Saga sighed and offered a helpless shrug. “Honestly? I don’t know. She’s always played her sadness close to her chest. When Grandpa died, the only thing she’d say to me was, ‘The wheel turns unyielding.’”
“Huh,” Shai mused. “Really going for that cryptic witchy talking in riddles vibe, isn’t she?”
“That’s Saoirse O’Donnell. One minute she’s baking pies and singing show tunes, the next she’s giving Nostradamus a run for his money.” Saga moved to the fridge, producing two covered bowls: lemon curd and a pale purple whipped cream. “All grandparents have their quirks, I suppose.”
“Sure,” Shai agreed. “But I think I prefer my nan forgetting it’s only Thursday and consequently observing Shabbas twice over her spouting vaguely ominous phrases.”
Saga tsked playfully. “Kept me on my toes growing up, I will give you that.”
“Well, I don’t intend on becoming a ballerina.” Shai sniffed at the whipped cream curiously. “Did youmakelavender whipped cream?”
“Lavender Earl Grey. Complements the brightness and draws calm, healing, and protection.”
Shai sat back on her heels and watched Saga. “You’re really into this stuff, aren’t you?”
Saga’s lips ghosted at a sheepish smile. “Does it bother you?”
Shai shook her head. “So long as you don’t try to shove your beliefs on me, you could worship a goat for all I care.” There was a sort of hardened exhaustion to her tone that could only come from years of experiencing otherwise. Then it softened. “I do find it interesting, though. Not for me, but… I like learning.”
Saga weighed the sincerity of this statement. “Then, would it interest you to know that witchcraft is a tool of my beliefs but not actually the religion?”
Shai’s brows raised. “How do you mean?”
“I mean, I follow the goddess Brigid, and many witches dedicate themselves to a certain pantheon or a few different deities that resonate with them, but not all of them. I’ve known a Jewish witch, a Christian witch—even an atheist witch. It’s just a tool. Like prayer or meditation.”
Shai made another thoughtful “huh” sound. “Leigh practices too, right?”
Saga nodded. “Her and my nan. My mother…not so much.”
“What about your dad?”
Saga lightly tested the shells with a quick tap of her finger pads. Still hot, but they were ready to be removed from the tins. Her focus homed in on the delicate task of not breaking the shortbread cookie crust as she freed the tartlets. It gave her voice a faraway, distracted sort of quality. “Dad’s religion was adventure.”
“How so?”
“He could never stay in one place for too long. He and my mom met by total fluke, and it was a flash-in-the-pan relationship—they never even got married. He worked for Doctors Without Borders, and in his free time he went skydiving and scaled impossibly large mountains for fun. If you ask me, I think he saw dating my mother in the same way—an extremely dangerous feat that would test his mettle.”
Shai laughed despite herself. “Did you ever get to go with him?”
“Ah…no,” Saga admitted. “He died in a climbing accident when I was six. Honestly, I barely remember him.”
“Oh.” Worried she’d tread on another delicate topic, Shai helped place each tartlet shell on the cooling rack. The rapid change of subject was without subtlety. “Leigh mentioned you were in medical school, right? Was it because of your dad?”
“Yes.” But it hadn’t been, not entirely, and so Saga self-consciously amended her statement. “Sort of.” But that amendment would prompt more details she wasn’t sure she could get into now. She shook her head dismissively. “It’s complicated. Do you know where we keep the pastry bags?”
Shai moved to retrieve them from a drawer. “Regular nibs okay?”
“One regular, one star, please.”
Shai approached with the requested items, her mouth pursed as her mind made a connection that she wasn’t sure she should speak.
Saga recognized her expression and smiled encouragingly, filling one of the pastry bags with lemon curd. “You can ask it.” The bright scent perfumed the immediate area with a sharp citrus note that made her mouth water.
“Is…” She hesitated, unsure how to word it. “Did you drop out because of all this? The witch stuff?”
Saga laughed. “No. You might be surprised to learn medicine and magic go rather hand in hand—though one is never a substitute for the other.” She moved to the tartlet shells. “I left medicine because one day I looked in the mirror and saw everyonebutmyself. I saw my dad’s profession, my mother’s expectations, and my fiancé’s ideals…but notme.” She carefully filled each shell with just enough lemon curd to be brimming but not overflowing. “Masquerading as other people didn’t seem like a very practical way to keep living my life. So I left.”
“I thoughtheleft,” the words spilled out of the young woman before she could think better of them.
