Dearly Departed
A Witches of East End fan fiction
By Fiona Bentfield
Notes: Takes place post season two. For Sarah H. and Xandy, with all my love.
IT STARTED AS THESE THINGS TEND TO DO, with alcohol and a Ouija board. The curtains were drawn and Freya and Ingrid sat cross-legged on the rug, empty bottles and glasses scattered around them. The house was silent, apart from the occasional crackle from the open fire. The living room smelled of the stale incense they'd found at the back of a drawer, and there were enough candles to light a small church. It added to the ambience of the event and made them feel slightly less insane.
"It's moving," Freya gasped.
"No it's not. Your hand's shaking." Ingrid pointed to Freya's trembling fingers.
"I can't help it. This thing is freaky."
"Take a deep breath and focus," Ingrid ordered.
They both stared at the board. Nothing was happening.
"This is the dumbest idea," Freya eventually exclaimed, shoving the board across the carpet. "These things don't work anyway."
Ingrid kept staring at the board, determined to make it work. It looked rather worse for wear. They probably weren't the first ones to drunkenly attempt to commune with spirits with this thing. "Maybe we're doing it wrong?" she wondered aloud.
Freya rolled her eyes dramatically. "I am not going to cast a spell and bring some crazy person back here to mess with us. You've done that way too many times already."
"Thanks."
"Has it occurred to you," Freya considered, waving her glass around and promptly spilling some of her drink onto one of her socks, "that we might be trying to communicate with a dead cat and that's why this isn't working?"
Ingrid let out a long sigh and leant back on the cushions behind her. "So we should, like, shake a carton of dry cat food instead?"
They both gazed back down at the board, the ridiculous quality of the situation not lost on them.
"Look, we know séances work," Ingrid said in her best librarian voice. "We just have to be persistent. Remember those old pictures we found in mom's desk?"
Freya giggled. "The ones with the floating chairs and weird people wearing veils?"
"The Victorian ones, yeah."
Freya was less than impressed with her sister's reasoning. "I do not want a bunch of shit to start flying around the room," she protested. "We'll start acting all possessed like Eva Green in Penny Dreadful."
Ingrid's face lit up. "That would be kind of cool actually."
"You want to be possessed?"
"No, but her clothes are pretty awesome in that."
Freya hung her head in despair and gestured to Ingrid to pass her the bottle. "I am way too sober to be playing this game."
Ingrid pushed her fingers to her temples. Her head was starting to spin a little. "Maybe we need a picture of Wendy or something."
"We have her necklace," Freya said, pointing at it with the planchette. The plastic was starting to disintegrate and turn a nasty shade of yellow.
Ingrid picked up the gold necklace and twirled it around on her finger. The black pendant sparkled as the light of the candles hit the stones.
The planchette fell out of Freya's hand, and they both jumped.
"Did you do that on purpose?" Ingrid asked.
Freya shook her head emphatically. "No. It just—"
Ingrid grasped the necklace firmly.
"Twirl it again," Freya ordered
"What?"
Twirl the necklace."
"Are you—"
"Just do it already."
Ingrid reluctantly obliged and waved it around in a slow circle. As she did, the planchette began to move. They both found themselves unconsciously shifting further and further away from the board on the floor.
"Keep spinning."
"You do it," Ingrid snapped.
Freya snatched the chain from her sister. As she did, the planchette jumped up in the air, and they both screamed so loudly that neighbors across the street probably heard them.
"What the hell is going on in here?!"
They both turned around, and could feel the blood rushing to their cheeks. Joanna stood in the doorway, still in her coat and gloves.
"We found a…" The planchette moved again. Freya flung the necklace away from her.
Joanna walked calmly into the debris that constituted the séance circle, took off her gloves, and picked up Wendy's necklace. "This is how you're spending your evening?"
Ingrid immediately regressed to the age of thirteen. "We don't all have hot dates to go on."
"I wasn't on a—" Joanna raised her eyebrows, looking at each of her daughters in turn. "It doesn't matter. Were you seriously trying to contact Wendy with a Ouija board?"
They both shrugged.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Freya offered in their defense.
Ingrid looked up at her mother's judgmental face. "It still isn't a totally awful idea," she added unconvincingly.
The living room seemed uncomfortably large, Joanna noticed, as she looked down at her two girls sitting nervously on the rug. Ingrid fiddled with her hair and kept on staring at the Ouija board. "But what if we really could bring Wendy back?" she wondered.
Joanna sighed heavily and crouched down on the floor. She was so tired of these kinds of conversations. "And then what? Do you think she wants to be with us? Everybody leaves, Ingrid. Even you and Freya."
Ingrid looked over at her mother in disbelief. "But I'm not. I'm here."
