A Flicker to a Flame (Mosley Coven)

Epilogue

CATO

From now until you set me free

I feel his warm, familiar breath across my shoulders. Real is relative. No man has touched me in twelve years. Not David when his marriage was falling apart or even Nathan when he confessed his feelings. No one. And I’ve never missed it. I know what my family and people in town think. I know what they say about me, especially when they think I can’t hear. I don’t care. I have everything I need.

And my time is coming to an end.

In the darkness just before dawn, when the Moon and Sun kiss, the veil between my world and his is at its thinnest. They say ghosts grow stronger the more attention you give them, and no one knows that better than me. After twelve years watering Xavier’s spirit, the things he can do on this side of the veil just before the Moon disappears are marvelous. And sensuous.

He moves the sheet covering my body aside before I’m fully awake. I feel the soft press of ghostly fingertips along my back and side until I turn over. I feel his mouth against my right ear, whispering words of love to me, before he kisses a path down my neck and chest.

One ephemeral hand pushes the sheet fully out of the way. My toes curl as Xavier kisses the tip of my shaft and then envelops my length in one long motion.

I groan in an ecstasy born of years of love and constant companionship. I haven’t had to spend a day without Xavier in a dozen years, each day together as special as the one before, as lovely as the night we met.

Xavier’s touch is a suggestion and a promise. Sometimes it’s just enough to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck, sometimes it’s enough to feel like the real thing, but real is relative and this is all I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The room is quiet besides the irregular creaking of the house settling and my increasingly frantic breaths. A sliver of gray light flickers through the blinds covering the window by my bed, strengthening the feeling of Xavier’s mouth and seeking hands. I cover my eyes to prolong the darkness, enjoying the hunger of his touch. I don’t need to see what I can feel. I don’t need my eyes to confirm what my heart knows to be true. I’ve never needed anyone else but Xavier.

“Yes. Yes! Fuck,” I scream, no longer worrying if anyone can hear.

But then Xavier pulls away.

“Wait,” I whisper, tearing open my eyes. I’m covered in sweat, chest expanding and constricting as I try to catch my breath. I feel his kiss over the head of my shaft, his hands under my knees. I relax back on the pillow with a grateful smile. My own fingers dig into the back of my thighs as I open myself to him. For him. For us.

He moves over me. I’ve never felt Xavier’s full weight pressing down on me, but you can’t miss what you never knew. And what I know is better than everything before.

He teases me wide with soft circles at my opening, slipping inside with one long press. His other hand massages my inner thighs from my knee to my groin and up my shaft before moving back again. He teases me until I’m fully awake and my chest is rumbling with desperate groans.

“Are you ready?” he whispers, his ghostly voice moving through my veins, vital like blood.

“Always,” I moan while he’s already pushing inside me.

We’ve learned so much together, Xavier and I, but nothing will ever top this. When he’s fully inside me, both hands covering my length, holding onto me, squeezing me to stave off my release for now. And then his dick begins to grow inside of me, filling me until my entire consciousness is full of him. Until my dick is so hard it hurts. Until I could come from just this because I love him so much.

And then his hands start to move, down to the base and up again. His hips join in, pulling back slowly and pressing forward again. I’m shaking in delicious agony, precome pooling at the tip until there’s so much there it spills over, dripping to form a puddle on my stomach.

We’ve spent hours like this, me locked in my room with the ghost of my lover. If anyone guesses what I’m doing with all this solitude, they’ve never asked me, and I’ve never offered an explanation. What Xavier and I have is only between us, one of the most precious relationships of my life.

Besides, my sisters are too busy with their own secrets to worry after me.

The bed starts to creak under our movements. My movements? It hardly matters.

He pulls back the full length of his shaft and then slams back inside.

“Oh.” That one word leaves my mouth in one long, shaky breath.

He kisses the excitement from my lips. “You should be quiet,” he whispers, those words circling my nipples.

All I can do is laugh and moan while the delicious burn of our joining takes over me. In these moments, after the Sun and Moon part, all that matters most to me is in this room. All that matters is how gentle he is — his touch, his stroke, his warm breath — all over my skin.

“Faster,” I beg as I have thousands and thousands of times before. His hips move faster and he strokes my length at the same pace.

After all this time, I’ve learned not to reach for him anymore. He’s not there physically, not in the way I can touch and hold. But I don’t need to feel Xavier on my fingertips because I promised to remember him, and I hold him inside myself, where he belongs.

Xavier loves me with all the power he’s acquired in our time together and my back arches in ecstasy. My release is close enough to taste, but I never want to come alone, so I whisper a gentle spell we’ve perfected over time.

What’s mine is yours

What’s yours is real

In this world and next

I give you this love to feel

I never knew real power until I learned how to make a ghost cry out in ecstasy.

* * *

“O h, someone’s up before lunch. Don’t we feel lucky?” Fredi says as soon as I walk into the dining room.

“As you should. Is there any breakfast left?”

“No,” she shoots back with a grin.

Billie’s exasperated sigh sounds like mama all over again. “She put your plate in the oven,” she says, walking into the living room, a cool glass of iced tea in her hand.

Fredi rolls her eyes and returns to the book she was reading before I appeared.

“Thanks,” I hum, squeezing Fredi’s shoulder as I pass.

