Destiny Revealed

by Bailey, Nicole

  “No,” Nonna interrupted, turning to face me. “What did you do to my sweet Nico?”

  “I told you they would love you. Sounds like she likes you even more than me,” I said to Nick. She gave me a stern look, so I went back to Italian again. “It wasn’t me. The others wanted to take away his ability to shift.” Both my grandparents inhaled in shock and it made me feel like crap all over again.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” Nick defended me. “They didn’t like the way I looked at her.”

  “And growled,” I interrupted. Nonna raised her eyebrows and Nick shrugged.

  “She convinced them just to take my howl for a week.” He shuddered at the memory.

  “But it felt wrong. I didn’t want to do it,” I added. My grandparents continued to listen intently as Nick and I went back and forth telling them about the indescribable pull we had to each other. We didn’t mention Mexico other than to say that’s when everyone else found out about us.

  Nick told them how I asked him to be bound to me and Nonno chuckled. “That’s our Sofia.” Nick laughed along with him. “Always a bossy one.”

  “Hey, I am not,” I argued and they both laughed harder. Nonna patted my arm in understanding.

  “And what about the kiss?” she interrupted again.

  Nick and I looked at each other, stunned. How did she know there was a kiss that started it all? “Which kiss exactly?” I asked tentatively.

  “The one that brought you together. What did you feel?” she said.

  “Did your mamma say something to her maybe?” Nick asked me in English.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know that she even knows anything about it. It’s not like I ever went into details with her about how we got together,” I answered.

  “Italiano. Italiano,” she repeated for what seemed like the fiftieth time.

  “Yes, yes, sorry,” I apologized.

  “Well, what of the kiss?” she asked again.

  “Oh, well we were arguing,” Nick started. Nonno laughed out loud and Nick smiled. “I was mad about the howl and she was pretending not to know what I was talking about. And then it was like…” he stopped, trying to come up with the right words.

  “Time stopped,” I finished. “Like time stopped. And something sparked inside me,” I remembered.

  “What, it did?” he turned to me.

  “Yeah, I had forgotten about that until just now. But when I turned around to face you, it was like everything was in slow motion and then you kissed me and something caught on fire within me.” We were staring at each other now. Both remembering the wonder of it all.

  We were quiet until my grandmother said, “And?”

  “And what? That was it,” I frowned. “What is she going on about?” I asked Nick in English. “I don’t understand what she wants from me.” She started rambling on to Nonno about how disrespectful we were being by continuing to speak to each other in English, but he told her that it was okay. We needed our privacy sometimes. She started to argue again, but I interrupted. “I don’t understand, Nonna. What exactly are you asking?”

  “When did you know for sure?” she specified.

  “Oh, well I knew right away,” Nick smiled. “I was a goner after that. She was all I thought about. But she tried to ignore me. She kept walking around with that idiota.”

  “Chi?” she asked.

  “Kajetan,” I answered. Nick’s chest rumbled and my grandparents both turned to look at him. I elbowed him and he stopped and apologized. “He doesn’t like to hear his name,” I told them.

  “She kissed him,” Nick growled.

  “No. After you?” Nonna asked. He just nodded.

  “In my defense, Nick and I were not supposed to be together. I tried to convince myself to be with someone else. Nathalie told me to kiss him to see if the spark was there.”

  “And it was not,” she said it as a statement, not a question.

  “No, it wasn’t,” I agreed. “Nick saw us and ran. My heart broke when I heard him howl. And that’s when I knew.”

  She was smiling warmly at me now. “Yes, this is right,” she said.

  “Okay, seriously, what the hell is she talking about?” I asked as I turned to Nick again. “She has got to know something so why isn’t she telling us?” This time she didn’t say anything while we were speaking to each other.

  “I don’t know. Ask her,” Nick shrugged.

  “What do you know, Nonna?” I asked, turning back to her. “Is something in your book? Why won’t you just tell us?”

  “I am just guessing, but maybe you should start at the beginning,” she answered vaguely.

