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My mom didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached past me toward the little bedside table. She pulled open the drawer and extracted a folded piece of paper. Then she put her nearly empty plate on the table and smoothed the paper out on the breakfast tray in front of us.”
“Is that—”
She nodded. “These are the messages that came through from Asteria last night, the ones that Rhi wrote down.”
I couldn’t believe she’d taken them out without my even asking her to. “Am… I allowed to read them?”
“Yes. I think I owe you that, at least, although I’ll admit to you right now that I don’t fully understand them all. But I’ll explain what I can,” Mom said. “You probably saw us burning little bits of paper?”
I blushed a little at the allusion to my eavesdropping but nodded.
“We were feeding our intentions to the flames—the papers had our questions written on them. As each question burned, Asteria would answer them as best she could.”
“And you’re sure it was really her?”
“Yes.” Her expression was so strange—fragile in its emotions, but strong in her conviction. I may not have seen or heard Asteria for myself, but I didn’t doubt my mother that she had been there, somehow.
“I didn’t think you believed in any of that stuff,” I said, and it was hard to keep the accusation out of my voice.
My mom’s smile was sad. “Just because you turn your back on something doesn’t make it go away. I’ve learned that the hard way. Anyway, would you like to see what she said?”
I looked down at the first question and felt a welling of guilt bubble up inside me.
How the hell could you just leave her the house?
I looked up to see my mom smiling apologetically. “Sorry. The first question was Persi’s and she was still in a temper from the will reading.”
I examined the answer written under it:There are answers in the house for her.
I stared at the words. “Answers for me?”
“That’s what I thought it meant,” my mom agreed.
“Answers to what?”
“I wish I knew.”
We sat silently contemplating the words for a few moments before moving on to the next question.
Why did you drag me back here?
I threw my mom a sidelong look and she smiled sheepishly. “I was also still in a temper,” she admitted.
My eyes returned to the paper, to read the answer beneath it:You need to be here. There must be three.
I read the words several times, but they didn’t make any more sense than the first time. “What does that mean, ‘there must be three?’” I asked.
“None of us knew,” Mom said, “which is why we asked follow up questions.” She pointed down the paper at the next question. The printing was messy and it took me a moment to figure out what it said.
What do you mean? There must be three what?
And beneath that, Asteria’s answer:
Three Vesper witches in Sedgwick Cove.
I looked up at my mom again. She was frowning right back at me.
“We tried to ask what that meant, but that’s when everything went sideways,” she said quietly.
