Into the Storm: Into the Storm Trilogy Book One Read online

  “It wasn’t too hard to rein in my emotions at the church, because I knew you weren’t really there. There was no sense of you in that coldly austere building, in those words picked out by the mother you loathed, witnessed by her friends and associates. People who didn’t even know you, who had no idea who Dad, Brodie and I were, who had no sense of you as a person. Yesterday you were just a cold reflection of your mother, a chance for her to pretend her grief in front of those she seeks to impress, the demonstration of her lie that she is caring, and motherly. So her service meant nothing to us.” She tried to control her trembling.

  “But here? Today? I know you will be with us. I know you will be drawn close by our grief and love for you, by the magic you wove with these people, the healing they gave you when you were sick, and the care and comfort they offer us now.”

  Swaying unsteadily on her feet, Rhiannon worried for a moment that she was about to collapse, too emotionally drained to continue, but she took a deep breath and forced her shoulders back and her spine to straighten.

  “Today is the real farewell, the final farewell, and I’m not ready for that,” she said, voice croaky with emotion. “I can’t let you go. You’re my mother, you should be here. I need you. Brodie needs you. God knows Dad needs you. How will he cope without you? How will he be able to go on? You were always the strong one. The capable one. Even when you were sick you kept us together as a family, kept us sane, and centred.”

  Hearing soft footfalls behind her, Rhiannon spun around, not realising that tears were pouring down her cheeks until she saw one fly off her face. As Rose gathered her into a hug, the sobs she’d been trying to keep under control finally escaped, racking her body with violent shudders.

  The priestess held her tight, soothing her, comforting her, letting her cry for as long as she needed to. Not making her stop, or trying to shush her. Honouring her, and her grief, and honouring Beth and her impact on all of their lives.

  “Let it out sweet girl. No one is arriving for another hour, so you take all the time you need.”

  Momentarily shocked into silence, Rhiannon peered up at her. “But you said two o’clock.”

  Eyes twinkling with mischief, Rose smiled at her. “Yes, and I told everyone else three o’clock. Allow yourself this time Rhiannon. You’ve been so strong over the last week, holding it together for your dad and for Brodie, but you need to mourn too. You need to give yourself permission to grieve.”

  Shaking her head fiercely, she glared back at the white-clad woman before her. “I’m not strong,” she muttered. “And I’m not holding anything together. Our family is falling apart, and I can’t do a single thing to stop it. The only reason we eat is because you bring over our dinner every night, and make Brodie’s lunch for the next day. I feel so broken, so lost. And you’d be horrified by just how weak I am, just how useless.”

  Choking down another sob, she hiccupped, then almost laughed at how morbid and depressing she sounded. Still, this was a funeral, right? Surely that was allowed.

  Taking her hands, Rose led her over to a bench along the wall and sat down with her. “Of course you’re allowed to feel sad, and to grieve, sweet girl. The death of a loved one is the perfect time to break apart, to break down, to break open. You have lost a part of yourself, a part of your family, and you will always feel the loss, always feel that a part of you is missing, because it is. And that’s okay. That’s good!” she said passionately.

  “You don’t ever want to feel normal without them, to feel totally fine and wholly moved on. You should be sad! And the hole in your heart that you feel will be there forever? It will, but over time you will fill it with new memories, new moments, new people. Not to replace your mother, never that, but you, Brodie and Mike have a new bond now, a new commitment to each other, to keep your mum alive in your hearts.”

  “But I’m no good to them,” she argued. “And god, it’s my fault she’s dead!” She tried to stand up, to get away, but Rose held her hand in a vice-like grip, deceptively strong.

  “Sweet girl, it’s no one’s fault. Beth was very sick, much sicker than she let on to you. She fought desperately to overcome it, because she didn’t want to abandon you, and miss out on so many precious moments of your life – your first dance, your first kiss, your graduation, your career, your wedding and children, if you choose that,” Rose said, voice soothing.

  Her well-meaning words just made Rhiannon more agitated though. Her mother did know about her first kiss, had found her in the woods right after it, and the shame rose up around her, hot and red and angry. A furious crash of thunder roared overhead, and another flash of lightning lit up the suddenly dark sky outside, piercing through the windows and illuminating the altar in the middle of the room. Oh god oh god oh god, don’t let me be causing these freak weather disturbances.

  “Rhiannon,” Rose said sharply, and the frightened girl focused back on the priestess. “Your mother loved you so much, and she was very proud of you. Proud of how you had been looking after the family when she couldn’t, and proud of the wonderful young woman you are becoming. She felt bad that you had to shoulder so much extra responsibility, and immense guilt that her deserting you now will make things even harder for you. But she had no doubts at all that you would handle all of it with your customary grace.”

  A shiver ran up Rhiannon’s spine. Her mother was wrong. She had no grace, and all she’d felt for months now was weak, and not good enough. Her horrible night out in the woods had only exacerbated that and made her feel even weaker, so she knew there wasn’t a strong bone in her body.