"I buried my son and my sister on the same day," Joanna explained calmly, motioning toward the window, and the tree outside under which she'd scattered their ashes. "We have to move on."
But Ingrid wasn't about to let it go so easily. She shoved the board across the floor with her foot. "What? Like you did with dad? The dad who was still alive that you didn't even invite to my graduation when I got my Masters in history, the same subject he was teaching at Columbia?" Ingrid's voice was slurred but harsh, all sharp little drunken daggers.
Joanna bristled. "Do not bring your father into this!"
"I'm thirty-one, mom. I'm so not your little girl anymore," Ingrid retorted. "I've seen things, and I know that, right now, 'moving on' from Wendy is not going to fix anything. Because you don't move on. You never do. You just lie and say you have and you hurt people when you do that."
Ingrid's hands trembled as she unscrewed the cap of the bottle of whiskey and poured herself another large glass. She drank a sip, then a gulp. Freya and Joanna just stared in stunned silence at this angry foreign creature in their living room.
"I'm pregnant, mom," Ingrid sobbed. "I'm pregnant and it's probably the Mandragora's and on Monday I'm having an abortion. So yes, I'm getting drunk and trying to talk to Wendy because..." She couldn't finish the sentence. Her sobs were turning into convulsions.
Joanna looked helplessly at her daughter sitting there, drunk and crying on the floor. She let Wendy's necklace slip between her fingers and reached into her pocket for a tissue. She leaned over and wiped Ingrid's tears out of her eyes like she had done when Ingrid was seven and fell off her bike.
"I have to hold on to the good things," Ingrid whispered between sniffles.
Joanna stroked her daughter's knee. "I'll drive you to the clinic if you want. On Monday."
They both looked down at Wendy's necklace resting in the space between them. Joanna wrapped her arms around her daughter.
Ingrid sniffed loudly. "Being a grown-up is bullshit, by the way."
"You say that every time. Well, not in quite the same way but—" Joanna rested her hands on Ingrid's shoulders and looked her in the eye. "I can assure you that it's not. It's a privilege. You understand?"
Ingrid nodded. Joanna kissed her daughter's forehead, then beckoned to Freya to join them. There were no rituals for this, no spells. Joanna was tired, so very tired of all of this, and all she could do was hold on tightly and wait until the wave of grief had passed. It always did eventually.
THE HOUSE WAS QUIET NOW, and Joanna's bare feet on the floorboards creaked ominously. She hated going down the hall to Wendy's old room. The energy was off somehow, as if all the warmth had been sucked out of this part of the house. The hallway lights flickered, a fault in the ancient wiring that she should have had replaced by now. Sometimes she thought she could almost smell the gas lighting that used to be there more than a hundred years ago.
She cautiously opened the door. The bed was still unmade, and Wendy's shoes were spilling out of the closet. It would be a while until she could bring herself to sort the room out. For now it remained a mausoleum. Whenever the girls had died, she'd burned their clothes. She'd always found comfort in the ritual, but if she burned what was left of Wendy's life, she'd have to induct Freya and Ingrid into her morbid ceremony. Everything seemed to get more complicated with age.
Joanna wiped away a tear and sat down in front of the dresser. It was a mess of make up and a creepy taxidermy bird whose eyes seemed to follow her wherever she went. She didn't care to think where it came from. Unconsciously, her hand reached for Wendy's perfume, and she sprayed it in the air. It smelled of tuberose and old books. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. If only she could have walked into the kitchen earlier. Her entire life seemed to hinge on running late: too late for work, too late to stop the girls from getting hurt, too late to stop her sister from throwing her life away, and the longer she lived, the faster it all seemed to happen and spin out of her control.
Gingerly, Joanna pulled the necklace from her pocket and hung it on the hook by the mirror. As the pendant swung from side to side, she knew what she'd have to do. And she dreaded the reception her request was going to receive.
CONSIDERING THE NEVER-ENDING SERIES of shit-storms her family had been through over the past two years, this should have seemed harmless, but Joanna had felt nauseous since she woke that morning. She hated going into the city, for a start. There was no peace to be found here as far as she was concerned, and she felt horribly out of place in this swanky restaurant Alex had insisted upon. She wished for something resembling calmness to kick in as she blindly followed the hostess towards the window, but it didn't. Instead, she spotted Alex sitting at the corner table waiting for her.
"You're late," Alex said as she rose from her seat.
They kissed on each cheek. The hostess left them with nod.
"Thank you for coming," Jo said, her voice unable to disguise her nerves. "I feel so guilty for sending you that cryptic text message in the middle of the night, and I know you're really busy, and this is probably keeping you from a million and one more useful things you should be doing, but—"
"Would you quit apologizing and just sit down?" Alex interrupted.
