Page 26

D aisy

Tomorrow is a new day.

Quite a common phrase, but it was one that Daisy had lived all her life hearing.

Grandma Lotta, who resided in a delightfully small nursing home on the edge of Willowbrook, spoke the phrase almost on a daily basis, living each day by the simple words.

After everything that had happened with Sebastian, Daisy found herself craving the phrase more often than not, desperate to hear it come straight from her grandmother’s mouth.

While Tessa ended up going back to Fields’ Herbals after their rendezvous in the woods, Daisy could only wander home and slump in her bed, drifting in and out of a restless sleep.

When she woke up the next morning, all Daisy could think about doing was going to visit Grandma Lotta.

Tessa met her on the driveway, already stocked with a small lunch and slices of cherry pie from Ronald’s.

The busy restaurant used to be her grandmother’s favorite, where she would always find herself after long days at the store.

When Daisy stumbled into the car, she ignored Tessa’s pressing questions and allowed the empath to sink contentedness into her mind.

Perhaps that was all it took. Some swirling magic and the growing power of an empath, and Daisy felt almost as right as rain once more.

Tessa’s small car rumbled as they pulled up to the nursing home.

It housed only a handful of seniors, each with bountiful magic still resting within them.

According to the Council, witches like Grandma Lotta deserved only the best in her old age and retirement.

They’d built the nursing home for spectacular witches and warlocks, ones who practiced their abilities and needed a safe space to do so.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Tessa asked as they walked towards the front entrance.

Daisy shook her head. “I can’t quite imagine myself being up for anything,” she said, though the sorrowful emotion behind her words could hardly be heard or felt. “But I should’ve done this long ago.”

Tessa pressed her lips together. “Have you thought about asking Grandma Lotta for help?”

“Why would I?”

Tessa chuckled. “She does happen to be one of the most well known and powerful witches of her time.”

“I can’t ask her to step out of retirement for something as silly as this,” Daisy muttered. “Maybe we were wrong, and Sebastian did do it, and -”

Tessa grabbed onto Daisy’s arm, giving her a tight squeeze before shaking her head like a disapproving mother. “You know as well as I do that Sebastian didn’t do it. We can hope all we want, but it turns out to not be as simple as that.”

Daisy sighed. “I know.”

“I said it before,” Tessa began, “and I’ll say it again. Maybe now’s the time to start thinking about going to the Witch Council for help.”

“If they knew the things I willingly did while beneath this spell, I’d be just as liable to lose my magic.”

“You really think so?”

Daisy shrugged. “Do you want to test it?” she asked.

“I made the adoption event successful. I brought the business back to Fields’ Herbals .

I made Rebecca Mitchell embarrass herself, just as much as I made the paint bucket fall over Richard Martin.

And don’t even get me started on what happened to Old Lady Witherford.

That is enough alone to get my powers stripped from me.

” Daisy shook her head. “There has to be a better way to see it through.”

With a heavy heart, Daisy went inside the nursing home.

The halls were warm and beige colored, opening up into a large living room with a few televisions and a small cafe.

Despite only housing a few seniors, the building was rather large.

They had a bountiful garden behind the nursing home, a small gymnasium at one end, and a wide study on the other.

The study was full of bookcases and tables, giving the seniors more than enough things to do while staying there.

The living room had a few plush couches, and nurses and attendants were cleaning the rugs and walls as Daisy and Tessa passed by them.

Grandma Lotta’s room was near the back of the building and on the second floor, giving her a wide patio that overlooked the expansive garden and nearby lake.

When Daisy rapped her knuckles against the door, it opened without a person on the other side, the sweet smell of freshly baked cookies and rising bread immediately hitting them.

Daisy moved into the room as if she was caught in a daze, merely following the smell towards her grandmother.

“What a delightful surprise!”

Grandma Lotta rose from her seat on the patio and waddled into the room.

She was incredibly thin and full of wrinkles, very much fitting for her age.

Hair that was once a brilliantly dark brown faded into wispy strands of grey, was now pulled into a loose braid down her back.

She dressed in a floral blouse that was tucked into a pair of neat slacks, a pair of slippers resting on her feet.

