Spirit - Part Sixteen
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
“This is incredible,” Aiden tells Rose, his blue eyes full of amazement.
He’s staring down at the little piece of intricate embroidery that’s resting on the kitchen counter. It’s one of the many pieces of abstract stitchwork art hanging up on the walls of the cottage. Rose took it down to show us.
It’s set in a rounded frame, about the size of my hand. The threaded design is organic and flowing, rough and jagged in some places, smooth in others. Flamy shades of crimson, deep orange, scarlet, and jet black, all woven together into one unbroken shape that almost seems to breathe.
Aiden lifts his wide-eyed gaze to Rose again. “The demon illusion really came from this?”
She nods in confirmation, nervously kneading her palm with her thumb.
“That was my way of channeling it.” There’s enough curiosity in her soft voice to equal the amount in Aiden’s. “And the - the Guardian who taught you, if I can ask…?”
“My mom.” Aiden’s eyes are roving over the piece of magic as he speaks, at such a slow, lingering pace that I think he must see more in it than I can. “Her way was altar-building. Different configurations of stones and plants and other little things.”
Rose tilts her head to the side, fascinated. “And is that how you do it?”
“No… I - I tried, but I couldn’t do it her way. I wasn’t any good at it.”
“Well - I think that’s about normal, honey,” Rose answers, in a reassuring tone that tells me she sensed the leftover frustration in Aiden’s voice. “All the Guardians in my family had their own methods of channeling power for the more complicated magical stuff.”
Aiden quickly lifts his gaze to her. “Like what?”
Rose hesitates nervously with both of our gazes so intently focused on her. She shifts slightly on her feet, but the shy smile is still turning up her mouth.
“My grandfather whistled all of his spells,” she answers softly, old affection shining in her eyes. “And my mother baked hers. Sometimes I’d walk into the kitchen and there’d be green steam coming out of a pot on the stove, or sparks zipping around in the oven. It was a funny thing, though - her spells only worked if someone ate them.”
Aiden and I stare at Rose in shared amazement, absorbing all of this with wide eyes.
“How do you channel yours?” she blurts out softly, all in a rush.
“Um, I…” A faint blush darkens Aiden’s cheeks, but he nods at me. “Through Jamie.”
Rose blinks very hard, then turns to stare at me, considerably taken aback.
“That’s - really?” She draws back in disbelief when I nod at her. “Wow. I’ve never heard of anyone doing it that way before. You might be the first, Aiden.”
Aiden and I catch eyes with each other, startled by that possibility. Leyla, watching the two of us from across the kitchen counter, smiles quietly to herself.
Night has fallen softly and deeply around the cottage. It’s such a snug little place that you can drift between the open kitchen, the living room, and the closed-in porch with just a few steps. The result is that you can always see the ocean, so long as you’re facing the right way. The sea has grown vague and dark in the rainy night, but a few last boats are coming into the distant harbor. The globes of their lights are visible from here as glowing golden dots in the mist, casting gilt ripples on the water.
It looks cold out there, which makes the softly-lit cottage feel even warmer. The glow of the lamps and candles drapes everything in gentle shadows. The air is faintly salty from the sea, but also sweetened by the fragrance of the delicious golden drink that Rose pushed into my hands, and now made rich and spicy by whatever it is Leyla has simmering on the stove.
Basil has dozed off on the hearth rug by the fire, his chin resting on his outstretched paws. Aiden is seated on one of the kitchen stools, cradling Parsley in his oversized hands. She’s gently asleep with her tiny face buried against his palm, her tail curled around her furry body.
Rose was helping Leyla cook, but now that she’s come around the counter to talk to Aiden, I’m fairly sure she’s forgotten all about it. I quietly move around the counter to help Leyla instead. She flashes me a smile, wordlessly pushes a little crate of blueberries to me, and gestures for me to rinse them off in the sink.
Both of us gaze affectionately at our Guardians as we work.
Rose and Aiden are clearly both still adjusting to being around a Guardian who isn’t from their line. Aiden and I know that Ariana was acquainted with at least one other Guardian, because in her letter to him she mentioned that she had a friend with Second Sight. But if the Guardians used to keep in touch, that must have fallen out of practice a long time ago. Aiden didn’t know of any others beyond his family, and it’s obvious that Rose didn’t, either.
Up until now.