Joanna grimaced in embarrassment and they both took a seat.
Alex placed her hands on the table. "I got us wine because it sounded like day drinking would be a good idea."
Joanna had always seemed the same in all the time Alex had known her, but today she looked older somehow. Alex expected she hadn't been sleeping well lately. She reached over and filled Jo's glass and topped up her own with what was left in the carafe.
As they sipped their drinks, Joanna told Alex of Wendy's death, of the Ouija board incident and drunken pregnant Ingrid, and how the entire house felt like it was crawling with memories she couldn't quite put behind her.
"Everyone's…" Joanna stopped and looked out of the window at traffic and the passers-by. Then she picked up her glass again, and took large gulp for courage. "They're all dead and I didn't know whom else to call, so here I am."
Across the table from her, Alex's face was unexpectedly kind. Something had changed since their fight in the library those months ago, even if Alex would never admit it to Jo's face. "For the first time in your life, you don't owe me an apology, okay?"
They smiled at each other, a rush of memories between them. Joanna could never quite understand Ingrid and Freya's fascination with their past lives, but here, confiding in Alex, she could almost see what they sensed. Perhaps all our memories as they change in our minds over the decades are just that: past lives we'll never live, opportunities lost and arguments we've long forgiven.
"I think I want to try to bring Wendy back," Joanna said softly.
"You think?" Alex asked with mock disapproval. "You really don't want to be uncertain about that kind of shit."
"I'm not. I'm completely serious. I've thought of nothing but the risks since last night."
Alex looked sternly at Joanna. "The choices you make for your family is your crap to deal with, and I am really busy with work right now, but I'm not going to be an asshole either. What are you thinking?"
Joanna explained the theory she had concocted last night, of how the four of them potentially had the power to cast a variation of the resurrection spell, one without the same negative consequences. "It still means we might each lose something we love though, but it wouldn't carry with it the certain death of one of us."
Alex looked puzzled. "So I could just lose my diamond bracelet or something?"
"Yeah." Joanna paused for a moment. "And my daughters might die again." The sentence caught in her throat. Something about saying it made her fears tangible, and the idea of trying the spell more ludicrous by the second.
It didn't seem to faze Alex, however, who sat there calmly watching Joanna twirl an orchid flower around in its vase on the table. "Okay. I'm in," Alex agreed with a nod. "But in return, I expect you to tell your family that I'm your ex, not some classy Mandragora-killing friend."
Joanna laughed loudly. She heard it in her head and noticed that it was the first time she'd laughed properly in weeks. "That does seem like a fair trade," she said with a smile.
Alex raised her eyebrows and pushed her chair away from the table. "You'd better, because I'll ask them when I walk through your door on Friday evening, and if they don't know, I'm going right back home." She stood up. "I need to get back to work now if I'm going to have any chance of leaving the office early on Friday. You've got the check, right?"
Joanna nodded. "Thank you. I mean it."
Alex pulled her coat from the back of her chair and quickly checked her watch. "Now go back home to Lily Dale and explain me to your children."
"East End isn't like that," Joanna protested, but it was no use.
"That's what you keep telling yourself," Alex teased, and leaned down to give Joanna a kiss on her cheek. "I'll see you Friday."
And with that, Alex was gone in a haze of earnestness and expensive heels.
THE KITCHEN WAS A FLURRY of under-caffeinated activity. Nobody in this house was a morning person at the best of times, but the winter always took its toll on everyone. When the girls complained, Joanna liked to tell them that it was so much harder before electricity and hot water, but, honestly, she could barely even remember those days herself.
Ingrid stared intently at the coffee maker, desperate for it to finish dripping. The microwave kept beeping and eventually she opened the door just to shut it up. Meanwhile, Joanna took the juice out of the refrigerator, and glanced at the table to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything else. She made the table every morning out of habit.
Freya emerged in her bathrobe, with wet hair and a dazed expression on her face. Ingrid poured Freya a cup of coffee and shoved it into her waiting hands.
Joanna poured a cup for herself, and then grabbed the oatmeal from the microwave before settling down at the table. It was far too early for family heart-to-hearts, but she didn't really have much of a choice because Freya would be at work this evening. She drowned her oatmeal in syrup in an attempt to compensate.
Ingrid wandered over to the table, stuck her knife into the butter and proceeded to spread the toast she was holding in her hand while walking back to pick up her coffee.
"Have you both got a few minutes?" Joanna asked tentatively.
Ingrid checked her watch. "Five minutes," she said between mouthfuls of toast.
Freya sat down and rested her head in her hands, her soggy hair dripping onto the table.
