Celestine Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The cat led Celestine over the ridge and down into the grove. The silver owl swept ahead and settled on a low branch of the tree at the center. Celestine knew the tree from the tracking steam. Dark trunk, wide crown, flowers in every color, small lights drifting through the leaves. Her family's tree. At its base, propped against the roots, lay her stolen grimoire. It was closed. The clasp was still shut. She stopped ten steps out. She held the wand low, not raised, not lowered. If she pointed it wrong, whoever waited under this tree could take it from her, and the seedling in her bed would die by morning. She spoke first. "I came for a name." The air beside the trunk thickened. A woman rose out of the roots the way steam rises off water. She was tall and thin, with dark auburn hair and purple eyes. She had Celestine's face, only older, and she was clearly dead. The ghost held up her open hands to show them empty. "I called the book to me," she said. "The book called you. I needed you here, and I could not walk to your gate." She looked at the wand. "That was mine once. Before it was your grandmother's." Celestine's grip eased, but only a little. "You planted the seed." "I woke it," the ghost said. "I cannot finish it. Shadowmoss will not bloom on one witch's moonlight. It needs two, from the same blood, channeled together." She placed a hand flat against the trunk. "You stand in the garden and lift the wand to the moon. I stand here and push the light down through the roots. The roots run under the ridge to your bed. We meet in the soil. That is the only way it opens its flower." She met Celestine's eyes. "I have waited a long time to ask a living cousin for her hands." Celestine walked to the tree. She picked up the grimoire and felt the warmth return to her chest, the way the garden soil had felt warm the first day. She tucked the book under her arm. She reached out with her free hand and set her palm on the bark, next to the ghost's. The bark was cold. The ghost's hand was colder. The owl watched. The cat sat by her boot. "Tomorrow night," Celestine said. "When the moon is full over the bed. I'll lift the wand to draw in the light. You send the light through the roots." She lowered the wand to her side and did not let it go. The ghost nodded. The pact was made. The bloom was still a night away.