My emotions were racing. On one hand, I wasn’t about to deny her the peace of mind she was seeking, but on the other hand, it just seemed wrong to sweep everything under the bridge and pretend like nothing had happened.
“I need answers.”
“Ask away.” Zara shifted on the bench to face me. “Ask me anything and I’ll give you the best answer I can.”
I decided to start with the unicorn in the room. “Why did you chase off Father? You were so mean to him. Cruel, actually.”
Her smile cracked just a little. “Yes, I was. But Maddy, you don’t know what my life was like before you came along. How could you? I never told you about it.”
“Tell me now, then. Help me understand.”
Zara let out a long sigh. “Before your father, I fell in love with a bard. His name was Dmitri, and he was Italian. He was dashing and mysterious, a real heartbreaker. Your grandmother hated him because she didn’t trust that he’d stick around. So she refused to let us see each other. Well, I managed to circumnavigate her and was dating him on the sly. And then, I got pregnant.”
Uh oh. Knowing my grandmother, I could imagine the hell that went down when she found out. “What happened?”
“Your grandmother was right. Dmitri ran off, leaving me pregnant. Mother forced me to stay with relatives in a different village. When I had the baby, a boy, she gave him to another family. I was sent home and she watched me like a hawk.”
“I have a brother?”
Zara nodded. “My mother married me off to the first suitable match she could find. That’s where your father came in. He was a good man, he never hit me or hurt me. But I didn’t love him, and I resented the fact that I couldn’t keep my child. What’s worse, when I told your father about my son, he said, ‘Well, at least that’s in the past and we don’t have to worry about it.’ He shrugged off my child, calling him water under the bridge. Your father knew how much I was hurting.”
I stared at her, all my illusions crashing to the ground. “How horrible. But…I have a brother? Is he still alive?”
“Yes, you do. He’s your half-brother, but yes, he’s still alive. I tried to keep tabs on him from a distance. I’ve never contacted him. The family who brought him up is a good family. They loved him and I didn’t want to intrude.” Zara hung her head. “I was so angry, at your grandmother and your father. And when you came along, they both made such a big deal about you. I felt like…”
“Like they were betraying my brother.” A hell of a lot began to fall into place. “And loving me would be…a betrayal.”
“Yes. So you see, I never wanted to marry your father. He proved himself to be a steady man who occasionally took risks, but they weren’t smart risks. The day he got hurt by the dogs? He was drunk. I begged him not to go out hunting until he sobered up, but he wouldn’t listen.”
That was news. I never knew about any of this. “So…”
“So the accident wouldn’t have happened if he had been alert. He could have escaped.”
It was my turn to stare at the ground.
“You see, I put up with a lot. I married a man I liked, but didn’t love. I lost the man of my heart. I lost my first child. Both your grandmother and your father pretended my son was never even born. Then, when your father got hurt, it was the last straw. I did drive him away, I admit it. But it wasn’t out of sheer cruelty. I was just fed up with everything. While I loved you, every day, I was reminded that my firstborn was a taboo subject.”
I let out a long breath. All these years I had thought my mother was just a bitch, when in fact she had been nursing a deep, dark wound. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I was afraid that you’d think I didn’t love you. And I do. I know I’ve nitpicked so many things over the years. I suppose that I felt that by loving you—and showing it—I was denying my son.” She looked up at me, her eyes wet.
It wasn’t a stab in the heart, but it felt that way. My very existence had brought home her other loss. It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t hers, but it still had hurt both of us.
“All these years and Granny never said a word.”
In fact, I hadn’t seen Granny since around 1900, when I went to visit her. She still sent me letters once every month like clockwork, and she expected an answer. Now, we used email, which was easier. I realized that I was almost overdue on one, actually. She had loved me, taught me my magic, but now I felt as betrayed by her as I imagined my mother felt.
“She never told me I had a brother.”