She swept through the room eagerly, immediately snatching Daisy up into her arms for a tight embrace.

“I told you I’d come visit,” Daisy said in her ear.

Grandma Lotta squeezed her real tight. “Call me an old crone,” she drawled as she pulled away, “but do I smell cherry pie from Ronald’s?”

Tessa stepped forward, pulling the containers out of her bag. “Freshly baked this morning.” She gave Grandma Lotta a kiss on the cheek. “Ronald sends his love, by the way.”

“Better yet, he sends me more pie!” Grandma Lotta laughed as she took the box into the small kitchen.

“We brought lunch, Grandma,” Daisy told her as the woman began opening the container to pull out a few slices of the bright red desert. “You don’t want to spoil your appetite, do you?”

Grandma Lotta waved her hand in the air. “I’m at the point in my life where I must do as I please, or I might never have the chance to do it again,” she said. After making three plates, she stacked them on a tray and began to go back towards the patio.

Tessa easily took the tray from her hands and went to put it outside herself.

“I brought you some new tonics I made from the shop,” Daisy said as she pulled out a pouch that jingled with thin vials. “There’s one for your fertilizer, and another for the insomnia you complain about every now and then.”

Grandma Lotta looked over the tonics eagerly. She held one up to the light, peering at the color with an intense gaze. When she lowered it, a bright smile spread across her face. “You’re getting better and better with each day, Daisy. If only your mother was here to see it as much as I can.”

Daisy pressed her lips together thoughtfully.

Perhaps many things would be different if her mother was still around.

There’d be another force to turn to, someone who could guide the way during rough patches she found herself in.

Even though her grandmother was right there in Willowbrook, Daisy felt far too guilty to burden the aging woman with something as silly as a potion.

“Back in my day,” Grandma Lotta was in the middle of saying as they moved towards the patio, “work like that got you a seat on the Council.”

“I-I don’t think it was work like that ,” Daisy murmured sheepishly.

Tessa shook her head, already halfway through her pie. “Don’t listen to her, Grandma Lotta,” she said. “Daisy is far too humble sometimes.”

“Oh, believe me, I know!” Grandma Lotta settled in her rocking chair with a broad smile spreading across her face.

“When the Council first approached me about taking a seat alongside them, I could hardly believe I’d produced a lick of good work that warranted such a prestigious position.

Sure, the store was doing good, but I had a growing family on my hands.

What work was good enough when I had more than enough mouths to feed? ”

Grandma Lotta leaned back in her seat as she reminisced, her eyes staring at the countless flowers that grew in the garden. “I turned them down for a while, but the Elders just kept coming.”

“What a problem to have!” Tessa teased.

“Finally, they stopped to ask why I kept turning them down,” Grandma Lotta continued.

“‘Don’t you know the kind of power you can have?’ they said.

‘Don’t you understand the opportunities you’re turning down?

’” She shook her head. “Those Elders thought I was the best spell-maker in all of Willowbrook, perhaps on this entire side of the country. Perhaps I was, perhaps I wasn’t. ”

Daisy huffed. “We all know that you were, Grandma.”

She waved her hand through the air absentmindedly.

“The work I did in my youth is beside the point,” she said.

“They wanted me right then and there, when I was already engaged in the biggest project a witch could ever be blessed with.” Grandma Lotta leaned forward, her eyes holding onto Daisy in particular. “Family.”

Daisy thought of Gary for a moment, but quickly brushed it aside.

“So, when they came back another time, they said ‘Come with us, Lotta. Give power another shot, Lotta. Aren’t you afraid, Lotta, of each day being the same as it once was, the same boring routine over and over again?’”

Grandma Lotta’s face brightened. “I told them, ‘Tomorrow is a new day, and there isn’t a single thing more powerful than raising my family.”

Daisy watched her grandmother wistfully, the familiar phrase echoing in the back of her mind. She was so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t even noticed the tear already slipping down her cheek.

“My dear Daisy,” Grandma Lotta breathed. “What’s got you so wound up?”

Daisy could hardly keep up the act with her grandmother watching her in that way. The walls she had prepared to hold up during the visit quickly crumbled to the floor around her feet.