  “No, you’re not just guessing. You seem to know way too much about this,” I argued.

  “You take my book and you look for yourself. Maybe you will find something,” she smiled. I was seriously getting frustrated with the old lady.

  “Now, you get your things from the car and we will take you to your room,” Nonno said. I still sat there staring at her, but Nick got up from the table and went back out to the car.

  He came in with our bags just as I was standing up and we followed my grandfather down the narrow hallway to the right. We had already passed through the living room on the way to the kitchen at the back of the house. There were only three bedrooms, but they were all pretty big.

  “Which one did Mamma sleep in?” I asked as we passed.

  “This one here was Alessandro’s room and your room is where Giuliana and Fabrizia slept,” he answered as he ushered us into a beautiful blue room with a queen-sized bed. I was mesmerized by all of it and took in every detail. They left us to get settled and I walked slowly around the room looking at all the pictures on the wall.

  “Hey, I drew this,” I said, picking up a picture in a frame on the small desk on the other side of the room.

  Nick came up behind me to look at it. “How old were you?”

  “Hmm… maybe fifteen. It’s their house. I used to look through Mamma’s album at home and I probably memorized every detail about the outside of this place.” I smiled to myself.

  “So you’ve always been an amazing artist,” Nick nuzzled my neck.

  “Hey, none of that. Let’s get some breakfast. We can unpack later.”

  We made our way back to the kitchen where Nonna was putting a plate of biscuits on the table. “You must be starving,” she said as we walked in and sat down. “Werewolves eat more, no?”

  Nick grinned and I nodded. “Yes, they do tend to eat more than a normal person.”

  “Hey, I’m offended by that. I’m perfectly normal,” he said. I kissed his nose and Nonna clapped her hands together.

  “This is so beautiful,” she said to my grandfather. He was sitting at the table with us, but very focused on his morning paper and hot milk. He just nodded at her. I figured he probably did that a lot. It reminded me of what Babbo did sometimes when he pretended to be listening to Mamma.

  The rest of the morning, we spent visiting about all kinds of things. We talked about school, our apartment, Aberto’s restaurant. She wanted to know every detail about our lives. It was so nice to talk to them for so long with no interruptions from Luca or Mamma hogging the computer screen. She was snuggled next to me on the floral couch in the living room, holding my hand. Every so often she would squeeze me, almost as if she was making sure I was really there.

  Around one o’clock, the front door opened and I heard a loud female voice calling out. “Is your entire family that loud? I thought my mom was bad,” Nick joked, speaking English to me.

  “Of course we are,” my aunt Fabrizia replied in English as she walked into the room. Nick turned red and started to apologize. “Don’t worry about it. You’re right. We are very loud. I forget sometimes.”

  “By the way, my aunt speaks English,” I told him with a silly grin. “Nick, this is Zia Fabrizia.” He stood and she came in for a hug and cheek kisses.

  “So good to see you both. Giuliana didn’t tell us how handsome you were, Nico
,” she smiled. She turned to Nonna. “Mamma, everyone is here for lunch. What can I help with?”

  We heard the front door again and it sounded like two people were in a heated argument. “That is my CD, Carolina.”

  “So what, Mamma said I could listen to it. We share in this family,” another girl replied.

  “Oh shut up you guys,” a teenage boy interrupted. “Sofia is here.”

  All three of my cousins ran over to me at once. “Pietro!” I shouted as I hugged the oldest of Fabrizia’s children. We were the closest in age out of all the cousins. He was seventeen and just finished with school. He gave me cheek kisses before grabbing Nick’s hand and shaking it firmly.

  “Welcome to the family, Nick. Good to meet you. So, what’s it like to be a werewolf?” he started.

  “Pietro, stop. We just got here. Give the poor guy a second to get used to all of this madness,” Fabrizia chastised.

  Gabriela and Carolina shoved their way through to me and each gave me a big hug. “I have something for you in my suitcase,” I said. “Follow me and we’ll go get it.”

