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Chapter Two
From one second to the next, the warmth of magic gently touched Ellie’s temples. Gwen was willing her thoughts, her memories into her niece’s mind.
The feeling of being wrapped in her favorite blanket straight out of the dryer enveloped Ellie, relaxed her, made her want to accept the gift her aunt was offering. Completely comfortable, not feeling any danger, the younger Witch was ready to let the transfer happen, but first, she needed her aunt to know she was no pushover. "I know what you're doing, Aunt Gwen, and I'm okay with it. I just need to know that you're sure you should be using magic at all."
"I'm more than sure," Gwen quickly replied. "I need you to see it for yourself. To hear the words come out of their mouths. To feel their emotions and their conviction. This is important."
Relaxing even more, Ellie nodded. She knew there was no way her aunt could exert much power, could whip up more than a minimal amount of magic without drawing unwanted attention. After all, she had been hospitalized,institutionalizedbecause her own mysticism had driven her to self-harm.
She was heavily monitored, but they couldn't take it from her. Magic was part of who Gwen was. It was written on her DNA. The MacLeish enchantment was like the color of her hair and the freckles across the bridge of her nose - there for the long haul. It could've been bound, and some of it was, but no one but the Goddess herself could take it all.
The Council, the doctors, and the Mages took every precaution. There were dampening wards all over the Institute to keep things from getting out of hand.
The professionals knew that letting magic go unused, letting it back up in a person's system could literally kill a Witch. So, there were rules. They applied to only the most improved and trusted patients who'd undergone all the tests and were allowed to use minimal magic within the walls of the Institute.
And if things did go awry, the Mages were there to contain it and take care of the patient. They kept order. They made sure nothing wrong happened. They were the perfect bridge between medical science and the magical world.
Letting her eyes slide shut, Ellie welcomed Gwen’s memories.She saw the outside of the old farm, the house she and her sister had grown up in, the one Celia and Michael now called home. Smiling, her metaphysical body, the one occupying her aunt's in the recollections, stopped to look at the pink balloons with their strings wrapped around the wooden poles on the porch and the sign painted by her dad that read, Welcome to the Family, Baby Ellie.
Slowly climbing the steps, her fingers touched the streamers. Happiness literally filled the breeze of that hot Texas afternoon. Leaning down, she sniffed the massive bouquet of white roses, her momma's favorite, the ones she immediately knew Gwen had sent.
Her heart was full of love, joy, and more than a little melancholy. It was hard to be excited to see her parents and grandparents again, knowing that when she opened her eyes, they would all still be gone. But in the end, she was eager to look at their faces, to be in the same room with them.
Moving towards the door, unable to stop Gwen's journey, Ellie tried to just let the memories flow naturally, but it was no use. Gone was her trepidation. She wanted to see her mom and dad again. It didn't matter that the vision was nearly twenty-nine years old. She needed to look at them. Needed to remember them as they were, full of life, of love, of that special spark that made them such amazing people. Not the empty shells, the husks of flesh and bone, that she and Celia had identified at the morgue.
Engulfed in the scent of homemade biscuits, fresh strawberry jam, and granny’s special blend of chamomile tea, the first floor of the house was little more than a blur. All her attention was on the staircase that led to her parents’ room, to the sound of her father’s deep, rumbling chuckle and her mother’s soft, sweet voice.
Atop the stairs, she took a right, flying into their room just like she'd done so many times as a child. It was then that Ellie realized it was Gwen's excitement adding to her own that made everything speed forward.
Her aunt was overjoyed to meet her namesake, her niece, the little baby whose middle name would be Gwendolyn. Stopping so quickly that the slick bottoms of her sandals slid on the wooden floors, the youngest of the MacLeish sisters promptly apologized. "I'm so sorry. I just can't wait to see your little bundle. I think I drove ninety miles an hour to get here."
"Gwendolyn," her mother, Ellie's granny, snapped. "How many times have I told you to slow the hell down."
“Doesn’t do any good, Mother,” Grandad chuckled. “Girl inherited my lead foot.”
Ignoring the conversation going on all around her, Gwen tiptoed across the room. Leaning her head forward as far as her neck would allow, she whispered, "I didn't wake her up, did I?"
“Oh, no,” Gretchen giggled lovingly. “This one’s got a mind of her own. She sleeps, eats, does everything in her own good time.”
“And she always will,” Granddad announced, hands in his pockets as he rocked back on the heels of his boots. “Can’t you feel the power in that little body? Sense the magic and the intelligence packed in every fiber of her being?”
“Oh, Dad,” Ellie’s mom snickered. “She’s only three days old. The only thing she’s worried about is getting what she wants when she wants it and being held all the time.”
"Doesn't matter." Nodding to his daughter, his eyes never leaving the baby, the MacLeish patriarch reverently avowed, "She will be the one who lifts the Curse. Mark my words, Ellie is the Heart of the MacLeish Family."
Pulled out of the memories, the medicinal scent that wasn't entirely covered by the lavender flowers sitting on damned near every surface smacked Ellie in the face. "Well, shit, we're not on the farm, anymore are we? I'm back in the present? They're still gone, aren't they?" She sadly sighed while forcing her eyes open.
“No, we’re not. Yes, you are. And, sadly, yes, they are,” Gwen sighed. “And I’ll probably never be back out there, but you…” Pointing at Ellie. “You will be, and you have what it takes to make things right.”
“You really believe there’s a family curse.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Gwen scoffed, slapping her hand at the air between them. “That’s just something the older folks made up when one of us couldn’t handle our magic. It made things easier. It was simpler than saying, “Well, Gwenny here, she’s just not quite strong enough. Not enough of a MacLeish to wield all that power.”
“Oh, Aunt Gwen, don’t…”
"Don't what?" Her aunt matter-of-factly asked. "Don't tell the truth? Don't accept reality for what it is? Don't try to move on and have as normal a life as somebody who's been committed can have?" With a sarcastic and quite sad forced bark of laughter, Ellie's mother's younger sister shook her head. "Nope, not gonna do that anymore. Things are the way they are for a reason. Can't change facts. And I wish all of those who came before me would have just been straight with us." Running the nail of her index finger along a deep gouge in the table, she went on, "Then mom and daddy could've bound my magic before the Awakening. Sure, I would've been pretty much human." Looking up at Ellie with a sad smile and more than a few unshed tears in her eyes, Gwen scoffed, "Might have saved all of us a lot of trouble."
There was nothing she could say, no words to make her aunt feel better. Just like Gwen had said, things were the way they were, and everybody had to deal with it.
Needing to change the subject, to see her aunt smile again, Ellie laid her hand over Gwen’s and earnestly asked, “So, what did all that mean? What was I supposed to learn?”
"You were supposed to see who you really are, who you are meant to be." Scooting her chair so close that their knees touched, Gwen leaned forward until mere inches separated the tips of their noses. "You are supposed to get up from here, march yourself home, and do everything in your power to find the person responsible for killing your parents, she whispered. "That's where all the answers lie. That is the key to everything."
