by Wren Emerson
"Yeah, I know. It's just going to be weird not having you around all the time anymore, but I'm really happy for you and your freedom. I guess I just always thought that'd I'd be the one who fled first." He snorted.
Shep sobered up. "If things get too intense, I'll help you as much as I'm able. Small town politics are a bitch and you never want to cross your loyalties if you can help it, but I'm willing to risk a lot of grief for you, T."
I giggled. "You make it sound so dark. I think I'll be ok. Thanks though. You're a great guy and I've been lucky to have you around to help me turn into a functional human being."
He was smiling, but it looked a little forced. "Well, I'm going to take off now. Just remember what I said. If you need me, let me know. You’ve got my number."
I waved after him until he disappeared around a corner. Krista joined me, standing on a stair above me and although she was a good four or five inches shorter than me, the stair gave her enough elevation to casually wrap an arm around my shoulder and give me a comforting hug. I was lucky to have a new friend come into my life just as I was losing an old one.
***
Chapter 4
The next week passed in a happy blur. I missed Shep fiercely when I had quiet moments to think, but most of the time I kept myself busy. Evan continued to escort me to classes and sit with me at lunch. I enjoyed spending time with him and I thought that maybe he liked me a little more than as just friends, but having no experience with such things, I was content to just spend time with him and let that nourish my romance novel fueled fantasies. Krista never seemed to be around during school hours. Whenever I'd see her in the halls she'd suddenly remember that she had pressing engagements elsewhere. I couldn't bring myself to ask her why and I couldn't be mad at her because at home she was nothing but enthusiastic and sweet.
Lydia continued to make catty comments at my expense any chance she got. The guys were quick to jump to my defense and usually Olivia and Natalie could be counted on when I needed a friendly face, but Mattie seemed a little cooler. She wasn't overtly rude, but there seemed to be some distance. I found out that she was related to Coach Carter, although I wasn't sure how close the connection was. I hadn't had another run in with her since the first day of school and I was ever vigilant to make sure I never did again. The lady was scary.
The only real dark spot in my days at school was Ben. He continued to ignore me in class and the few occasions I attempted to talk to him in the halls he either glared at me or just walked away. I knew I should just let the rejection roll off my back, but I felt real regret at the loss of him as a potential friend. As much as I liked Evan and Krista and some of the other kids I'd met, none of them were as enjoyable to talk to as Ben was.
Even my brushes with the adults of Desire were more easily handled now that I went places with Krista. People responded kindly to her and when I was with her, it was like I was traveling in a bubble of influence and they were more pleasant to me. I asked her one day if she had any idea why the people in town were so awful to me when I was alone, but she mumbled half heard answers about the unpredictability of small town people to perceived outsiders and changed the subject.
One evening after Krista got home from cheerleading practice she and I were in our room laying across our beds.
"Hey," I asked, "What do you think of Evan Spencer?"
"I think he's pretty incredible actually." Her face lit up.
"Oh yeah? Do you like him?" I watched her carefully.
"You mean, like romantically?" She blushed when I nodded.
"No, not like that. I just mean that he's a good guy. He's really accomplished in school and you've seen him so you know he's totally hot. Plus, he's from a great family so, of course all the girls want him. But he's always super nice. Some guys let that stuff go to their heads. James Middleton comes to mind." I wasn't convinced. I still thought that maybe Krista had a crush on Evan, but I accepted her attempt to change the subject.
"Yeah, James is kind of an asshat. He and Lydia make a great couple." Krista and I laughed.
"Why do you ask?" She asked.
"I'm not sure what to think about him. He's been really sweet to me since we met, but I'm not sure how much to read into that. I've never dated a guy before. I've never even kissed a boy." Now I was blushing.
"Oh. Well, I'm pretty sure that can be fixed without too much trouble." She teased.
I flopped from my side to my back. "I know it's kind of stupid, but I've always pictured my first kiss as being a big deal. I'm not an over the top romantic or anything. It's not like I honestly believe I'll marry the first guy I ever kiss, but I don't want it to just be with some random guy at a party or something."
"I don't think that's stupid. As a girl who had her first kiss at a party as part of a party game, I can honestly tell you that it's not the most romantic experience."
There was a sharp knock on the door, followed almost immediately by Marla opening the door. She didn't even glance at me and instead said to Krista, "Mother Georgina died."
"Oh no." I felt a vague sadness, but I barely knew the woman. I had only met with her two or three times more after the first day I arrived. I expected to see some genuine sadness from Marla and Krista, but there was nothing. Marla left the room as suddenly as she entered it.
"Are you ok?" I asked Krista.
She seemed preoccupied, but I believed her when she told me she was fine. I'm not sure what level of grief I thought Krista would be suffering, but she certainly looked like she was doing ok. I excused myself to find my mother and Ramona.
I found them both sitting in the upstairs suite with Mother Georgina's body. "Marla told Krista and I that she died. Are you guys ok?"
