Pain was just a word, an adjective, Salem had used to describe many things before; a headache, a stomped toe, tax time, her brother when he was at his most irritating. The word took on a new depth and meaning now. It seemed absurd that such a small, four-letter word like pain could carry such a punch to her heart as it did now. David was dead. Torn from her life by a tragic car accident. She didn’t even know what caused the accident. Was someone texting while driving? Did someone not see another car in the blindspot? She had no answers, but even if she had, they would have provided no comfort. Her husband—her best friend—was dead. And Baby Michael was clinging to the last seconds of life when she’d used her powers to freeze him in time. Had she been home in Daihmler, she might have been able to keep Michael frozen until Beryl could heal him. But that probably would not have been possible, she realized now. She had arrived too late to the scene. In the very second Salem lifted Michael’s suspended state for the paramedic, poor Michael passed away. It was much too much for her. At some point standing among the swirling red and blue lights at the crash scene, she lost consciousness.

  When she awoke, she was in the passenger side of Travis’ car as he drove her home. He’d wanted to take her home to Molly, wanted for them to look after her. But Salem insisted on returning to her own home. Only in her own home could she still feel the spirit of her husband and son. Within those walls and those walls alone lived all of her memories of being a wife and mother. Travis tried to come inside with her, but she refused. In the driveway, Salem rushed him away. Travis didn’t want to go, but she needed him to. She knew what she needed to do, and she had to be alone to do it. She had to save her family.

  Once, as a child, she watched from the crack in the door of her mother’s bedroom as she had cast a spell. This spell. The spell that would undo things. Salem never forgot what she saw that day or what all the spell required. She’d written it down and kept it always in her own personal spell book. Nacaria Blanchard was a master spell maker in her time, and Salem knew whatever her mother was doing in that bedroom was important and should be recorded. It was almost as if somehow her soul knew she might need that knowledge one day. Today. With this spell she could go back in time and change the day’s events. She could rid her life of this terrible tragedy—steal it from time completely—and restore her family.

  Salem located her book of spells from the fireproof box under the bed where she kept things of this sort. Her own miniature vault. She even had bone dust, swiped as a teenager from her grandmother’s stash. Kneeling beside the bed with the box safely in her hands, her eyes lifted to the top of the bed. Their bed. She felt her heart sink further. Lifting her hands up to pull back the comforter cover, she felt the sheets beneath--this was David’s side of the bed. This is where his body had lain the last night they’d had together. He would never again lay here. He would never share this space with her again. Tears welled up in her eyes but she pushed them away with defiant fingers.

  I will not cry. I am not in mourning. I am not a widow. My husband is coming back. He will be laying here again tonight.

  She pulled the box from the floor as she rose and moved to the kitchen table. Carefully she pulled out the contents: her notebook, her herb jars. I don’t have any white oleander. That was going to be a problem. Wait. I can go to Pike’s nursery. They will have it. I can break into the garden area easily. She had everything else she’d need—if not in her box, she had it in her kitchen or her own garden in the backyard. She just had to go to Pike’s and then come back to start the spell.

  “No, Salem,” Olympia said, materializing beside her.

  Salem had all but forgotten about her grandmother since the wreck. “Get out of my way, Hecate,” she said angrily. “I have something important to do.”

  “You cannot do this, Salem.”

  “Watch me,” Salem scoffed pushing past and grabbing her keys from the counter. My car is at work. I’ll get an Uber.

  “You cannot resurrect the dead Salem.”

  “I’m not going to resurrect them. I am going to stop this from happening to them.”

  “It will not work,” Olympia cautioned.

  “Yes, it will Hecate. All I have to do is stop them from getting in that car. Stop them from leaving at that precise time. Suggest we have dinner with Travis and Molly a different night. There are a hundred different ways to stop this.”

  Olympia reached out her hands and pulled Salem into an embrace. Salem tried to pull away, but she couldn’t. An urgency surged within her—she had to cast this spell and save her family. But the comfort she felt inside her grandmother’s arms was much too needed to pull away from. She gave into it, allowing herself to be a child again and be consoled by those loving arms. I’ll let her hold me for just a minute, and then I’ll call the Uber. Then I’ll fix all of this. I just need a moment to breath and someone to hold me while I plan.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Salem, listen to me please,” pleaded Olympia.

  “You aren’t going to stop me from doing it, Hecate. I have to do it.”

  “That is my point, Salem. It isn’t going to work. Honey, you have already done it. If it would have worked it, they would be here. You are in the past already. You already cast the spell. It did not save them. All you have done is relive this horrific day over and over again.”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t bring them back to life, you only stopped moving forward after the accident. It cycles over and over from the beginning of this day and always ends with casting the spell. It never brings them back to life.”

