Stella Glade was not her friends who fell in love like falling out of bed, but there was something about Morgan Fayne that made her stumble when they met.

On the morning of the Vernal Equinox, Stella stepped out of her apartment building on Albion Road to find her ride idling, engine purring, at the curb.

It was a long-bodied oxblood red Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud-circa 1958 if what Morgan told her was true. It certainly looked old-fashioned enough to hail from that year with an ostentatious chrome grille and a shiny winged ornament perched on the hood. The car's exterior had been waxed till Stella could see her blurry silhouette in the passenger door. The dome headlights were positively blinding, so much so she had to redirect her eyes and still saw spots. Even the wheels were polished to a high gloss. It was a car fit for a queen in another life. Nothing like me, then.

Stella hugged her shabby weekend bag to her chest and whistled her appreciation. "Sweet ride!"

The driver stood up through the car's retracted roof to greet her, riotous curls swaying in the breeze. "Thanks! You ready to roll?"

Stella nodded her head because she couldn't quite speak. Morgan Fayne was everything and nothing Stella thought witches were supposed to look like; it had been less apparent online, in pictures. Ripped jeans covered her legs and motorcycle boots cossetted her feet. Hoop earrings glittered like sunbursts from her earlobes and outrageous makeup popped against her deep brown skin. A faded University of Bangor hoodie made her look all of twenty and forty-five at the same time. She stretched her arms toward the brightening sky to shake what must have been tiredness from her limbs. She'd come a long way to bring Stella home.

Yawning, Morgan beckoned Stella into the car and they were on their way, weaving through pre-rush hour traffic with a song Stella didn't know playing on the radio.

Even as she examined her new friend out the corner of her eye, Stella was still trying to convince herself that returning to her coven wasn't the wrong choice.

Morgan tapped her painted nails on the steering wheel as she sang along to something old, her voice softly ringing, just audible against the backdrop of car horns and squealing tires. Stella could get lost in her voice, like a lullaby heard from a distance, its source never identified. She sat back and tried to relax, tried to let herself listen.

"This your first revel?"

Stella's fist tightened around the handle of her bag. Think of the flowers and a hand to hold. Think of the moon, of day and night, and rebirth. "Um, yeah. Sort of. I mean, I haven't been in a while. I couldn't go. I got sick." The car struck a pothole and something clanked inside her. Stella hunched over her bag till the sound passed.

Morgan hummed, didn't seem to hear it. "Bad, I reckon. You look a fright, you know."

"Thanks," she retorted, waspishly. Stella knew how she looked too well. Her friends said she resembled painted porcelain nowadays, like pigment had any hope of concealing her fragility. That was why she was attending the gathering in the first place. She needed help that doctors couldn't hope to provide, she needed to be healed; she needed magic. The Spring Equinox was her last best hope.

The indigos and magentas of dawn began to yield to red oranges and pale pinks above them. Night was giving way to true morning, raining its light on the fields of wildflowers and aging trees sprouting through concrete and urban sprawl on either side of the motorway for miles.

With Morgan's okay, Stella rolled down her window to see the flowers better. Irises and starflowers, willowy orange poppies and milky white milkmaids greeted her, their fragrances mingling with all the other human smells she could ignore to love them. Stella wanted to reach out and touch them, one by one. Flowers were blooming, trees were growing, and things were living out there. She loved Ostara for this most of all: Spring, what a time to be alive!

She grinned in the face of petals blowing free from their blooms and catching on the wind. They turned the concrete grey world all their colors. Pink, orange, purple, yellow. If she could live in spring forever, she'd never suffer another winter. She sat back in her seat, mollified just a little by the signs of springtime. There was still hope.

She turned in time to catch Morgan looking away. The sun was rising dead ahead, as if it was greeting them today of everyone in every vehicle on the road. Stella basked in its rays, raising her hands to let them drift through the open top.

Morgan plucked a pair of sunglasses from the visor to cover her eyes. They were star-shaped and red-tinted. "The sun's gonna be hell driving in. Suit up."

Stella dug around in her bag to find the shades she'd definitely packed. Now her decision to leave her purse and put everything in her weekender seemed shortsighted. She swore.

"You do have sunnies, don't you?" The eyebrow Morgan was raising colored her words.

Stella stammered over her response. She'd been planning this trip with Morgan for weeks, she should have been ready. "Uh, yeah, of course I do."

Of course she didn't.

Morgan hummed equably. "All right, then. I'm just saying I have an extra pair in the glovebox if you wanna borrow mine." She smiled a little smile to take the sting out of it. Stella liked her little smile.

Stella took a deep breath to still her suddenly racing heart rate. She was anxious about this trip and anxious about this get-together and she couldn't enjoy it if she was this high-strung. She stowed her bag down by her feet, relaxed her limbs and counted down from ten. Morgan said nothing, switched lanes, and turned off the radio. Pity, they'd been playing Stella's favorite pop song.

"Sorry, I'm like this. Like I said, it's been a while. I don't think I've talked to anybody who practices with the coven since..." Stella pursed her lips. Her chest tightened. The sun began to crest in the sky, full and bright. Burning, even. "Can I borrow your extras, actually? I must have left mine."

Morgan pointed at the glovebox in front of the passenger seat. "Please ignore the mess and help yourself."

Stella did. She pushed aside an amethyst crystal inset in a stone, polished river rocks painted with sigils for safety, peace, and prosperity, a string of crimson abrus seeds for more luck, and a sprinkling of brown powder that spilled on the floor mat. She wrinkled her nose slightly; the smell of it was familiar.

"Crushed allspice berries?"

Morgan's lips curled without her taking her eyes off the road. "You know your herbs." She sounded impressed. Stella's heart thudded and she had the most distinct sense of déjà vu. Like she'd seen that smile, and the small one, and the puzzling kindness of Morgan Fayne before. Only they'd never met in person. They'd never met at all. Stella would know her.

"I memorized my aunt's Book of Shadows. She knew everything. The roses for luck, too?" There was a sachet of fragrant ivory petals shoved to the bottom of the compartment behind a map.

Morgan's smile dimmed. Her nails bit into crème leather of the steering wheel. Stella wished she could see her eyes. "Can't we all use a little bit of that?"

Stella didn't answer, sensing she'd struck a sore spot. Beside a phial of mojo beans, she found the sunglasses, a pair of midnight blue Ray-ban knockoffs painted with the Northern Lights. She put on the Lights to block out the sun while Morgan turned the radio back on. Something from the 80s this time.

In this car, heaven was a place on earth.