“No,” Zara said, her voice barely above a whisper. “She never once mentioned him after I came home from my great-aunt’s house. She warned me that the matter was over and done. That’s all he was to her—a ‘situation’ that had been taken care of. You loved her so much, how could I break your illusions? And you loved your father. But now, I’m facing the end. I thought you should know the truth.”
I stared at her. “I’m glad you did. I’m glad you told me.” I paused. “Does Granny know you’ve got Winter Syndrome?”
“No, and don’t you tell her. Not yet. I’m going to wait till I know if the other treatments work.” Zara hung her head. “Your grandmother has always been disappointed in me. She adores you, and always has. But I was a disappointment. I never took to magic like you did. I learned the basics and that was enough for me. When I got pregnant, that capped her opinion of me. Nothing I could ever do would make up for disgracing her like that.”
I glanced around the park. Mothers were playing with their children, and a few people were walking their dogs. The morning was sunny, and everything seemed so normal. But within the space of ten minutes, I suddenly had a brother somewhere, and Zara had turned out to be a heartbroken woman rather than the shallow bitch I had always thought she was.
I said the only thing I could.
“Please, don’t feel like you are betraying my brother by talking to me. You can talk about him. Granny never should have made you give him up.” I finally felt free to take her hand in mine, and I squeezed it, leaning in for a shy kiss on her cheek.
Zara swallowed hard, then nodded. “Thank you. I just wanted you to know.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Yes. It’s Gregory Oakstone. I have his address. I’ll give it to you, but I have to ask you one thing. Promise me you won’t contact him until…”
I froze. “Does that mean, even after all these years, you aren’t going to meet him? Mother, you have to. Especially after what you’ve told me. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to him.”
She smiled, then—one of the first truly genuine smiles I had ever seen from her. “Oh, Maddy, you’re so sure of that, aren’t you? If the treatments work, then I will contact him and you can come with me if you like. But if they don’t…what favor would I be doing by contacting him? Guess what, I’m your mother and after four hundred years I’ve decided to say hello. By the way, I’m dying. That, I feel, would be crueler than letting you tell him about me. Because I know you, my daughter. I know you’ll contact him.”
I wasn’t convinced, but it was her decision to make and right now I didn’t have the energy to argue. “All right. I promise. If the treatments work, we’ll go meet him together. If not, then…I’ll tell him about you.” As the promise came out of my lips, I felt it seal into a witch’s oath. I had bound myself to the words. When a witch made a promise that was entrenched in her heart, there was no way to undo the oath. She was bound to it.
“Very good. Then I can rest easy and enjoy the remainder of my visit with you.” Zara brightened, and it seemed as though a heavy weight had shifted off her shoulders. “Bedlam is a lovely town. I might fancy living here, if I were given the chance.”
“Wait till I show you the shores. It’s so pretty down by the beach.” I paused. “When do you leave for Ohio?”
“I think on Thursday. I have an appointment with him Monday for the treatments, but I should give myself time to prepare. He wants me to fast
for three days before and I don’t want to be traveling during that time.” She paused. “Will you be glad to see me go? To Ohio, I mean.”
I shook my head. “Before we talked, I might have said yes. I would have said yes. But now that I know the story, I feel like there’s so much we need to catch up on. Secrets aren’t always a good thing.” I felt suddenly that I had never known my mother. Now, I wanted time to see her in this new light. I wanted to help her find the side of herself she had buried under Granny’s expectations.
“Don’t blame your grandmother. I do, but you shouldn’t. She was brought up differently. She didn’t want me to be labeled a slut. Even though our magical lineage wouldn’t hold me guilty for bearing a child out of wedlock, the villagers—those who didn’t know about us—would have treated me like a harlot. It would have made our ability to hide from the witch hunters even harder, because there would have been talk about me.” She squeezed my hand. “Anyway, even if the treatments don’t work, I’m glad we’ve talked.”
