* * *

  —

  When we left the wood, witchlights gleamed in every window of the Old Place, and smoke poured out of its chimneys. Orchard Farm was brightly lit as well, and the scent of cinnamon and chocolate filled the air.

  Matthew paced back and forth under the witch’s tree, his hands in his pockets and his hair wild. He was so preoccupied he didn’t detect my arrival. I was given the rare opportunity to study his features and gait before he had rearranged them into something stoic and comforting for my sake.

  I knew from the set of his shoulders and the expression of dread on his face that Matthew had been worried. Very worried.

  “How long have you been out here?” I said softly, not wanting to startle him.

  Matthew’s head rose in relief. He took two long strides and gathered me to his breast.

  “Forever,” he murmured, burying his face in my hair.

  Matthew held me tight before drawing away, my face cradled between his hands. His keen eyes searched every inch of me, looking for changes, wondering if I’d met with any harm.

  “Still me,” I said, pressing my lips into his palm.

  Matthew pulled me into a deep kiss as though he needed to make sure, inside and out. His intensity was dizzying, but my need for reassurance matched his, and I put my heart and soul into our embrace.

  “I found my path,” I told him. “It has higher magic in it.”

  “I know. I can taste its Darkness.” Matthew drew back the lock of hair that always found a way to tumble across my cheek.

  I held out my hand. “Will you walk it with me, Matthew?”

  “Yes, ma lionne—whether I like where it leads or not.”

  Tonight, however, our path was straight and short. We returned to the farmhouse, where Julie watched over our sleeping children.

  “You did it.” Julie flung her arms around me, relieved. She promised to come by tomorrow with cupcakes and champagne to celebrate.

  We checked on the twins, our fingers intertwined. They were peaceful and deep in slumber. I tucked Cuthbert into Pip’s arms and removed a pair of headphones from Becca’s ears before we closed their doors and retreated to our room.

  Without a word, Matthew reached for the buttons on my shirt and helped me get out of my magic-stained clothes. Smudges of Darkness marred the white cloth and a fine powder of Shadow clung to the folds of my skirt. Light had burned a hole through my shoe, and my toe poked through.

  He glanced at the book of shadows I’d dropped on the bedroom floor.

  But I didn’t want to write down what I’d witnessed in the wood. Nor could I imagine retelling my story, not even to Matthew.

  I drew Matthew toward the bed and lay upon it.

  “Drink,” I told him, arching my naked body so that my breast was close to his mouth, my heartvein dark and aching to reveal its secrets.

  Matthew bit down, his teeth opening the wound that never quite healed that gave him access to all that I was, and all that I thought, and all that I experienced. He latched onto the vein, pulling my blood into his mouth.

  At the first swallow, he shivered. I held him tight, wanting him to see as much of the Crossroads as he could while my memories of it were fresh and vital.

  Matthew took another sip, then another. My head was spinning, and I lost count of how many times he drank. Shades passed before my eyes, on bicycles and in eggshell carriages. My lips moved, silently uttering the weaver’s litany while I traced the knotted scars on Matthew’s back.

  My skin parted further, Light seeping out of my body and into Matthew’s mouth.

  I was Darkness. I was Light. I was an ocean of Shadow, waiting to be discovered.

  Matthew drew away, amazed. He bit into his lip, and pressed a kiss onto my breast, his blood healing my flesh just as my magic had healed Naomi’s wound.

  “I understand,” Matthew murmured between kisses. “Now I understand.”

  I turned toward him, curling myself tight as though he were a shell in which I could find refuge.

  Matthew started to speak, but I was too depleted to listen. We had days—years—to talk about what had happened tonight, and what we must do tomorrow.

  “Just hold me,” I murmured. “Don’t let me go.”

  “Never, ma lionne,” Matthew promised. “Never.”

  Chapter 16

  It was Midsummer Eve, and waves of Proctors lapped up to Ravenswood starting at dawn, eager to celebrate my success at the Crossroads. They came by pickup truck and sailboat, crammed into SUVs filled with children and animals, in carpools and on motorcycles. One even came by horse, galloping down Great Neck and splashing through the marsh to reach Bennu’s rock.