Serene happiness pools up in my chest as I watch Rose and Aiden. I can’t shake the sudden, inexplicable certainty I have that it’s right for them to know each other. Neither of them has attempted to explain what kind of invisible sense they have for each other, but it must be something powerful. The warm and wondering glow it released in both of their eyes, the dazzled and delighted way they stared at each other - their Guardian instincts must be talking to them, telling them this is as it should be.
Even though Rose technically shouldn’t have her Guardian instincts anymore.
Aiden’s smile slips away as he lifts his gaze from the piece of magic to Rose again.
“I’m so sorry about your Tree,” he murmurs, his blue eyes darkened with sympathetic pain.
Rose draws in and lets out a deep breath, smiling sadly at him.
“All things considered… I was very lucky.” She glances adoringly at Leyla, then blushes softly, pushing her glasses back up her nose. She quickly turns back to Aiden, shuddering a little. “I can only imagine how much worse things would have been if Leyla wasn’t there! I couldn’t have withstood an onslaught of CIA agents forever. I’m very lucky they sent this one. For - for a lot of reasons.”
Aiden and I both laugh, and Leyla fixes Rose with an adoring grin. Aiden hesitates, distractedly stroking Parsley’s ears with his thumb, then suddenly asks -
“What is it like? Without your Tree?”
Rose nibbles her lip, growing serious.
“Quiet,” comes the answer, a moment later. “It’s quiet.”
Aiden looks at her without answering, an expression too complicated for me to read in his eyes.
Rose draws in a soft breath, then adds - “But I’ve had plenty of time to make peace with what happened to my Tree. You just make sure you take good care of yours!”
Aiden nods his head in my direction. “Jamie takes care of my Tree. He’s the best person for the job, trust me. He’s already saved it once.”
“There was a choking vine,” I explain, when Rose and Leyla look sharply at me. “It’s okay, though! I got it taken care of. The Tree is healing up.”
The warm relief in Rose’s expression is obvious. She must have heard the same thing in Aiden’s voice that I did. The firm, unshakeable confidence he has in me when it comes to caring for his Tree.
Leyla must have heard it, too, because she flashes me an approving look as she turns to open one of the spice drawers behind her. I keep my eyes on the blueberries, plucking off the stems, hiding the flaming color suddenly blazing across my cheeks.
“I’m glad it’s in good hands,” Rose tells Aiden earnestly. “It’s such a precious thing, your Tree. I can still barely understand how I survived mine. The bond is so strong, rooted so deeply in us. If Leyla hadn’t been there…”
She trails off, blinking very fast and drawing her shoulders in, like the thought still scares her.
With no break whatsoever in her rhythm, Leyla sweeps around the kitchen counter and sits down on one of the stools. She places her elbow on the countertop, and with her other hand, she catches Rose by her waist. She gathers Rose back against her until she’s held fast in her arms, nestled between her knees.
“Long ago now, my darling,” she murmurs soothingly, right into Rose’s ear.
“Yes,” Rose agrees, her voice already steadying out. She doesn’t move from Leyla’s arms, but she lifts her face to smile up at me and Aiden again. “This is why I survived, I think. I had new roots to hold onto. My wife, my son. Now my granddaughter, and my daughter-in-law. And my dog, of course! And his daughter.”
Aiden and I look down at the puppy asleep in his hands, then over at the big Dalmatian dozing by the fire.
“Aw, you’re Parsley’s dad, Basil?” I ask, surprised and delighted. “You’re the - Parsley Papa?”
He opens one eye to look at me, his tail sleepily thumping on the rug. Aiden and I both laugh, and Rose lets out a little groan.
“We said we wouldn’t keep any of the puppies, but he and this little girl bonded so fast,” she explains, affectionately scratching Parsley’s ears. “Calla and Charlie noticed, and they begged us not to split them up.”
“Four adorable faces against us, between them and the dogs,” Leyla sighs solemnly, trying not to laugh. “A battle we were destined to lose.”
“I think you guys already won the most important battle, anyways,” I answer, still half in disbelief from everything we learned about the case tonight. “I can’t believe you had the CIA and the Stasi closing in on you at the same time, and somehow you’re all okay!”
“You two are some legends, you know that?” Aiden adds, to a mingled burst of appreciative laughter from Leyla and Rose.
“I can’t believe that you found us.” Leyla rests her chin on Rose’s shoulder, her brilliant eyes darting back and forth between us. “Is this why you’ve been trying to solve the case? You were looking for another Guardian?”
There’s a hesitant pause.
“Actually, we didn’t realize we could hope that high,” Aiden answers, the deep thunder-rumble of his voice slowed down considerably. “That part was a dope surprise, but, um - we’re actually looking for the solution to a magical problem. It’s a long story.”
