by Rinna Ford
But what was I gaining? I was going to learn magic. I could possibly meet my father, not that I wouldn’t mind taking Stellan down a few pegs too. I was a hidden princess from a magical realm, which is a dream of most little girls. And, I was going to have a baby that I already adored. My hand began to absentmindedly rub my belly where there was a slight bump already.
Then another thought occurred to me. I could find Brogan. He could be there for his child and maybe even for me. I quickly turned off the water and jumped out of the shower. I needed to find him! We had to leave right away!
“Mom!” I yelled from the bathroom door. I was still dripping wet with a towel loosely wrapped around my body. I took off down the hall looking for her. “Mom! We need to leave today!” I yelled. I found her in the kitchen looking through paperwork and getting ready to make a call. “I have to find him!”
“Sweetie, we can’t leave yet,” she said in a calm voice, putting her papers down on the table. It was like I was a wild animal and she was trying not to agitate me any more than I already was. “We have to wrap things up here on Earth before we leave. You have to deal with school, your internship, your apartment, Tessa, your jeep…”
I sighed. She was right. I couldn’t leave things in a mess. People would worry. Tessa would worry.
I nodded to her then turned around and walked into my bedroom. I got dressed quickly, grabbed my laptop, and joined my mom in the kitchen. I sat down in the seat across from her at the table and turned on my computer. I looked over at what my mom was focused on.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“Well, I have to sell my partnership in the floral shop. We’ll be gone for a while, possibly many years. I can’t just up and leave Harlan in a lurch. I’m trying to figure out how to approach him about it.” I gave her a sympathetic look. That would be tough.
Harlan had been like a father to me and a brother to my mom. He was so important to both of us.
“I’m inviting him over for dinner tonight after he gets done with work. I need to do it sooner rather than later,” she said. She looked so completely sad at the idea.
“What are you going to tell him?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. If you come up with an idea, please tell me.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, what can you do?
“Have you decided what you’re going to tell Tessa?”
I straightened myself in the chair and looked my mom in the eye as if I were getting ready for a confrontation.
“I’m going to tell her the truth. Tessa has been the best friend I could possibly ever have. She didn’t hesitate to offer support when she found out I was pregnant, and after only a minute of panicking she handled my wacky plant growing powers pretty well. It was her idea for me to come home to talk to you about it after all. I’m not going to leave her without knowing what is going on with me. I don’t care if you don’t like it, but I’m telling her.” I gave her my best don’t mess with me look.
Mom raised her hands in surrender and began chuckling. “Okay, I get it. I think it will be alright. I believe she will keep our secret.”
My shoulders dropped as I relaxed. That went a lot easier than I thought it would.
With a sigh, I opened up my email and decided to message my advisor first. I informed him that I had a family emergency that would require me to leave the country, and that I’d need to withdraw from school and the internship. My heart hurt as I pushed “SEND.” I would also need to notify the school to officially drop out, but that would have to wait until Monday.
I reluctantly dove into the next thing on my list, quitting my internship. Mrs. Wilby gave all the interns her personal cell phone number to use only in emergencies on our first day of training. I didn’t want to wait to tell her on Monday when I’d be expected at work, so I went ahead and called her. She was very curious, but I gave her the same excuse I gave my advisor, only elaborated a little more. She told me that they’d be sad to see me go, but understood. Family was the most important thing. I thanked her for the opportunity before I hung up.
Tears started streaming down my face. I was so overwhelmed and heartbroken over losing my dream. I knew I’d be getting so much more for the sacrifice, but it still hurt. I looked out the kitchen window to see it raining. I didn’t think rain was in the forecast that day. I looked at mom when an idea popped in my head.
“Mom, could my emotions affect the weather?” I asked her. She looked up from her paperwork.
“Sure,” she responded. “Why do you ask?” I pointed toward the window, making her turn around and look. “Well look at that.” She turned back around to face me. “Has that happened before?”
I nodded. “Now that I think about it, every time I remember crying it was raining too.”
“Even when you were little?” She looked puzzled.
“Even when I was little.” I stopped crying as another thought occurred to me. “What about the wind that knocked over Angie that day you fired her? Could that have been me too?”
She looked at me like she was really considering the possibility.
“It seems that your binding wasn’t strong enough after all. I think your magic will be even greater than your father’s.” She stared back out the window as the rain slowed and the sun peeked through the clouds. “I admit, I had a feeling it was you that knocked Angie over, but I never wanted to consider that it was you. The fireflies that night in the garden though, I knew that they were drawn to you and your magic. But the weather thing never occurred to me.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes as I digested what she just old me. I wondered how much power I would have if all of those things were happening even with a powerful binding spell.
“What about the fact that I never burned in the sun?” I asked.
She peered up at me over the stack of papers. “You’re Aurelian,” she said and looked back down. “You’ve never had an insect bite either, I bet. Aurelians are much more in tune with all things in Nature. We’re almost immune to anything harmful from the world outside that comes from Nature. I guess it’s part of the magic within us.” She said it all as a matter of fact.