  A heavy sigh brought her attention back to the room, back to this moment, back to the look of frustration on the wise woman’s face. “Your mum told me that you’ve been shouldering more than your fair share of the chores since she first became sick, and looking after Brodie too. You are older than your years sweet girl, and I feel honoured to know you, to have seen you grow up. And I know just how proud your parents have always been of you. That’s why you’re taking part in today’s ritual,” she continued firmly.

  New terror clutched at Rhiannon. “I can’t,” she whispered. “You can’t expect me to do that. I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  An amused expression crossed Rose’s face. “So it’s lucky that you got here early, right? I have to pop home now to gather some more things for the ceremony, so you’ve got lots of time to think of what you want to express while you weave together the wreath for the altar and prepare the herbal blend that we’ll use for smudging the room and the guests.”

  Jaw dropping, Rhiannon stared at her in shock. “What?”

  Laughter filled the room. “I’ve placed a selection of herbs on the altar, so choose the ones we’ll use in the ceremony, then put together the smudge stick so you can perform the ritual of purification,” she instructed. “You have almost an hour before people will start arriving, but I’ll be back in half that time, and then we can discuss what you’d like to say and when.”

  And she was gone, floating out of the room and down the stairs, the bell over the front door tinkling as she made her way onto the street. Rhiannon gazed around the gloomy room, trying to gather her thoughts. She supposed she could point blank refuse to take part, but that would be embarrassing, and an insult to her mother’s memory. There was no choice.

  She wondered suddenly if Rose had been able to honour her own daughter, but if she didn’t even know whether she was still alive, she guessed not. How terrible to not know. To not have closure. No wonder the priestess was insisting that she take part in honouring her mum, so she wouldn’t be left to wonder, or regret her shyness.

  And so, despite feeling she’d been bullied into it, she strode over to the doorway and flipped on the light, then, cursing loudly, made her way to the altar in the middle of the room.

  “Okay Mum, I’m here,” she said, trying to soften her voice as well as her emotions. “And I want to be here, I promise, I just feel like a fraud. But if I can’t have you back, and I can’t
get out of this public performance, I may as well try my hardest, right?”

  The windows rattled as a vicious wind beat against the building, and she tried to shut it out and focus only on the plants in front of her, and her vague recall of Rose’s lesson on herbal healing that she and her mother had attended together last month. God, just one more thing she wouldn’t be able to do with her mum – go to rituals and explore magic with her.

  Cautiously she ran a finger over the bay laurel leaves, remembering that they were good for communicating with the dead, and that in the past they’d been used as a base for funeral wreaths. Clearing a space in the centre of the altar, she arranged them in a circular pattern, then sought out the next herbs to add.

  Mistletoe for protection. Mugwort for inner sight. Holly for renewal and resurrection. Not that there was any chance of that, sadly, but she wanted to believe that her mum would have a new existence somewhere, somehow.

  Sighing, she touched the next herbs. Rosemary for remembrance. Marjoram for comfort and consolation. Ivy for rebirth and celebration.

  Lovingly she wove the flowers and leaves into the wreath, tucked smaller sprigs amongst them, then bound it together with green ribbon. She smiled wanly. Despite her doubts about her ability to do it, she’d managed to create a funeral wreath steeped in magic, and in memories.

  Tears blurred her eyes as she recalled the look on her mum’s face last Christmas, when she’d hung mistletoe over the doorway to the kitchen, and then swooped down and grabbed their dad the moment he got home, covering him in kisses, much to her and Brodie’s amusement.

  The ivy leaves sent her back to the leaf-clad cottage they’d stayed in up in Scotland last year, when they’d been rained in for the whole week, but had still managed to have an amazing holiday, the four of them easily keeping each other entertained.

  And she smiled sadly as she remembered some of her cooking lessons with her mum, as Beth had taught her which dishes went best with rosemary, marjoram, basil or sage.

  Next she had to create a smudge stick, and she racked her brain to remember which herbs would work. Beginning with a bunch of sage, she added cedar leaves for cleansing and purification, lemon balm for spiritual clearing, and pine needles for their beautiful scent as well as their grounding energy. Then she wove lavender flowers into the herbal bundle as well as the wreath, to induce peace, encourage memories, soothe the spirits and calm all those left behind. Those left to suffer and grieve, and try to pick up the broken pieces of their lives and continue as though everything was normal.

  Finally she bound the bundle of smudging herbs tightly together with cotton thread, and placed it in the ceramic dish to her right, ready to be lit in order to cleanse the room and all those who entered with its pungent, potent smoke.

  As time passed Rhiannon grew increasingly anxious that Rose still hadn’t returned, but she kept working, since she had no other option. She unwrapped a wrought iron incense dish and opened three small cloth bags of resins, and carefully poured them into the shallow dish. Frankincense, for purification and spiritual transformation. Myrrh, for protection, healing for those left behind, and purifying the departed soul for the next journey. And sandalwood, for its sweet smell and purification properties.

  Then she gathered up twigs from the sacred woods to be burned in the small cauldron – cypress for endings and letting go, elder for transformation, yew for protecting the bodies of the dead, oak for renewal of the soul, and birch for rebirth and renewal. Once that was done, however, she was at a loss. While her hands had been busy and her mind occupied, she’d managed to keep the worrying at bay, but now her thoughts started wandering again and her fears returned.

