“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“We got in a fight right before it happened…and I think we’ve just grown apart.” She shrugged. “I’m not saying we’re not friends. I’m just saying I don’t think we’re going to be super close anymore.”
My heart hurt for her. “What did you fight about?”
“She wants to go home to Salem and live a normal human life…” she shook her head. “I want to move back here and go to Edenburg like I did when I was a kid. Or at the very least the new school in New York. I’m a witch and a damned good one. I’m sick of pretending I’m not.”
I smiled. “Then you should do that. Preferably the one here in Eden so I can still see you.”
The door behind me opened and I felt Gigi’s aura.
“Hey, Saffie!” She walked back over to the chair on the other side of the bed and sat down. “What’s up?”
“I’m trying to convince her that I’m okay and she doesn’t need to be glued to my side.” Savannah wagged her eyebrows at me. “She should be with Riah.”
Gigi fanned herself. “Girl, for real. What are you doing down here? Go find a cave—”
“GIGI.” I gasped and buried my face in my hands. “I should not have told you about that.”
“She ain’t wrong though, ma’am.” Savannah grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest. “He is dreamy.”
“Does he refuse to call you Saffie?”
I looked down at the hem of my sweater and nodded. My cheeks burned. “He told me when we met—”
“What year was that again?”
I bit my lip. “1691.”
“I cannot wrap my head around how old you actually are.” Savannah chuckled. “But continue.”
“He told me, in 1691, that my name was too beautiful to not be spoken.”
Gigi leaned forward. “Has he always talked all hot like that?”
“Oh, you should have heard him back then.”
Savannah snorted. “How did you two not get together back then?”
I frowned as weight crashed down on my shoulders. “Women were not…so…outspoken, romantically, as they are now. I mean, among the humans…and I thought he was human. So I didn’t dare make the first move. I remember thinking we were getting close to that. We’d gotten to a point where we spent nearly every day together in some form.”
“So why didn’t anything happen?”
“The twins opened the gap, the first one.” I shuddered. “It was…horrible. The demons, the chaos, the death. The humans were in a panic because they didn’t understand what was happening so The Coven used magic to erase their memories—”
“Wait, what?” Savannah gasped. “I never knew that.”
I grimaced. “That is not a piece of history they chose to hang on to. They regretted it deeply.”
Gigi frowned. “Why?”
“Because that level of trauma cannot be fully erased. It leaves a trace in the soul that magic cannot reach.” I pulled at the hem of my sweater, not wanting to remember those days. “As a result of their spell, the humans turned on each other.”
“The Salem Witch Trials,” Savannah whispered.
I nodded. My stomach turned and knotted. Those memories…I’d managed to push them back deep into my mind for three hundred years until they were so distant and foggy it was like I wasn’t actually there. But once my amnesia vanished all my memories came rushing back. ALL of them.
Savannah reached over and squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to talk about it now. I can’t imagine what you’re going through with having those memories fresh again…but one day, when you’re ready, I’d love to talk to you about it if that’s okay?”
“Thank you. That’s definitely okay.” I smiled. “Anyway, I guess I know now why Riah never made a move back then.”
“Sounds like he wanted to though.” Gigi gave me a wonky smile. “If that counts for anything?”
“It does. It’s a relief to know he felt this as long as I did.” My jaw burned from how hard I was smiling. “And even though I wish I had known it was him all these years keeping me company, it still was him.”
“You two are so adorable with each other, I can’t even.” Gigi chuckled and leaned back in her seat. “I need to find me one of those.”
“Amen, girl. A-men.”
Gigi wagged her eyebrows. “What about Cooper? You two seem rather…chummy.”
Savannah sighed dramatically and threw her hand over her head. “There’s no point, he’ll have a soulmate and I will be dust.”
Gigi rolled her eyes. “You don’t know that he will.”
I grimaced. “Never date a Bishop. That used to always be the saying.”
Savannah snorted. “What?”
“Bishops are infamous for having soulmates. It was rare they didn’t have one.” I chuckled. “I remember Elizabeth had a cousin come to Salem once. He was very attractive and charming – actually, Cooper reminds me a lot of him – anyway, all the girls in town were all worked up. So Elizabeth paraded him around town, forcing him to make eye contact with every single person, male and female, to see if he had a soulmate in town. He didn’t, but apparently he found one in Boston like two weeks later.”
“I still can’t believe the spirit that talked to you with that medium was actually your friend.”
Gigi shuddered. “Yeah, creepy.”
“You would have liked her.” I sighed as that tightness filled my chest again, the way it always did when I remembered the people from all those years ago. I shook myself. “She actually found her soulmate here in new Eden while she was pregnant with angel Gabriel’s baby.”
Savannah pouted. “Sooper will never be a thing, that’s what you’re telling me?”
I frowned. “Sooper?”
Gigi shook her head. “It’s a couples’ name, where you mash both names together to make one. Savannah and Cooper, Sooper.”
“Or Saffie and Riah…Saraphiah?”
I snorted.
“Saraphiah?” Riah said from suddenly behind me.
I gasped and spun around. “Riah.”
He arched one eyebrow and smirked. “Hello, love.”
My face warmed. “We were just—”
“Putting our names together for a couple name? I know. Like Brangelina.”
Gigi gasped. “He did not just say that.”
“I cannot say I am proud of that, but I digress.” He shrugged and shoved his hands in his front jeans pockets. “But Saraphiah?”
Savannah snorted. “Well, you insist on calling her Saraphina, soooo…”
“Saraphiah reminds me of a guy who hangs witches from tree limbs.”
I shuddered. “Well, that one has to go now.”
“Shit. What about Riaphina?”
Savannah snapped her fingers. “Saffiah.”
He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips…then nodded. “Saffiah will suffice.”
Savannah and Gigi both giggled.
I held my hand out to him and he took it. “Am I neglecting you?”