I pulled up in front of the apothecary as raindrops began to fall on my windshield. The parking lot was full. Through the big front windows of the shop, I could see the place was packed with people. Light glowed down on the sidewalk through the rain.

Inside, Iona looked up at me and smiled from the front of the room. Rows of chairs had been lined in front of the counter where Iona stood, making a tincture.

As she explained how to make the concoction to the people in her audience, I stood at the back of the shop and watched. Iona spoke with an animated voice and a bright smile.

How she could stand in front of these people and give them instructions on something like that was beyond me. I’d never be able to teach people anything. Except maybe how to decapitate a werewolf or stab a vampire in the heart.

When Iona finished her class, the white-haired hippies and dreadlocked hipsters crowded around her asking her questions.

My sister answered each one with joy and grace, while I picked at the sage stick at the back of the room. Finally, the last of the students left and Iona locked the front door.

“Olivia! What brings you to the shop?”

“I have to ask you about Benedictus,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets.

Her cellphone rang and Iona excused herself to answer it.

“Oh, now. I’ll be on my way,” she said into the phone.

“I’m sorry Olivia, I have to go to a delivery. Want to come with me?”

“A delivery? Like as in a baby?”

“Yes. It isn’t as glamorous as killing people but bringing babies into the world has its merits!”

I shrugged. That was seriously the last thing I wanted to do. Aside from being in Portland in the first place.

“I guess,” I said reluctantly.

“Give me just a second. I need to get my things.”

Iona scurried into an office at the back of the shop behind the counter. A moment later she emerged with a bag slung over her shoulder.

“Let’s go!”

I followed her out to her minivan and piled into the passenger seat. I groaned inwardly. I was literally going to a homebirth with my herbalist midwife sister. What did my family get me into?

She sped across town, apparently unaware of speed laws or traffic lights. If I hadn’t been at risk for life and limb on a daily basis for the last five years, I would have pissed my pants driving with her.

We stopped in front of a yellow craftsman house in the suburbs, and she jumped out.

“You drive around with your kids like that?” I asked her.

“Like what?” she said, hurrying up to the front porch.

“Never mind.”

She smiled at me and knocked on the front door. A second later, a wide-eyed young man with a full beard and a flannel shirt answered the front door.

“Thank God,” he said. “Come in.”

He closed the door behind us as a wail of pain came from the living room. “Iona. I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

“Of course you can!” she said, grabbing his shoulder. “You are feeling better already.” The young man let out a long breath and looked visibly more relaxed.

Iona hurried into the living room where a fully naked, fully pregnant woman sat in a small tub of water on the floor.

She moaned as she tried to breathe. Iona set down her bag and knelt beside the woman. She put her arm on her shoulder and began to speak quietly into her ear.

The woman’s breathing slowed and the young man knelt beside her, taking her hand.

I sank back into the shadows, feeling ridiculous at being at this woman’s birth. No one seemed to notice or mind that I was even there, so I didn’t inject myself into the situation.

Iona rubbed the woman’s belly and body with some kind of herbal salve. When it came time to push, everyone was so relaxed—except me—that the whole process only took a few minutes.

A small, purple, wriggling child emerged from the poor woman’s body, screaming with new life.

“It’s a girl!” Iona announced.

Everyone laughed and cried. I turned away, cringing. Not that it wasn’t a joyous moment. But really, gross. I’d angled myself so that I didn’t have to stare at the poor mother’s naked body.

Iona offered a pair of scissors to the father to cut the cord, then she clamped it off and checked the baby’s vitals. The mother held the child in her arms, smiling and crying at the same time.

As I watched her, part of me kind of envied them. All of them. They were a family. The couple had each other. Iona had her family. I didn’t have anyone. I mean, I had my mom and sisters, but they were all kind of annoying and crazy. I didn’t have…this. I didn’t have Raven.

The father and Iona helped the mom dry off and get up into bed with her new baby. After a few minutes, everyone was comfortably in bed, the baby nursing away.

After she’d washed up and spoken with the father, Iona came back to where I was standing with a bright smile on her face.

“Beautiful family aren’t they?”

“Yeah. It’s nice for them,” I said, trying to disappear in the corner.

“Come on,” she said, moving toward the front door. We went out onto the front porch and Iona pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette. I looked at her with shock as she lit it and took a long drag.

“You smoke?” I asked.

“Aster grows this tobacco. It’s all natural.”

“I just wouldn’t have expected.”

Iona giggled and winked, crossing her arms in the cool air as the rain fell on the porch roof.

“What was it you wanted to ask me?” she asked, taking another drag.

“Benedictus,” I said. Was she messing with me like everyone else seemed to be?

“Oh, right. What about it?”

“Mom said you have the key to the long-term storage.” I looked her straight in the eye, lighting the warrior flame inside me to let her know I wasn’t messing around.

“I don’t have it,” she said defensively. Her face was so shocked and so earnest, I had to believe her. Iona could lie with the best of them, but I didn’t think she was doing it now. She seemed genuinely offended.

She put her hand on my wrist and said, “I’m sure Mom has it. She’s keeping it from you for whatever reason. I know she wants you to stay. So, that might be part of it. I’d just go back to the house and look in the last place you’d expect. I doubt she even has it in storage.”

“It isn’t in storage? Everyone keeps saying it’s in long-term storage.”

“Mom never put anything in storage as far as I know.”

“Oh my God! What is wrong with this family?”

Iona almost choked on her cigarette drag, and looked at me like I’d just said the funniest thing ever.

“You’re a Fanning, Olivia, like it or not. That means dealing with Mom’s games. Just go take the sword for goodness’ sake. It isn’t like anyone else can even use it.”

“Great. Just great.”

Iona finished her cigarette and then went to say goodbye to the new family before driving me back across town. This time it wasn’t quite as harrowing as the last, but driving with her wasn’t something I wanted to do again anytime soon.

Back in the safety of my own car, I drove back to my childhood home with murderous feelings in my heart.

I should tell these people you should never get a warrior witch angry. I could take them out in two seconds flat. They might be able to do all kinds of fancy things with plants and quilts, babies and books, but I could kill. It was my thing. Why weren’t they afraid of me?

I pulled up to Nelly Fanning’s house with the moon rising through the breaking storm clouds. The smell of the rain hung in the thick air, reminding me that I was home. Home.

I stormed up the porch stairs and went inside, but no one was there. The house was dark and still, as if everyone had gone to bed already.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was past midnight. Sighing, I made my way up to my bedroom and closed the door. Pacing in the room under the dim glow of the single lamp, I mulled over what Iona had said.

She didn’t think that the sword was even in storage. Iona had said it would be in the last place I would look. Where would that be? The living room? I sighed and sat down on my bed.

With a gasp, I sank down to my knees. No. My mother would not be that obvious. I reached into the darkness under my bed, feeling around.

My fingers brushed against something cold and hard. A spark snapped against my fingertip as I touched the titanium.

Benedictus.

I grabbed at the sword, pulling it out into the light. It gleamed with power under my touch and I felt a pulsing connection between us. My heart leapt and my father’s spirit seemed to surround me with the intensity of his love.

I took a sharp breath, wrapping my hands around the hilt. I held it up into the light as the runes blinked to life, one by one. Benedictus was mine. It had chosen me.

The sword and I had become one. I could feel my father’s spirit bestowing the sword on me from across the divide of life and death.

As I breathed into the awareness of my birthright, my bedroom door burst open.