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Chapter Five

Ena awoke with a start, her heart pounding and her mind confused.

Her dream…that face. It was no wonder she’d dreamt of him after the way Greya had very unceremoniously brought him up the other day.

She used to dream about him all the time, her memories of the past always mixing with her day-to-day life in some sort of tortuous wish-fulfillment fantasy.

But it’d been years since she’d had a dream about him, let alone that dream—the recurring one where he came back and took her over the Chasm Mountains.

But it always ended the same, where she turned her back for one second and he was gone.

She searched and searched, shivering and trudging through the deep snow, but she couldn’t find him, until eventually, she’d wake up, feeling empty and alone.

Rolling over to go back to sleep, she tried to rebury those memories, both real and oneiric. Of course, this just made her think about him even more, so she got up, even though the sun was still hours from rising, and lit a candle to work on her mask for Samhain.

The black lace mask was some of her best work.

It was decorated with emerald-green thread in the shape of two serpents on either side of the eye holes, the tails of the serpents looping around each eye to intertwine in the center.

The look was completed by an extremely valuable piece of decorative emerald ribbon that she used to secure the mask around her head.

She’d had to trade several batches of healing potions for various illnesses and a growth elixir for agricultural fields that had taken an entire year to cure in order to buy it, but it was her absolute favorite color, so it was well worth it.

Not to mention, Samhain was her favorite celebration of the year.

While she loved the thrum of life during Litha, and the cozy warmth of Yule, the crisp darkness of Samhain made her feel.

..powerful. Samhain was halfway between Mabon, the autumnal equinox, and Yule, the longest night of the year, and it was a time of great liminality and change in the Turning.

As the abundant life of summer began to dwindle, death became closer than ever.

The closeness of death led to an intense intoxication with life among the witches, who sought to be closer than ever to it in order to maintain the balance.

Every year, the Coven and its guests gathered in the Sacred Grove for a masked bacchanal to celebrate life and worship death.

There was dancing, drunkenness, sometimes nudity, and, in general, a carefree wildness that was exhilarating to witness.

It was the last gasp of summer and fall before the harshness and solitude of winter set in.

The next several days were filled with preparations for Samhain.

Over the course of the week, travelers and visitors from nearby villages began to arrive, once again populating the forest surrounding their village with tents and small campfires.

Ena and the other witches were busy doing their daily tasks—tending to the animals, harvesting the last of the season’s abundance in their gardens, and curing and preserving foods for the winter.

On top of that, they were charged with creating potions and spells to trade with visitors for the goods they did not produce themselves, and preparing the Grove for the festivities.

On the eve of Samhain, Ena and Greya found themselves in the matriarch’s garden.

Some villagers from Northumbra had requested healing potions for a plague of boils that was rampant among the elderly in their village.

Heran had deemed that, in exchange for the grain they provided to the Coven, this was an acceptable trade in the service of Gaia, so she’d sent the two sisters to harvest yarrow.

The garden was an unruly, overgrown mess of black, yellow, and brown this time of year, filled with plants that were already dead and those in the process of losing their leaves and going dormant for the winter.

Despite the natural season for the yarrow being long ended, Greya was able to use her Gift to grow the plant from seed on command.

Ena watched, always endlessly fascinated, as Greya carefully placed the tiny seeds they’d stored from this year’s natural harvest into the dark black soil and covered them over.

She brought her hand to hover above where the tiny seeds were tucked away and, as she called on her Gift, her hand began to glow with the light of the sun itself.

Ena watched as the seed split open and erupted from the dirt in a tiny white-green sprout.

In seconds, it grew into a young sprig, its leaves unfurling as if it were several weeks old.

After about a minute, it sprouted into a full-grown plant with feather-like leaves and clusters of small, white flowers that bloomed as if in their full summer splendor.

Continuing to draw on her Gift, Greya made the yarrow wither and dry, mimicking the late summer sun that normally dried the plant naturally.

Once the stalks were brittle enough to snap easily, Greya removed her hand and allowed Ena to gather the plants into bunches, ready to be carried inside and crushed into a powder for the potion.

