Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(67)
Right now, she wasn’t buying what I was selling, and I absolutely could not blame her for it.
“Another angle to consider,” she went on. “If you are indeed the supplicant, then you wanted this, whatever it is you’ve received. It may not have arrived in the form you were expecting; divine blessings rarely do, since deities don’t tend to think in human modalities. But it’s still the answer to your original question. The fulfillment of your wish. So, before you found the coin, can you remember what you were thinking? What you were hoping for?”
I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, considering. Before the coin had appeared in my bed after my underwater sojourn, I couldn’t remember wishing for anything in my dream—but I’d been up at the lake earlier that night, too, before my date with Morty. That was when the star shower had originally happened, only from within the lake.
When the beginning of the spell, ostensibly, had taken hold.
I could remember standing up there in the blasting wind, the emerald frills of the aurora flicking above me like twitched petticoats, the stars like crystal points against the black of the sky. I’d wrapped my arms around myself, closed my eyes, feeling momentarily content; a fleeting instant of serenity that the lake always inspired in me. I thought I might have wished to feel so untroubled all the time. And I knew I’d wished myself different and stronger, better somehow. I could even remember yearning for everything to be different, but in a way that would let me make some badly needed peace with myself.
I hadn’t realized that I’d been asking—wanting, supplicating—nor had I consciously known there was anyone to ask. Though some dim, deep part of me must have understood she was down there, from all those years of forgotten visits.
That was when the wind had died, and the lake flared white.
I nearly staggered in place as the glittering rush of pieces finally came flying together, snapping into a clear mosaic of a conclusion. I’d wished for power, strength, comfort—and the goddess had granted it, by giving me the most literal version of what I’d asked for. The most obvious and dramatic way she knew for someone as damaged and unsteady as I was to step back into her power.
She’d enhanced my magic, flung open the doors to the hurricane cellar in which I kept all my locked-down emotions, and bound me to a partner who could hold me as I passed through such a blistering transformation. Given me someone to guide through an awakening of their own new magic, even as he guided me through my own feelings.
It would have been nice if she’d consulted either of us on whether we wanted to be bound to each other in the first place, and why she’d chosen Morty was probably beyond my ken, or anyone’s. Maybe it had only been proximity; or maybe there was something tender and accepting in him, something she’d felt would resonate with me. Given what his family was like—in many ways, the polar opposite of mine—this was a distinct possibility. And like Delilah said, goddesses didn’t roll in obvious ways, especially not when they thought they knew best.
But even this revelation still begged the question of why. Why me? Why grant me this power, why heed any of my needs? Why call me in particular down to the bottom of the lake to sit with her?
“Nina?” Delilah prodded, a slight edge to her voice. “Do you remember wishing for anything?”
“I . . . no. I might have, but I really don’t recall. Even if I did, why would a goddess listen to some random supplicant?” I asked, my heart pounding almost painfully. “Especially one who didn’t even know she was making a supplication. I mean, many people must be needy, right? And Lady’s Lake is an obvious place for a Thistle Grove witch to visit, when she’s in any kind of need or distress. Hard to believe no one else has ever made a lakeside wish.”
“For all we know, someone might have—and theirs might have come true, too. But maybe they didn’t feel the need to be forthcoming about what had happened to them,” she replied, eyes glittering with bright mistrust.
She knew I was concealing something from her, I could tell; she could sense the hidden contours of everything I wasn’t saying, but couldn’t think of how to push me harder without directly accusing me of lying. A line she clearly didn’t yet want to cross.
“You’re right, though, in thinking that it’s unusual,” she went on. “What I’ve read about this indicates that typically, your average mortal doesn’t earn divine favor no matter how stirringly they beg or plead. It’s usually the god-or goddess-touched who end up with a blessing.”
“What does that mean, to be goddess-touched?” I asked her, trying to keep my tone steady as a sharp chill trickled down my spine. “And how would you know if you were?”
Besides being summoned down to the bottom of a lake for communion dates, for instance.
“Sometimes deities play favorites with us,” Delilah said with a shrug. “For unfathomable reasons, usually. If you did happen to be one, it could be because something in you, your fundamental nature, aligns with the goddess’s own aspects.”
“Like we vibe with each other,” I said, barely able to contain the sarcasm.
“Sounds a little silly, maybe, but yes,” Delilah countered. “We’re talking deities, energetic beings that spend most of their time existing in incomprehensible planes. Vibrations matter, even if you choose to be snarky about them.”