Page 48 of A Spell for Midwinter’s Heart
Rowan paced behind the public house, hands clasped at her back, readying for what was to come. Outside, the sounds of a gathering crowd swelled, but she didn’t dare look. No good would come of it. Tiny crowd, massive crowd—either would intimidate in its own way.
Stephan arrived, Zaide at his side. “It’s time!” said her big brother, clapping his hands. “You ready?”
“Never.”
“Too bad, bitch,” said Zaide, grinning. She walked up and tapped Rowan on the nose. A flush of warm magic flowed out of her touch.
“What was that?” Rowan asked, clapping her hands over her mouth as her voice came out loud—very loud.
“That,” cackled Zaide. Rowan shook her head and leaned over to embrace her oldest friend. Stephan followed with a bear hug, squishing them all together.
“All that’s left to do is do it,” said Stephan.
“Good one,” said Rowan. “You read that on a candy wrapper?”
“A meme, actually,” returned Stephan.
“We are well and truly fucked as a species,” said Zaide.
They released, laughing, and Rowan turned to face the ladder that would take her to the top of the public house.
A flat expanse of field stretched between it and the warehouse where the meeting was taking place.
If fortune was on their side, it would be full of people who had gathered to protest the Goshen Group’s acquisition.
Hand by foot, she made her way up and finally clambered to the roof. They had swept it clean, but she was still careful to test her footing. Finally, she stood on shaking legs.
The sight ahead took her breath away. As far as she could see, in all directions, stretched a crowd.
They’d filled the field and spilled into the festival grounds and even into the streets.
In the low sun of the retreating day, every face was lit with a light—lanterns, candles, flashlights, glow sticks, even an unwise flare or two, whatever they could get their hands on—the coven had been busy gathering and distributing them, and they’d done their job well.
Rowan opened her awareness, viewing the crowd as dots of brilliant energy, utterly entangled.
Her white hair curled around her like a storm cloud as she leveled her gaze at the windows of the warehouse’s second-floor meeting room.
Figures huddled there in silhouette, peering out at the gathered crowd.
Her eyes traveled to one in particular, and though he was too far away to make out every detail of his face, she could sense his eyes on her.
He’d shown up.
“Thanks for coming, everyone!” she called, voice amplified by Zaide’s magic. A cheer erupted in reply. “Up there, right now, the Goshen Group is trying to buy our future.” A strong chorus of boos. “Yeah, that’s how I feel about that too.”
She sobered a little, the energy of the crowd following her.
“Things are hard out there right now, but Elk Ridge has been here before. We’ve done what we needed to do, risen to the occasion, adapted and survived, together as a community.
Thirty years ago, everyone came together to build this…
” She gestured to the festival grounds. “We can do it again. I know you’ve seen what we’re proposing, and that you’re excited.
Because some of you have already sent us a lot of messages…
Yes, Roy, I promise we’ll have some senior-friendly Samhain treats. ”
“Broke my last pair of teeth on a damned candied apple!” came a reply from the crowd.
She continued, “But I want to make sure you understand something—no one here can promise this is going to work. No one can ever promise that anything truly important is going to work out, and that’s really scary.
Like existentially terrifying. And it is so much easier to shut down, give up…
” Her voice momentarily lowered, but it picked back up as she gestured toward the conference room.
“Or hand over everything to someone with an easy answer, so you don’t have to try so damn hard anymore. ”
She paused, and the pause emphasized the silence that had fallen over the crowd.
“People take a lot of different meanings from the winter holidays, but what’s consistent is—never give up. Don’t give up on yourself and don’t give up on each other. Trust that you can do it, that we can all do it.”
Rowan lifted her chin to the sky and looked back at the figure in the window.
“Because like someone once said to me, it’s worth taking chances for ourselves, and for the people we love.
” Her voice quieted as she said, “It’s worth everything.
” After a beat, she continued, “So, if, after all that, you’re still with me, I want you to look right up at those windows and chant.
Tell them you want to keep these festivals by, for, and of Elk Ridge! By, for, and of Elk Ridge!”
There was a brief, terrible moment in which it seemed like no one would join in, but then the window of the conference room opened, and Gavin’s rich voice called, “By, for, and of Elk Ridge!”