Joanna took a deep breath. It was now or never. "I've been doing a lot of thinking since Tuesday night," she explained, "and I've asked Alex if she'll come and help us."
Ingrid looked horrified. "We can't do a resurrection spell. That's like… You've told us a billion times that that's the worst idea ever." She waved her toast about for emphasis, dropping buttery crumbs on her freshly washed skirt.
"This will be slightly different," Joanna tried to reassure them. "It won't be the usual spell type thing."
Freya poured some soymilk into her coffee. She stirred it with her finger, burning herself in the process. "So it's safe?"
"Yes, definitely, but that's not what I need to talk to you about." Joanna prodded her oatmeal with her spoon. "So Alex and I, we… We dated off and on for a while, but it didn't quite work out."
Ingrid and Freya exchanged a glance that made them both smirk. Ingrid checked her watch again. "I'm gonna be late for work. Whatever this important thing is, you either need to cut to the chase or tell me this evening."
"That's it. Alex is my ex."
"Mom," Ingrid said with sigh, trying her best not to sound patronizing. "Most of your friends that we've met are your exes."
"I wish I could be friends with my exes," Freya said wistfully.
"Yeah, I didn't inherit that gene either." Ingrid drained the rest of her coffee. "I need to go brush my teeth. We've got an 8.30 team meeting." She slid down from her place on the kitchen counter and put her mug in the sink.
Joanna looked at her daughters, expecting a hint of condemnation at the very least, but it never came. "Alex told me that I have to tell you, so now I have," she explained in self-defense.
"Awesome." Freya grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl on the table and stood up. "I'm gonna go dry my hair before I freeze my ass off down here."
And so Joanna found herself all alone in the kitchen. She ate a spoonful of her breakfast, then leaned back in her chair and looked up at the cornices in the ceiling, still quite dazed from what had just happened. Perhaps times really had changed. On second thought, she was probably still half asleep and didn't register most of it. There were clearly some benefits to not being a morning person after all.
THAT NIGHT, JOANNA dreamt that she sat on the porch of her house watching the water level rise further and further up the hill. When it reached her feet, she wiggled her toes in the water, and her garden turned into a giant swimming pool. She began to shed her clothes so that she could dive in, but the swimming pool kept growing larger. Helplessly she watched as the water engulfed her house. She struggled to stay afloat as wave after wave tried to suck her under.
Suddenly, the water became still and she realized that it was a perfect aqua blue, so blue that the water and the sky were the same color. Something tugged on her hair and she turned around and spotted that there, swimming, were two babies and they started to cry. When she held them close to her chest to comfort them, she noticed they were mermaids. And then she woke.
IF THERE WAS ONE BENEFIT to being immortal, it was that it gave you enough time to fine-tune the art of being a perfect hostess. The smell of roast chicken filled the kitchen. The carrots were peeled, the brussels sprouts chopped, the potatoes in the oven. Joanna stood back from the stove and admired the fruits of her labors. She glanced a look at her phone. No text from Alex, so she assumed she was going to be there any minute.
She startled when Ingrid tripped over the loose floorboard by the kitchen door as she went to return the vacuum cleaner to its cupboard. "You okay?"
Ingrid nodded, kicking the cupboard door shut behind her. She noted that her mother had changed into a dress since she'd seen her earlier and had applied some lipstick. She smiled knowingly, and walked over to the pot of still uncooked carrots and took one. The doorbell rang.
Joanna quickly ran her fingers through her hair, and then rushed into the hallway. Ingrid just stood there, bemused, crunching the piece of carrot.
When Joanna returned to the kitchen with Alex, her cheeks were noticeably flushed. "You remember Alex?"
Ingrid nodded and swallowed the rest of the carrot she'd been eating. "Sure I remember you. It's so great that you came."
"Can I get you a drink?" Joanna asked, as she switched the stove on. "Dinner should be ready in fifteen minutes."
Ingrid poured Alex a glass of wine, and then took a seat at the table. "My mom said that you were coming here to help us with a spell."
"Give the poor woman a few minutes to relax," Joanna chastised.
Alex glanced at Joanna, then rolled her eyes at Ingrid, and the two of them shared a smile. "It's fine. Yeah, your mom said you were all pretty cut up about losing your aunt."
"It's been pretty rough."
"That's the understatement of the year," Joanna remarked.
Alex watched Joanna as she tended to the vegetables. She'd always admired her abilities as a cook. Bringing her attention back to Ingrid, she picked up her glass and raised it in Ingrid's direction. "Well, I can't say for sure that it's going to work, but I'm here to give it a shot."
The back door opened. It was Freya. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I'm late. The guy who was supposed to be covering for me this evening's car broke down." She took off her jacket and scarf, and peered at what was cooking on the stove. "It smells amazing in here."