Still holding her hand, I stood and motioned to the car. “Come on. We’ll drive around the island like we were going to. I want to show you everything I can.”
On the way back to the parking lot we talked about the shops and how wonderful it was that Otherkin could be out in public now, rather than hide like we had all had to back when I was young. But all the way back to the car, my mind wouldn’t stop churning with everything I had learned. After all these years, Mother and I had managed to find common ground. Now, it looked like I was going to lose her. And I realized I wasn’t ready for that.
Chapter 7
ZARA BEGGED OFF from more of the tour at about three. “I’m tired. Winter Syndrome wears a body out, I’ll tell you that. I’ll come over to visit when your young man wakes up.” She paused. “Though I guess, he’s older than any of us, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, far older. I’ll drop you off at the inn.” I drove her, both reluctant and relieved. But even though my emotional odometer was swinging like a pendulum, I realized that I needed some time to breathe and process everything I had learned. I thought about going home, but Aegis wouldn’t be getting up till after nine, and frankly, Kelson was better equipped to handle the guests than I was right now.
The only place I could think of to go was Sandy’s. While I had other friends, none would understand what I was facing more than she would. I pulled up outside her house and headed for the front door. Almost immediately, a man in a black suit and sunglasses stepped out from behind the trellis arch that spanned the sidewalk. He was carrying a very nasty-looking baton, and I saw a gun strapped to his belt.
“Excuse me, but may I see your identification?”
I stared at him for a moment, wondering what the fuck was going on, before it clicked.
“Rocco’s man, right?” I opened my purse and slowly reached inside, figuring that he was probably packing other heavy-duty weapons that I couldn’t see. After I showed him my identification, he nodded.
“Thank you, Ms. Gallowglass. We were told to let you right in if you came by.” He escorted me up to the door and knocked. A moment later, Alex answered.
I gave the security guard the thumbs-up before stepping inside. As soon as Alex closed the door, I let out a breath of relief.
“I’m glad Sandy’s being protected, but damn, that dude carries some hard-core energy with him. What is he? Weretiger?”
“Yeah, and you should see his buddy. Bigger and scarier than him.” Alex shook his head. “This is all too crazy. Who the heck could be targeting Sandy? Come on, I’ll take you to her. She’s in the office.”
He led me through the spacious mansion. Jenna was sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen counter, eating ice cream and reading on her tablet. I waved at her and she wiggled her fingers at me.
“Give me a moment,” I said to Alex.
“I’ll just let Sandy know you’re here. You can find your way to the office, can’t you? I’ve got some errands I need to run.”
“Of course. Go on.” I waved him off as I crossed the smooth polished tile to the counter. “Hey Jenna, what’s shaking?”
“Hi, Maddy.” She paused, spoon hovering over the pint of Berry Farms raspberry ice cream with streaks of white chocolate. I licked my lips, staring at it.
“That looks good.”
“It is. You want a taste?”
I nodded and she jumped down from the stool and got me a spoon out of the drawer. She handed it to me and I accepted a heaping spoonful of the ice cream. It melted on my tongue, an explosion of flavor.
“That’s so good. So how are you?”
She offered me the pint and I took another spoonful.
“I’m okay. I’m keeping up with my schoolwork, though I miss being there. But Aunt Sandy thinks it’s too dangerous right now.” She frowned, her lips twisting in that slightly bewildered way teenagers have of thinking things through. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, though I don’t promise to answer.”
“Who do you think is targeting Aunt Sandy? And am I really in danger because of it?”
I frowned, worrying over the answer. Finally, I said, “As to the first part, I don’t know. I’m in the dark just as much as Sandy is. And regarding the second part…well…there’s just no good way to answer that. But because we don’t know, it’s safer to keep you here than let you attend school. If somebody wanted to hurt Sandy—really hurt her—they would target her friends, and you. Since whoever tried to run her down didn’t finish the job, they may go that route.”