“But you need to hurry up. We’ve got a lot to do today,” Billie says in a distracted voice. She stops abruptly across the dining room table and sets her glass down hard on the surface. One hand grips the top of the chair tight while the other squeezes her lower back. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in through her nose.

My gaze falls to the big, round belly jutting out from her slender frame. “You alright?”

“I’m fine.” A grimace moves over her face as she speaks.

“She’s in labor,” Fredi says breezily without even looking up from her book.

“No, I’m not,” Billie bites back. “Aunt Liya said this baby won’t be born for at least another week and she’s right. I need her to be right.”

I frown down at Fredi, who looks up from her book just long enough to roll her eyes. We’ve had this argument just about every day for the last week. I know Billie can be stubborn, but this is becoming absurd. Every day, her situation is becoming clearer to everyone but her.

I sigh loudly, and Billie’s face crumples in pain. “Aunt Liya said this baby will come when one dear to you says goodbye,” I remind her gently.

Billie opens her eyes and cuts her gaze in my direction. “And Aunt Liya is moving in two weeks.”

Fredi puts her book down. “Is Liya the only person you hold dear?”

She waits for the labor pains to subside, taking deep breaths throughout, and then opens her eyes only long enough to roll them. Because even pregnant, Billie is still herself. “It makes the most sense to say goodbye to Liya on the same day we welcome my child into the world.”

“Our magic makes its own sense,” Fredi says, choosing each word carefully. “Remember that.”

I don’t relish keeping the peace between my sisters, but now that mama’s gone, somebody has to do it. “No matter who’s right, you should still rest. If the baby comes in two hours or two weeks, you need to relax.”

“I can’t relax,” Billie says. “There’s too much to do.”

“Not really,” Fredi says, her attention returning to her book. “The nursery is done. Nanny Bold is on standby.” She grins up at Billie. “I even whipped up a little concoction just in case you change your mind and want to be knocked out.”

“When’d you do all that?” I laugh, pulling Billie’s chair out for her to sit.

“Yeah, when did you do all that?” Billie asks, practically collapsing into the seat.

Fredi sits up straight in her chair. “While you’ve been running yourself ragged with worry,” she tells Billie before turning on me. “And you’ve been holed up in your room all hours of the day, I’ve been getting things in order.” She nods at Billie’s belly. “The birth of the new Patriarch is special.”

“We don’t know if he’s the new Patriarch,” Billie says defensively.

“We don’t even know if it’s a ‘he,’” I add.

Fredi smiles and reaches for a glass of water. “ We certainly do. Now go on and get your breakfast. We can spend some time together while you eat.”

“Ooh, that sounds nice,” Billie sighs, rubbing her stomach.

I think about saying no. There are things I must do in preparation for this birth as well. But when I look up at the mirror hanging on the far wall, I see Xavier sitting next to Fredi, a serene smile on his face as he looks over her shoulder at her book.

“Okay,” I nod, walking into the kitchen with a lump in my throat.

I turn the oven on to heat my food a little. While I wait, I do the most important thing I will do today.

There’s a loose floorboard near the back door in a corner where our Ancestors laid the first stone for this house. I jimmy the floorboard up and then hold my breath, listening just in case one of my sisters is heading my way. I hear the faint sounds of Billie and Fredi bickering and exhale slowly. Quickly, before anyone comes looking after me, I pull a sealed envelope from my back pocket and press it to my lips. I whisper a name no one in this house knows besides me — a name I’ll never say again — against the paper. And then I place the letter I wrote this morning underneath the kitchen floor, for my blood to find when the time is right. This house is full of secrets and I set the floorboard back into place, giving it one more to hide.

Long after my heart’s stopped beating, by the time my bones have turned to dust, I’ll live on in any Mosley witch who remembers my name.

Love lasts longer than the breath in our lungs and blood bonds like-to-like.

“All done?” Xavier asks, appearing at the kitchen table.

“All done,” I echo back. “Won’t be long now.”

“Oh shit,” Billie hisses from the living room.

“Not long at all,” I whisper to the only man I’ve ever loved.

* * *

Dear Niece —

I’m writing this letter to you on the day of your birth and my death.

I’ve known this day was coming for half my life and I still don’t know the right words to say. Hopefully, by now you know how much I loved you, even when you were kicking your mama in the kidneys. Hopefully, you’ve lived a full life thus far. Hopefully, you’ll never need the words I’ve left for you here. But just in case you do, here’s my lesson:

They used to say you trace the Mosley magic through the female line. They also used to think no witch could ever be stronger than the woman who bore her. But we know now that’s not true.

What will you do with all that power, Niece? Will you let it burn you up from the inside out? Let it keep you in hiding? Or will you let it water the garden of your soul and make your flowers bloom?

The end is just one more beginning if you play your cards well.

But if you reach the end of the road without direction, remember that we Mosleys can always choose death.

And while you can’t start over or wipe the slate clean, you can barter for a better hand.

But never forget that debts accrued in suffering are three times as strong.

And debts paid in blood are binding in this world and the next.

A nd just in case you’re anything like your mother, never forget:

We don’t get to say no when the Ancestors have already said yes.

Light a candle

To find your way home

One small beacon

Might save a lost soul

Keep the fire burning

Broken bodies in need of care

Old brittle bones turned to dust

Broken heart turned to stone

So long as you keep it close

We will always welcome you home

My soul to yours

My soul is yours