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She seems calmer. Lighter. Like she found the peace that’s been eluding her.
That makes one of us.
I spy Hope chatting with a man I don’t recognize on the far side of the bonfire. As I approach, she turns, grinning at me with none of the nerves I expected. She’s holding a mug of Maeve’s tea in her hand.
“Will. You made it,” she says breezily, casually, as if she hasn’t been consumed by thoughts of last night.
Our shared night has replayed in my mind no fewer than a thousand times a day. The taste of mint chocolate chip is still on my tongue.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I gesture toward her hands. “More tea for courage?”
“I needed to be more than brave today.” She holds the mug toward me. The smell of sweet cinnamon and something spicy is heady. “This one’s for hope.”
“Are we talking in the third person now?” I raise an eyebrow, eliciting a laugh.
“No, it’s for hope—that vague, indefinable concept. Maeve said this tea will help me be open to hope, to make space for the thing that comes next, and trust that it’ll be okay, even if it’s not what I expected.”
The hair on the back of my neck rises. “That’s ... powerful stuff.”
Hope’s gaze turns up toward me. Her eyes reveal a vulnerability I’m not used to seeing in her. “I needed something stronger than courage tonight.”
“Why?”
Maeve calls for the group’s attention. The man Hope was speaking with glances between us. A primal part of my brain makes me square off my stance, pull back my shoulders to take up more space.
Hope seems oblivious to the admittedly embarrassing staring contest going on around her. Something is different about her. More than usual her focus is fixed on Maeve, whose silver hair is glowing with shades of orange and red, making it seem as if she is on fire too.
Maeve leads us into the garden. Once again, Hope and I are the last to follow.
“I’m going to get a message from Brandon tonight. I can feel it.” Hope turns to me. Even in the darkness, the wild, heartbreaking hope in her eyes shines through. She needs Maeve’s flowers and teas to be true so desperately that a small part of me wants it to be true for her.
And maybe for me too.
My grief has always felt like a tiny iron ball in the pit of my stomach, something I wrangled and rationalized and shoved away. Hope’s grief is different. She lets her grief rise to the surface. She lets it swirl with that boundless hope she was named for, in a way that makes grief look like love, not just sorrow.
Grief is never light, but maybe it doesn’t need to be so dense.
Maeve glances back. Her gaze slides to Hope. An expression passes over Maeve’s face, and my blood runs cold. Her gaze ticks away, and panic shivers along my spine.
“Hope—”
A defiant caw ripples across the night sky, slicing my warning in half. Hope gives my hand a squeeze and disappears into the garden. Leaving me in the dark.
The smell of pine and lavender and something musky curls around us as we make our way to Maeve’s midnight blooms. We stand for long minutes, watching the flowers unfurl in the moonlight.
Maeve begins her affirmations. Beside me, Hope’s holding herself taut, nearly trembling.
Maeve turns her ear up to the moon, as if listening for something. Hope isn’t breathing.
“Please.” Hope whispers the plea echoing in my thoughts.
“Long before I arrived in Kingsette, I felt the call of Ahava Cottage and this group. I knew there would be something special here in this place where light and shadow meet, where impossible feels possible, where strangers become friends and guardian angels. What I hadn’t realized is that some liminal spaces can be more than what they seem. They can come to feel like home.” Emotion chokes Maeve’s voice. “There’s so much energy tonight. Do you all feel it?”
Maeve’s question is met with murmurs of agreement.
“There are many who seek connection tonight, but there’s one vibration coming through louder than the others. It’s ... Vincent, it’s your sister.”
Air puffs out of Hope on a broken breath. The new guy who Hope was speaking to steps forward.