Rose tilts her head to the side curiously, then pushes her glasses back up her nose.
“Sounds like there’s a lot we should talk about!” she says brightly, looking more than a little pleased at the prospect. “We’ll just - get dinner going, and-”
“I’ve already got it going, darling,” Leyla laughs affectionately, releasing Rose so she can get back to her feet. “You go ahead and talk.”
Rose flashes her a grateful smile, then hops up onto the kitchen stool to be a little closer to eye level with me and Aiden.
“How did you two find us? After all this time!”
“You guys didn’t make it easy,” Aiden laughs.
“It was a long, coordinated effort,” I inform Rose, pouring the blueberries into the bowl Leyla just handed me. “Aiden and I most definitely didn’t do it on our own. But basically, we’ve just been - following the clues.”
“You left some magic around Port Sitka,” Aiden rumbles, instantly drawing both Rose and Leyla’s startled eyes to him. “We’ve been calling them ghost memories. You made ghosts of moments that happened on that night. Only Jamie can see them, because he has the Vision.”
“But don’t worry, no one can see them now!” I add quickly. “We cleared them! The ones at the farmhouse, anyways.”
“What-?” Rose’s dark eyelashes flutter in disbelief behind her glasses. “No, I didn’t make anything like that! I swear, I - oh, hang on… by accident?”
She winces when Aiden nods in confirmation, then lets out a sigh and rubs her temples with her fingertips.
“There was so much magic let loose that night, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“No, it’s fair to be surprised,” Leyla says firmly, drawing a soft, helpless laugh from her wife. “And did you say that Jamie has the Vision?”
“Mhm.” Aiden winces guiltily. “Rose isn’t the only one who’s done magic by accident. But he says he likes having it, so it’s okay.”
“I do,” I confirm, when Leyla looks at me with an eyebrow arched. “It’s been useful, um - for reasons we’ll explain later. And for finding you guys, obviously!”
“We’re so glad you did!” Rose’s eyes light up with her beaming smile again. “And thank you for clearing up the magical mess at the farmhouse! I didn’t even know it was there.”
Aiden looks up suddenly at Rose.
“Actually, about the farmhouse,” he says slowly. “When Jamie and I were there, I sensed something in the forest. Right on the edge of the ruins.”
My eyes flit to Aiden in surprise. He told me that he was pretty sure he’d imagined whatever that was. He very briefly meets my questioning gaze in an I’ll-explain-later kind of way.
“I couldn’t tell what it was, but it definitely wasn’t a ghost or a human,” he goes on. “It felt like something pretty small, and it was able to move away very fast when we got closer to it. Do you maybe know what that thing was? Because I couldn’t figure it out.”
Rose narrows her eyes, her eyebrows drawing together thoughtfully. She and Leyla exchange a glance, but both of them look like they’re drawing a blank.
“Not a ghost, not a human… did you see what it looked like at all?”
“I’m not sure it was visible on this plane. Jamie can See on a few different ones with my help, but the thing was long gone by the time we took a few steps closer.”
“Strange… I’ve never sensed anything like what you’re describing. Even when I still had my Guardian senses, I can’t think of a time when - when I - wait a minute - I must still have some of my Guardian senses left! Because I sensed you, Aiden, I’m sensing you right now! And you’re sensing me!”
Rose’s last few words are brightened by her sudden realization. She absolutely glows with delight as she looks over at Leyla, her pale green eyes shining, her fingers pressed to her lips.
“How many times have I said you’ll always be a Guardian, even without your Tree?” Leyla toasts Rose with the steaming mug in her hand, her eyes twinkling with adoring warmth. “Feels good to be right, darling.”
“This kind of thing is why it’s nice to have another Guardian around,” Rose laughs happily, turning back to me and Aiden. “Aiden, I meant to ask - what’s your advanced mastery?”
There’s a beat of silence.
“I guess I don’t have one,” Aiden answers, an embarrassed blush spreading across his cheeks.
“Heliomancy,” I answer at the same time, in a voice warm with pride.
Another beat of silence follows this, during which Aiden and I look sharply at each other, both of us startled.
“What the f-? What do you mean you don’t have one, dude?” I lean across the counter to smack Aiden’s shoulder, staring at him with enormous, indignant eyes. “Are you kidding me, right now?”