  Since the Crossroads, Gwyneth and Julie had found a way to make sure the twins were comfortable among the many strangers who would soon arrive at Ravenswood. They put Pip and Becca in charge of handing out name tags. Proudly, the twins pinned their own to their shirts and waited by the witch’s tree to introduce themselves to the family.

  As for Matthew, meeting the Proctors was a next-level challenge. He’d gotten used to me casting cards as I drank my morning tea, and disappearing into the barn or the wood for my lessons with Gwyneth. We’d even begun the work of integrating higher magic into our daily lives. It all paled in comparison to meeting the tsunami of witches expected today.

  The first to arrive were Julie and her husband, Richard, along with her sister, Zee—one of the two Susies who ran the magic camp. The nickname was how the family distinguished Z-Suzie from her cousin S-Susie—or Essie, as she was known. Becca and Pip swung into action, presenting Julie’s sister with a Popsicle stick dipped in glitter with Z-E-E spelled out in uneven lettering.

  By nine a.m., a steady influx of family filled the meadow where the Old Place stood. While Ike and Grace directed traffic, Gwyneth made sure the food was laid out in the long room that connected the kitchen to the keeping room. Tables covered with bright cloths were laden with pastries, fruit, and steaming plates of fresh eggs, sausage, and bacon, which were refilled as quickly as they were emptied. Ike’s grown children, Tike and Courtney Mather, manned the fireplace—or enchanted it, to be more accurate. While their eyes remained glued to their phones, invisible hands lifted eggs, cracked them into a waiting bowl, whisked them into a foamy golden liquid, and then stirred them around in a huge cast-iron skillet. At another skillet, more spells ensured that the bacon was turned before it burned, and the sausage flipped the moment it was golden brown.

  I watched their short-order magic, amazed at the way brother and sister had cast two interconnected spells to keep the hot breakfast items coming.

  “I’ve always thought the Proctors should open a diner.” Julie passed by, garlands of magical pocket watches around her neck, each one set to remind her of some organizational detail that would keep the party running smoothly. “But I’ve never worked out the accounting. How do you claim a spell as an employee?”

  “You worry too much,” Zee said, handing Julie an empty dish from the groaning buffet. Like Vivian, the head of the Madison coven, Zee was an accountant who had studied English literature. Like Gwyneth and the rest of the Proctor women—including Courtney Mather—Zee had graduated from Mount Holyoke.

  Zee’s daughter Tracy arrived with two gargantuan boxes of cupcakes and a small brood of children. They were around the same age as the twins, and slowed down long enough to devour blueberry muffins and drain cups of orange juice before they sped outside to play.

  “I’m going to help Pip with the name tags,” said a young boy with thick freckles and a name tag that read Jake.

  “So am I!” said his sister Abigail. She dashed out into the sunshine with a handful of strawberries and a banana.

  The eldest of Tracy’s children, Rose, stayed behind with Courtney and Tike. Rose felt she was far too sophisticated to hang out with the other children—even though she couldn’t be a day over ten.

  More children arrived, and Julie corralled the boisterous lot at a table set up under the chestnut tree, where the materials for making paper boats, cinnamon brooms, and pinecone fairy-feeders had been laid out. Essie took charge and soon the children were absorbed in crafting these traditional Midsummer items.

  I soon lost track of who was who and where they fit on the branches of the family tree. I squeezed babies and sympathized with young fathers about sleepless nights. I filled sippy cups for toddlers and provided mugs of tea and coffee to their frazzled parents. Still, the cars and vans kept arriving.

  The only pause in the action came when Ike’s mother, Lucy Nguyen, appeared with Put-Put. As the eldest living Proctor, Put-Put would be settled in one of the keeping room’s chairs under the shade of the wisteria-covered porch. That was the plan, Julie said, but admitted that Put-Put suffered from selective deafness and would probably end up outside by the barbecue, where he could drink beer and watch the children.

