deliberation they decided the power of the district attorney’s office was still too useful and he should work with Maria to provide backup surveillance. Steven, Henry, Richard, and Anson would do the actual breaking in.
They would execute the break-in on a Sunday night. After they had finalized the plan, Josiah worked with Anson on where to leave the Camry so he could pick it up when he ditched his Audi in another public place.
“I’m starting to feel uneasy about this,” Anson muttered. “You’re vanishing too much. If you had no idea someone was trying to track your movements, you wouldn’t be disappearing at all.”
“We always knew this would come down to violence and risk.” Even as he said it, he frowned. Like his old ambitions of political power, violence and risk no longer felt as acceptable as they once had.
If this were just a matter of revenge, he would have already given it up, set up the coven trust fund, and headed to California. But revenge was the simplest part of this. He could even give up the possibility of ever getting justice for what had happened to him. But Rasputin would keep victimizing witches, destroying not only their lives but the lives of their families, unless he was stopped.
He almost missed the eight-o’clock exchange that night, but at the last moment he whipped out his phone to text.
Safe.
She replied, Safe.
Back in Everwood, Sarah wanted to have a gathering on the summer solstice. “At first I didn’t think I’d be up for it, but I feel different with you here. Do you mind helping?”
Even with Molly’s gifts of energy and healing, they both knew this summer solstice was likely going to be Sarah’s last.
“Of course not,” Molly told her instantly. “I’m happy to do whatever I can.”
They worked hard to prepare. Molly found a blessing in a grimoire she’d been studying. With Sarah’s approval, she said the blessing over the food dishes she prepared the night before. It sank in over the night to provide extra nourishment and luck to anyone who ate the food.
When the day itself dawned, over three hundred people showed up to visit, eat, dance, walk Sarah’s labyrinth, and take turns sitting in on a drum circle that played for hours. After enjoying a bonfire that lasted late into the evening, Molly was pleased to see Sarah’s evident happiness as she said good night to the last of the visitors.
Then they called the day done. Right before Molly fell asleep, she whispered, “I love my life.”
The house seemed to be listening, because it gave a sigh and settled around her like a worn, much-loved jacket.
Molly kept delivering herbs, simples, and unguents to people in the surrounding area, and Sarah began to teach her how to create uncomplicated medicines.
At first Molly didn’t understand why certain medicines were better as a “simple”—which included tinctures—as opposed to an unguent, which was a thicker substance like an ointment or lotion that could be used for lubrication, because they weren’t categorized in a way that she could recognize.
“Magic is an entirely different ecosystem from what we’ve created through science,” Sarah told her. “Just because Tylenol and ibuprofen need to be taken orally, that doesn’t mean the magical equivalent for a headache medicine will be the same. Certain spells are only effective in combination with certain herbs. And some of those herbs can only be taken orally, and others can only be absorbed through the skin. In a modern drugstore you can find pills to take for an upset stomach. In magic, you can rub a tincture on your abdomen and the magic is absorbed through your skin. Different systems mean different ways of delivering relief for the same ailment.”
Once Molly understood that, her lessons on healing went much faster. She loved those, because they called out a nurturing side in her that blossomed and grew—but she studied offensive magic with the same single-mindedness that she had practiced back in Atlanta, as if her life depended on it, because one day it very well might.
Just as every witch had a positive and a negative, they also had a greater affinity for certain elements than others. Molly’s two strongest affinities were to the moon and the ocean. At Sarah’s direction, she went down to the beach to gather fresh, foaming ocean water under the light of the full moon, whispering over the jars until they glowed with Power.
There were defensive and offensive spells she could memorize. The most Powerful spells would be ones