I stopped, realizing that I wasn’t helping matters any. “But you shouldn’t be frightened. Max and his friends will keep you and Sandy safe until we figure this out.”
She laughed. “I’m not afraid. Well…not much. Not for myself. But I am afraid for her.” She paused. “I really like Aunt Sandy. Like I said, I wish she was my mom.”
That cut me in the heart. I had said those words so many times as a child about Auntie Berma, and a few other women I had known. Now I understood better, but when I was young? I wasn’t sure if I could have, even if Zara had explained everything to me.
“You know, mothers have a way of driving their children crazy sometimes. Don’t blame your mom too much. It’s not easy raising another person.” I stopped as a cloud crossed her face. “But it’s good that you and Sandy get along. I’m glad you have her to talk to.”
“Can I come talk to you if I need to?” The plea in her voice told me the teen was lonely.
I wondered if she had many friends at school, but decided to leave well enough alone for now. “Sure. My door’s always open. I’m going to go talk to Sandy now, all right? Thanks for the ice cream. It’s really good.”
“It’s my favorite flavor.” Jenna went back to playing with her tablet and I vanished into the office, thinking that today was just smack full of relationship issues for everybody.
SANDY HEARD ME out and then, shaking her head, said, “Oh man. You must be in a whirlwind right now. I can’t imagine finding out all of that in one afternoon.”
I gave her a helpless shrug. My emotions were in a whirlwind and I was afraid that by the time I sorted them out, it would be too late. “I don’t know what to think. It’s as though my mother showed up and said, ‘Guess what, my entire life has been a lie. Here’s the truth.’ And in that moment, I realized that she spent her life letting me resent her in order to prevent me from being angry at my father and grandmother. No matter how this falls out, there is no winner. Zara lost so much. We all lost in this one.”
“You have to be grateful she told you all of this. At least you have a chance to see her in a new light.” She paused. “I’m not saying she didn’t deserve your animosity. She wasn’t much of a mother to you. But now, before she…” Sandy broke off.
“You can say it. Before she dies. Because unless these last two treatments work, that’s what’s going to happen. I just wish I had known sooner.” It wasn’t fair. I wanted to rail at the
universe. I never had the chance to know a mother I could love, and now that I found out the truth, I still probably wouldn’t have much time. I realized I was pinning a lot of hope on those two treatments.
“Are you going to contact Gregory?”
I let out a long breath. “I promised I would. But first, I’ll do a little research on him. Best to go in forearmed so I know what kind of a reception I might get.” I cradled the brandy Sandy had offered me, staring at the warm amber liquid. “Enough about me. How are you feeling?”
“I’ve felt better. I talked to my lawyer this morning about the Oyster Bar. Definitely arson, Joel Purdy said, so insurance should come through. Delia analyzed the note but no fingerprints, so even if they left the gas cans near the remains of my new restaurant, they were somewhat careful.” She grimaced. “I can’t believe someone hates me enough to want me dead.”
“Yeah, it’s a sobering thought. We haven’t been down this road in a very, very long time.”
“I hate keeping Jenna out of school. I know she’s itching to go back there, but I can’t risk her life. I hope she understands and isn’t too mad at me.”
I grinned, the first glimmer of a smile I had felt since Zara dropped the bomb about her condition. Leaning against the arm of the sofa that sat kitty-corner to Sandy’s desk, I said, “I think you can rest assured. Your young ward told me she wished you were her mother.”
Sandy was sitting in her wheelchair behind the behemoth glass and chrome monster she called a desk. She rolled her eyes. “I’m not surprised, to be honest. Derry loves her daughter but she loves her social life and her freedom more. Let’s talk about something different. I’m tired of trying to figure out who’s trying to kill me.”
“Oh!” I remembered the book I had picked up at Nandi’s. “Hold on, I have something to show you that may be just the thing.” I set down my snifter and ran out to my car. When I returned, I set the book in front of her. “Look what came in at the bookshop today.”