  Everyone clucked and fussed as Ike helped his grandfather out of the van and into his waiting chair. After settling in, Put-Put established himself as the head of the family by issuing a series of demands.

  “Where’s my coffee? I want a cinnamon donut, too. And don’t forget the cream!” His sunken blue eyes surveyed the crowd. “Where’s Stephen’s girl?”

  “Here I am.” I bent to kiss him on the cheek, but Put-Put had other ideas. He grasped my chin with his gnarled hands and planted his lips on my third eye.

  Usually, an unsolicited witch’s kiss felt like a violation. With Put-Put it felt different, an inquiry into my state of mind so that he could be sure that all was as it should be after Proctor’s Ledge and the Crossroads.

  “You’re Stephen’s child, all right,” Put-Put said after he pulled away. “But you’ve got the Bishop chin, just like your mother.”

  My face was still in Put-Put’s hands. They were little more than skin and bones, but their strength remained.

  “You were always one of us, Diana,” he said with a touch of fierceness. “What happened at the Crossroads was for the coven, and their peace of mind. It was never for your kin. We knew the truth of it, no matter your path. You are a Proctor. Don’t forget it.”

  “I won’t,” I said. Put-Put’s complete acceptance, coupled with a Yankee’s unvarnished truth, was a balm to my soul.

  “Where is the rest of your pack?” Put-Put said, releasing me. “I like that husband of yours, even if he is a bit jumpy.”

  Matthew was at the grill, part of a circle of men watching Grace set the coals alight with a combination of witchfire and lighter fluid. Though the male members of the family outnumbered her three-to-one, and were offering unsolicited advice about how she could be doing a better job, Grace had no intention of letting any of them interfere. I pointed him out to Put-Put.

  “Becca was with Julie, last time I saw her,” I continued, unable to locate my daughter in the swelling crowd. “Goddess knows where Pip is.”

  “Here I am, Mom!” Pip clattered up to the porch with a baking tray filled with gooey pinecones, followed by a griffin and a swarm of flies and toddlers. Zee and Julie walked behind at a more sedate pace, each of them emitting a stream of opalescent bubbles from their mouths and noses that lingered over the parade of small Proctors.

  We laughed at the sight of the two sisters, arm in arm, serving as animated bubble-makers to delight the children. Julie and Zee giggled, too, which increased the size of the bubbles and the speed at which they were released into the air.

  “Off to feed the fairies!” Julie cried, waving at us. Her straw hat was decked with flowers and ribbons. “Who wants to join us?”

  For all children, the line between magic and make-believe was fine and ever-shifting, but this was especially true of children born to witches. The newest generations of Proctors, enthralled by the prospect of seeing fairies in the wood, accepted each fresh expression of magic without a blink. Theirs was an enchanted world filled with the uncanny and the unexpected. What might my own life have been had I grown up embracing the family’s magical traditions and the wild, playful power at their core?

  “Everything all right, mon coeur?” Matthew murmured into my ear, tickling the flesh on my neck. He’d sensed my darkening emotions and come to see if I was okay.

  “Better than fine,” I said.

  “Rebecca is in the midst of a gaggle of teenagers,” Matthew said with a note of disapproval. “They’re shuffling cards and telling fortunes.”

  “Leave the girl alone,” Put-Put told Matthew. “Better out in the open with her cousins than off exploring the wood. Make yourself useful and find my coffee.”

  It was a rare occasion when Matthew took someone’s advice, but today was a special day and he left Becca to her own devices while he fetched Put-Put’s drink.

  The Proctors’ Midsummer potluck shifted into high gear now that Put-Put had arrived. Gwyneth sat under one of the chestnut trees, encircled by tween witches and wizards who were having a go at casting with spell-looms. The teenagers remained in small groups with their oracle decks and tarot cards, offering free readings to any adult who wandered by in search of a cold beer or iced tea. Tike left the cooking fire to whittle wands for the college students who were now of an age where they could begin using the magical staffs to focus their craft.