Joanna shoved her daughter and gestured with her head towards the table.
Freya turned around. "Hi, Alex. How was your trip? It's starting to snow out there by the way."
"It was okay. It's great to see you again."
Joanna opened the oven and pulled the chicken out. Between herself and Freya, they began to serve and passed the plates over to the table. Joanna silently prayed that Alex wouldn't bring up the pregnancy over dinner. For the time being, Alex seemed to be on her best behavior asking Ingrid about her work at the library.
They sat down to eat, grateful for the change of atmosphere that Alex had brought with her. Ingrid jovially talked Alex's ear off about book restoration and a trip she'd made to Philadelphia a few months ago to see one of the oldest surviving bookbinders in the country, and Freya told sordid stories of the people she met behind the bar.
"So you know how your mom teaches life drawing classes at the community college?" Alex asked when everyone had finished eating and the silence was starting to feel awkward. "I modeled for them once."
Freya nearly spat her wine out. "Why would you do that?"
"It was the sixties. Free love and all that crap."
"And now you're a hedge fund manager," Joanna remarked, utterly unimpressed by the turn the conversation had taken.
"What's it like," Ingrid wondered, "living for hundreds of years?"
Joanna sighed. "Exhausting."
Alex picked up her glass and tilted it in Joanna's direction. "Oh come on. It's not that bad. You see things pretty different from most people. There's a kind of perspective that comes with lots of time. I guess you appreciate progress more, because things like x-rays and phones and all that stuff, they're pretty new and they changed everything. And bras. Bras are amazing."
Freya and Ingrid both laughed. "We can't even begin to imagine," Ingrid said, her eyes beaming.
"No, you can't."
Freya took another sip of her wine to help her pick up the courage to ask, "So, what about you and our mom?"
"What about me and your mom?"
"This is the second time you've come here all the way from New York to help us out."
Alex took a deep breath. This was not going to go over well with Joanna. "Well…"
"We've known each other a very long time," Joanna interrupted. If there was no way to stop this conversation, then at the very least she was going to take control of it. "And we kind of dated off and on and then we went our separate ways until Alex came to help us with the Mandragora."
"We hadn't seen each other in over forty years," Alex added.
"That's a bit like our dad," Ingrid observed, looking over at her sister.
Freya took her napkin from her lap and folded it carefully into triangles. "Yeah. We hadn't seen him until he rocked up a couple of days before my wedding," she sighed.
Alex looked confused. "You're married?"
Joanna shook her head. She definitely needed more wine.
"It didn't work out," Freya said.
"I'm sorry."
Freya shrugged. "It's fine."
Alex leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs and ran her foot along the leg of the table. "Yeah, me and your mom... I loved her, but it was kind of different back then. I don't think your mom found it that easy to be in an open relationship with another woman, you know?"
Freya and Ingrid sat there, enthralled by all of this. Joanna was visibly uncomfortable, alternating between drinking too much wine and picking at her cuticles. Alex ignored her. "Thank God people's attitudes have moved on since then, or at they better have."
Ingrid smiled. "Mom has known us in all our different lives, but we never got to remember what she was like, in 1920 or in 1720 or whenever, but from what I've seen this time around, she has a lot of people who love her."
Alex laughed. "Your mom has a reputation as a bit of a heartbreaker."
Joanna squirmed. "This is quite enough, don't you think?"
"Oh come on," Alex teased. "Don't you want them to know about this? It's not like they're kids or anything."
"Do you have any pictures of the two of you?" Freya asked her mom.
Joanna shook her head.
Alex shot Joanna a look of disbelief. "I'm sure you do."
"Oh for God's sake!" Joanna put her glass down and reluctantly stood up. She scowled at each of them. "What are you waiting for? If you really want to see old pictures, then you're going to have to come into the other room."
They all stood up as ordered and followed Joanna into the living room, leaving the debris of dinner behind on the table.
From the far corner by the window, Joanna pulled a large box out from under a stack of magazines. Ingrid and Freya crouched around. Alex sat down on the couch, bemused by the scene before her.
Joanna carefully opened the box. She removed various things: a large, brightly colored feather, a stack of telegrams, her tarot cards. Then came the photographs, all sorts of them. Faded seventies snapshots, black and white polaroids, and heaps of cabinet cards. Ingrid squealed with delight. "Oh my God look at my hair!"
Joanna smiled. "You were so cute in pig-tails."
"Check out my dress!" Freya got up and walked over to Alex and showed her the photo. "I look like a silent movie star."
"You sure do."
"The twenties must have been so cool," Ingrid sighed longingly.
"Oh they were," Alex and Joanna both said at the same time. They looked at each other, and there was one of those moments, the kind where time seems to stand still for a second. Joanna quickly pulled herself together and tried to focus back on the contents of the box.