For a moment, there was nothing in the world but the two of them, joined despite the distance, and then a swell of voices roared up to envelop the scene.
The protesters turned to face the conference room, chanting, “By, for, and of Elk Ridge! By, for, and of Elk Ridge!”
Massive lanterns floated up from strategic locations around the crowd.
At the base of each of them stood a member of the coven, propelling the lights skyward with lifted arms. Rowan kept leading the chant until it was clear it had taken on a life of its own, and then she stepped back to watch.
With every beginning of the chant, her heart lifted. With every ending, it soared.
Until an insistent buzzing in her pocket interrupted the moment.
“You were supposed to call my mom on the laptop,” said Rowan, weaving her way through the crowd with her phone stuck to her ear.
“Well, no one’s picking up, so…” Dade’s voice crackled from the conferencing app on her phone.
She broke through the mass of people and pushed open the warehouse door, making for the thinly carpeted staircase. “I shouldn’t be in the meeting…Me being there might complicate things.”
“Why? You stick your foot in your mouth again?”
“Well, yes…But! That’s not why. There’s someone in there who I’m giving his space.”
“Rowan Midwinter. Did you have yourself a holiday fling?” This time it was Lorena who spoke. She and Dade were both online and waiting to present the final piece of the Elk Ridge pitch to Dennis.
“Something like that,” Rowan murmured.
Stepping out of the stairwell, she was caught off-guard by the fact that three people were huddled on the landing, the meeting room door shut tight behind them.
Gavin stood directly in front of his father, back straight, face firm, and hand gesturing toward the windows while Liliana looked on from a short distance away.
“Is that enough to convince you?” said Gavin.
“Because I want to believe this isn’t about the money.
That you really want what’s best for Elk Ridge.
Because that’s the man I know. The man I love.
The man I’m proud to call my father.” His eyes narrowed.
“But you’re making that very hard right now.
This other guy? Who’d sell out everyone for his own gain?
I don’t know him. I don’t want to know him. ”
His handsome face blazed, open and ferocious, poised as he drew a hard line in the sand that he would not let his father cross—not without breaking something between them forever. It was just, it was brave, it was everything she’d believed he could be.
Dennis’s eyebrows rose to the top of his forehead, mouth agape, but he was quiet, cowed by his son’s accusations.
“Dennis,” said Liliana, stepping in closer.
“You know how Sarah would have voted. We built this for our community, for our kids, and what they’re proposing was exactly what she always wanted for it.
A place where everyone in the community would feel included, represented, and where they could thrive. Give them a chance.”
The old man was quiet for a moment. His eyes traveled to a collage of photos on the wall—all pictures from festivals past. In the center was an image of Sarah McCreery with her arm around Liliana Midwinter, standing at the gates of the festival. Their youthful faces alight.
His eyes lingered on Sarah’s face. “God, I wish she were here.”
“So do I,” said Liliana. She ventured to put a hand on his arm, and he stared at it for a moment, eyes shining with tears he would not let himself shed. When he looked back, his face was all business.
“Before you say anything!” said Rowan, making the room suddenly aware of her presence.
Gavin’s expression shifted as soon as he saw her, but she didn’t let herself linger on him, afraid of what she’d find.
Just one more thing to do. One more thing to do before the New Year. Then she could figure out the rest of her life.
She held her phone up high. “I have one more thing to show everyone.”
“Hi there!” Lorena’s voice chirped from the phone. “We’re with the SunlightCorps. I’m Lorena.”
“And I’m Dade.”
“Wait, you’re Dade?” said Gavin.
“That’s me,” said Dade, leaning in close to his camera as if that would help him get a better look at Gavin. “Ahhh…you must be the awkwardness.” Gavin shot a quick look Rowan’s way and then averted his eyes.
“We work with Rowan,” said Lorena, moving them along. “She told us a little about your situation, and while we’re still going to need to bring it to the wider group in the New Year, we can see a strong case for picking Elk Ridge as the site of our next build.”
“What would that mean, exactly?” asked Dennis, brow furrowed in concentration.
“We’re going to get your community some free, clean energy, my dude,” said Dade. Rowan was fairly certain this was the first time anyone had ever referred to Dennis McCreery as their “dude.”