“Yes, you did!” Kelly yelled through her own tears. “You’ve been pushing me away ever since I got here. You’re piling lies on top of lies just to avoid telling me what’s really going on. I knew you were selfish, but I never, ever thought you’d…” she hiccuped, her body dissolving into sobs.
I reached out to embrace her, but she shied away. “I swear, Kelly, I didn’t mean to hurt you. She might be dangerous and I—”
“Why, is she a witch?” Kelly sneered. She got to her feet, fumbling for a hold on the edge of the bench. “Like you, right, Maeve? You’re a witch.”
The room disappeared. The only things I was aware of was Kelly’s cold glare and my heart pounding in my ears.
“I’m not a witch,” I said, but the words were weak, full of resignation.
Kelly snorted. “Jeez. I didn’t even really believe it, but if Maeve Crawford can’t even muster up the strength to deny the existence of witches, then I guess I’m convinced.”
“Moore.” Someone behind me rasped.
Kelly whipped around. “What?”
“Moore,” the woman who might’ve been my mother spoke, her voice like dirt being shoveled into a hole. “Her name is Maeve Moore.”
“Maeve,” Kelly said through gritted teeth. “Who is this person really, and why does she know your birth name?”
“Well.” My shoulders sagged. At least giving her this one truth might distract her from the witch thing for a while. “We’re not a hundred percent sure, but we think she might be my mother.”
“Jesus.” Kelly slid down the cabinet and sank to the floor, hugging her arms to her knees. “This is not happening.”
“Like I said, it’s not confirmed yet, but…” I gestured at the coughing woman. “There’s a certain family resemblance. It’s kind of a long story and I… I don’t want you to hate me.”
“Why would I hate you?”
“Don’t you hate me already?”
Kelly laughed. “Only because you’ve been lying to me and sneaking around and cheating on Arthur and that’s really gross and sinful, and I don’t understand why you’d want to hurt someone you care about.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I’m not cheating on Arthur.”
“You know I saw you with Flynn, and you’re still denying it!” Her voice rose an octave. “It’s disgusting, Maeve. Adultery is a sin. How can anyone trust you when you’re not faithful—”
Like a switch flicking in my brain, the mention of the word sin turned my distress into anger. “Just because your stupid religion doesn’t allow for girls and guys to have platonic friendships, or for girls and girls and guys and guys to hook up, doesn’t mean you get to lecture me on my relationships—”
“My stupid religion is the only reason you have a family in the first place!” Kelly screamed. “Do you think if Mom and Dad had been atheists like you, they’d have taken pity on some unholy daughter born in sin? And now you’re trying to tell me your mother is some random druggie in your kitchen. Look at her, Maeve! She can’t be a year or two older than you are. That’s not your mother. You’re lying again.”
“Christians don’t have a monopoly on kindness or love. I’ve learned more about morality in the last few weeks than I have in my entire life living in that backwards, judgmental hellhole of a town.”
“You mean you learned about morality while you were cheating on Arthur?”
“Um, Kelly, it’s fine,” Arthur said, but I held up a hand to stop him.
“I’m dealing with my grief in the best way I can,” I hissed. “You can ask the guys. I haven’t hurt anyone.”
“Except Uncle Bob,” Kelly shot back.
“That was different,” I flinched. “I did that for you. Because you were hurting in a hospital bed and I had to help you. It seems you’re fine to take the help of a sinner when it gets you a plane ticket to England and a bank account full of money, but as soon as it shits on your puritanical sensibilities you get all holier-than-thou.”
“This is so typical of you!” Kelly yelled. “Twisting everything around so I’m the one who looks like the bad guy. Nothing’s changed for you – your life is still perfect. You have an inheritance and a hot guy and a whole future. You could have sold this castle and gone to MIT and lived your life just the way you always wanted it. Instead, you chose to shit all over Mom and Dad’s memories. The sand isn’t even cold on their grave and you’ve already thrown everything they taught you out the window.”
“Get out,” I growled.