I sat looking out of the window for a few more moments, processing everything. My whole life had changed so drastically in only a few weeks. Between finding out I was pregnant, the whole plant and animal thing, and now learning I was from a magical realm, I was surprised I hadn’t had a melt down by now.
Bean was starting to demand lunch so I paused my train of thought, and got up and looked through the refrigerator. I found everything needed to make a sandwich. I took everything to the counter and began making myself lunch. Mom looked up and saw me swipe a pickle from the jar and eat it.
“I can’t believe I’m going to be a grandmother!” she laughed. “I’m too young! I’m only 276 years old, for goodness sakes!” I dropped the knife into the mustard in shock.
“276?” I asked. “I thought you were 43!”
She had a big grin on her face. “I told you Aruelians are long-lived. We can live forever as long as we aren’t killed or deny our magic. The magic is what sustains us. 276 is relatively young where we come from.”
I stared at her slack-jawed. What in the world? I was going to stop asking questions because I didn’t think I could take many more surprises. I shook my head and picked the knife backup to finish making my lunch.
I took my sandwich and jar of pickles to the table and typed the resignation letter I’d need to send Mrs. Wilby and my adviser. As I typed, Mom told me that she was going to get a large storage unit for us to put our stuff in. She’d need to sell the house, but hopefully she could get Harlan to take care of that if we couldn’t get it sold quickly. That was another thing I didn’t need to worry about. But there was still the apartment.
“Mom, what am I going to do about Tessa and the apartment? We have a lease until January and I don’t want to leave it to her to pay for it all by herself.”
“Don’t worry, daughter. I’ll take care of all of it. I’m even paying off your student loans so you won’t have that to worry about too.”
Damn. I forgot about student loans. Not that I had a lot, but it was still something that needed to be taken care of.
“Wait, do you have the money to pay it all off?” I asked. We’d never been poor, but we definitely weren’t rolling in money.
“I’ve had money saved away since before we came to Earth. I started stashing it when I decided that I’d leave Stellan. That was about 23 years before I faked my death, so I saved quite a bit of money.”
Well, okay then.
I sent the resignation letter and sat back in my chair. The only thing left on my list for the moment was to talk with Harlan and Tessa. My stomach began to roll and I thought I was going to lose my lunch. How was I going to do this?
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Honey, I’m home!” Harlan walked in the front door of Mom’s cottage without knocking like he did every time he came over. He strode through the living room and into the kitchen to find us finishing up dinner. We grilled hamburgers, corn on the cob, and had a salad waiting on the table. “Wow! That looks great!” he said as he gave me a hug. I smiled up at him then went back to slicing tomatoes for the burgers.
“So, what’s the emergency?” he asked, looking me over. “Alya seems to be alright.” Mom and I looked at each other and I nodded. She should tell him the truth. About everything.
“Let’s sit down and we’ll talk over dinner. We have quite a few things to discuss,” Mom said and handed him a glass of lemonade. She motioned for him to sit, her and I followed. We all fixed our plates and started eating. We ate in silence for several minutes, before Harlan couldn’t stand it anymore.
He put his hamburger down with a little too much force. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?!” he demanded.
I decided to speak, giving Mom some time to compose herself. I knew this was harder for her than it was for me. She had never been close to anyone until we moved here. Harlan was her Tessa.
“Well, I’m pregnant for starters,” I blurted out. He looked at me with wide eyes.
“Excuse me?” he asked and pretended to clean out his ears. “It sounded like you’re pregnant.”
“Yes, that’s what I said. I’m 8 weeks along. And yes, that guy from this summer, Brogan is the father.”
He sat back in his chair and stared at his plate for several minutes. “Is there more?” he asked.
Harlan glanced up at me and I slowly nodded. His eyes cut to my mom. I waited for Mom to say something, but she began to cry. I reached over to her and held her hand. She looked at me and I nodded, letting her know that I’d do the rest of the talking. She was such a gentle soul, I couldn’t imagine how she survived what she went through with her husband.
I took a deep breath and told him the story that mom told me earlier that day. I told him about her past with Stellan and Aidric, and about Aurelia and magic. I talked about Brogan, the baby, my sudden, but unaware use of magic, and how we needed to go back to Aurelia to fix it all. The whole time, Harlan stayed quiet. He was quiet for several minutes after I finished telling my tale.
Finally he looked at my mom with a pained expression. “Rose, you never told me any of this. Why?” I was so glad he accepted everything without questioning it. But I wasn’t surprised. He was our Harlan.
Tears rolled down my mom’s face, making me cry too. “I couldn’t. We aren’t supposed to tell humans about us, ever. And besides, I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
“You need to sell your half of the shop before you leave, don’t you?” Mom nodded and got up to get the paperwork from the counter.
“I’ve had this drawn up since we went into business together.” She handed him some legal looking papers. “I wasn’t sure if Alya and I would ever have to go on the run again and I didn’t want to leave you in trouble with the shop. It’s a bill of sale for $1 drawn up by a lawyer. If you sign it today and hand over the cash, we’ll drop it off at the lawyer’s office on Monday morning, making the shop completely yours.” He shook his head hard and began to cry.