  As we started down the hall, they started in on me, “Oh wow, Sofia, he’s gorgeous,” fourteen year old Carolina said. “No wonder you fell in love with him.”

  “Idiota, he can still hear you,” Pietro shouted to our backs. The three of us started to giggle like little girls and ignored him.

  “I could still hear them even if they were in the bedroom,” Nick said.

  “Yeah, they’re sooo loud,” Pietro agreed.

  “Werewolf hearing actually,” Nick chuckled.

  I threw my suitcase up on the bed, unzipped it and pulled out the box of chocolates. Carolina clapped her hands together and snatched the box out of my hands. “Uh, you’re welcome,” I laughed.

  Gabriela picked up Luca’s picture, “What’s this?”

  “It’s our backyard,” I smiled. “Luca took it. It’s for Nonna and Nonno.”

  “That’s your backyard? Wow, when can we visit?” Gabriela asked.

  “Anytime you want. Nick and I have our own place across town, but we live by the woods too.”

  “Speaking of Nick,” sixteen year old Gabriela said. “He is sooo hot. Are all werewolves that gorgeous?” I heard laughing from the living room and knew that Nick heard her. She didn’t realize it and kept talking. “I mean, does he have some friends or something he can hook me up with? Does he know anyone here? Because if not, I’m prepared to move to America.”

  “Um, well, he does have family here in the Alps. I’m not sure how good looking they are. Two of his pack members in Arizona are spoken for, but Tristan and Mateo don’t have girlfriends,” I smiled.

  “Mamma,” she shouted as she took off down the hall back towards the living room. “Can I go to America for the summer?” Carolina and I followed behind her, and as soon as I saw Nick’s face, I started laughing so hard I had to sit down.

  My aunt was arguing with Gabriela about how expensive it was to go to America, but she wouldn’t have any of it. She kept telling her mom how it would be a good experience for her and she had a free place to stay and it would help her with her English. “You already speak English,” Fabrizia reminded her.

  “But I could get even better at it,” she whined.

  “Where’s Zio Vincenzio?” I asked, trying to help out.

  “He’s on his way here,” my aunt answered.

  Pietro was still asking Nick twenty questions about being a werewolf and Nick was being a great sport and answering them all patiently.

  The door opened again and five more kids poured in along with Mamma’s brother and his wife, Mia. All the kids ran to me and swarmed around me. Aletta and Arabella were ten year old twins and latched on to me. Alfredo was only seven and tried to squish in between them to get to me. Alfonso just gave me an I’m-too-cool-for-hugs twelve year old boy head nod. And Amadeo reached over the younger ones for cheek kisses. Apparently fifteen year old boys weren’t too cool for cheek kisses.

  Mia yelled at the little ones to get off me and then she came in for a giant hug. I introduced Nick to everyone. “I know you won’t remember the names of my ridiculously large family, but this is Alessandro, Mia, Alfredo, Amadeo, Alfonso, and the twins, Aletta and Arabella.

  “It’s so great to meet you all,” he said politely before being attacked by my young cousins. The girls were wrapped around him in a death grip and wouldn’t let go. Mia came over and dragged them off.

  Nick and I followed Nonno through the backdoor from the kitchen into a beautiful courtyard. There was a massive wooden table in the center underneath a trellis covered with flowers growing up the sides and over the top of it. We took a seat around the table and immediately got swarmed by cousins again.

  Rapid fire questions came at us from all directions. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was so comforting to have all the noise around me. I could hear Nonno’s gravelly voice talking with my zio Alessandro about his job, Nonna was yelling out cooking instructions to Fabrizia and Mia in the kitchen. Pietro was on the other side of Nick rattling off questions at him. I couldn’t help but stare at Nick and smile. It brought me so much happiness to see him surrounded by my family being fully accepted.

  The twins kept playing with my hair while Gabriela drilled me about Arizona. “Can you please talk to Mamma for me? I really really want to come this summer,” she pleaded.

  “I’m so not getting in the middle of it,” I said. “It would be so fun if you could come, but maybe you should wait until you’re finished with school.”

