Page 76 of Wateredge

Seren looked at the cool soup and threw Deryn a sideways glance. Her twin rolled her eyes but touched her fingertips to the bowl.

“You all do use me as your instant microwave, I swear to Goddess.”

Victoria grumbled, and there was silence again. Bubbles snored loudly on his pillow by the hearth. The quiet felt alive around Seren, the Crow House opening a door to a secret it had been holding for too long. The steps above seemed to agree with her.

“Gwen Crowhart was a black sheep, or crow, of the family, if you will,” Victoria said. Rhiannon smiled but did not interrupt. “She left the island, determined to run away from herself, to escape the magic and everything it carried with it.”

“Sounds familiar.” Rhiannon huffed out a breath.

“Not in this case,” Victoria said. “She was one of the first female Navy nurses. The Sacred Twenty, they were called. The Navy recruited them and sent them overseas and to US hospitals. And to Louisiana to care for Spanish flu patients, where she was deployed along with another member of the Sacred Twenty, a local nurse. Barracks and barracks full of thousands and thousands dying and suffering, and all Gwen saw was that her true self had finally caught up to her. She fell in love. They both did, from what I understood. I don’t know what her name was, Gwen never said⁠—”

“Elodie.”

Everyone jumped as Lark entered the kitchen.

“It’s eerie,” Deryn whispered. “Like a déjà vu, you coming in, naming names.”

“I’m sorry, voices really do carry. Or maybe the House wants me here.” Lark sat down next to Seren and took her hand.

Victoria nodded approvingly.

“I like how you talk about the House.”

“It’s hard not to, when it behaves the way it does. Like it’s alive, living and breathing all around us.” Lark smiled and gave the awakened kitten a scratch behind his ears. Bubbles immediately made himself comfortable on her lap.

After a moment of quiet, Lark spoke up again.

“Elodie Thibodeaux. I grew up seeing her around the swamps or the land. Sad but not painfully so. Lonely is the more likely description. Sometimes she spoke to me, but I was never frightened of her. I told my parents only once about her, and I was shut down so fast and so brutally, I never once brought her up again.” Lark bit her lip, and her fingers in Seren’s grew still.

“When I got married, I stopped seeing her, not even when I came to visit my parents. She no longer came to me, no longer spoke to me. And so, I went to the city archives and found her. That’s how I found out her name and some of her story. A nurse who cared for flu patients and who died of it. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except for a quiet, sad ghost speaking of Gwen Crowhart.”

Seren blinked, her heart trembling in her chest. Victoria took Lark’s other hand in hers.

“Gwen could’ve saved her. Could’ve saved many. Healing is a trait that Crowharts carry. Not all and not to the same extent. Ceridwen here is the one who has the most of that ability, no matter what it costs her, and I believe it costs her quite a lot. Still, Seren can heal too, not as well, but if push came to shove, I know she could. And she would use everything she has to help.” Ceridwen shook her head dismissively. Victoria picked at a speck of lint on her skirt. “In any case, Gwen did not use her magic. And people died. Oh, surely she saved more than her share by traditional means, medication, care, what have you. But she could’ve saved more.”

Seren tilted her head.

“We all grew up with her, but she was quiet and made herself known so rarely that it was like we all imagined her. She seems to come to me more often lately. And I can feel her guilt. It’s overwhelming. She could have saved the woman she loved. Could have acknowledged that she loved her to begin with. She did none of that. Goddess, all of those years wasted…” Seren turned to Victoria. “Why am I the one seeing Gwen? I have never denied my magic, my ability. I never questioned who I was. It seems that the shared name is the only point of connection?”

Victoria said nothing for the longest time. When she finally spoke, Seren wished she’d never done so.

“We don’t choose our ghosts, Seren. Or our stories. I told you before, out of all your sisters, yours is a particular kind of path. You would sacrifice yourself in the blink of an eye. For Lark, for me, for your sisters, for the town, as the firefighter that you are. Gwen refused to do so, to risk revealing her power, to risk giving in to her love, to risk anything at all. You seem like two completely different people. Indeed, bar the name.” Seren listened to every word, more lost than ever before.

“Gwen risked nothing at all and lived with the guilt of it all her life. What will you risk when the time comes, Rennie?”

20

LARK, PROMISES & BELONGING

“Everything.”

One word pierced the congenial air of the room, and Lark flinched.

“Seren, you can’t… I will just⁠—”

Seren looked at her, eyes full of love.

“Everything. Anything. Whatever is necessary to keep you safe. To keep you all safe.”