"You're going to do the wedding invitations?" This time, I could do nothing to halt the shock from coloring my tone.
"Obviously." Jesse huffed with a good natured eye roll that made me smile at her silly antics.
"You know there will be like two hundred people, though, right?"
"I'm working on three hundred, so if it's less, then I'm not complaining."
I stared at Jesse with words of love and gratitude lodged in my trachea. Jesse, who everyone always seemed to overlook and undermine with her innocent face and cutesy ways - Jesse, who failed to value her magic, but seemed to do everything for everyone else - Jesse, who had an old school calendar printed out on her fridge with each of our birthdays highlighted in our own special color.
Jesse had come all the way to New Orleans to help me plan my wedding by personalising the invitations in a way that she thrived in. Marie, who had rearranged my house to make it feel far more like a home than when I had arrived, sprinkling Magick and spells wherever she worked. Zoey, who had taken it upon herself to rework the garden, heightening the protection that I had already laid down. Brenna, who had created list after list in order to find a way to include some Magick into the traditional Russian ceremonies. And Maxine, who had come to help me plan and execute a wedding, when she, herself, did not believe in happily ever afters.
These women were my family - not even a murder had made them shy away from me, and for that I would be eternally grateful.
Her gasp filled my ears as I wrapped my arms around her, squeezing her as tightly as I could manage.
"Thank you." My whispered words carried all the emotion I wasn't able to fully convey, but Jesse just giggled, clutching me back in a way that had me wondering why on earth we didn't get together more often.
Breakfast went surprisingly well, with conversation turning towards the wedding rather than the dark Magick from the night before.
"You know my mother is going to try and control each aspect of this wedding." My warning came soon after I chose one of the layouts that Jesse had presented.
"It's a good thing you have a house full of Witches then." Marie winked at me, and with her almost silver hair and pouty lips, she looked like a goddess herself.
Zoey and Marie discussed herb Magick while Brenna quizzed Jesse on her new teaching job. Jesse was one of the few that had a foot in both the Magickal and the mundane world, where she actively sought a job simply to be around other people. She loved children, and so I supposed it was only natural that she fell into teaching. Brenna, by comparison, had never participated in anything resembling a job outside of Magick and her familial community. These conversations between the two were entirely normal, with Brenna seeming to be somehow more comfortable asking Jesse all her questions, and Jesse only being too willing to answer them.
Maxine re-entered the room, her cellphone clutched in her hand.
"I informed Charl of what's happening." She shrugged as if what she had said was some simple throw-away line.
"Why does he take your calls, but not mine?" Brenna exploded, her frustration mirroring my own.
"Because we are two damned souls who have no judgement or expectations of one another."
"How are you damned?" Marie scoffed, air quoting the last word.
"He has his madness, and I am The Tower." Maxine shrugged and threw her head back in the chair. She shut her eyes for a moment before she slid her sunglasses on, despite being seated inside - I had the distinct impression that she was beginning to feel the effects of her hangover.
Once the entire kitchen had been cleared, and I had no further excuses to delay my phone call to Stacey, I finally succumbed, dialling her number as I pressed the phone to my ear.
It was as if the entire room full of Witches held a collective breath as we waited for her to answer.
By the fifth ring, she still hadn't answered, and I had almost convinced myself that she had failed, but by the seventh, Stacey finally picked up.
I heard her panted breaths on the other side of the line, but she did not say anything.
"Stacey?" My voice remained firm as I held to the fact that I could not allow her to see my weakness - experience my guilt.
"You have a lot of nerve phoning me." She hissed.
My stomach plummeted and my panic must have been scrawled across my face because Brenna stood before me with the same scowl on her face that was only ever brought about when she was unhappy or worried for one of us.
"Is Lauren - "
"She's alive." Stacey's voice shook with anger as she delivered the news I craved. "But she might as well not be. She is catatonic - the doctor's been here and had determined that she suffered some sort of stroke, and while the baby is fine, my sister is a glorified vegetable."
I sucked in the words that threatened to spill from my lips as I allowed Stacey to continue.
"This child is going to grow up without a mother." Her voice cracked, and I shut my eyes as if that would block out her pain.