"Here you go," Joanna said, handing Ingrid a stack of pictures. "That's me and Alex. And that's you."
Ingrid flicked through the images, pausing at one in particular. She squinted and held it closer to her face. "That is me. Wow. Brown bell bottoms were so not a good look."
Freya leaned over Ingrid's shoulder and laughed. "So, are we ever going to talk about this spell thing?" she asked, her eyes flitting inquisitively between her mother and Alex.
"Do we really have to do that now?" Joanna complained. Going through these old photographs was bad enough.
"Yes."
Joanna half-heartedly moved away from the box and turned to face everyone.
Alex cracked her knuckles. "Your mom and I think that we could bring your aunt back."
Keeping a watchful eye on her daughters, Joanna tentatively began to explain her idea. "Your grandfather, who cursed this family, is dead, and I'm pretty sure that because he's gone, the curse is weakened."
Ingrid put the pictures she was holding down on the coffee table, her eyes as wide as saucers. "Wait—So Wendy's nine lives thing…"
Joanna bit her lower lip. "I think it might not work like that anymore."
"But when I did a resurrection spell before, somebody else died," Ingrid warned. "Wendy said that's how it works."
Joanna folded her hands in her lap in an attempt to give herself an air of calm stoicism. It wasn't particularly effective. "And it does, but we won't really be doing a resurrection spell. We'll be doing a healing spell, and because I think Wendy will heal us, that could bring her back."
"That is so weird." Freya absentmindedly turned the picture she was holding upside down.
Joanna looked sternly at her daughters. "It is, and it's a serious long-shot. I've never done this before. None of us have. And it has some pretty bring risks attached to it."
"Like?"
"Well, there is a consequence for everything," Joanna warned. "And it could be that doing the spell to bring Wendy back and give her another life will amplify my curse."
Ingrid appeared puzzled. "But doesn't that mean that—"
"You and Freya could die," Alex interrupted.
Freya and Ingrid both looked at their mother with some concern, then at each other.
Eventually, Ingrid spoke. "I think we should do it," she said with unexpected confidence. "No guts, no glory, right?"
"Did you hear what she said?" Joanna asked, an abnormally severe tone in her voice. "She said that you could both die performing this spell. That's it. And I don't know what will happen afterwards. You will be reborn, but then you might not live past the age of ten for all I know."
All four women sat there in silence for a while, letting the enormity of the conversation gradually sink in. Slowly, Joanna began putting the photographs back into the box. She placed the feather and the telegrams back on top where they had been, but she hesitated briefly as she went to return the tarot cards. She put them back down on the floor and closed the box.
"I still want to do it," Ingrid assured her mother. Freya nodded in earnest agreement.
"I get that, but I think we should all sleep on it and decide tomorrow. This is definitely not the time for rash decisions." Joanna picked up the box and carried it back to its place in the corner of the room. When she'd arranged the magazines on top of it, she turned around and attempted a smile. "Do you mind helping me clear up the kitchen?"
They all rose. Ingrid wrapped her arm around her sister's shoulders. They both looked solemnly at each other as they walked towards the door. Alex whispered something to the pair of them that Joanna couldn't quite make out. She looked around the room, the same place where she'd found that absurd séance scene on Tuesday night. With a deft flick of her wrist, she willed the tarot cards to come towards her. She switched the lights off on her way out, and headed to the kitchen to tidy up the mess.
OUTSIDE, THE WIND HAD BEGUN to pick up and it rattled the old windows. Alex was in the bathroom brushing her teeth. As Joanna listened to the soft trickle of the faucet, she found her mind wandering. There were so many places it could go, so many moments in her life. If she concentrated hard enough, she could picture Ingrid and Freya at the playground back in the eighties, trying to see who could go higher on the swings, their hair waving back and forth in the summer breeze. She remembered the time that Freya, not even ten years old, had contracted pneumonia, long before the days of antibiotics. She'd sat at her bedside, her hands hovering over her daughter's torso, chanting a healing spell over and over, praying for her to be well again. And further back still, in the dirt-strewn streets of Baltimore, as they stood at the side of the tracks, watching that great clunking beast of a locomotive come to life before their very eyes. Ingrid had trembled, and Joanna had pulled both of her daughters closer to her and told them not to be afraid, because wasn't the plume of smoke and the smell of burning coal so very beautiful indeed.
Alex came back into the bedroom and found Joanna lost in her own thoughts.
"Are you okay?" she asked, waking Joanna from her daydream.
Joanna looked up at Alex. Her face was laced with worry. Cautiously, Joanna picked up the tarot cards that she'd carried into the bedroom earlier.