  “But I can stop them from driving!” Salem shrieked.

  “Then why haven’t you?” Olympia challenged, contradicting her granddaughter’s logic. “You don’t stop them from driving because when they go to leave you aren’t aware they are going to die. When someone goes backwards, nothing changes in their experience. They just re-experience it. You were present in this reality. Your soul simply merges with your past self. You can’t recall a future that has not happened yet, and you cannot be in two places at once.”

  “Then you can go back and save them,” Salem announced with a new fervor in her eyes.

  “No. I can’t.”

  “Yes. Yes, actually I think you can Hecate!” Salem said excitedly. “You weren’t anywhere around when all this happened. You’re the perfect person!”

  “You cannot change death Salem. You cannot change death. There are a million things that can go wrong and destroy reality. There are reasons for our laws. Reasons your delirious mind cannot comprehend right now during this tragedy.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing!” Olympia shouted. “This is the reason I never taught you children about time travel. Too much can go wrong. Your mother tried to change history and look what happened to her. Your husband is dead. Your son is dead. It is agony. And it is unstoppable. And it must be faced.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand all too well, Salem. I have watched this three times already,” revealed Olympia. “I have allowed this cycle to continue because I needed time. Time to think. Time to gather myself so that I could be strong for you. I loved David, too. And baby Michael was my only great grandchild. So much hope for the family rested in his little life. I too needed time to adjust. And now you are going to face this like an adult.”

  Salem wept into her hands and when lowering them, Olympia shuddered at the anguish on her poor granddaughter’s face. “Hecate, something has to work. Surely there is a way. We just have to find it.”

  Olympia paced the room wringing her aged hands, “This is my fault really, Salem. After your mother tried to alter fate by going back in time, I was certain that teaching you kids anything about that kind of magic was a mistake. We avoided the subject completely in our lessons when you were growing up. It is the responsibility of the witch to protect the Natural Order. If bending time at our whim to make our lives easier were possible, then no witch would ever know tragedy or sadness or even run late to work. The power to travel time does not work that way for a reason. I’m sorry I never taught you that, but you cannot change death.”

  “What do we do then?” Salem whispered hopelessly to the air.

  “You face it. Accept what has happened, and we pick up our pieces and try to go forward. I am going home. I will awaken in my bed and tell the family what has happened. I will send Seth to get you. He will be here in a few hours. In the meantime, you will mourn, and you will pack. Your brother is coming to bring you back home to your family.”

  Demitra and Beryl were there in Olympia’s bedroom at her bedside as Olympia awoke from her coma. Beryl gave her an injection as Demitra removed the oxygen mask from her mother’s face.

  “Mother? Do you recognize me?”

  “Yes, Demitra. I am all right.”

  “Rest, Hecate,” Beryl advised. “I know that you are mentally intact, but your body has been lying still in this bed for several days. Before you attempt to get up, I need to heal you. I have to make sure your muscles and joints are stabilized before you stand up.”

  Olympia did as she was told but asked, “Did Travis call?”

  “Yes. He told us about David and Michael. He said he found Salem on her kitchen floor unconscious. We presume from her spell. He says she is coming around now. Seth and Fable left out already to bring her home.”

  “Good.”

  “They’re really dead?” Demitra asked her mother.

  “Yes. He told us about the accident. He told us about David and Michael. He said he found Salem unconscious on her kitchen floor this morning when he went to check on her.”

  “Yes, that would make sense,” Olympia explained. “Salem’s soul was out of her body and lost in her own past. I was with her there, in her past. Travis must have found her before her spirit returned to the present. Was he very concerned?”

  “At first,” Demitra replied. “But he was able to rouse her back awake.”

  “Then her spirit is back where it should be, in the proper time,” Olympia sighed.

  “Seth and Fable are on their way to Atlanta now to get her,” Beryl added. “I need to heal you now, Hecate.”

  Demitra left Beryl with Olympia and started downstairs. Passing through the upstairs hallway she stopped to take a moment to look at the photographs on the wall. Pictures of all those lost to the family over the years. Her father. Nacaria. Sinclair. Now David and Michael. And of course, Larry. Her precious Larry.

  Demitra knew how painful losing a husband can be. She had never recovered from losing Larry. To this day she missed him. It had taken her a long time to be able to move on and face each new day without him. Salem would be in for a very rough time dealing with her losses. To lose a husband and a child at the same time. Demitra could not imagine. She only hoped Salem would be stronger than she had been. She had fallen apart. The family always referred to it as when Demitra was in mourning, but Demitra knew it was worse than that. She had been insane. She had fallen completely apart, and it took years before she was back to her old self again. She knew how grief can drive you mad if you’ve loved deeply enough.