6.
November 1, 2013. Paint Township, Ohio.
No one spoke as Raymond doled out an extra large helping of mashed sweet potatoes onto his plate. Their eyes were all on the brunette woman seated to his left: his new girlfriend. Meeting the family seemed to all onlookers, unusually rough on her. She looked more than uncomfortable; she actually seemed to be in physical pain. She kept shifting her legs back and forth, wringing her hands and scrunching up her face into a wince every few seconds.
“Why don’t you take a breath, honey?” Opaline asked. “Raymond’s a big boy. I’m not gonna attack the companions he brings around.”
Cerise, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure. The second Raymond had introduced this woman, this Moira Boniface, she had known what she was. Moira Boniface...what a terrible attempt at a disguise. Fate Good Fate? It was like she did it on purpose; like she was making fun of them. She watched Moira’s discomfort on the other side of the table with a touch of glee. “I don’t know about that, mother,” she said, passing a bowl of creamed and buttered corn to Opaline. “I think I remember a few times...”
She stopped when Opaline leveled a glare in her direction. “You’re scaring the poor young woman, Cerise.”
“Mama...” Cerise began, locking her brother and his date in a tight, intense gaze. “I don’t think you understand...”
“Cerise, please...”
Before an argument could break out, Moira stood. “I believe your daughter is right to mistrust me, Mrs. Mooreland. My reasons for being here tonight are not purely social...and though you may not know it, we’ve met before. My glamours are...very good.”
Raymond touched her arm. His eyes shifted as a look of worry passed across his face.
“The last time you saw me, I might have given you the impression of being a 22 year old nurse from Detroit.”
Raymond winced and Cerise watched, satisfied, as her Opaline’s face turned cold, her dark green eyes turning from a warm inviting summer pine forest to a mossy tundra in winter.
“You’re the Underland witch who tried to kill Clarissa?” Even her voice was cold. The temperature in the room was dropping fast.
“My goal was not to kill her!” Moira exclaimed, looking at Opaline with desperate, defensive eyes. “but to remind her who she is. My work...my magic...I make people remember...”
Still, Opaline shook her head. “No, no, I won’t have this.”
“You let Cerise run off with a shade!” Raymond protested, sounding more to Cerise’s ears like a teenager than the middle aged man he was.
“Cerise did run off with a shade. Let is a strong word here.”
“Leave Jack out of this!” Cerise shouted, slamming her palms down on the table and standing so that she would be a Moira’s eye level.
The Underland witch had her pendant in a tight grip and Cerise knew, almost instinctively, that she intended to vanish, to rush home to that damnable place...where Jaclyn was..
“I didn’t come here for this argument,” Moira said, backing away slowly from the table. “It not the time for that. Not yet.”
Opaline shook her head and walked from the kitchen without another word.
Rage flashed in Cerise’s eyes. “Listen, you little mushroom. You get out of this house. My mother has been through enough thanks to your lot. I have been through enough. Now just...”
“I can help you get her back.” Moira’s voice was flat and emotionless, but it struck Cerise like an arrow through the heart. “I’m a Fate. I work with her every day. I can take you there.”
Never in a million years had Cerise thought she would be contemplating a trip to the Underland. Not since her mother had told her of the prophecy years ago. Not since she and Jack had decided to live as mortals. The very idea that she was even considering Moira’s offer rankled. The Underland witches were her enemies...but this enemy was offering her a chance to see her daughter again, maybe even convince her to come home.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
Moira shrugged. “You don’t.” Then she smirked at Raymond. “But you can trust the judgment of others.”
Cerise looked to her brother, who, surprisingly, looked almost as conflicted as she felt. “The Harvest witches have a plan...”
“I wouldn’t be so sure it’s to your liking.”
“What are you talking about?”
Moira glanced toward Raymond. “Do you want to show her, or should I?”
“No one’s ‘showing’ me anything. Just tell me.”
“How do I know you’ll believe me?”
“I’ll do it,” Raymond said with a resigned sigh. Without another word, he took a small purple vial from his pocket and let a few drops of it fall onto Cerise’s potatoes.
“You would never try to kill me, would you?” Cerise asked, not expecting an answer. She didn’t know how her brother had come across such a vial or what it was, but now wasn’t the time. She closed her eyes and took a bite of the sweet potatoes.
They tasted fine, just like any other mashed sweet potato dish she had eaten in her mother’s house for many years until she felt something hook on to the back of her mind. When she opened her eyes, the dining room was dissolving and reforming itself into Raymond’s restaurant. From the sun beaming through the windows, it seemed like midday.
Turning her head, she saw the prim and pristine figure of that Aine woman she had met earlier. Her eyes kept darting back and forth, looking for someone while simultaneously not wanting to be seen. Cerise tried to edge closer but found she couldn’t move.
A dark haired man, equally prim and also oddly somewhat familiar, like someone she had once seen on TV, sat surreptitiously across from her. His own eyes darted as he lifted the menu to hide his face from view.
“I see you heard my call?” Aine asked, her voice a touch more sultry than it had been in the Mooreland living room.
“You look different than I imagined.” The man did not remove the menu from his face.
She didn’t appear to acknowledge this. “You have a grudge then?” she asked instead.
“Who doesn’t?”
Aine waved her hand about as though she were swatting a fly. “I’m merely trying to determine your willingness. The Harvest requires dedicated assistance if we want to rid ourselves of this problem.” She snatched up her purse and produced a small box. More than anything, Cerise wanted to take it from her. She had a terrible feeling about its contents.
The man didn’t open it. “This is all I need?”
“Correct.” She took a sip from the water glass in front of her. “You crash into the tea shop. I will be waiting.”
The scene dissolved before Cerise’s eyes and once again she was standing at the dining room table. She thrust her fork back into the sweet potatoes, but the second bite did not have the same effect.
“Sorry, Cerise,” Raymond said, further breaking the spell. “That was all I could get.”
“They’re going to hurt Jaclyn.” She didn’t need direct confirmation of this. She knew. She knew exactly what Aine and that stranger meant to do. She didn’t know how they would do it, but none of that mattered to her now. Her daughter was in danger.
Raymond opened his mouth, but it was Moira who spoke. “Let me take you to her.”
This time Cerise didn’t hesitate. Determined, she nodded.