Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(16)
COME, NINA, pressed against my mind, a vibrating summons that had me rising to my feet before its echo even trailed off. COME FOR THE REQUESTED BLESSING.
I drifted over by her side, until I reached her face. And slowly, so slowly, over a span of seconds and minutes and sprawling eons, the Lady did what she had never done before.
She turned her implacable stone head toward me, and opened her eyes.
They were huge and honey colored, a crystalline amber like a cat’s. And they shone with a riotous overflow of life, a ferocious, knee-trembling love of a magnitude far beyond human comprehension.
Shock surged through me like grounded lightning; even now that I remembered all the times I’d sat down here with her, I knew it hadn’t been like this. I’d always felt, from the weight of her awareness, her massive regard, that some small part of her was here with me. But all those times she’d been frozen, unmoving, a true statue of stone. Not a living being, a goddess in situ, but only the avatar of one.
I had a sudden revelation, like a knowing dropped directly into my mind, that this statue wasn’t really the Lady herself. That in another lake very like this one, the two of them inextricably entwined—though the other existed somewhere far away, in this world or possibly some other—the actual goddess incarnate slept an endless sleep.
O COME, MY NINA, COME NEARER STILL
AND LEAVE NO ROOM FOR FEAR
She gave a slow blink, her eyes narrowing as if she were trying to smile at me. I smiled back, a huge and wobbling and delirious grin, beside myself with happiness. The pull toward her grew even stronger, a humming compulsion I couldn’t have resisted even if I’d wanted to, and no part of me felt any inclination to resist. Her summons had a distinctive sound to it, a warbling waver that traveled between us like a single plucked note carried by the water.
I let my own face fall forward, closer and closer yet to hers, until I could see every bold line of those beautiful features—every eyelash and cleft and sweetheart dimple—imperfectly rendered though they were.
Wherever this Lady really slept, she was infinitely lovelier than even this lovely stone could convey.
O KISS ME, NINA, MY NINA
I obeyed, my star-studded hair swirling around both our faces, my mouth just grazing hers, the stone turning to a supple, living softness beneath my lips . . .
And then—
6
The Starstruck Coin
I woke with a shearing gasp, feeling like my lungs were splitting in two.
I sat bolt upright in bed, my teeth chattering with the memory of a terrible, consuming cold; even as a heat like melted butter still warmed the pit of my stomach, trickling in warm runnels through my bones.
“What the hell,” I whispered shakily to myself, pressing a fist to my chest. My heart battered so hard against my sternum I could feel its shudder against my hand. Memories flooded me, of plunging deep into the frozen lake, drifting down and down for some unknown eternity, to meet the glowing goddess who waited for me on the other end of the descent.
Now that I wasn’t dreaming, the idea of that plunge, all that awful, crushing water above my head and all around me, filled me with jangling panic, a volcanic terror. Not even the thought of the goddess herself—the ferocious sweetness of her, the luminosity of all that inexplicable love she somehow had for me—could cut the fear. I could have drowned. I should have drowned. Even in a dream, you weren’t damn well supposed to go without breathing for that long, like some free diver plunging for pearls.
“It was just a dream,” I told myself, squeezing my eyes shut hard, trying to rein in the furious gallop of my breath. “Just a dream, Nina. You’re here, in your own bed—and see, you’re not even wet. It was just—”
Then I felt something cutting into my palm, something wedged tight inside the knot of my fist. A fine tremble racing through me, I lowered my hand into my lap, holding my breath as I slowly peeled my fingers back.
A coin sat on my palm, as if it had been pressed into my hand like a token. Golden and shimmering, an octagram inscribed around the cameo of a familiar, gorgeous face. It felt warm against my skin, like an oath; a promise that this time, I would not only remember—this time, I would know beyond the whisper of a doubt that it had really happened.
Somehow, I had really been down there with her.
I dropped the coin as if it had caught fire, leaping from my bed as it vanished into the tangled nest of my sheets with a final glimmer like a wink. Arms wrapped around myself, I paced back and forth across my chilly marble floor, predawn light sifting through my windows like a frosty film, trying desperately to keep my extremely tenuous shit together.
Because this, whatever was happening to me—even by Thistle Grove standards—this was very, very far from normal.
Yes, I was a witch of ancient lineage, living in an objectively enchanted town; it wasn’t as though I didn’t believe in goddesses and gods, or doubted the magic that rolled like a reliable tide through my own veins. And all the families held specific beliefs of their own, often faiths that included divine pantheons. Even the branches we all traced our family trees back through sank their roots deep into old and venerable magic. My own name was one of the variations of Nimue and Vivien—names for either one enchantress or several, who’d variously seduced Merlin, given Excalibur to Arthur, and raised Lancelot, in different iterations of the Arthurian tale.