Kelly’s face froze. “Wait, Maeve, I didn’t—”
“No. We’re done.” I turned away. Behind me, Kelly let out a strangled sob. A moment later, I heard her feet running down the hall. Good. Let her go. Let her take her stupid glitter Barbie backpack and her seven deadly sins bullshit and fuck off to Germany, if that’s what she wants to do.
The woman coughed, her eyes meeting mine. Once again, I was struck by how exactly she resembled my mother’s image from the painting.
“She’s hurting,” the woman – I still couldn’t bear to think of her as Aline, my mother, not yet – gasped out. “Don’t judge her by the things she says in desperation.”
“Thanks, but if I wanted relationship advice from a ghost, I’d ask for it.”
“You have to ask yourself what hurts more…” Her eyes rolled back again, and she collapsed against Corbin’s chest. A moment later, she emitted a loud snore.
What hurts more? I rubbed my tear stained cheek. What does she mean by that?
“Take her to the library,” Rowan said. “Light the fire and make her comfortable with lots of blankets. I’ll make her some food for when she wakes up.”
“She’s really going to wake up?” The woman looked halfway to the grave. She’s supposed to be all the way in the grave.
Rowan nodded. “She’s fine, just exhausted. Being three-dimensional for the first time in twenty-one years is hard on the body. We’ll take care of it, you should go talk to—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. Why the library? What about one of the guest rooms?”
“Kelly and Jane are using the last two rooms on our floor, so that only leaves the rooms on the tours, and they’re filled with creepy wax figurines. I think she should be next to a fire, and I’m sure she’ll like waking up in the library with all the books. After all, didn’t it used to be hers?”
“She’s not my mother, Rowan.”
“If you say so, Princess.” Blake winked as he helped Arthur lift her off the counter. “Excuse us while we settle your not-mother back into her castle.”
“My castle,” I muttered, but I followed the guys to the library anyway. They settled the woman on the couch and piled her up with blankets and pillows. Corbin went behind his desk. “We should take turns to stay with her, so she’s not alone when she wakes up. I’ll take first shift—” he glanced at me, and gave a shy smile. “That is, if it seems like a good idea to you, Maeve?”
Oh, Corbin. He still struggled to let go of his sense of responsibility for the coven. I was supposed to be admonishing him every time he issued commands and tried to take over. But since the idea of being alone in a room with the woman who claimed to be my mother freaked me the hell out, this time he could have his overprotectiveness. “It’s a good idea, and I’m fine if you go first. I’m tired as hell, anyway.”
“I’d say we should sit down and figure out what to do next, but I don’t think we’ll know anything until we can talk to her again.” Corbin’s eyes met mine with a warmth that melted my heart. “Maeve, you need to talk to Kelly.”
Forget that. My heart turned to ice again. I shook my head. “I’m going to bed.”
“But don’t you think—”
“No.” I glared at him. “And don’t you talk to her, either. She’s my responsibility. I don’t have to tolerate being spoken to like that in my castle. Wake me up when it’s my shift. And don’t any of you—” I glared at the rest of the guys, “—even think about coming up to visit me. I am not in t
he mood.”
I brushed my teeth in my bathroom (more furiously than my dentist would have recommended, but he hadn’t just met his zombie mother and had a horrible fight with his sister, so he could go to hell), climbed the stairs to my tower, and collapsed into bed, worn out by the emotional trauma of the day. As soon as I turned out the light, part of me wished I hadn’t told the guys to stay away tonight. I could have done with Rowan’s cuddles or Flynn’s tickles or Corbin’s soft whispers in my ear. I debated going down and climbing into bed with one of them, but I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
My dreams gave me no respite from terror. The vision of burned and blackened earth and a maze of towering briar woke me again and again. I lost count of the number of times I stumbled through that briar and found the six stakes pointing toward the sky, the charred remains of my beloved guys clinging to their forms. I struggled against the invisible barrier that prevented me from reaching the sixth stake, but I couldn’t get close enough to see the face of the wretched figure that hung there. This time there was a crowd of people in black cloaks crowded around, jeering and pointing and tossing sharp objects that slammed against my skin.
