Page 53 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga #1)
“This day was always going to come,” Esteri reasoned. “That’s the regrettable nature of mortality. You would have had to watch them pass, just as one day, though far from now, I will have to watch you.”
There it was. The words she’d been unable to find, the point she’d struggled to grasp.
“But that’s just it, Essi, I didn’t get to watch.
I didn’t get to be there. They were barely more than kids then, but we were family.
And now they’re just gone.” She stared into the deep rich color of the wine in her glass.
“I have a single sketch in my home that Tilde drew, and that is all I have left. No goodbyes, no mementos… After two hundred years of nightmares, I’m struggling to remember what little I did have.
Every time I try, all I can think about is what I would give to go back.
” One admission led to others, intimate confessions that choked their way out of her.
“I miss them. And I miss the life we had. It made sense to me. None of this makes sense to me now. It is loud and bright and yet still so in the dark about everything around it.”
For a long moment, Esteri remained silent. She took a long sip of her drink, then retrieved the decanter to pour them each more wine. “What do you want to know?”
It was a simple offer, but it was sincere, and Avery reciprocated with an equivalent answer. “What happened to them?”
Esteri leaned the heels of her palms against the edge of the bar, collecting her thoughts.
“Thomas and Tilde finally told each other how they felt.” There was a slight roll of the eyes accompanied by a smile.
“Got married. Had far too many children. Oliver never stopped the work—he and his partner Alec started their own agency to help the people the police laughed at. Made a small name for themselves as vampire hunters among the locals.”
Avery’s lips twitched, pleased by this.
“Isabella opened a little book and tea shop near Fleet Street. After she passed, the family sold it to make ends meet. It’s moved, but it’s still open, actually.
Levine’s Book Sales she wished she could bring them back.
The pain was similar— even if the cause of the wound was old, the grief was still fresh.
Again she became aware of the faint outline of the house in the distance.
It prompted three slow breaths. Eira had passed only but a week prior.
In this recreation of memory, the casket sat behind the altar encircled by white candles and sprinklings of rose petals, chamomile, and field horsetail.
“If I were a master healer…”
Eira had been the first to pass, by all reports of natural causes—but her body was missing from the funeral home.
“I wouldn’t be able to use my magic to take the organs if I was simply replacing healthy organs with what I believed were better magical substitutes.”
To Avery’s knowledge, if Eira died from natural causes, then Valentina had been the second to die, but the first victim.
Her brain had been exchanged for a fetch infused with herbs meant to fight bacteria and inflammation and improve cognitive function.
The shadow of Valentina stepped inside the healing circle and offered her brain in her cupped outstretched hands to the altar.
“I would also have to believe that in taking these specific organs, I could help someone else, I could heal…”
Saoirse was this killer’s second victim, and so she too stepped up and held out her heart.
A brilliant medical mind that had known Eira for years and cared for her. A compassionate heart that had loved and cared for Eira since they were young.
Avery’s eyes snapped open. “Am I…trying to bring Eira back?”
45 Bengali: Paternal grandfather.
46 A Finnish nickname roughly translating to “Little Avery.”
47 Finnish colloquialism: A humorless person. Directly translated “true person.”
48 Finnish: “Home beer,” or simply beer made at home which is weak enough that it’s not illegal to make and even children may consume it. It is traditionally had at Christmas meals.
49 Finnish colloquialism: Cheers.
However, locals enjoy telling the tourists the word for cheers is “holokyn kolokyn!”—which is meaningless and harmless but sounds very fun to say. You will rarely hear a native Finn speak it, however.
50 Finnish colloquialism: A mild swear equivalent to “oh my God.” Literally translates to “God, Help.”
51 Haruspex: An oracle who practices divination through haruspicy.
It is uncommon to find a haruspex in the Mundane realm in the modern day, as the pure nature of their work creates a rather unpleasant stench that, unlike certain characters depicted in fiction, cannot be covered by the promising scent of questionable meat pies.
52 Finnish: Odd, strange, peculiar.
53 The literal translation of the Finnish colloquialism “Ottaa keittoa,” which is used to mean to drink alcohol. I will not explain further. Neither will the Finns.