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Primrose had vibrant red hair and a light speckling of freckles across her cheeks and nose. She had soft curves, apple cheeks, and an unmistakable energy about her. Circe could feel Manea’s blood running in her veins, though she wondered if the girl sensed it herself. Then there was Hazel. To Circe, Hazel was like an ethereal goddess of the dead. Her long silver hair cascaded over her shoulders and down to her waist. Her face was so pale and luminescent she didn’t seem quite human.
Simultaneously, both girls turned to face Circe and smiled. There was no fear or questioning in their eyes. It was as if they knew who she was.
“You must be Circe,” said the fiery beauty, Primrose.
Circe flinched. “How do you know who I am?”
Primrose and Hazel looked at each other and smiled. “We know all about you, Circe. We hoped we would find you here.”
Circe walked toward the lovely girls. Seeing the witches home, and alive again, made Gothel’s losing them, and their losing her, all the more real. “Then you know about your sister? I’m so sorry.”
The girls smiled again. “We know everything, sweet Circe. Please don’t worry. Of course our hearts broke for Gothel, but she chose her own path. As you are about to choose yours.” Circe wondered how the witches knew so much, but she felt it was rude to ask.
Primrose giggled. “It isn’t rude to ask, Circe. We trust you.” Circe stood silently, waiting for Primrose to continue. “We’ve been in the place between since we lost our lives. Gothel tethered us to this world by preserving our bodies, but our spirits resided in another place.” Circe was horrified. The idea of Gothel’s sisters trapped between this world and the next sent chills through her.
“It was difficult at first—until we learned to listen,” said Hazel, who had been, until that moment, silent. Her voice was serene. “I just wish Gothel was with us. I wish she had the same opportunity to listen, and learn. Time to rest, and to recover from what our mother did to us. I wish she’d had the same time we did to let Manea’s blood empower her as it has us. Then she would be here, and we could be witches together, as she always wanted.”
Circe’s heart ached for the three of them, sisters who would never be reunited. She didn’t know what to say. Grasping, she said, “You’ll be happy to know your beautiful morning room is just as you left it.”
Primrose and Hazel looked around. “It seems everything is almost as we left it, thanks to you.”
“Shall I walk you up to the house, then? I would like to introduce you to my cousin Snow White. She’s in your library, looking for the missing pages to a story that’s intrigued her.”
Primrose narrowed her eyes. “Missing pages? Are they important?”
“Well, Snow seems to think so. She’s been obsessed with reading stories about the dead woods since we read your sister’s story.”
“Well, if the pages were ripped from the book of fairy tales, I don’t think she will find them in our library. Jacob had everything that was important taken from the library and hidden away. He was trying to protect Gothel, to keep her safe from any stories or books that might hurt her or help her to foolishly try to resurrect us without the flower.” Circe had to remember these witches probably knew more than she did, having spent so long in the place between. She had to remember they were hundreds of years old. “Yes, though we feel as if we’re still your age. And I suppose in body we still are,” Primrose said with a smile. “Shall we go find these books and pa
ges that Jacob wisely hid away from my deranged sister?”
Circe hardly knew what to say. It wasn’t surprising Primrose would hold that opinion of her sister, but she hadn’t expected to hear her say something outright.
“We love our sister, Circe. We do, but we see her clearly. We see her more clearly than she ever saw herself. We had nothing to do in the place between but listen and learn. Don’t mistake us, we do mourn her, but we’ve been mourning her for a very long time, long before she turned to dust and passed into the mists to be with our ancestors.”
The three witches walked the paths Circe and Snow had read about, past the weeping angels beneath the dead willow trees, their long hanging branches swaying in the breeze and making the sunlight dance. They reached the crypt Circe remembered from Gothel’s story, the one with the large anatomical image of a heart in stained glass. Circe gasped, startling the young witches.
“What is it, Circe? Are you all right?” Circe didn’t know how she felt about waking Jacob, if he was there at all. She wasn’t sure it was fair, even if they needed his help.
“He will be happy to see you, Circe. Call him.”
“Happy to see me? He doesn’t even know me.” Circe felt as if the witches knew far more than they were sharing.
“He knows of you. Your mothers spoke of nothing else. Wrote of nothing else in their missives.” Primrose and Hazel were smiling at Circe like she was an old friend, not like she was someone they had just met. It was strange, this feeling of familiarity they seemed to have with her, and how comfortable she felt with them. How oddly at home she was in this strange and beautiful place.
“But that wasn’t me. That was their real sister. That Circe, the one they wrote of, she died,” Circe said in a small voice.
“Oh, you are her, Circe. You are real, and you were always meant to be. Now, please call Sir Jacob. I promise he will answer if he is within,” said Hazel, urging Circe to be brave.
“What are the words?” Circe felt she was on the edge of something. She felt that in doing this, she would somehow be changing her life forever.
“You’re right, wise witch,” Hazel said, reading Circe’s thoughts. “Now use your own words and summon Jacob.”
Circe took a deep breath, and she said the words. Words that came not from a spell book, but from her heart.
“Sir Jacob, the living are in need of you once more. If anyone is deserving of rest, it is you. So, please, forgive our intrusion and know it pains me to rouse you from your slumber.” Primrose and Hazel smiled as they heard Circe’s choice of words. Circe could see they approved.
The door to the crypt opened slowly, with the terrible sound of stone moving against stone. Circe understood now why it had set Gothel’s teeth on edge when she heard it.
