“Lukah,” Evangeline says, warning in her tone.
Harper pops her head out of the door next to him, her golden curls tamed into a braid that wraps around her head and falls against her shoulder. “I thought I smelled you.” Her greenish-blue eyes are bright like the calm waters of the sea on a sunny day.
I do a quick wave and offer a smile.
She turns her gaze to my dad. “And what great timing. I finished patching your uniform for you, Mr. Middleton.”
“That’s great news,” my dad says. “As soon as I’m done meeting with Evangeline, I’ll stop by and get it from you.”
“Good deal,” Harper replies.
Lukah chuckles and tugs on Harper’s hand, pulling her over to him. She wraps his arms around her midsection as he tucks her against them, and my heart softens a little at seeing how easily they fit together. At how, even with everything that has happened, love has still managed to thrive.
Harper tilts her head to the side. “I-uh… I’m sorry about your mother.” Empathy drowns her tone, and I have to swallow hard to get past the lump in my throat.
“Thanks,” I manage, trying my best to smile. Glad my dad’s hand still grips my shoulder, pouring strength into my heart.
Evangeline stops in front of what I assume is her apartment. Pushes the door open. Chrissa’s already waiting in front of the door when it swings wide.
“I thought I noticed your scent in the air,” she says as she runs and throws her arms around my waist. “Why haven’t you come to see me? Did I do something?” She’s staring up at me with these large, round, beautiful eyes that remind me so much of Jaxen, and I can’t help but melt.
I hug her tight as my dad and Evangeline move around us, over to the table.
“Of course you didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell her after she lets go, messing my hand through her hair. “I just… I just needed to get some things straight before I could see you all.”
She smiles wide at me, and then notices me looking at my dad. “Oh. I totally get it. Parental issues. I have them too.” She takes my hand and pulls me over to the table.
I laugh as warmth spreads between her hand and mine, and then an easy calm sets in.
“Mom keeps telling me I have to stay on this side of the fence, but I think it’s crap. I want to go for a run with my brothers. I mean, they can be on the other side, and we’re related, so it should be totally fine if I cross the fence.”
I rub the back of her head, trying not to smile at the cuteness of her frown. “Not everyone is as logical and good-hearted as you, Chrissa.”
“You got that right,” she frustratingly grunts. She tugs on my hand until I’m leaned in close, and then she whispers in my ear, “But you could put in a good word to my mom, right? She totally respects you.”
I smile at her. Dot the end of her nose. “I can try.”
Those words seem to mollify her as she grabs my hand again and pulls me around the corner, past the wall filled with pictures of all those we lost at the manor. The stabbing pain I brace myself for never comes. Just subsided grief. It takes me a moment to realize it’s because of Chrissa. She’s using her magic.
I look at her questioningly, and I can’t help but find myself caught up in the contagious innocence of her smile.
“You’re hurting,” she says, resting her hand against my pounding heart, and I suck in a sharp breath as I realize just how special she is. Just how amazing and perceptive she is. “I feel it too,” she continues, “and I know how to make it better. I’ve been practicing.”
“Chrissa,” Evangeline says knowingly from behind us. “What have I told you about using magic?”
Chrissa blows a wild, chunky curl off her face and frowns. “But, Mom!”
“No buts,” Evangeline says, biting back a smile. Her back is ramrod straight as she sits. “Come.” She points to the chair at the other end of someone else’s table.
My dad’s already in his seat, looking at Evangeline. “What did you mean about my wife not being gone?”
A tornado forms in my stomach as I wait for her to explain what she means. As I stare with rapt anticipation at her. In her cold eyes, I know she knows something. Something that might lift this awful boulder off my heart.
Evangeline blinks steadily at us, not saying anything right away.
Suspense is a pair of hands wrapped around my neck.
When she finally speaks, it’s like a breath of fresh air. “Did your mother ever tell you the stories of the dwelling?” She’s looking right at me, dissecting every flicker of emotion on my face.
