And I realize I’m not afraid of it anymore.
It’s just a candle. It’s even a little nice. Maybe it was all that EMDR. Maybe I’ve just truly gone off the deep end. But… but there’s nothing. I’m okay. I’m just looking at the candle, and it’s looking back, throwing its heat and light onto me, a light in the darkness.
From the corner, the music picks up, the quartet playing something a bit more lively, and people’s candles start to fizzle out, extinguishing from the first tables all the way through the back. I let mine sputter to the very end as people around us get up, find the bar, vacate the tables so that they can be cleared and rolled away as servers set down a gleaming dance floor.
“You all right?” Morgan whispers in my ear, clutching my elbow. “I really should have?—”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m actually fine. Isn’t that nuts?”
Morgan considers, then shakes her head. “Not at all.”
In what feels like five minutes, the staff has turned the place over from dining room to ballroom. The head table clears and the musicians make their way to the dais as things start to get lively. I instinctively retreat toward the wall, and Morgan does too, her glass of wine in one hand, which she sips pensively as she stares at the still-empty dance floor.
“Someone’s got to break the seal here,” she says. “This is incredibly awkward.”
“Don’t look at me,” I say. “I don’t know how to dance.”
“I do,” Morgan says.
“You do?”
“Sure, finishing school.” She throws back the rest of her wine. “Want me to teach you?”
I shake my head vigorously. “No thanks. Let’s be wallflowers.”
Morgan pouts briefly, but doesn’t protest. “Let’s be barflies,” she corrects. “Come on.”
I don’t want to argue with that. If there’s another hour or maybe even two left, I might as well find something to do with my time. We get more glasses of wine, situate ourselves at a high top, relatively in the corner, and I decide to press Morgan for more information about Imbolc.
“I don’t know if anyone practices it for real. Back in Ireland,” she says, sipping her wine. “Except for the neo-pagans, but they’re full of shit. I mean, like, actual magical practices are, well, kind of sporadic. But it’s the same kind of idea. Something to tide you over in the darkness of winter. And the girls would all make a Bríde, a Brigid, in other words, dress her up in nice clothes and then go door-to-door, asking people to give them stuff for her.”
“Like trick-or-treating,” I say, the wine making my cheeks hot.
“I mean, that’s Samhain, but sure,” Morgan says. “You really don’t know too much about magical practices, do you?”
“Is that so surprising?” I say. “All I really know so far is what Emerus has filled us in on to try and crack this whole”—I widen my eyes, shake my head—“thing.”
“Yeah,” Morgan exhales. “We do have the distinct disadvantage of pre-literary customs and a lot of stuff justbeing destroyed. Thanks for that, crusaders.” She shoots daggers across the room to where the four of them are, standing next to Luther and the white brothers making some kind of conversation, although I can’t imagine what.
“Chin chin,” Morgan says, clinking her empty glass to me. “Want more?”
“Sure, why not,” I say. “This time it’s not poisoned, so…”
Morgan laughs a surprised laugh. “Wow, that’s dark.”
“That’s my life,” I say. “I’m allowed to make jokes about it.”
“Of course.” She taps me on the nose. “I’ll be right back.”
As she sweeps away, she clears my view of the room: more people are dancing now, with plenty of others just chatting.
Including, I notice, Elena and Claire.
Elena’s in a black, shimmering gown this time and Claire in pale pink. They’re two high tops away, but not so far I can’t hear what they’re saying, and I’m halfway to vowing I’ll ignore them entirely when I catch a few snatches of their conversation.
…grippy-sock vacation…
…loony bin…