“Okay, hold up a sec, I think it’s a pretty far stretch to call anything I do advanced mastery-”
“Are you s-? Oh, how dare you give yourself so little credit, you big dumb brute, I’m gonna kill you! You know what? Your biceps got so big that now there’s no energy left for your brain, or something, because-”
Aiden widens his eyes incredulously at me. “Advanced mastery, man? Advanced mastery? You can’t really-”
“Okay, he’s a Heliomancer,” I interrupt firmly, turning back to Rose and Leyla. “He’s a Heliomancer, so. That’s his advanced mastery.”
Leyla breathes out a laugh and looks over at Rose, arching an eyebrow. “Doesn’t this feel a bit famili-?”
“Leyla, have we had almost this exact-?” Rose starts to ask her, at the same time.
There’s a brief pause, and then all four of us dissolve into startled laughter.
“Heliomancy,” Rose repeats, when it gently fades out. She looks up at Aiden again, tilting her head back to meet his eyes. “Is that what feels effortless? Does it almost feel like that type of magic - loves you? Like it understands you, and it wants to help you?”
Aiden blinks in surprise, clearly startled to hear it put into words. “Yeah. It feels - exactly like that. But I still don’t-”
“Do you know of any other Guardians who specialize in Heliomancy?”
“The only other Guardian I know is you.”
Rose turns that over in her mind for a second, then starts thinking out loud.
“I doubt that many of us happen to specialize in the same thing, especially not at the same time. In my experience, magical specialties recur in family lines over the course of generations, if they occur at all. You’re probably the only Heliomancer on Earth, Aiden. Odds are that when it comes to sun magic, you have the most advanced mastery of anyone. I’m - guessing by your face this news comes as a surprise to you?”
“I…” Aiden gives himself a shake, looking a little dazed. “I’ve just never thought about it in those terms. Still, I really wouldn’t call it advanced mastery. Once I exploded this, um - nevermind, actually, we don’t need to get into that. Point is, my training stopped when I was seven, so if anything, I’m behind everyone else. I only specialized in heat and light because those are the first things you learn, and that’s all I knew how to do.”
Rose shakes her head at Aiden, then reaches out to squeeze his wrist.
“I think these things choose us, honey,” she says softly. “Fate chose to give you Heliomancy, no matter how you look at it.”
Aiden blinks at Rose a few times, then drops his gaze to the sleeping Dalmatian puppy in his hands, his blue eyes lost in thought.
“I wonder sometimes if Fate gave Rose her memory magic so that she could protect the secret of the Tree, after it fell,” Leyla says quietly, drawing our eyes to her. “Mags planned to use Rose’s Tree to try and find the others, all the Trees… Even if we had stopped him, there were too many people beyond him who already knew what he was onto, and people in the Stasi, too. What could we have done, without memory magic?”
“Yeah,” Aiden rumbles slowly, after a moment. “And it’s not like you saw that one coming, and chose your mastery accordingly.”
Rose breathes out a quiet, warm laugh, shaking her head.
“My little sister used to have awful nightmares. She always had them over and over again, because she remembered them when she woke up. She said they got stuck in her head. Eventually, without really meaning to, I just… started helping her forget them. Clearing her memory of them. My specialty chose me, like yours chose you. And as Fate would have it, memory magic was what we needed when my Tree came down.”
Aiden adjusts his snapback over his chestnut hair, absorbing that.
“But then you - you wonder why Fate couldn’t just choose to save your Tree, right?” he asks, very quietly.
“Mmm. I know what you mean. It’s so hard, sometimes.” Rose tilts her head to the side, understanding in her pale grey-green eyes. “Fate isn’t one of the gods who’s hard to find. She’s always right around the corner, but we can never just catch her and talk to her! I wish I could ask her about so many things, but I… I think the gods have their own rules to play by. Especially when they’re moving through us humans. And they do need us, to move things. But I think that Fate does the best she can for us. Especially her children, her Guardians. I mean, I lost my Tree and my powers, but what I gained - the - the life I’ve had since, every minute has been-”
Rose trails off, a faint blush climbing her cheeks. She glances at Leyla, who looks back at her with immense affection written all over her face. She leans across the counter to press a kiss onto the top of Rose’s head as she goes past to put a baking sheet in the oven.
Rose flashes a nervous smile at me and Aiden, then hops down from the stool. She hurries into the kitchen, where she starts rolling out some dough on the countertop. The little handful of flour she puts down puffs onto her maroon overalls, and smudges onto her cheek when she pushes her glasses back up her nose.
“You would get along with my Aunt,” Aiden tells her.
“That’s a high compliment from Aiden,” I inform Rose, whose cheeks color up with a pleased blush.
