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“I got you this,” Rochelle says, sitting down next to Bonnie on the curb in front of the school. She plops a package wrapped in parchment on Bonnie’s lap.
Bonnie sniffs in deeply, taking in the smell if ink and incense. “Did you get this at Lirio’s?”
“No,” Rochelle says stiffly. They’ve never been told it directly, but they’re not really welcome there anymore. “There’s a new place, across town. Owned by a new coven.”
Bonnie raises her eyebrows, nibbling on her thumbnail. She’s regressed back to a lot of her bad habits. “What is it?”
“Open it,” Rochelle urges, nudging the package again.
Bonnie unties the hemp bindings and unfolds the paper. She pulls out a dress—black velvet, short, with a lining of red silk. It feels like butter in her hands. “Wow, this is gorgeous. You didn’t have to do this.”
Rochelle shrugs, staring off into the parking lot. She digs into her backpack for a cigarette—she smokes more after quitting the swim team. “I bought this one for myself.” She smooths the moss-green velvet of her own dress over her lap, covering the rest of it with a plaid shirt. “We’re wearing them tonight.”
“Where are we going?”
Rochelle smiles, small but confident. “Back to the field.”
Bonnie tries to smile, but it comes out as more of a grimace. “Rochelle, you know I’d love to…but I don’t feel a damn thing anymore. Nothing since…” They don’t really talk about Nancy or Sarah anymore. There isn’t a lot left to say. “It’s like it was all a dream.”
“But it wasn’t,” Rochelle insists, and gently runs her hand down Bonnie’s back. She’s covered in her uniform shirt and jacket, but beneath it is clear, unmarred skin. Even after they lost their power, the changes remain. “We did it once. We can do it again.”
“No,” Bonnie insists, voice low and sad. “We can’t. We’ve tried.”
“With that attitude, we’ll never feel a spark again,” Rochelle snaps. She stands and swings her backpack over her shoulder. “Maybe we can’t call the corners, but we’re still witches. It’s in our blood.”
Bonnie shakes her head, hair falling into her eyes. “It was in Sarah’s blood. We just read some books and lit some candles and started shit we didn’t know how to end.”
But Rochelle just walks away, flicking her cigarette onto the pavement.
*
Rochelle takes the last bus to the fields by the beach that night, her backpack stuffed full. She turns her Discman up to the highest volume, blasting Veruca Salt until her ears ring, but it’s better than being alone with her thoughts. The last time she was on that bus, she was with her friends.
“You sure you want to be out here all alone?” The driver is kind, an older man who looks at Rochelle with kind eyes.
“I’ll be fine,” she answers as she bounds down the bus steps and tugs her jacket tighter around her shoulders. The waxing moon lights her path.
She walks half a mile, music turned down low so she can hear the hum of crickets and rustles of vermin in the dry late-winter brush. The sidewalk is loose gravel, the rocks digging into her Doc Martens, but the air is cool and calming. When they went out to the fields all together, Nancy constantly talked and sang, kicking trash out into the ditches, but Rochelle preferred the night silence.
When she gets to the clearing, she sits down on the grass, letting the cool weeds and dirt send a shiver up her spine. The air smells close to rain, rich and heady. She rolls out a sheet of parchment onto the grass, weighing it down with stones, and draws a circle on it with black pen. She takes the three orange candles out of the side pocket of her bag and places them in the circles, taking slow, steady breaths the entire time.
She sits up straight, spine tight and long, and leans back for a moment to look at the moon. “Gods and goddesses, spirits and guides,” she begins, voice shaking a little. She forgot how good it feels to sit in the dirt and ask for guidance. “Thank you for all that I have.”
(What does she have? A best friend who can barely get out of bed in the morning, a best friend who used to be something a little more, who flushed with Rochelle kissed her cheek. Now she just flinches away, like she’s afraid of what their skin will do if they touch each other).
“I ask you now,” her voice trembles harder, she bites back a sob, “for Bonnie’s trust in me once more. She needs someone to trust. She always has.” She doesn’t ask for love, or acceptance. Only what they had before. “Aid me as I work to achieve it. Please bring it to me when the time is right. So mote it be.”
Then, for the first time in a long time, Rochelle visualizes. They used to do it all time, the four of them—visualizing the outcome of a spell was the most important part. But after seeing the vision of herself losing all of her hair, and Bonnie covered in burns again, she was too afraid to do it for even small spells. She thought she’d lost control.
This time, she knows exactly what to visualize. It isn’t anything wild or grand, just her and Bonnie, doing the things they did before they found their fourth and lost their way. Whispering to each other in the hallways, window shopping at the expensive stores in the mall, writing in their journals in Bonnie’s bedroom. Rochelle sees Bonnie’s shy smile, the tiny peek of her front teeth, her warm brown eyes. She sees them laughing and holding hands as they walked in the park after curfew, a bottle of cheap wine in Bonnie’s backpack.
And right before she opens her eyes, Rochelle sees a kiss. A tiny kiss, stolen during a bad horror movie in the theater, close-lipped and grinning and flushing. A small kiss, and nothing more.
Her hand moves on the parchment with the pen, drawing the one thing that encapsulated what she visualized, and then she grabs her matchbook and lights the first candle.
“Fire, ignite my dream, for the highest good.”
(Was Bonnie the highest good? Bonnie was her highest good. Bonnie was the best thing that ever happened to her.)
“Earth, seal my dream, for the highest good.”
By the time Rochelle buries the parchment with her drawing deep into the earth, she feels the goddess inside of her once more.
It feels like love.
*
Bonnie wakes around two in the morning, her eyes bleary with sleep but her body warm, like she’s coming to from a wonderful dream. She breathes slow, in and out, the air smelling like a struck match, and when she looks over to her bedside table, one gold candle is burning in its porcelain holder.
Before she goes back to sleep, Bonnie slides into the black and red velvet dress and wraps herself in her blankets, chanting to herself in her softest voice.
“I am protected by your might, O gracious goddess, day and night.” It’s the first time she’s chanted since Sarah left town.
The only thing she sees in her mind as her voice gets softer and the candle burns lower is Rochelle’s smile, wide and loving, lit by the waxing moon.