“No. I can’t do this! I can pay you more!”
Mom sat down next to him and took his hands. “Honey, I don’t need the money where I’m going.” Her tears had begun to dry up and she smirked at him.
“But you’ll come back…”
“Maybe. But I have plenty of money and I don’t want to take more than I have to from you. So I’ll take no more that what is listed on the paperwork. Okay?” He nodded and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. He gave mom a one dollar bill, then picked up the pen and signed the document.
Mom talked to him about the house and he agreed to take care of it for us. He’d put the money from the sale away in a savings account. Harlan signed more papers, this time about the house.
It was close to midnight before Harlan left. He seemed to not want to go home. But, since Mom wasn’t going to work there anymore he needed to hire more help, and he had to open the next morning. He left with a hug and a kiss for each of us, making us promise to stop by to see him before we left.
Mom went to bed when he was gone, leaving the dishes piled in the sink. I didn’t complain as I did them because I understood how hard it was on her. The whole thing was emotionally draining. I was not looking forward to going through this with Tessa on Monday.
Mom made me stay in all day Sunday while she ran errands, got the storage unit, and sold her car. She was still worried about someone noticing my magic. Honestly, now that I knew about it, I was worried too. I made an extra effort not to touch any plants, especially since she had them all over the house.
I talked to Tessa briefly to tell her that Mom and I would be coming to the apartment the next day. I just couldn’t tell her the rest, not yet. Mom and I started packing the stuff we’d wanted to keep and arranged for the rest to be picked up as donation on Wednesday. We decided to leave for Aurelia right after that. I was getting nervous, but excited too.
But then Monday morning rolled around. Mom and I went to the lawyer’s office to drop off the paperwork Harlan signed, then left for Atlanta. Mom had to drive the jeep. I was a complete wreck thinking about what I was going to have to do.
When we got to the apartment a little before noon, Tessa was still at class. She would be home around 2:00, so instead of just waiting, we decided to start packing my things. We worked in silence, too emotional for small talk. We were both so focused on packing that we didn’t hear Tessa come home.
“So you’re moving to Savannah, huh?” she asked, leaning against the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest.
Great. She was already in a defensive mood. I gave her a weak smile and put down the jewelry box that I was holding.
“Let’s go into the living room to talk.” My throat was tight with unshed tears, and I walked past her and down the hall. I sat on the couch, leaving room for her but she decided to sit on the chair, far away from me. She looked pissed.
Mom stayed back in my room and continued packing. We had already discussed it and I thought it would be best if I talked to her alone. Tessa would feel even more defensive if she thought we were ganging up on her.
“You were right.” I said, looking at her. “My mom knew about my plant growing powers. It’s more than that, though.” I paused to make sure she was really listening. “She and I are from another realm called Aurelia where the people have magic. My mom and aunt bound my magic when I was a baby and my mom brought me to Earth to escape her abusive husband. Now, I’m pregnant and my baby is breaking the binding.” I paused to check her mood. She was still pissed, but the look on her face told me that she was more curious.
I continued. “Here on Earth, people don’t have magic. But an Aurelian can sense magic use like an aura. My mom says that I light up like a beacon and the baby and I aren’t safe here anymore. She’s taking me back to Aurelia to learn my magic and have the baby.” She sat further back i
n her chair and rolled her eyes. “I’m serious, Tessa.”
“How dumb do you think I am?” she asked. “You just want to leave and never see me again. If that’s the case, bye.” She jumped up and started walking toward her room. I darted in front of her, blocking her way.
“If you think that I’d lie to you like that, then you don’t know me at all. I could have lied and told you I was leaving the country. That’s the excuse I told the school and Mrs. Wilby when I quit. But I couldn’t do that to you.”
Tears were streaming down my face. I hated this. I hated that I was leaving the only friend I’d ever had.
“I didn’t want you to think I would abandon you if I had any other choice. Mom says the baby and I will be in danger if I stay. I’m sorry I have to leave, but I don’t have any other option.” I raised my hands, palms up. “Please believe me, Tessa. You’re my sister, my best friend. I’d take you with me if I could but I can’t.”
She stared at me, the anger melting off of her. I could see tears filling her eyes, and she put her hands in mine.
“You’re telling the truth aren’t you?” she asked. I nodded.
I looked out the window and saw it was raining.
“Look outside,” I told her. She turned around, then looked back at me puzzled.
“There wasn’t a cloud in the sky when I got home,” she said.
“Apparently my emotions are tied to the weather,” I shrugged like it was no big deal, and wiped the tears off my face with the heel of hand.
Her eyebrows raised up on her forehead. She turned back toward the window and looked outside.
“Will you ever come back?” she asked, her voice small.
“I won’t lie to you. I don’t know.” She nodded, and both of us began to cry harder. We were silent for a few minutes, tears still streaming down our cheeks and watched the rain fall.