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Music began again, and now four women appeared in long white dresses, two on either side of the pyre, bearing torches. With measured steps in perfect synchronicity to the music, they walked to the front of the great structure, and set their torches to the very base of it. The wood caught quickly, the flames licking up the logs and sending grayish-white tendrils of smoke up into the sky, to be swirled and buffeted by the wind. The flames reached the shroud, catching at its edges, and I suddenly felt that I couldn’t stand to be there another second. I turned to my mom, panic thick in my throat, but she was looking at me as well.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked me.
I blinked. “I… don’t we have to stay?”
She shook her head. “The volunteers from the Conclave will watch over her. Others have set up a farewell feast in the garden at the cottage. Everyone else is just waiting for us to lead the way down there.”
I looked at the women in white, standing sentinel at the four corners of the pyre, and felt something like reassurance. I nodded to my mom, and we stood, Persi and Rhi taking their cue from us, and rising at the same moment. Together, the four of us turned our backs on the pyre.
It felt like the closing of a door.
* * *
Back at Lightkeep Cottage, our neighbors had been hard at work. Mismatched tables and chairs stood all over the gardens, draped in table cloths and adorned with candles and jars of flowers. Lanterns hung in the trees. Several women were swaying softly to the music coming from a pair of musicians playing a fiddle and a lute. The guests milled about, carrying platters and serving bowls and pitchers and casks. My mom and her sisters stood at the center of it all, looking worn but grateful, receiving guest after guest, having more charms and gifts pressed upon them. They were distracted enough by all of this that I could slip away from them to find a quiet spot in the garden. Perhaps it was because I was as much of an outsider as I felt, but no one went in search of me, and those who did spot me left me to my solitude.
All except one person.
“Hey, there. Does she belong to you?”
I looked up to see Eva standing on the path, Freya clasped in her arms.
“Oh, hey! Yeah, that’s my cat Freya,” I told her.
“I thought she might be,” Eva said, transferring her to my outstretched arms. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
I hadn’t thought I wanted company, but Eva’s friendly smile set me at ease. I nodded, and she plopped down on the bench beside me.
“I wish I had a familiar,” she said, reaching out to stroke Freya’s head.
“Sorry?”
Eva laughed a little incredulously. “A familiar.”
“I… don’t know what that is,” I admitted.
“A familiar is like a spirit in the form of an animal that is tied to you, one that protects and helps you in your magic.”
“I… wait, what?” I asked. I looked down at Freya, who looked up at me, purring contentedly.
Eva laughed her throaty laugh. “Did you just think you had a regular old cat all this time?”
I blinked. “Uh… yes?”
“Where did you find her? Or I should say, where did she find you?”
“I didn’t find her at all. Asteria gave her to me,” I said.
“Ah. Well, she must have felt drawn to you, or she wouldn’t have stayed,” Eva said, nodding sagely. “Your grandmother must have sensed the affinity.”
“I… I think you might be mistaken,” I said.
“Really?” Eva looked surprised. “Hasn’t she ever done anything to help or protect you?”
I opened my mouth to say no, and then stopped. My mind cast back to the day Asteria died, when I was in the catwalk of the theater. It had seemed impossible that Freya was there, and yet I’d seen her. And… and there’d been something else too, something dark and shadowy that brought with it the sounds and smells of the sea…
I looked down at Freya. She had leapt between me and the… whatever it was. And when it disappeared, so had she…
I looked back up at Eva and she laughed at the expression on my face.