Mom looked like she might be sad, but it was such a distant, disconnected emotion. It seemed like the kind of sadness you'd see from someone who just learned a celebrity died. Assuming it was a celebrity that they were barely familiar with. She nodded and continued to look thoughtful.
"We're fine. She was old and it was her time to go." Ramona was oddly full of energy. Instead of mourning, she seemed to be feeling jubilant. Unable to contain it anymore, she got up and started pacing the room. Her loose silk tunic rippled behind her as she did laps. I watched her for a minute longer, noting a faint smile.
What kind of sick woman was happy when her mother died? Would I feel that way if my mother died? Was I even capable of going on with my life knowing that someone close to me, however distant emotionally, died? I wanted to be able to say that I was able to answer that as a firm no, but unfortunately I was forced to the conclusion that I just couldn't know until the time came. I barely knew my mom. Losing her might not seem like such a great loss to me at all.
We buried Mother Georgina a few days later. It was an overcast day, perfectly suited for the mood I was in. The rest of the family was still strangely apathetic to the death except for Ramona who nearly capered with glee. I was confused and uncomfortable with the nonchalant way everyone was dealing with this loss. Ramona insisted that I stay home from school until after the funeral so I'd had ample time to assess the nonexistent sorrow. Given my upbringing I knew I wasn't a good person to judge what was normal, but this just seemed wrong.
The service was short and well attended. I couldn't be sure, of course, but it seemed like most of the town turned out. At one point I overheard Ramona telling mom that it was a good show of respect and she was glad to see that they were following tradition.
As we were walking back to the cars to leave the cemetery, Ramona said, "Thistle, when we get home change clothes and meet your mother and I in the library in fifteen minutes. We've got some things to discuss."
I wondered what they wanted to talk to me about. I regretted that I wasn’t riding with Krista so that we could have discussed it, but she was in a second car with her parents and Darcy. Desire is a small town and we were home within ten minutes. I slipped on my work out clothes with plans to go for a jog after my meeting.
Even though I to
ok almost the full fifteen minutes I was allotted, mom didn't show up for another five minutes and we waited on Ramona together for almost twenty more minutes. She was a master of being fashionably late. I'd watched her arrive late to more appointments over the years than I could possibly remember. She was able to charm herself out of any kind of bad feelings. I wasn't feeling particularly forgiving at the moment though. I just wanted this conversation to be over.
I was on the verge of going up to my room when Ramona finally appeared. She looked especially regal this afternoon. She swapped the black dress for a lightweight sun dress that showed off her slender waist to great effect. Her hair was pinned in an effortless French knot. It managed to look both dressy and casual. How a fashion noob like me was related to someone as knowledgeable about clothes as she was was a question I'd never managed to answer.
She walked in and sat in one of the two high backed reading chairs in the library. Mom sat in the other and I was lounging on the window seat. Ramona didn't talk at first. She just spent a few minutes staring out the window behind me.
Finally Ramona said, "There's no easy way to tell you something like this. I've tried to come up with a way to ease you into this conversation, but if it exists, I can't think of it."
Intriguing. "Tell me what?"
"Desire isn't a typical town."
"I agree. It has more jerk asses per capita than any other town of equal size in the nation." Clearly I was dealing with people with no sense of humor since my hilarious line failed to elicit even one mercy laugh.
"If you've noticed how odd some of the people here act then you might already understand a little of what I'm about to tell you. Desire has a power structure that nobody outside of the town knows about. As far as the rest of the world knows, we have a mayor and exactly the right number of councilmen that is called for in a town this size. But it's just a cover for the real power in Desire. We do that because we don't want anyone to ever have a reason to look too closely to how we do business here."
I tapped my foot restlessly against the edge of the window seat. "You are starting to go all conspiracy theory on me here."
Ramona nodded, pleased. "Yes! That's exactly what it is."
Oh lord, she's lost her mind from the grief. "I think you should probably lie down for a while, ma'am. You aren't making any sense and I think Marla might seriously try to put you in a home if she hears you."
"Marla hasn't the power or the backbone to do anything of the kind." She snapped. "And I'm making perfect sense if you'll just sit still and listen until I'm done."
I looked helplessly at my mother, but she didn't seem at all uneasy by Ramona's crazy talk of conspiracies and secret leadership. "You need to hear this, Thistle."
"Your mother and I, you, and everyone else in Desire are all witches."
I pasted a smile on my face and hoped it didn't look as sick as I felt. Ramona was clearly losing her mind before my eyes, but at least she wasn't violent or flinging poo. "Uh huh. That's great!"
Ramona glowered at me. "Quit patronizing me, young lady. I'm not crazy and I'd thank you to stop acting like I'm a rabid dog about to attack. Now listen." She folded her hands into her lap and looked for all the world like a librarian about to start story time for a group of preschoolers.