My forehead creases as I scan back through my memories. Through the very rare bits of information my mother would share with me at bedtime when I was younger. I repeat the words in my head, reaching further through the fog of my memories until I grasp the very same words Evangeline said in my mother’s tone.
“Yes,” I say, looking up with clarity in my eyes. I glance over at my dad. “I remember one night when I was little, right after my beta fish died, I cried about how awful it was that his poor little body was going to end up in some sewer somewhere. How I was scared that she and dad would die, and I would be left all alone. That death was awful and, if I could ever get strong enough, I would find a way to undo it.
“I remember she was in her Watchman uniform because they were getting ready to go on a hunt and my nanny was outside the door, waiting to read me a bedtime story like she always did. But not that night, because that night, my mom decided to tell me a story. A story about death.”
I swallow as the memory grows stronger in my mind, forming legs and hands and taking control of my tongue. I can’t talk fast enough. Can’t tell the memory quick enough.
“She said some souls, the strong ones, don’t just die and meet our makers. Sometimes, they slip into a sort of in-between called the dwelling, where they linger until they can find their way back. She said that should I ever discover a way to undo death, that is where I would find her.”
I look up at Evangeline, the culmination of the memory and her question settling in the pit of my stomach. “But that… that was just a bedtime story. There is no dwelling. We all know that. It was a childhood tale many Primeval mothers told their children to ease their fears of what the job meant… including Katie. Including Jaxen.”
Evangeline blinks, looking like she has distaste in her mouth at the mention of Jaxen’s almost nonexistent childhood.
My dad reaches out for my hand. Rubs his thumb across it.
Evangeline shifts in her seat, the small hiccup of my admittance long gone from her gaze. “Who said it wasn’t real?”
I look at her funny. Scratch at the back of my head. “Everyone. We all know it isn’t real.” My voice is paper thin, like it doesn’t even buy its own words.
She doesn’t budge. “Be specific, Faye. Who says it isn’t real? Who has the authority to tell you it doesn’t exist?”
I think about it for a moment. No one ever actually said it wasn’t real. It was just a shared story many Primeval children heard when they were little. Like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Eventually, when we were old enough, the magic behind those stories vanished because reality and consciousness had taken hold in our aging minds.
But… then again, our kind came from magic.
I lean forward, my heart running circles around my chest. Feel my eyes growing wide with hope and surprise. There’s a sudden flush to my skin, as if the thought alone struck a match and lit a fire beneath my cheeks. “Are you saying the dwelling is real?”
Her eyes swim with satisfaction. “I’m saying that not everything you think isn’t real is correct.”
My dad pushes back in his chair and stands. The sudden shift in his mood hits the air like a hard, cold gust of wind. “Just where do you get off playing with my daughter’s emotions?” he snaps. “This isn’t funny. We know there’s no such thing as the dwelling. If there were, then surely, our people would know of this. I would have Mary back in my arms.”
&nb
sp; “Mother?” Chrissa says, looking at Evangeline, eyes pulled together with concern.
Evangeline is unmoved by his anger. She summons the vase that sat on the center of the table to her. We watch as it slides to a stop in front of her, and then she reaches in and touches one of the fibrous, green leaves. “Atropa belladonna. Known to some as nightshade, and to most others as simply belladonna. It has many uses, as you may know, in the matters of being a witch. Like connecting us to a plane that allows us to see each other’s inner balance. Or allowing us to travel outside of the body.
“But that’s not all it’s used for. An experienced witch knows this. Especially a witch who specializes in seeing the future, such as your mother.” She looks up at me, drilling in everything she’s trying to say. “I knew her, you know. Before the fallout with Bael and my… change. We attended the academy together. Even shared a few classes.”
I look over at my father, whose fists are clenched against the table. His jaw is stiff, and I worry he might leave before we get the chance to find the answers we’ve been looking for. I’m scared he might ask me to come too, and it will be a moment we haven’t breached with each other before.