“Oh - lovely!”
“Both of you would, actually.”
Leyla breaks into her broad grin. “I’ll take a high compliment, too, thank you Aiden.”
He huffs out a dazed laugh, dropping his gaze back to the puppy cradled in his hands. “This has been a strange night.”
“For all of us,” Leyla laughs. “But the food should be good.”
“Oh, yes it will be!” Rose insists, carefully forming little decorations out of the dough. “It’s a special occasion!”
~~~~
It really does feel like a special occasion.
Leyla has Aiden unfold a little white wooden table on the closed-in porch. We eat on a blue and white checkered tablecloth, warm in the glow of the lamps and candles as the rain picks up outside. Charlie wasn’t exaggerating about how good the food is at this cottage. Aiden and I both circle back to the kitchen for second helpings.
Rose and Leyla are both such warm spirits, so at ease with each other, so easy to talk to. Rose is still mostly shy and quiet, but it’s obvious that she’s glowingly happy.
The two of them fill us in on more details of the case, answering our various follow-up questions. I’m overflowing with information to tell Kasey and Will later. My knee starts bouncing with excitement on and off the whole length of the dinner.
The conversation goes long into the evening, through dessert and two rounds of coffee. Aiden and I catch Rose and Leyla up on the situation with Kasey and Will, which takes us a long time. We’re not sure if they’re aware of Calla’s off-the-books activities, so we decided against mentioning ours. We leave off the various break-ins and robberies and heists, instead focusing on Ariana’s magical map, and the objects we had to find to activate it so we could summon Will, and how Aiden accidentally turned Kasey into a ghost from thousands of miles away.
Then we explain how we came to find the case, and about the team that helped us look into it - which inadvertently leads us to a bombshell discovery.
“Spencer Shin?” Rose gasped, as Leyla suddenly pressed her hands to her mouth. “He’s been helping with this investigation?”
“What - you know him?” I asked, bewildered.
“He’s - he’s in my stitch ‘n bitch group,” Rose whispered, trying not to laugh. “I traded thread with him two meetings ago.”
We may actually have to inform the Research Department that someone directly involved in the Botswick case has been attending monthly meetings of a stitch ‘n bitch group with Spencer. Aiden and I both fall apart into helpless laughter just trying to picture that conversation.
The rain picks up as the night gets late, until the ocean is blurred behind the glimmering mist and the forest is in whispering movement. Aiden and I are reaching the end of our story about the ghosts and the case. All we have left to explain to Rose and Leyla is what we need from them.
The location of the dead Guardian Tree.
It’s not an easy thing to ask for, given what happened the last time someone tracked down Rose’s Tree. This is probably a sensitive question to ask. Aiden and I both start slowing down as we inevitably draw nearer and nearer to it.
But this is for Kasey, and for Will. Both of them should be here for this, and it’s the one thought pulling me down during what’s been a surprisingly wonderful evening. That’s the whole reason we’re doing this, so that they don’t have to miss out. They need their freedom, and that could lie at the roots of the fallen Guardian Tree.
I take a breath, then look at Leyla and Rose, preparing myself to ask. Before I can, Leyla gets up and yawns delicately, stretching her arms over her head.
“It’s getting late, boys,” she says, reaching down to draw Rose to her feet. “We’re old ladies, and we need our sleep. Can we talk about this more in the morning? You could stay in Charlie’s old room. You don’t want to drive back to Ketterbridge tonight, anyways.”
“Oh - do we not?” I ask, confused.
Leyla shows me the text that just popped up on her phone. “Our beloved Commander Edwards just told Charlie that she’s watching a whole lot of storm clouds heading our w-”
Leyla breaks off as the rain picks up in intensity, beginning to hammer on the roof. A distant, growling rumble of thunder reaches us from somewhere out over the sea.
“Yeah, we’ll stay,” I tell Leyla, full of relief. “Thank you for the offer.”
“What about Ketterbridge?” Rose turns to Aiden with a concerned look in her grey-green eyes. “Don’t you need to be…?”
“Someone else is there to take care of things while we’re gone,” he explains. “They’ll be ready if I call them. I have - a team. A small one. All people I trust.”
Rose draws back, blinking very fast. It’s not exactly standard Guardian practice, and Rose knows that.
“Oh, well - alright, then!” she says, startled. “Not exactly going by the old rules, are you?”
There’s a warm, undeniable current of pride in her voice.
Want to leave a comment? I would love it if you did, and you can do so on the Tapas episode!