"The women in the town of Desire have always exhibited Talents. Sometimes they can be unpredictable, but usually Talents are similar within Families. Our Family has power over words and communication. My personal Talent is to make a person feel whatever emotions I write down. It's why my books sell so well even though I don't know the first thing about writing a book. I had to switch to fluff books because when people read my first novel they felt so much hopelessness and despair during the dark parts that a lot of people just went out and killed themselves." She laughed as if the idea of dozens of people killing themselves was hilarious.
"You already know that your mother can remember anything she ever reads."
"Regular people can do that. Nothing witchy about it." I interrupted.
"I agree it's a rather weak showing. I should have been more discriminating her father, but I let competitiveness get in the way of making a good match." Mom didn't so much as flinch while Ramona insulted her supposed powers. "Marla turned out stronger, but it was useless to me. But that's why you are so important, dear. You can step up in your mother's place and carry on our Family's place in the Coven."
"Coven?" This was a really elaborate delusion.
"The real power in Desire is the Coven. It’s made up of the Matriarchs of the thirteen most powerful Families in town. Now that Mother is dead, I'm the Matriarch of the Madisons and someday you will take my place."
Oh great, now I'm guest starring in this mess of crazy. "So I have a power too, you said? Why haven't I seen any evidence of it?"
"Thistle, you not only have a power, it might very well be the strongest power of all. When we realized that you were so strong, Savannah and I knew we had to remove you from Desire for your own safety."
"So what is it that I do?"
Ramona looked a little uncomfortable, which was interesting because I'd never known her to admit wrong doing or shame in my entire life. "Well, we couldn't very well have you using your power untrained, you understand. So we created an aversion so that you'd never accidently use it. As it happens, when you wish for something, it becomes real."
"Are you kidding me? Now I know you're crazy." I jumped to my feet, unwilling to entertain anymore of this lunacy.
"Sit back down!" Ramona was on her feet and looking as angry as I'd ever seen her. "I know that we've given you a lot of free reign over the years, but you will respect our traditions now that we're home."
She waited until I was sitting sullenly on the bench before she continued. "Now as I was saying. We found you, as a toddler who barely knew how to speak, alone in your room one day. You were playing with dolls and you said, 'I wish I had a pony' and suddenly it was true. You had a pony. Because we were close to you, Savannah and I could remember how it had been in the reality before you had a pony and now we remembered a new reality where you had one. Nobody else we spoke to about it seemed to have any memories of the reality that existed before we bought you that pony. Because you see, that's how it happened in this new time line. We'd gone to a farm and bought you a beautiful butterscotch colored pony that we kept in a small barn we'd built on the edge of town on a piece of land we bought specially for it in this new reality."
Mom nodded, "It didn't take long to figure out that if you had made any wishes when we weren't around we wouldn't have any memories of it being any other way."
"Things aren't always handled in pretty ways here. You were too young to protect yourself and we knew that if anyone ever figured out what you could do, you'd be seen as a threat to the power structure and most likely killed."
"Killed? People don't just go around killing people. This isn't the wild west." I wanted to punch holes in their reasoning. Because if I couldn't then I might have to acknowledge the niggling thought in the back of my head that might be the memory of the incident they were talking about.
"You'd be surprised at what happens here." Mom said.
Ramona caught my eye. "We had to keep you safe from yourself as much as everyone else. We spent every moment within ear shot of you for the next several years, which was easily accomplished while living in the RV. Anytime we heard you start to say 'I wish', I'd beat you until I was sure you'd never want to say it again."
I was horrified by this revelation. "You made me believe that it's an obscene thing to say. I've had to leave conversations with nice people because when they said that it made me feel so uncomfortable I couldn't continue talking to them."
"I didn't have a choice. It's no different than punishing a child who plays with matches. The correct answer isn’t to let them continue playing with them until they manage to set themselves on fire. Maybe the lesson will be learned, but at what cost?"
"So now we're back in town and you're telli
ng me this. Why tell me now? Why not the first day we got here or even as we were driving up here?"
"Now that I'm Matriarch it's understood that you will be the one who replaces me as the Matriarch of this Family. Nobody knows what you can do, some would say nothing and that it's all an attempt to bluff. There are less powerful Families who would like to have a place in the Coven. If you are killed, then when I die another Family will have the opportunity to step into that place. The only way you can protect yourself is to know the danger you face and the means you have at your disposal to protect yourself. I've done as much as I can by ensuring that you can defend yourself physically and that you have a certain skill set that might come in handy at some point in the future. The rest is really up to you now."
Well, of course my life would be in danger. Every good delusion has an assassination plot.
Ramona sighed and slumped slightly in her chair. "If I'd had my way, I would have waited until you were an adult and brought you home while Mother was still in good health so that you could have learned more about the politics of Desire and about your own capabilities without so much danger. But when I heard Mother was sick, I knew we just didn't have time. If I hadn't been here when she died, Marla could have attempted a show of power and she might have succeeded and become Matriarch of the Family. Thank heavens for my alliance with Shep's Mother."