Sacred Magic: White Haven Witches Book 13 (EBOOK)

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One

(Warning - Pre-Edit possible typos)

A light spring breeze tugged at Elspeth Robinson’s hair as she stood around the garden fire with her two best female friends and fellow witches, Briar Ashworth and Avery Hamilton.

It was a bright Tuesday morning with scant clouds covering a pale blue sky, and it was only a couple of weeks away from her Ostara handfasting with Reuben, another witch in the White Haven Coven. Even though she was looking forward to the event, there was no denying that she was becoming more nervous with every passing day. She gazed into the flames, breathing in the heady, herb-filled smoke, and tried to focus on the ritual. Exasperated, she said, “My mind is all over the place. What is wrong with me?”

Briar and Avery smiled sympathetically, and Briar said, “You know what’s wrong with you. And it isn’t wrong! It’s natural to be nervous.”

“But I can’t focus on anything! This is really unlike me.”

“Which is why,” Avery said, squeezing her hand, “we are here today. This ritual is designed to calm your nerves.”

“It’s not working!”

“We haven’t finished it yet! In fact, we have barely begun.”

“I know!” El’s voice rose with a wail, and she hated the way it made her sound. “The Goddess give me strength! The prospect of marriage is turning me into a noodle head.”

The three witches were in the far corner of Avery’s walled garden, standing around the small bonfire on an area of fallow ground close to the greenhouse, in what Avery called her working part of the garden. Close by was a stack of dead wood harvested from the garden by Avery after her spring-clean, and a pile of cuttings for the compost.

Avery laughed. “You are not a noodle head! You have a lot going on right now. This ritual is all about calming your mind and embracing the future. It’s spring! It’s the perfect time for new beginnings. Not that you need a new beginning. This is just a change of direction. I’m so excited for you.”

“Me too,” Briar said, eyes bright as if holding back tears.

El reached out and held their hands. “You’re very kind to set time aside to do this. I know you’re busy.”

“Never too busy for you,” Avery told her. “Either of you in fact. I’m so excited we’re going to be your bridesmaids!”

El snorted. “I don’t think Shadow was when I asked her. I think she found the whole thing rather perplexing.”

“But she agreed,” Briar reminded her. “It’s just new to her. I gather that handfastings aren’t really a thing in the Otherworld.”

“No. I also think she finds the idea of me legally linking myself to someone is also odd. I think I do, too, and this is why I can’t focus. It all feels so big!” Her heart started pounding again and she placed her palm over it as if to stop it leaping out of her chest.

Briar rolled her eyes in a very uncharacteristic manner. “El, you are letting this get away from you. You and Reuben have been together for years, and you still maintain your independence and your flat, and your job. There is no reason that will change. He’s not old-fashioned, and he’s even said that nothing need change about where you live. This ceremony is a demonstration of love and commitment. It’s wonderful!”

“I know that logically, I really do, but my chest feels tight.” This was nothing new. She had talked about it to Avery and Briar several times, but she couldn’t let the feelings go. “And I do really love him, and he’s worked so hard on the day.”

“Which is why,” Avery said, drawing her focus to the present, “I designed this ritual. It’s about letting go of old patterns of thinking more than anything else.” She gestured to the pots of dried herbs and the large smudge stick Briar had made. “It’s time to cleanse and banish those thoughts. You’re always so confident, El. So self-assured. So strong. You’re always an inspiration to me, especially when I’m at my most scatterbrained.” Avery frowned as she brushed her red hair back from her face, and she looked at El as if peering into her soul. It was one of Avery’s things. She was so incredibly perceptive sometimes that her insights always surprised El. “I think these thoughts are most likely the dregs left over from your experience with the Winter Queen. That bitch really did a number on you. On all of us, actually.” Avery shivered. “I’m horrified that we forgot our magic. It’s the core of who we are!”

“But it didn’t affect you two the same way. I was stuck in her spell for ages.”

“And imprisoned and alone, and close to despair,” Briar added.

“So were you!”

“In a different way. I wasn’t locked in a horrible damp cell, and my magic came back to me quite quickly. Even after Raven told you, you still struggled to recall it. Don’t knock yourself. You found your magic again.”

El fell silent as she mulled over her friends’ words, and just acknowledging them seemed to make a difference. The sharp croak of Raven, Avery’s familiar, drew her attention to where he sat on the top of the stone wall. He cocked his head, his beady eye seeming to reinforce Avery’s suggestion.

“I think you’re right,” El said nodding, and turned her attention back to her friends. “I’ve pushed what happened aside, and tried to be logical, but I think deep down that doubt about myself has become stuck.”

“So, let’s do something about it,” Avery said, her eyes brightening. “Let’s tweak the ritual and cast a new spell. Although we celebrated at Yule when we banished The Winter Queen, it’s taken a while for the town to shake it off. I see people looking up at the castle sometimes, still confused as if they’re trying to reconcile the events with reality. Not everyone has forgotten it or thinks it was one of Stan’s crazy events. It marked the town more than Wyrd did. I feel it’s cast a shadow over us some days.”

“I agree,” Briar said, reaching for the special smudge bundle packed with herbs that she had brought with her. “I considered doing this after Yule, but then was swept up with Christmas. Like all of us, I just wanted to forget the queen and Jack Frost. I think it was a mistake. Avery’s right. Let’s cleanse ourselves of her influence now, and then extend it. We can use the elements to carry the spell across the town, especially using air, Avery.”