"What are you doing?" Alex asked.
"I'm going to deal," Joanna explained, "but I want you to read them for me. I can't be objective right now."
Alex reached over towards Joanna, her palm face-up, and sat down opposite her on the bed. "Give me your hand."
Joanna shook her head. "Please just read the cards for me. Not because you want to, but because my sister would have done it for me."
There was no point in arguing. It was too late for that. Jo cut the deck three times, then began to lay the cards out onto the bed.
The first card was Death, crossed by the Queen of Wands. Joanna couldn't help smiling at seeing her fate in these faded illustrations. When she'd finished laying them out, she grasped Alex's hand that rested on the quilt. Outside, the snow had begun to stick against the windowpanes.
"Death," Alex mused, waving her index finger over the spread. "At the core is this transformation that's taking place in your life. Your losses are at the heart of it all, but you're also scared and that's what's holding you back, which is why the Queen of Wands represents what's crossing you. That's your stubbornness."
"It could just as easily be you," Joanna teased, but Alex didn't take the bait.
"This here, The Sun reversed, that's you without Wendy. You've seen too much and you want to give up, but if you don't try to bring Wendy back, this will be your future," Alex warned. She moved her hand over to the right-hand side of the spread. "But it's not all bad, because look at all of this positive energy surrounding you. You're so much luckier than most of us."
Joanna picked up the unconscious card, The Hanged Man, and weaved it between her fingers.
"You know what that is," Alex said sternly.
"It's me," Joanna sighed, tossing the card into the center of the spread.
"It says you need to let go of control." Alex tapped her finger on the card for emphasis.
"And?"
Alex slowly leant towards Joanna and begun to slip her fingers under the hem of Joanna's dress.
Joanna moved her knees away a little. "Since when did reading the cards become a pick up line?" she protested.
Alex kept moving closer. "Since it told you to quit being a control freak." She ran her fingers up Joanna's thigh, and leaned in to kiss her. Joanna was too tired to resist. Their lips met, and they lost themselves in familiar tastes and smells.
"We're never telling anyone about this," Joanna whispered into Alex's neck.
Alex pulled away a little, her face puzzled.
"The cards," Joanna clarified. "They're always a bad idea." She started to unbutton Alex's shirt, and they fell back onto the tarot spread.
"You're the worst idea of my life," Alex teased as she pulled down the shoulders of Joanna's dress.
And with that, Joanna continued her trip down memory lane.
THE FOLLOWING EVENING, they all sat in silence in the kitchen, waiting for the full moon to rise. The old clock ticked loudly from its place on the wall, making every second drag. Joanna had taken the grimoire out from its trunk to consult it one last time, and it sat there ominously on the table. Ingrid kept fiddling with the clasp, opening and closing the book until Joanna flicked her daughter's hand away from it.
Freya stood on her tip-toes and peered out of the window by the sink again. "It's it time yet?"
Alex absentmindedly shook her head. She was busy checking everything on the kitchen counter. She took each item in turn, picked it up and placed it to one side, over and over again.
Patience had never been one of Ingrid's strengths, and she kept alternating between pulling her boots on and off, and counting the number of beads on her bracelets. Joanna just sat in silence at the table as the minutes passed.
Eventually, Alex picked up the bundle of dried sage. She glanced up at the clock. "It's time."
Ingrid quickly put her boots back on again for hundredth time that evening. Joanna rose hesitantly, her limbs heavy and her mind racing. The clock seemed to tick even louder than before. Alex handed them each in turn one of the items from the counter: the blue apothecary bottle for Freya, a bowl of dirt gathered from the base of the tree in the garden for Ingrid, and the black pendant for Joanna. They walked outside in silence.
The snow crunched under their feet. Their breath froze in the bitterly cold air, surrounding them in an eerie fog. When they'd reached the center of the lawn, Ingrid put her hand into the bowl and slowly began scattering the dirt in a circle around them. She turned to face the others and placed the bowl at her feet. Nobody said a word.
Alex lifted the sage, held it into the middle of the circle and snapped her fingers to set it alight. Carefully, she placed the smoldering bundle on the ground between them. Then it was Joanna's turn. Her hands shook as she dropped the necklace on top of the sage.
Freya raised the blue bottle and held it to her lips. She grimaced as she swallowed a mouthful of the vile concoction before handing the bottle to her sister. When they had all drunk from it, Freya placed the empty bottle at her feet.
Joanna gazed in awe at her daughters, at the wonderful young women they'd turned out to be. They were so remarkable every time, but there was something about this time around, something about them passing through the tumultuous uncertainty of their early twenties, that made this life even more precious than all the others that had gone before.
