Page 25

D aisy

Sebastian Crowe was once a highly respectable man in Willowbrook.

While it partly came from the power and work his family had done for generations, Sebastian had skyrocketed through school, looking as though he might even rise towards becoming an Elder on the Witch Council.

Plenty of men and women from the Crowe family went on to govern on the Council, and most of the town was expecting him to do the same.

When his grandfather stepped down years ago, all of Willowbrook waited to hear from Sebastian, waited to see him step up, waited to see him continue the legacy that had been left for him.

But, surprisingly, the time never came.

Sebastian opened his mechanic shop instead, allowing himself to become a recluse from the community.

The time after Gary’s death was when everything changed, when Daisy witnessed a man who was destined for greatness become nothing more than a greedy warlock.

When Daisy denied him the things he wanted, the life he begged to have alongside her, Sebastian went so far as to threaten her with magic.

He was a powerful member of the Crowe family, after all.

Test him too much, and the wrath of generational power would be thrusted into Daisy’s life.

While Sebastian never did follow through on his threats, the danger remained.

When he found himself lingering outside of Fields’ Herbals, Daisy watched with a wary eye, expecting that he would burst in at any second with a slew of spells.

Unfortunately, that was all it would take.

Enough power and enough perfectly done hexes would’ve landed Sebastian the woman of his dreams, the person he believed he deserved, the one he claimed to be owed to him.

Daisy watched him from within the pit, reliving every single heinous thing he’d forced her to experience.

Perhaps if she had been stronger back then, Daisy would’ve noticed how much Sebastian clung to her, how he demanded to be around whenever he could, how he was the only one who lingered after everyone else had gone.

At the time, Daisy couldn’t have asked for a better companion.

That was the sentiment, right until he pulled her in for a kiss, right after she had been through crying over her dead husband.

“I don’t blame you for forgetting who your best friend is,” Sebastian was in the middle of saying as he paced around the pit.

Each step he took sent more dirt down into the hole, a few pebbles and rocks flying in next.

“I-It’s hard to see the truth when there are so many lies being waved in front of you. ”

“Lies, Sebastian?” Daisy called out. “What lies?”

He thrusted an accusatory finger towards Tessa. “I know that little empath was whispering things in your ear while we were together.”

“That’s the thing,” she continued with a shake of her head. “We weren’t ever together . You realize that, don’t you? We weren’t -”

“You’ve really been brainwashed, haven’t you?”

Daisy blinked. “N-No, I don’t think I -”

“You see,” Sebastian interjected as he continued his tirade, still pacing around the pit’s circumference.

“You and I were bound from the very moment I laid eyes on you. You were leaving the community college. You took a year off when Gary got sick and started to go back after he passed. I was standing by the water fountain and I,” he paused, stopping in his tracks as though he had been thrusted back into the memory, “I heard the voice of Hecate in my head.”

Tessa rolled her eyes. “Every Crowe says they’ve heard testimony from Hecate,” she whispered to Daisy. “A load of baloney, if you ask me.”

“‘Go to her,’ Hecate said,” Sebastian continued. “‘Heal her. Heal that which belongs to you.’”

Daisy’s face scrunched up.

Sebastian shrugged, as if it was as simple as that. “It was written by the Mother herself,” he said. “You and me. Bound for eternity. I have been the man of your dreams before you ever knew it.”

She looked away, barely able to stomach the words he said any longer.

The more he talked, the easier it was for her to think of Gary.

The sadness came as fast as it always did.

No matter how much time had passed since she last saw her late husband, Daisy remembered him as though he’d only perished the day before, as if the wound he’d left upon her had never fully healed all those years ago.

It remained with her, still, and even more so as Sebastian continuously spoke against Gary’s good name.

“After all this time,” Sebastian was still saying, “you never saw how much I was there for you, Daisy. Who else wiped your tears when you thought the world was caving in on you? Who else made you dinner when you hardly had any energy to feed yourself? Who cut your grass? Who cleaned your gutters? Who was always there?” He flung around, leaning forward till the dreadfully terrifying look on his face was visible. “It was me , Daisy. It was always me .”

He pulled himself up and straightened his work overalls. “You know,” he continued, “I never once stopped loving you. Even when -”

The words continued but Daisy found herself hardly able to listen.

As far as she was concerned, the more he spoke, the more he disrespected Gary, the more he drove a wedge between himself and Daisy.

Not that she would’ve found herself ever turning towards him in the way he sought, but perhaps she could have been softened towards him, more understanding of his plight.

Any chance he had for sympathy was gone long before he ever decided to open his mouth or trap them in the pit.

“He’s hardly paying attention to where he walks,” Tessa suddenly whispered.

Daisy glanced at her. “What?”

Tessa nodded her chin towards Sebastian’s path, her eyes flaring as something brewed within her mind. “He’s practically inches away from falling into the pit himself. He’s not paying attention.”

Following her gaze, Daisy turned back towards Sebastian. He spoke and looked ahead absentmindedly, entirely unaware of how the walls of the pit grew less steep with every step he took. Soon, if he kept it up, they would be able to climb out without needing too much extra effort.

“That’s good and all,” Daisy muttered, “but he can push us right back in the moment we start climbing.”

Tessa nodded. “We need a spell.”

“You’ve got magic left still?”

“Hardly,” Tessa whispered. “But together, we could be strong enough.”

Daisy focused her attention back on Sebastian.

“That woman I found myself with,” he was in the middle of saying, “is miles upon miles away from you, Daisy. I hope you see how I made a lapse in judgement by turning away from you, but perhaps that might all be forgiven.”

Daisy pressed her lips together, holding back her bitter laugh.