Watching Greya use her magic, Ena couldn’t help but feel a hint of jealousy.

She envied how naturally Greya was able to use her Gift, with minimal supervision or oversight.

She was doing as Heran had asked and ignoring her own Gift, but it called to her still, and she couldn’t help the curious part of her mind that wondered how it worked, what it was like, and when she might get to use it.

Greya’s Gift seemed to organically serve Gaia’s purpose, and Ena had wracked her brain trying to think of ways hers could be used to help maintain the balance, but no matter what scenarios she conjured, she couldn’t deny that her Gift was dangerous and could so easily lead to chaos and discord.

How could taking away someone’s free will ever be Gaia’s intent?

Ena was contemplating these somewhat depressing thoughts when Perse approached them, escorting a newly arrived group of travelers through the village and gesturing to where they might camp across the far side.

There were three of them on horseback, two men and a woman, with one of them trailing a large cart filled with sacks and crated goods.

Ena couldn’t help the ingrained reaction that passed through her to quickly scan the faces of the visitors, searching for one in particular.

That was ridiculous, of course, and something she thought she’d stopped doing years ago, so she mentally kicked herself for being so pathetic and turned her attention to Perse, who waved goodbye to the visitors and entered the garden gate with a concerned look on his face.

“Hello, love,” he greeted as he leaned down to kiss Greya on the cheek.

She smiled up at him with a contented expression on her face, which promptly fell as she noticed the tightness to his features. “What’s wrong?” she asked, standing up to face him.

“One of the Northumbra men was just telling me about a group of bandits that’s formed in the north.

There was a village that was wiped out by wildfires this summer, and those who weren’t able to find other homes have turned to thieving and killing.

They’ve been hitting the region west of the Aquilo Coven pretty hard.

” Perse shook his head, as if at a loss of what to do.

“Those travelers were just telling me they’re looking to trade for weapons to protect themselves, so I directed them to the Tyndell visitors’ camp on the other side of the village that brought a few extra knives and such. ”

“Oh no,” Greya whispered, her brow pinching in concern. “That’s horrible. I’ll let Heran know and see if Gaia intends for us to intervene.”

The sisters exchanged a look and Ena nodded in silent affirmation.

Thievery and banditry were usually directly or indirectly the result of daemonic activity, and so it was often Gaia’s will that they intervene as best they could to reinstate the balance.

They would see to it that supplies were sent to the affected villages to mitigate the damage, and, while they would not provide magical assistance in apprehending the bandits—killing mortals was not usually Gaia’s will—they would allow the mortal villagers in the region to do as they saw fit with the bandits.

Ena’s mind immediately started to wander, thinking through which potions she would ask Heran’s permission to send.

There was one in particular she’d been practicing which increased egg production in chickens, which could help those impacted to maintain a food supply through the winter…

or there was another she was already adept at that enhanced the blood’s ability to clot, which could help those who were wounded.

“If you two are all done here, do you want to grab some lunch?” Perse asked, startling her from her whirling thoughts.

“Yes, please. I’m starving after using all that magic,” Greya replied, smiling up at him.

“You coming, Ena?” Perse asked her, trying and failing to fully drag his gaze from her sister.

“No, you two go on ahead. I’ll bring these bunches of yarrow inside.” Ena smiled reassuringly at them. She was definitely hungry, too, but she knew they needed their couple alone time, and she really didn’t feel like being a third wheel right now.

“Okay. We’ll miss you, kid. See you later,” he said, patting her on the shoulder and turning to put his arm around Greya as he led her inside the house.

He would likely be treated to a delicious lunch prepared by Greya of cured meats, pickles, and the goat cheese that was her specialty on a slice of the freshly baked bread Ena had seen her make that morning.

The man was skinny as a twig, but he sure could eat, and Greya loved to cook.

Ena stared at them, a small smile on her face. She loved seeing her sister so happy, so settled, but she would admit it was hard to see how perfectly they fit, with each other and the Coven, when she felt so far from that herself.

Slowly, she gathered up the bunches of yarrow in her basket and went to bring them into the drying shed around the back of the house, all the while trying desperately not to feel so lost.