Alex cleared her throat. "Whatever happens, don't let go. You understand?" They all nodded. Alex shot Jo a warning stare. Joanna had a habit of backing out of things when they got too risky for her, and Alex wasn't about to let her fuck this one up.
They all placed their hands in the center of the circle, one on top of the other, over the bundle of sage that Wendy's necklace rested upon.
In hushed tones, they began to recite, "Spiritus tege nos. Ne noster damni comitemur. Revertere nobis. Simus partier. Hunc familiam cura."
As their hands hovered over the necklace, it gradually began to float upwards until it twirled slowly beneath their fingers. Then, with a great flash, it burst into flames and scattered tiny black shards over the snow-covered grass.
There was deathly silence. They all stood there with their hands still over the embers of the sage bundle. Joanna could feel her heart racing as she stared at her daughters, willing them to stay alive.
Eventually, Alex let out a great sigh of relief. "Well that was a waste of time."
Ingrid looked bewildered. "Nothing happened."
"If you don't count the whole necklace exploding thing," Freya remarked.
Joanna still couldn't speak. She moved her hands away from the center of the circle and stared down at them, wiggling her fingers to check that they were still working as they should. Eventually she said softly, "Let's go back inside. I'll make us some tea. It's freezing out here."
The others dropped their hands. The spell was over. Pulling her daughters close to her, Joanna ushered everyone back into the warm kitchen, and silence settled over East End on that moonlit night in the midst of December once more.
THE PHONE RANG, waking Joanna from her dreamless sleep. She reached out her hand, only to touch Alex who was still asleep beside her. Turning the other way, she rubbed her eyes quickly and grabbed the phone from the bedside table. It was already light outside, so it she knew it must have been nearly nine in the morning. They had talked for hours last night after their unsuccessful spell-casting. Alex wanted to know all about Killian and Dash and the never-ending saga of the Beauchamps' star-crossed lovers and Freya had been more than happy to oblige.
"Hello?" Joanna's voice was still husky with sleep. On the other end of the line was a man with a strong Minnesotan accent. She listened intently.
"Yes. That's me…. I can be down in about an hour, if that's okay… yes. Thank you so much… See you later."
She hung up the call, and placed her phone back on the bedside table. Alex stirred next to her. She looked over her shoulder at Joanna. "Who was that?"
Joanna looked down at Alex, then back at the phone, then back at Alex again. She was certain that she was still dreaming, and that she would wake in a few moments from one of those horrid hyper-realistic dreams where she was already awake and half-way through her day that always made her feel disoriented all morning, but she showed no sign of waking.
"It was… It was the animal shelter," she said in a state of disbelief. "They have a black cat with a microchip registered to my name and address."
Alex squinted. "Are you kidding?" She pushed the bedcovers down to her elbows and turned around. "What the fuck?"
Joanna burst into tears. It was as if all her grief and elation had come at once, and she was being crudely shocked from a desaturated existence back into vibrant color. Alex sat up and carefully brushed Joanna's hair out of her face and held her close. Joanna rested her head on Alex's shoulder and they stayed there for as long as they could until Joanna whispered that she had to get dressed and leave. They both knew that Alex would be gone by the time Joanna returned. Alex had her glossy skyscraper life to go back to, and Joanna had done too much harm to ever fully undo the damage. For all the magic that coursed through their bodies, there were some things that they could never bring into alignment, but for the first time in many decades, they were both at peace with that reality.
THE LIVING ROOM WAS QUIET except for the sound of the crackling fire. Joanna sat on the couch, her feet tucked under her, an already dog-eared copy of The Luminaries in her lap. Ingrid was curled up beside her under a blanket, half-asleep. On the couch opposite them, Freya was no doubt texting her next train-wreck romance.
Over by the fire, Wendy was sprawled out on her back, her tail twitching back and forth like a metronome. The flames from the fire made the stone on her green collar sparkle. She purred loudly, and it sounded like home. Perhaps her powers would never return, and she'd stay like that forever, a little black cat that sauntered about the house and brought mice and blackbirds as macabre peace offerings.
Joanna put her paperback aside and went to place a few more logs on the fire. It spat as she added them, but Wendy remained undisturbed. Joanna flicked away a glowing spark from the floor, and leaned down and kissed Wendy's head. She could swear that Wendy smelled just like her perfume, of tuberose and old books and not like a cat at all. Joanna shook her head in disbelief, fearing that perhaps she was starting to lose her mind. It would hardly have come as a surprise to her. She put the iron tongs back on their hook, and joined Ingrid on the couch again.
She gently stroked her daughter's hair. "Are you scared about tomorrow?"
Ingrid stirred and looked over at Wendy dozing there contently on the floor. "No. I'm good."
Joanna smiled and went back to reading her book.
~* fin.