The moment I say no.
“She was a very bright girl back then,” Evangeline continues, watching my father and me closely. “Even before we were taught how to strengthen our gift of foresight, she was able to see more than most. More than me even, and I was at the top of my class.”
“Your point, Evangeline?” my dad says tiredly as he rubs at his eyes. I see the exhaustion in his movements. Hear the strain in his voice as Evangeline dances around the subject of my mom as if she were talking about the weather.
And, when I look at him, it’s like seeing him in a new light. He was a person before all of this. A kid, just like my mother, who attended the academy with the hopes and dreams we’ve all shared at some point or another… and their lives were all interconnected to one another.
Even to Jaxen’s mother.
How strange.
How odd to wake up and realize we are more than ourselves. That this world is bigger than the brains in our heads. Bigger than the thoughts that fill them—that feel as powerful and as vast as the universe we float in.
Evangeline leans back, clasping her hands against the table and redirecting the attention back to her story. “My point is, as a witch in your fourth and final year, if you pass the advanced clairvoyance test, and I don’t just mean scrape by, I mean ace it, then you’re selected to take a course not handed out to other witches. A private, after-school sort of class that was created by the Divine Cecilia—the Divine whose gift of foresight became our Coven’s saving grace.”
The Divine who foresaw that I would come into existence, I think to myself.
I’m staring so intently at her, dangling off every word. My dad crosses his arms and stares across the room, indecision wrestling on his face.
Evangeline doesn’t waste her opportunity to pounce. “Mary and I… we learned things that only a select few witches know. Strong witches. Witches with the potential to change destiny for the better.” She pauses. Looks dead at me. “Or the worst.”
“And?” I ask, swallowing.
She leans forward again. “And, in short, among many other things, we were taught to ingest belladonna regularly. In quantities not recommended to most, and only at night, when our minds are open to the spirits. It’s there that witches such as we invoke spirits and see what others cannot. See futures. See pasts. See those who have been lost to us.”
My breath catches. I remember Cassie telling me long ago that one of my talents were invoking and evoking.
“Yes,” she says, noting the spark of light in my eyes. “I felt it within you. The talent. It’s stronger than I’ve ever felt in anyone… even Mary. If you practiced hard enough, I’m sure you’d be able to invoke a spirit to this plane, but that is for another conversation. I saw Mary, two nights past in a dream. It’s been many years since I’ve practiced witchcraft in such a way but, being here, in this city, brought back old memories. Old feelings long forgotten. So I bought this plant and decided to get back in touch with one of my very few talents. One I ignored after abandoning my boys and becoming an Alpha to a pack of wolves who were just as lost as I was. I didn’t want to know our future. Didn’t want to see what was to come. But I can’t keep running from who I am.”
Her words are like a mirror of everything I’ve been faced against. The running. The dodging. The refusal to acknowledge the past long enough so I can face the future.
It has to stop, and it has to stop with me.
She’s nodding, as if she knows the conclusion I’ve come to and completely agrees. “That night, after I ingested the belladonna, Mary came to me in a dream. In a place I suspect was her inner balance.”
I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. “And that was?” I ask, wishing I had been there to see what she saw.
Evangeline closes her eyes as if recalling the memory. “Bright colored walls. The smell of roast permeating the air. Sun filtering in from all sides.”
“Our kitchen,” my dad says, leaning closer to the table now. “What did she say?”
Evangeline’s eyes flicker open and settle on him. “I’m not sure. You see, when the dead speak, they don’t speak the way you and I do. They show you things. Things you’re meant to unravel.”
I’m flying, riding the high of her words as hope yawns from within the cave of my heart. Stretches her limbs and stands tall, filling my veins with a sudden burst of energy. With longing, desire, and need. A desperate need to see what Evangeline saw.
To see my mother once more.
I’m on my feet, standing in front of her before anyone can blink. Holding my arms out, I say, “Show me.”