El could already feel her spirits lifting, and the knot deep inside her started to loosen. “I need paper. I must write it all down – all the things she did, how it made me feel, everything! Then I’ll burn it.”

“Write them in fire,” Avery suggested, rolling up her sleeves as if going into battle. “It’s your element. It’s a type of curse really that she’s left behind. Even the snow that she and Jack brought with them lingered here long after the rest of the country warmed up. We should have done something sooner.”

“Maybe we couldn’t,” El said, still musing on the enormous spell the queen had wrapped around White Haven. “She was a Winter Queen after all, and although you killed her, Avery, maybe it needed spring to arrive for us to see it clearly and be able to banish the residual effects.”

Avery reached into the bag she had brought with her and produced a notebook with a flourish. “Let’s all write a few things down, then we’ll burn the paper and cast a banishing spell, pulling in the power of the Goddess Brigid. I always think of her at this time of year. I know she’s associated more with Imbolc, but her presence lingers.”

“She’s also the Goddess of healing and protection among other things,” Briar added. “I already have lavender, chamomile, and rosemary in my bundle, perfect for this ritual, but we should add more to the fire. I’ll gather some extra sprigs, Avery, if that’s okay?”

Avery nodded. “Of course, and I have just the spell. Then we can dance around the fire.” She grinned impishly. “I really like this idea!”

El laughed as Briar set off across the garden to gather more herbs, and Avery ripped a sheet a paper out and passed it to her. “Avery, you never cease to amaze me.”

The next few minutes were quiet as they prepared for the spell and documented the events they wanted to put behind them. El wrote her words in fire, the flickering flames skimming across the surface of the page to leave her list behind – her self-doubt about her magic, the lingering effects of the queen’s evil and Jack Frost’s actions, her doubts about the hand-fasting, and her painful union with Bear, her familiar, that had almost killed both of them. That was something else she needed to address. She had only had brief contact with him since then. The other witches were scribbling just as energetically, but finally they were done.

“Are we ready?” El asked. When they nodded, she said, “One of you should lead.”

Briar exchanged a glance with Avery and shook her head. “No, you start. Avery can complete it with the banishing spell she has planned. Put every emotion in there, El. Leave nothing out. Then I’ll say my part. I wish Alex and Reu were here, but we can always do this again with them. The queen’s magic was sticky. We might need to reiterate the spell a few times.”

“Agreed,” Avery said.

El nodded and threw her shoulders back with determination as Avery added wood to the fire, stoking it so it blazed, and Briar cast the extra herbs into the flames. “Brigid,” she began, “Goddess of creativity, healing, and protection, offer us your healing and protection now as we banish the effects of the Winter Queen and Jack Frost who brought so much harm to White Haven and Cornwall. Their shadow lingers, especially deep within me, and yet I have so much to look forward to. We all do. We ask your help to bring peace to the town, and peace to our souls.” Her plea was impassioned, and her voice rose. “I cast aside feelings of inadequacy, of doubt in my magic, doubt for my handfasting, and the knot of fear she sowed within me. I cast aside distrust, confusion, and lack of hope. Let me rekindle my true self that I no longer fear what is to come, or my role within it.” She held the piece of paper on her outstretched hand and watched it ignite by the power of her own fire, and while it was still burning, she dropped it on to the bonfire.

Briar followed, speaking aloud her own fears and doubts that she wanted to forget, and then, almost sheepishly, she added, “And let me stop doubting my ability to find lasting love.” Her cheeks flushed, whether from the fire or the confession El wasn’t sure, but she suspected the latter, and her heart ached for her.

Then Avery began, but Avery’s words were as fiery as her red hair and her temper could be. She didn’t plea, she raged against the queen and Jack Frost, fury carrying her words across the garden as the wind picked them up and carrying them further. “She made me forget Helena, and she made us all forget our craft. I ask that we banish her shadow but ask that we never forget what she achieved, because it is a lesson that our coven is stronger together than apart.” As she threw her list onto the fire, the flames roared, and the smoke spiralled upwards.

None of them needed to ask what to do now. They worked as one as they always did. El fed the flames with the fire element, Briar paced around the flames with her smudge bundle, wafting the smoke into the centre, and Avery raised her arms, catching the smoke in a vortex of air and sending it whirling over the stone walls of her garden and across White Haven.

There was a moment of brooding silence, and then El felt a sweep of wind across her cheek that was like the gentle caress of fingers, and her spirits soared. She shouted, “I am Elspeth Robinson, master of fire and metals, witch of the White Haven Coven, sister witch to Briar, Avery, Reuben, and Alex, and I vow I will not forget my strengths again.”

Avery threw her head back and laughed, her voice rising in a whoop, and she grabbed Briar and El’s hand. “Time to dance, witches!”

With a wild tug and stamping feet, she led them in a merry dance around the bonfire and in seconds El and Briar were giggling and cavorting, too, as Raven wheeled around them, squawking loudly.

This was life. This was witchcraft and magic.

Whatever was to happen over the coming weeks as the handfasting grew closer, El wouldn’t forget it. And if anything or anyone tried to ruin their day, or interfere with the lives of the inhabitants of the town, they would rue whatever bought them to White Haven.