“Burn the witches,” they chanted. “Burn the Devil’s children.”
The one in front lifted its hood, revealing a cascade of shimmering blonde hair. Kelly’s accusing eyes stared back at me. “Burn the witches. Burn them all!”
4
MAEVE
A hand shook me from my nightmares. “Maeve,” Rowan’s gentle voice soothed me into the real world – the world where my men weren’t pierced on wooden stakes. “Your mother is awake.”
Your mother is awake. Four totally normal words that made absolutely no sense. And yet, here they were being uttered. I guess nothing was really normal at Briarwood Castle.
I dragged my tired body into some jeans and my new Blood Lust t-shirt, and followed Rowan downstairs to the library. My mother’s ghost lay across the sofa, her dainty feet resting on top of the arm and her body wrapped in layers of blankets. A tray of scones with jam and cream and a pot of tea sat on the coffee table next to her. Corbin sat behind his desk, poring through a thick volume. Flynn, Blake, and Arthur stood and sat around the room, watching her with various expressions – from curiosity to reverence to blatant distrust.
“Where are Jane and Kelly?” I asked.
“In the Great Hall, watching reality TV and demolishing a pile of Rowan’s scones,” Corbin grinned. “I figure that’s going to buy us at least an hour.”
“You talked to them?” I asked, a warning creeping into my voice.
“Not really. We grunted good morning to each other. That’s it.” He shot me a meaningful look, which I chose to ignore.
“These scones are delicious,” the woman on the couch said, smacking her lips together. “It’s been twenty-one years since I last tasted food. I used to dream about roast potatoes.”
I eyed the scone in her hand, then touched the one left on the plate. It was real. “So you’re definitely not a ghost?”
She smiled. “I seem pretty corporeal. Truthfully, I don’t know what I am. The magic that held me inside the painting is not something I’ve ever seen before.”
“Are you up to this?” Rowan asked, pouring out tea. “Maeve and Corbin are going to have a million questions.”
“I’m fine, Rowan.” She took another big bite of scone. “The power of English baking sustains me. I’m not surprised you’re a whiz in the kitchen. Your father was the most incredible cook.”
“Don’t talk about our parents,” Arthur growled. Rowan bowed his head, staring at the floor. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but Corbin beat me to it.
The woman’s eyes widened. “But why not? Don’t you want to know what they were like when they were young and foolish?”
Cold silence answered her question. She shrugged and took another bite of her scone.
I leaned forward. “Rowan’s right about the questions. I’ll start. What should we call you?”
“Aline. Or Mom. You could call me Mom.” Tears glistened in the corners of her eye.
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” I rubbed my tired eyes. I wished I’d thought to have some coffee before we did this. “Aline, presumably if you were declared dead, then there must’ve been a body. That body is still buried somewhere in the ground, turning back into stardust. So how are you here now with a body that looks perfectly fine and not at all like a zombie?”
Aline looked down at the baggy black t-shirt Arthur had given her, clinging to her shapely body. “I can’t answer that one.”
“I can.” Corbin met my gaze and gave me an apologetic smile. “I was going to show you one day, but I didn’t think you needed it right when you were mourning the Crawfords. Aline’s body was never recovered, but there was a lot of blood and a charred patch of earth in the circle, along with a lock of her hair. The witches assumed the fae destroyed her body as a final insult, since she had stopped them from raising the Slaugh. My parents placed a memorial stone for her in a corner of the orchard.”
Shit. I didn’t know what my mother’s lack of remains meant, but I knew it was important.
Aline patted her breast, grinning. “Phew, that explains that, then. This body is all mine, baby.”
Baby? I watched her face. Was she trying to… flirt with Corbin?
This whole thing is way too fucking weird.
I was still trying to wrap my head around the physics of her presence. “So you’ve been trapped in that painting ever since the ritual twenty-one years ago? Where was your body? That frame was big, but not big enough to hide a corpse.”