  * * * * *

  Just as she thought she might pass out from the panic engulfing her, Rose swept back into the room, a huge basket of flowers in her arms, and smiled at her reassuringly.

  “I thought you should select the flowers that will be on the altar too,” she said, laying them down on one of the benches along the wall, next to a huge vase shaped like a chalice.

  “No, you choose, you know so much more about all of this than I do,” Rhiannon protested, but the healer shook her head.

  “Sweet girl, this is something for you to do, to honour your mother and celebrate the magic you created together. Beth worked closely with nature – she wove spells with it and took strength from it, and it’s to nature that she returns now. You have no idea how much it meant to her, that you came to a few of the seasonal rites with her, that your hearts beat together to the rhythms of the earth and the moon,” she explained.

  “So choose the pieces of nature that we will farewell her with, communing with the plant spirits that brought her so much joy. And choose them for yourself as well – funeral flowers don’t only honour the departed, they also honour and provide solace for the broken-hearted ones left behind.”

  A single tear fell from Rhiannon’s eye, but she smiled. “Okay, I can do that,” she offered reluctantly. “I’ll call on the nature that she loved so much, to send her on her next journey, and to hopefully give me the strength to get through today.”

  Rose embraced her, then returned to the central altar to prepare, while Rhiannon gazed down at the lush floral pile. Reaching a finger out to touch the delicate blooms, she marvelled at their beauty. What witchery had the priestess worked to entice them all to bloom at this time of year? To survive the storms that had plagued the village all week?

  Carefully she lifted the white lilies and placed them in the vase – lilies for love and resurrection, for purity and sympathy, and for the innocence of the lost soul as it is reborn. It amazed her that she recalled the flower meanings, but she was glad. Unless it was her mum who was somehow guiding her? The thought made her smile, even as she rejected the possibility.

  Around the lilies she arranged the white roses her mother had loved so much – roses for love, protection and purification – along with white poppies for restfulness and remembrance; white carnations for pure love, and their sweet scent; and white chrysanthemums, symbolic of death, lamentation and grief. For the smaller vases she chose pretty blue forget-me-nots, as a promise to her mother that she would be remembered always; and pink xeranthemums to represent love, eternity and immortality.

  As Rhiannon placed the large vase on the altar then arranged the smaller ones on the windowsills, she heard a bell tinkling downstairs, and realised that the first guests were arriving. Turning in panic, she stared imploringly at Rose, but the wise woman simply smiled at her, and beckoned her over to the altar.

  “The smudge stick is perfect,” she assured her. “And it would be wonderful if you could stand at the door, smudging people as they enter and welcoming them to the ritual.”

  While Rhiannon was annoyed by the task, and wanted to run, to avoid having to see anyone, and talk to them, and face their pitying eyes, she soon became glad of it. People took her hand in sympathy or hugged her, but then they had to move on, because she had a job to do. Rose was a crafty, clever witch, knowing how grateful she would be to have something practical to do, an excuse not to engage too much with the other mourners.

  But when her teacher climbed the stairs and held her close, she almost broke down. Laura had been a close friend of Beth’s. She was a fellow teacher at their school, and another member of Rose’s ritual circle, and Rhiannon suddenly realised how deeply she must be reeling as well. She’d been so focused on her own grief that she hadn’t even thought about anyone else’s, but the warmth and sadness in the room today reminded her how profoundly loved her mum had been, and how much a part of the community she was... or had been.

  So many people were grieving, which made her feel even sadder in some ways – that so many others were suffering Beth’s loss too – but also comforted and relieved, especially for her brother. Brodie would grow up surrounded by people who remembered his mum, who would care for him on her behalf. Although she’d often wished she lived in a big city, because Summer Hill could be boring at times, for once she wa
s glad she’d grown up in a village, with such a strong sense of camaraderie and community.

  When everyone had entered the ritual space and been smudged with the potent smoke, Rose stubbed out the sage stick and left it near the door, then took Rhiannon’s hand in her left, and raised the wand she held in her right. Slowly they walked around the outside of the circle that had formed around the altar, moving deosil, with the sun, and Rose began to speak, her voice deep and strong.

  By our will a circle formed,

  Between the worlds where love is born.

  Contain the energy raised within,

  As the borders between the worlds do thin.

  Hold us safe throughout this rite,

  As we farewell our loved one to the light.

  The circle is cast, so mote it be.

  Rhiannon could barely breathe, but she felt the power of Rose’s words embrace her, felt the energy of the community gathered there with her, and felt the anxiety of the moment as the priestess turned to her and indicated that she should begin.

  For a moment she was paralysed by her fear, but slowly the terror melted away. This was not about her, it was about her mum. If she stumbled over her words or said the wrong thing, no one would care, or judge her harshly. It was only her intent that mattered, she reminded herself.

  Moving slowly, while her heart raced wildly, she made her way to the far corner of the room and raised her hands to the sky. She’d never done this before, and wondered if she could. If the words would come out, or get stuck in her throat, strangled by grief and pain. Yet here she was, no choice but to open her mouth and speak, regardless of how much her voice trembled and her body sweated with fear.