Cece nodded. “Weirdly, yes.”
“Sometimes you just need to laugh or cry after a near-death experience,” Willow said.
“I’m not trying to be rude, but you can understand why I don’t believe that you’re talking to my dead aunt, right?” Cece said.
A blast of cold air washed over her, and she shivered, pulling her coat tighter around her as she glanced at the coffee shop door. It was closed tight, and there was no explanation for that blast of cold air, but Cece could see her breath and Willow’s.
Willow cocked her head, staring just behind Cece’s shoulder and listening to something only she could hear - or thought she could hear - before she nodded and turned to Cece. “When you were fifteen years old, you and your aunt were watching a comedy show on TV, and you laughed so hard that you peed your pants.”
Cece’s mouth dropped open, and the rest of the air expelled from her lungs in a harsh rush.
“You were really embarrassed and begged your aunt not to tell anyone. Made her swear she wouldn’t say a word. And she never did, until now,” Willow said.
She listened again before saying, “You had a stuffed dinosaur that your mother gave you when you were five. You slept with it in your bed until you were seventeen. You and your aunt once tried to clean the rust stains off the upstairs tub with a combination of cleaners, and the resulting fumes were so toxic that you had to call 9-1-1. Your aunt -”
“Stop!” Cece’s voice was shaky and a little too loud, but she ignored the looks from the other customers. “Please, stop.”
“I’m sorry, Cece,” Willow said gently. “But I need you to believe me because, honey, you are in terrible danger.”
“You really can see my aunt?” Cece asked.
Willow nodded. “That cold air you feel? That’s her presence.”
“Does she look… is she…” Cece didn’t know how to finish her sentence.
Willow gave her a sweet smile. “She looks good, honey. Worried, but good. Your Aunt Sybil needs me to tell you something so important. Will you listen?”
Cece took a deep breath and glanced briefly at Briggs again, before turning back to Willow. This was madness, it had to be, but she said, “I’ll listen.”
CHAPTER 3
Willow took another sip of tea before studying Cece. “What made you decide to start practicing witchcraft?”
Cece picked at her coffee lid. “I’d always had a mild interest in it, but my mom and my aunt were both strictly against anything magic related. Like, I wasn’t allowed to watch anything on TV with witches or have any magic-type stuff in the house. When I was in high school, I used to go to my friend’s house every Thursday night to watch that witch and warlock reality show that was super popular.”
“The Witch House!” Willow said excitedly. “Oh my God, I loved that show. I was so sad when they cancelled it after the sixth season. Do you remember the night that Oshana did that fire spell on her twin Oksana and nearly burnt the house down?”
Cece nodded. “Yeah.”
Willow grimaced. “Sorry, I interrupted.”
“That’s okay,” Cece said. Against her better judgment, she was starting to like tiny, crazy Willow.
“Anyway,” Cece said. “Magic was forbidden in my house, but, as I said, I was only mildly interested in it, and I’m not much of a rebel or anything. I followed house rules growing up.”
She took another sip of coffee. “But then I met Elora, and she was just so… cool, you know? And she loved magic, and she made me realize that what my aunt believed about witchcraft wasn’t true. Elora is a fire witch, but I’ve always been into plants and gardening, and just nature in general, so I was drawn to the practice of green witchcraft. I took an apprentice witchcraft course at our local college and started practicing.”
“And your aunt knew you were getting into witchcraft?” Willow asked.
“Yes, and she hated it. We fought more than once about it, but I was an adult, and she couldn’t dictate what I did,” Cece said.
Her stomach twisted into a knot at the memory of her final conversation with her aunt, and her voice was harsher than she intended when she said, “Can you just tell me what she wants me to know? I’m exhausted, and I want to go home.”
“Of course, I’m sorry,” Willow said sincerely, making Cece feel even more like an ogre.
She rubbed wearily at her forehead as Willow said, “Your mom and aunt were apprentice witches when they were younger. Your mom was a green witch, like you, and your aunt was a water witch. Witchcraft and magic were how your mom met your father.”
Cece blinked at her. “I… my father is dead. He died before I was born.”