  Hand in hand, Matthew and I wove our way through the crowd, exchanging a few words with the cousins I’d already met and stopping to have longer exchanges with others. I picked up a hot dog from the barbecue, where Ike and a score of other males exchanged yarns about football and baseball while Grace flipped burgers and slipped blistered sausages into buns.

  “May I help?” Matthew asked, eager to assist my smoke-stained cousin. He was desperate for a job.

  “Absolutely not,” Grace said. “If I let you have a go, they’ll all want a turn. Row over to The Nestling and get the clams. They should be ready.”

  After the last of the clams and lobsters were ferried over from The Nestling and the enormous bonfire lit, the atmosphere at Ravenswood went from playful to something more potent. Inch by inch the sun dipped below the western horizon and a slim witch’s moon rose over the water. As the shadows lengthened, I was aware that the longest day of the year was nearing its end. Light was giving way to Darkness in the eternal cycle of death and rebirth that carried all creatures into the future.

  Weary parents tucked babies and toddlers into cots in the barn, propped up with dream pillows and firefly lanterns to comfort them if they woke in an unfamiliar place. The older children cajoled Aunt Gwyneth into a tour of the attic, but only after promising that they wouldn’t scream and wake the babies—no matter what horrifying sights they might see.

  I sat with Tracy, a bowl of magic marshmallows between us. I speared one with a stick and it immediately bubbled and browned.

  “Fire-free toasted marshmallows. You could make a fortune with these, you know.” I waited until the marshmallow was golden and popped it into my mouth.

  “Hands off my marshmallows,” Tracy said with a laugh, making another for herself with slightly singed edges. She sighed happily at the charred treat. “Just how I like them.”

  “So, what happens next?” I wondered. There was no sign of Julie, and Proctors drifted about the meadow, catching fireflies. Matthew, over Grace’s strenuous objections, was dismantling the grills.

  “I think we launch the boats,” Tracy said, pointing to the flotilla of small paper craft the children had made. They waited at the edge of the marsh, each hull filled with flowers and berries.

  “When does the real magic begin?” I asked in a low voice.

  “It’s all real magic,” Tracy replied, making herself another marshmallow.

  But there was more to Midsummer than these gentle enchantments. Darker sorceries were afoot, as well.

  The excited cries of children alerted those gathered around the bonfire that Julie had returned, flanked by an escort of tweens and teens bearing torches that glowed with magical light. The individual personalities of the young Proctor witches shone through with rainbow flags and black neo-Goth outfits in a parade of solidarity and safety.

  Ike rolled Put-Put to Bennu’s rock, where he and Gwyneth could watch the children release their boats into the water. Some were old enough to conjure up a fluttering wisp of flame at the top of their Popsicle-stick masts. Most needed help to light the beacons, touching their sticks to those of their cousins who had succeeded in calling forth the flames.

  “Bless these boats as they sail into Darkness,” Gwyneth said, raising her hands and letting the power of the goddess work through her. “They carry our dreams and desires for the long nights ahead. May the goddess grant us love and luck in return.”

  The children waded into the wetlands of the marsh in search of the currents that would carry their offerings out to sea. The small boats scattered, their flaming masts shining. Matthew slid his arm around me as we watched Pip and Becca take part in their first Midsummer ritual.

  Singly, in pairs, and in family knots, the Proctors returned to the warmth of the fire.

  While the children gorged on magic marshmallows and chamomile tea spiked with lavender, the adults took charge of the entertainment. Instead of setting off fireworks bought from a roadside stand, Ike led a crew of pyrotechnical wizards and witches to conjure wheels of fire that rolled across the meadow. Their carefully crafted flames posed no danger to the vegetation or the animals, and instead of the shriek and boom that accompanied most human fireworks displays, these emitted the gentle sound of witches’ bells.

  Chamomile tea was not the only drink on offer. The steady flow of beer was augmented with pitchers of fermented honey, the magical elixir of antiquity. The more cautious Proctors were adulterating the strong mead with lemonade or adding it to beer to make the traditional brew bragget.