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It didn’t feel real.
Worst of all, I realized it was still my wedding day.
Hours must’ve passed, or maybe it was minutes. I couldn’t be sure, but even time couldn’t convince me of what I’d seen. My eyes had become raw with tears, and they burned when I blinked. Isa had curled up in my lap. Her weight could usually comfort me unlike anything else, but tonight, it felt like a boulder crushing me.
Voices came from another room. Verla and Warren must’ve returned by now.
“Are we confident the perimeter is safe?” Chloe asked.
“Yes,” Verla said. “Our wards are strong, and we’ve expanded them to conceal what happened here tonight. The priestesses would need all the Oaken Wands to break through them.”
It didn’t matter if my body was safe, because the priestesses proved tonight that they could take everything from me that mattered. What was the point of staying here and being in hiding if my body was safe but my soul was in pieces?
I’d sworn they wouldn’t take anyone else from me, but they had. They’d driven us from Octavia Falls. They’d taken our home. Now they’d taken my family.
I should want to burn the priestesses and everything they cared about to the ground—to raid Octavia Falls right now and make them suffer for what they’d done in the worst ways possible. But all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and drift off to a place where none of this was happening. Grammy couldn’t be gone… she just couldn’t.
“The Executors got too close to the safe house tonight,” Grant said.
“They’re narrowing their search, but we don’t believe they know exactly where we’re hiding,” Professor Warren replied. “We bought us some time with the wards.”
“What if it isn’t enough?” Miles asked. “We may need to leave the safe house.”
Verla cleared her throat. “We can’t. Our wards are concealing us in more ways than one. If we leave, we’re vulnerable to the priestesses’ magic. Even if we find some place to stay and cast more wards, the priestesses will continue looking until they find us. We’re safest here, and we need to stay for as long as possible. Let’s all get some rest.”
I wasn’t sure if they said anything else, because I couldn’t bring myself to focus on anything right now. Eventually, I heard footsteps approach.
“You should get her to bed,” I heard someone say. I thought it was Verla, but her voice sounded distorted through the fog clouding my mind. “She needs to rest. We all do. We’ll hold a funeral tomorrow.”
Isa moved off my lap, and Lucas helped me stand. It was the first time I noticed I’d been holding a cup of tea, only the tea had gone cold. I didn’t know who had given it to me. The mug was still full, and I hadn’t taken a sip.
Talia took the teacup from my hands, and Lucas helped me upstairs. Cornelius lay at the bottom of the stairs. He looked up at me with shining eyes, like he could feel my heartbreak as his own.
Lucas led me to our bedroom. This room had been so full of love and passion earlier tonight, but all that magnificence had been replaced by anguish. Lucas helped me out of my dress, but the motion felt nothing like it had before.
He wrapped a robe around my body, then lowered me onto the bed and pulled the covers up around me. I lay on my side, staring into the darkness that seemed all-consuming. I feared that if I closed my eyes, I would see the spell impacting Grammy all over again—or hear her scream telling me to run.
I couldn’t help but think this was my fault. Grammy had cast a shield to protect me, and it caused the Executor’s spell to ricochet and hurt her instead. If she’d just kept her shield around herself instead of trying to save me, she’d still be here.
Isa curled in my arms, and Lucas snuggled close to me, but I could hardly feel them. All I could feel was the agonizing tightness in my chest that no amount of tears could alleviate. It was bizarre to think that Grammy wasn’t just down the hall, sleeping two doors down.
At some point, I fell asleep, but it was a restless sleep. I didn’t have any dreams—or at the very least, they were so harrowing that my mind couldn’t bear to remember them.
I woke to an all-consuming ache curling around every muscle and joint. I lay in bed for a long time, unable to process how much time had passed. Rain pelted the window, and thunder cracked over the house. It was very unlike the drizzle that had been a good omen the morning of our wedding. This was a symbol of turmoil.
I didn’t understand how the good omens of our wedding day had led to this. Either the omens meant nothing, or I couldn’t trust them. Grammy’s death was anything but a blessing the rain and spider had promised me. That, or there were larger forces at play. The thought terrified me to the very core. I refused to believe there was a larger meaning to Grammy’s passing, because nothing could justify this kind of loss. I didn’t care if there was a reason for her leaving, because I needed her right now. She was gone because of me.
I had to get out of bed to prepare for the funeral. We were supposed to bring an offering to Grammy’s grave, which she would be buried with, and I couldn’t imagine her being buried with anything other than the flowers from the garden she loved so much. I dug a lily bulb out from one of her potted plants and returned to my room to get dressed.
I couldn’t, though. I sat on the bed and stared across the room, unable to move.
By mid-afternoon, the rain had let up. Voices came from downstairs, but I couldn’t be sure whose they were. I kept expecting to hear Grammy, but her voice never came.
Lucas sat beside me on the bed. I lifted my heavy eyes and noticed he wore a black suit. A long black dress hung from the back of the door. I wasn’t sure who put it there, though it looked like something that had come from Chloe’s closet.
“Is it time for the funeral already?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Lucas pushed my hair back. “Not until you’re ready. Take all the time you need.”