“It’s hard to explain. I don’t understand it myself. It’s only recently I’ve had awareness of the world outside my prison. Prior to that I existed in darkness, awake but devoid of my senses, trapped in a nightmare from which I could never wake. Some months ago, I began to hear again, and to register the language and the meaning of the words I heard. I didn’t realize how many years it’s been until Flynn mentioned Maeve’s birthday. I’ve been listening to the conversations in the castle ever since.” She turned to Corbin. “Your voice kept me company the most. You act so sure of yourself. I don’t think anyone else ever heard the doubts you have when you pace the hallway at night. Except me.”
Then she turned to Rowan. “You barely spoke, but you used to pace around in front of me at night. I worried you might wear a hole right through the floor.”
Corbin looked uncomfortable. Rowan stared at the floor. I wrung my hands, not sure what to make of these intimate moments she’d shared with my guys, when they didn’t know she was there.
“And you,” she glared at Flynn. “You made me want to laugh all the time. But I had no stomach to rumble, no larynx to vibrate, no mouth through which to issue forth my mirth. It was like trying to hold in a giggle during a eulogy. You, good sir, are cruel.”
Flynn took a deep bow. “Finally, someone appreciates my genius.”
Aline smiled at me, but she must’ve seen something in my expression, because her smile fell away. She hurried on with her story. “After hearing came scent. Delicious smells wafting from the kitchen, the distinctive scents of each of you as you went about your business.” Her eyes met each guy in turn. I’d noticed it too, how each of them had their own distinct scent. Rowan was sweet herbs and flour. Arthur was smoke and ash. “Every day you spoke about Maeve. She was ever present in your thoughts, and I knew that my good friends Andrew and Bree had kept their promise to me and sent you four to watch over her. As you grew closer to coming into your powers, Maeve, my own magic started to wake up again. That first day you arrived at the castle, when you gazed up at the portrait, that was the first time I’d ever been able to see out into the world again. And the first thing I saw was you, my daughter.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“I’ve been following you ever since, although how I cannot explain. I seem to be aware of you even when you weren’t directly in
front of the portrait. I’ve watched you come to terms with your magic and piece together the details of what happened at the ritual. And sometimes, if I tried really, really hard, I could channel my own magic through you and change things in your world.”
Arthur’s eyes widened. “You did it, didn’t you? You brought my sword to me in the fae realm.”
Aline smiled. “I heard you cry out. You needed it.”
Realization dawned on me. “You changed the canvas so we’d notice you. And you… you spoke inside my head.” Aline nodded again.
“I’m sorry I always looked so horrified. It was only by drawing on the horror of my imprisonment that I had the power to alter the paint.”
Another thought occurred to me. “Was it you who baptized the guys during the fight at the church? They all heard a female voice praying inside their heads and water splashed on their faces and the fae couldn’t take them.”
“Yep, also me. That bit of magic made me blind for three days, but it worked. I’m so pleased it worked.”
Flynn threw his arms around her. “You may be a ghostie, but I’m not afraid to hug the woman who saved my bacon. Speaking of which,” he drew away in horror. “You haven’t tasted bacon in twenty-one years? Rowan, why aren’t you rectifying the gross injustice right this minute!”
“Er—”
“Don’t you dare,” Aline clamped her hand around Rowan’s arm, and shot him that dazzling smile of hers. “The scones are amazing. They’re more than enough.”
My head spun. I just didn’t know what to make of this. So many times I’d thought about who my mother was, what she might have been like if she lived beyond my birthday, what it would have been like to go to her with my fears and my triumphs. But Aline was nothing like I’d pictured. She was practically my age and seemed like she’d give Kelly a run for her money in the flirting game. She didn’t seem to know anything. I wanted to feel an instant overwhelming love for her – some deep cosmic bond that had connected us across twenty-one years – but all I felt was confused and freaked out and sad.
The Castle of Wind and Whispers (Briarwood Reverse Harem Book 4) Page 2