She looks up, smiling like she was waiting for this moment, and then latches onto my arms, using the link I set up between us back at the manor to show me what she’s seen in the same way she and the wolves share images.
Instantly, my mind is overcome with joy when I see my mother’s back, standing in front of the sink that overlooks our backyard. She’s washing dishes, wearing a bright yellow cardigan and a pair of white capris. The moment I step into the kitchen, she turns around, her hands dripping bubbles and water against the checkered tile.
She nods in my direction, a bright smile spread across her lips, and then dries her hands on the dish towel. When I meet her across the kitchen, she pulls me into a hug, and I think I might collapse right there from the joy bursting through the cracks in my soul. She hugs me for a moment, and then pulls back, taking my hands in hers.
It’s then the images begin.
Me jumping on her bed with her, laughing, when I was little.
Her dancing with my father in the living room while I jump and laugh around them.
The back of a man I swear I’ve seen before, but can’t place, holding his hands out as my mother drops an amulet in them.
My parents on a late-night hunt. My father nearly losing his head to a werewolf as he tries to fend it off.
My mother using so much magic she depletes herself as a swarm of demons surrounds her and my father.
Clara.
Clara pushing through that swarm of demons with a smirk on her face. She’s talking, saying something I can’t make out, and then my parents are taken. Shoved into a cell in the Underground.
My mother’s tied up. Bound and kneeling on the ground in a dark, damp cell. I watch her as she scoots forward amongst the thousands of pieces of jagged rock until she’s gripping the bars of her cell.
I can’t make out what she’s doing at first. Maybe trying to reach out to me, but then she points and I turn, trying to see what she’s pointing to.
But it isn’t a what… it’s a who. I step forward. It’s a man in a dark, hooded cloak. I try to get closer to him… and then I see it. The amulet wrapped around his neck. I want to get closer, to figure out who he is, but then everything goes dark. When I open my eyes again, I’m staring
at Evangeline.
“She was pointing to a man wearing a necklace. A necklace she made for him,” I say. I turn to my dad. “Do you know who she did that for?”
He thinks for a moment. “No,” he finally says. “Your mother had a way of shutting me out when it came to matters she didn’t want me to know of. It was an agreement between us when we first became affinity partners. There were things about the future I didn’t want to know. Things I wouldn’t have been strong enough to see, so she ensured I’d never find that part of her power in her mind.”
“I think there’s something she wants me to know about him. He was there, in the Underground.”
“I don’t remember seeing a man,” he says as pain lances across his face from his memories. “Just darkness.”
I hug him to me, riding off the high of just seeing her.
“Did you see him?” I ask Evangeline, hoping she’d have some clue as to who the familiar stranger was.
“No.” Her eyes avert to the side, and I wonder if she’s telling me the truth.
“Teach me how to access that part of my mind. How much belladonna do I take?”
“Wait a minute, Faye,” my dad starts to say, but Evangeline opens her palm. Inside it rests a small vile of belladonna.
“Three drops before bed, and then meditate until you’re relaxed into your inner balance. From there, it’s up to the spirits to decide what you do and do not see. With the Veil dropped, it shouldn’t take much to reach her. But that is a double-edged sword. Others can reach you too, so be wary of who you talk to.”
I take the vial despite my father’s warnings.
“Faye?” It’s Jaxen, reaching out to me. “We have to meet soon.”
“I’m coming,” I say back to him through our connection.
I look to everyone. “I have to go.”
“Where are you going?” Chrissa asks me with a small pout to her bottom lip. She looks so sad. So pitiful and serious.
I smile as her sincerity tugs on my heart. “To meet up with your brothers and their partners. We have a few things we need to discuss before we meet with Seamus and Mack later.” I kneel until I’m eye level with her. “But how about this? Later, after we’re done doing all the boring, adult things… maybe we could take you for a run. I can show you a few places in the city.”
Everdeep (The Night Watchmen Series Book 4) Page 7