  “I already finished,” she whined. I forgot about the different school system.

  “But what about higher secondary school?” I asked. “Have you thought of what you want to do?” That got her mind off the States for awhile as she chatted away with me about how she wanted to go into art.

  “Nick is an amazing artist,” I said. Her eyes lit up and she looked at him with a dreamy expression. I elbowed her hard in the side and gave her a dirty look. “Eyes off.”

  “Sorry, he’s just so damn beautiful,” she said in English.

  “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Amadeo teased. She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Maybe if Pietro went with me, Mamma would be okay with it,” she mused. She stood up and walked around to where Pietro was still talking to Nick. They had moved on from what it was like to be a wolf and were now discussing a cute witch that Pietro was dating.

  I just sat back and listened to all the chatter for a few minutes while the twins continued to play with my hair. They were braiding it and took one of their own hair ties to finish it off for me. When they were done, I got up and wandered to the kitchen to see if I could help the aunts and Nonna. They mostly had everything done, which was good because I wouldn’t have been much help. I would never starve to death, but Nick was definitely the cook at our house.

  We had a nice long lunch and the rest of the family left, but planned to come back the following night for a late dinner. “I’m going to gain like ten pounds while we’re here,” I complained. “The food is so good and they eat so late at night.”

  “You’ll always be perfect to me, even if you gain fifty pounds,” Nick smiled. I rolled my eyes.

  Before bed, Nonna handed me her book. I was surprised, but excited. So far, I hadn’t found anything in Mamma’s book and I was about three quarters into it, so I was happy to have something new to look through. I was hopeful after Nonna had acted so strange earlier in the day.

  “What should we do first tomorrow?” Nick asked as we were settling in our room for the night.

  “Beach for sure. I have to see these turquoise waters Mamma told me about,” I answered.

  We set a tentative schedule as we climbed into bed, but decided to be spontaneous and do whatever sounded good once we were out.

  I couldn’t sleep that first night. Between the nap on the plane and the eight hour time difference, my inner clock was all out of whack. “I can go in the other room,” I told Nick.
“I want to stay up and look through Nonna’s book. She was acting so bizarrely this morning that I want to dig straight into it.”

  “Just stay here. I can sleep with the light on,” Nick said. I leaned my back against the headboard, pulled my knees up and rested the book on my lap. Nick snuggled up next to me and closed his eyes. I moved my eyes from the book to Nick. I couldn’t help but stare at how beautiful he was. His profile was perfect to me. I was getting distracted from my task so I turned back to the book.

  I didn’t want to spend all my time in Italy researching so I hoped I would find something right away.

  ~Chapter Ten~

  It felt like I had been searching forever. And now, here it was in front of me. The reason we were meant to be together. I was so excited I had to read it three times. I wanted to make sure I got the translation right.

  The prophecy was in Theban, an ancient alphabet witches often used to hide the contents of their Book of Shadows from non-magic people. I was a little rusty, though I learned the letters as soon as I could write.

  “I found it, Nick!” I couldn’t help but shake him awake. “Hmm..?” he mumbled, rolling over to face me. “A prophecy here in Nonna's book!” I couldn’t contain

  my excitement. He looked over my shoulder at the writing on the thin, delicate page as he blinked his eyes open. “What is that language?” he asked, scrunching his face up.

  “It’s Theban,” I answered. When he gave me a confused look, I added, “It’s an ancient witches’ alphabet.”

  “Well, are you going to read it to me because I sure can’t read it.”

  “Of course. I might be a little off on the exact translation, but the gist of it says,

  In the land of the free where the desert and forest collide above the valley of the sun beyond the great canyon, the white witch will be born out of love between a shifter and witch who have broken the curse and united our peoples once again.

  Her powers will equal those of Mother Hecate, she will have the ability to shift to her true form. She will bring light to the darkness and guard and protect our peoples.

  I looked up at Nick when I finished. “So, how do you know this is talking about us? It’s talking about someone being born. Is that you?”