care of you for an entire year so . . . he asked if he could transform you as a matter of convenience. I thought he meant to keep you as a bird, or maybe a cat, just until he returned the next summer, and then he’d release you from the spell.”
“What were you thinking?”
“It was horribly wrong—I know that now. But then I was wrong about so many things.” She turned her head away to cough. “When the carnival returned to the valley the following year and you didn’t come home, I went to his wagon. He seemed surprised to see me. Made some excuse about you meeting someone and running off. I had no choice but to believe him, until you showed up years later and I learned the truth of his deception. I never dreamed he was capable of cursing you and dumping you on the side of the road like that. Not Esmé’s daughter.”
Grand-Mère held her handkerchief over her mouth, coughing until her eyes watered. When the fit passed she brought the cloth away and found the silk stained bright red. Her eyebrows rose with curiosity at the sight. “Blood and silk, mud and milk, never the twain should meet,” she muttered. “No, that’s not right, is it?”
Jean-Paul looked sidelong at the old woman, then back at Elena in alarm. “What’s the matter with her?”
It was then Elena took note of the empty wineglass. She’d been so focused on sorting out the truth inside the betrayal she’d missed the early signs of poisoning in the old woman. She grabbed the vial and shook it against the light to see how much liquid remained.
Empty.
A shudder of fear ran through her, as if she was falling and her lifeline had just slipped through her fingers. “She’s poisoned herself,” she said and threw the vial on the floor.
“Can’t you do something? Use your magic?”
She emptied the pouch of rue on the table and began grinding the leaves between her palms. “I’m going to try a purge chant to empty her stomach,” she said, knowing she’d used a powerful binding spell on the poison to prevent exactly what she hoped to do.
But before she could chant her spell, Grand-Mère winced and slouched in her seat. Her head tipped back so that she stared at the ceiling. “I never meant to cause you any pain,” she said, gasping for air. “I was just so scared I was going to lose everything. But it was never meant to be permanent. You must believe me. You were always supposed to come home again.”
Elena blew on the herbs and asked the All Knowing to purge the poison, but it was too late. Grand-Mère’s body made a tiny rattle as her breath slipped out, then she went slack, the heart cornered at last by the deadly potion.
There were no screams to follow the second death. After an initial collected gasp, there were whispers of concern, a spoon laid gently on a table, and a quick inhale of awe as the mentor’s aura rose in a silver cloud, acknowledgment of the wisdom and experience lost when one so old passes. A final hush settled over the witches as Elena, still reeling from the confession, raised her hands in the sacred pose to praise the All Knowing and plead forgiveness for the woman who had taught her the art of the vine, and life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The vines sagged with heavy clusters of fruit. Their broad leaves exalted palms up to the sun while secret tendrils threaded around the hardened canes, seeking their next anchor point. It humbled Jean-Paul to see the vineyard respond with such robust growth. As he walked among the vines, he plucked off a grape, testing the fruit’s firmness between his thumb and finger before taking a bite. The sweet juice ran over his tongue. For three days he’d been telling her it was time, but she would put her hand on his and say, “Not yet. Not until the full moon passes.” He was beginning to think Elena’s patience for the harvest was as much a part of her magic as were her spells.
Each morning she checked her star charts, consulted with the lacewings, the beetles, the moths, and he swore even a lizard once, as they went about their business in the canopy. And then she’d close her eyes and let her fingers trail along the vines. There was some secret communication in it all. A language only she spoke. On the days