Suddenly, then, an idea presented itself to her.

There were a few things Sebastian wanted to hear.

What, she wondered, would happen if she managed to give those over to him?

How far would his barrier fall? How distracted would it render him?

Glancing to her side, Daisy met Tessa’s gaze, and mouthed: trust me .

“Sebastian,” Daisy called out, turning to face him once more. “I forgive you.”

He froze and faced the inside of the pit. “W-What?”

“You’re right,” she continued. “You had a lapse of judgement, but all is forgiven.”

Sebastian blinked a few times before his eyes grew wide. “Daisy,” he murmured, “you see me now, don’t you?”

“I see that the only way for people like you and me to survive,” she said, “is for us to stick together like glue !” Her eyes flicked over to Tessa, who didn’t seem to understand at first.

Sebastian nodded rapidly.

“I mean,” Daisy held her hands up, “what better way to get out of a situation like this, other than sticking together?”

“Bound!” Sebastian said. “Bound together!”

By that point, Daisy glanced back towards Tessa, and she had wide eyes, finally seeing the point.

Sebastian beamed with excitement. His feet hung over the sides of the pit, arms outstretched and beckoning for Daisy to come closer.

She crept forward, entirely aware of Tessa moving alongside her, though Sebastian was too deep within his own mind to notice it.

“By the power of Hecate,” the pair of them whispered once they were side by side, as close as they could get to Sebastian.

Daisy snatched onto Tessa’s hand, clutching onto her as tight as possible as the magic coursed through them both.

Raising their other hands, a surge of energy shot out from their palms, flying through the air and landing directly onto Sebastian’s chest. With a surprised grunt, he flew backwards, the sound of his back hitting a tree resounding loudly through the empty woods.

“You were thinking of glue, right?” Tessa asked.

Daisy shrugged. “Glue, sticking, same thing.”

Tessa winced. “Hopefully he’s only glued to the tree.”

They both climbed out of the pit, and Daisy was more than surprised by the amount of feeling and strength she had left within her limbs. Once they made it to the top, resurfacing on the grassy floor, their eyes landed on Sebastian.

He writhed and jerked, trying to pry his back off the tree trunk but he couldn’t budge. The spell worked soundly in gluing his entire backside to the wood. Sebastian’s eyes grew wild with anger as he saw them, his mouth opening to spew more words that Daisy could hardly handle.

She surged forward, barely recognizing herself as the anger she kept so close to her heart finally found its way to the surface.

“Now you’re going to listen to me, Sebastian,” Daisy snapped, pressing her finger into his chest. “Don’t you dare act as though you were always there for me.

Each time you came by my house, offered to do those things or did them without even asking, you had one motive - one disgusting - motive.

” The confidence surged through her without Tessa’s empathic abilities needing to intervene.

“Claim to be my friend all you want, but you only wanted to sleep with me. You wanted to be in all the places you weren’t allowed, even though my husband had just died. ”

Sebastian stared with wide eyes, his mouth slack.

“You hear how that sounds, don’t you?” Daisy shook her head at him.

“One of the great members of the Crowe family, manipulating a grieving widow in order to get her into bed! What would the Council think if they knew a great warlock like yourself played the ‘nice guy’ in order to take advantage of a widow? What would they think, Sebastian?”

He stammered, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“If there’s one thing you can walk away knowing,” Daisy whispered, directly upon him, “it is that I will never, ever, succumb to the likes of you. My heart is mine alone, and it was never bound to you.” She leaned closer still. “And it never will be .”

Backing away, Daisy breathed heavily, the anger leaving behind a rush of adrenaline that had nowhere to go.

When she looked back up at Sebastian, he looked rather stunted, not like the man that they had chased, not the man that had watched them fall into the pit.

He was simply a man scorned, one who’d faced the mistakes he made long ago, and who now had to live with every bit of the consequences they brought.

Sebastian snapped his mouth shut.

“Tell us about the spell you put on Daisy,” Tessa said.

He glanced between them. “S-Spell?”

“The potion,” Daisy snapped. “The one you mailed to Fields’ Herbals . The one that has cursed me. You’re going to remove it, or we’ll go straight to the Witch Council with everything we’ve learned.”

Tessa nodded determinedly.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sebastian murmured. “What spell? I-I haven’t mailed anything to your shop!”

“Now is a terrible time to lie,” Daisy hissed. “Tell us the truth, or -”

Tessa’s hand snaked around Daisy’s wrist. “He isn’t lying.”

Flinging around, Daisy eyed the empath. “How can you be so sure?”

“I can just feel it,” she whispered with a shake of her head. “He isn’t lying.”

Daisy turned to face Sebastian once more.

There was a pleading look in his eyes, though he didn’t dare speak unless spoken to.

While she wanted to revel in the strength she found within herself, Daisy knew just as well as Tessa that he wasn’t the culprit they were looking for.

Even after everything, it was as clear as day.

Daisy’s shoulders fell. “You’re right.”

“C’mon,” Tessa whispered. “Let’s get out of here before nightfall.”

Dejected beyond belief, Daisy allowed Tessa to turn her away from Sebastian and steer them back towards Willowbrook.

“H-Hey!” Sebastian called out. “You’re just gonna leave me stuck here?”

Tessa peered over her shoulder at him. “It’ll wear off in a few hours. Maybe you can use the time to think!”

As they moved closer to town, Daisy could only feel steeped in more and more dread.

The person behind the spell placed upon her grew no clearer than before.

If anything, she felt further in the unknown, more unaware of her future than she had been before tracking down Sebastian.

She gripped onto Tessa’s arm like it was her lifeforce.

Blessed be, she thought to herself.

Hecate, protect me.