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“Yes, I guess I do at that,” I said, wondering why it mattered to him so much.
He smiled at me again, and seemed to be struggling with how to express what he wanted to say. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, Mercy. A lot of mistakes with you for sure, but a lot of mistakes in general. ” He hesitated for a moment, then just dove in. “I married your Aunt Iris for my parents’ sake. I never loved her,” he said, scanning my face for a reaction. I didn’t give him one, but I felt betrayed, not only on Iris’s behalf, but on my own as well. That he could have implicated us all in his lie made my blood boil. I stayed silent, and after a few moments he continued. “My parents were proud that a Taylor woman would have me. They were proud that I was marrying above my station. Iris was beautiful and wealthy and a much more powerful witch than I’d ever be. And she loved me. I thought it would be enough. ”
He got up from the bed and began pacing the small room, filling it up with his bulk. “Your Aunt Ellen had just become a teenager when Iris and I married. Your mother was still only a redheaded pipsqueak, skinny as a string bean and as willful as a…” He hesitated and faced me. “Well, as an I don’t know what. ”
He returned to the foot of the bed. “You know that Iris and I lived away from Savannah the better part of a decade. We visited often enough, but I never really connected with your grandparents or Iris’s siblings. It was only after Iris’s last miscarriage that your grandparents insisted we come back to Savannah. Iris had almost died in our last attempt to have a baby, and, well, your grandparents decided they wanted their girl home. They held the power, and Iris held the purse strings, so home we came. ”
I watched his hand as it alternately worried and smoothed the pink bedspread. “By then your mama was all grown up, and the truth of the matter was that she was more educated about the world than I was in a lot of ways. She knew that I was unfulfilled. She had joined a kind of club here in Savannah,” he said.
My stomach started churning as I anticipated his next words. I wanted to stop him from speaking, but all I could do was listen.
“You see, it was Emily who first started up with Tillandsia, and she brought me into it, with Iris’s acceptance, if that matters to you. After that last miscarriage, Iris wasn’t much interested in marital relations anymore. But I was a normal man, in the prime of life. I had a normal man’s needs, and Iris accepted that. ” He patted his stomach. “I know you can’t see it now, but a couple of decades ago, there were plenty of women who wanted to be with me. ”
“I don’t care,” I spat out. I was embarrassed beyond belief. The very last thing I wanted to think of was Connor as a sexual being, and I definitely didn’t want to think about him getting his thrills as my mother watched on.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should stick to what’s important. ”
“And what is important?” I asked, my patience wearing thin.
“What is important is that I loved your mother. I loved Emily. Completely and with all my soul. ”
“I see,” I said. “And do you think she loved you?”
“She gave her life to have my children,” he said and the earth stopped moving in the heavens.
My whole body went ice cold, but I began to sweat in the same instant. His words had knocked the wind out of me. “She what?” I asked when I found my breath.
“You girls. You and Maisie. You’re my daughters,” he said.
“Oh, no. That is not possible. ” I held out my hand as a warning that he should not try to approach me. “It is not true,” I said, just so I could hear the words and try to believe them.
“Look at me, Mercy. Right now, you have a witch’s power. If you look at me, you can tell whether I’m lying to you. ”
I studied him intently, every slight wrinkle on his face, every black mark on his soul, and as much as I loathed the idea, I knew beyond a shadow of any doubt that he was not lying. He was my father, our father. The idea struck me as hilarious, and laughing like a maniac, I stood with such force that I knocked over the chair where I’d been sitting.
“Your aunts made me promise to wait until you turned twenty-one to tell you, so you would be adult enough to handle the truth. I know I’m rushing things by a few hours, but I couldn’t wait another minute,” he said. “I needed you to know that I wasn’t lying. Without Oliver’s power to confirm the truth, a part of you would always doubt me. Hell, I could walk up to you with a DNA test and a signed birth certificate and you still wouldn’t want to believe me. ”
“Does Maisie know?” I asked. I felt like screaming and crying. Now it was abundantly clear why Iris would be worried that I’d turn out like my mother, with a taste for other women’s men.
“No,” he responded. “At least I don’t think so, but with all of the power she can access, who knows what she’s learned? I was hoping to tell you both together. At the same time. I never anticipated Ginny’s murder. ”
“I don’t think any of us did,” I said, moving toward the door.
Connor’s arm shot out and grabbed mine. “I think you’re wrong there. I think one of us did. ”
“Okay, I’m listening,” I said. Releasing my arm, he reached into his pocket and unfolded an oversized sheet of paper. The paper was enchanted, and the creases smoothed themselves out instantly. “I found this among Ginny’s affairs. ”
I took the paper from him and scanned it. Without my borrowed magic, the page would have appeared blank, but when I focused on it with a witch’s gaze, words appeared—words so ancient that I would by no honest rights have the ability to understand them. But somehow I did. “It’s a dissolution spell,” I said, turning the paper into the light. At the moment I had no patience for deciphering the scrawls, so I folded the spell and put it into my pocket so that I could examine it more closely later.
“She was going to do it,” Connor said. “Ginny was going to do away with Wren once and for all, and we both know Ellen would never allow that to happen. ”
“Ellen would never have killed Ginny!”
“You so sure about that?” he asked. “I’m not. We both know that she’s been holding on by a thread for a decade now. If it weren’t for the whiskey and Wren, she would have quit trying long ago. ”
I wondered if he could possibly be right. The pieces all added up, but I wouldn’t let them fit together. Having Connor for a father was bad enough…I wouldn’t believe that my sweet aunt was capable of murder. “No. You’re wrong. I won’t believe it. ”
“Don’t believe it if you don’t want to,” he said. “Frankly, I think Ellen did us all a big favor. I sure ain’t going to turn her in to the families. As long as she managed to cover her tracks okay, I’m fine with what she did. ”
Connor had revealed more to me tonight than I’d be able to process in a hundred years. “All right,” I said. “You’ve told me what you wanted to. I’m ready to leave now. ”
“You can’t go yet,” he said. “I brought you here for a reason. There’s one more thing I have to share with you, but I need to do it here. ” He turned and walked over to the bookcase, pulling down one of the newer journals. He held it out to me, and I could see Maisie’s name scrawled across the front. The childishness of her signature clued me in to the fact that it was older than it looked. “I’ve tried to take it from the house, but I can’t. It won’t let me. I had to bring you here to show it to you. ” He handed it over.