Denial

by R. M. Walker

  Lily lifted the glasses from her lap and put them on the mantelpiece above the fire. As Lily moved back, the floorboard squeaked, and it woke her mother instantly.

  “Lily?” She sat up, disorientated. “Oh, Lily.”

  Lily’s throat ached around the lump that formed there. Tears burned her eyes. The sense of betrayal was so strong. She didn’t know how she could lie to her all this time and about something so important. This woman was her mother, or at least the only mother she’d ever known. She loved her. She loved her so much, but it was hurting badly.

  Lynda sat up slowly as if Lily would run off again. “You came back.”

  “I was at Matt’s.” It was lame, Lily knew it was. But she didn’t know what else to say. She had so many questions and no idea where to start.

  “Are you on your own?”

  “They dropped me here on the way to college.” She crossed to sink down onto the sofa, watching her mother closely. The lines of strain were still there, making her look older than Lily had ever seen her.

  “What did you tell them?” she asked.

  “That everything I believed to be true is a lie. That my father isn’t dead and that you’re not my mother.” She kept her hands in her lap, her nails dug into her palms to keep control over her emotions. Half of her wished she’d taken the boys up on their offer to stay with her.

  “I know it’s a shock, Lily. I never wanted you to find out this way.”

  “Did you want me to find out at all?”

  “In truth, no. None of it. As far as I’m concerned, I am your mother, am still your mother. I may not have birthed you, but I’ve been the one who’s been there every moment of your life. I love you, Lily. I have always loved you, and I always will. You are my daughter.”

  Lily bit her lips against the onslaught of emotion. “I don’t understand why. Why did you lie to me? I love you too, but it hurts.”

  “I’m sorry, I really am.” Her voice broke.

  Lily moved without thinking, going to her knees in front of her. “You are my mother,” she whispered. “But I feel betrayed as well. You’ve lied to me about so much, and I need to know why.”

  “I will tell you, though I wish I didn’t have to. If I could go back over everything I’ve done over the years, I wouldn’t change any of it. I did it all for you and for your biological mother.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me what my seizures were? Why tell me I had epilepsy? Why put me through that? All those doctors and hospital visits, all the scans. You knew what it really was.”

  “Lily, to answer your questions properly, I need to tell you all of it. Your mother was my sister Sarah, but she was cursed.”

  “Cursed? What curse?” Lily asked in surprise.

  “The curse of magic,” she replied. “I didn’t know anything about magic, witches, or even that I had a sister until Sarah turned up on our doorstep; she was fifteen, and I was thirteen. My parents told me that she’d been a sickly child and they’d sent her to live with my Great-aunt Rose for her health. I knew it was a lie, but that was all they’d say. They were cold around her. She was more like a lodger than a daughter, someone who lived there but didn’t. Sarah refused to tell me why.” Lynda drew a breath and held it before letting it go on a long sigh.

  “How did you find out what she was?” Lily asked quietly.

  “She’d disappear for hours on end, but she wouldn’t tell me where she went. Eventually, I followed her. She was in an orchard across the way from us, casting magic. It was amazing. She could make flowers grow from nothing, make it snow in the middle of summer. I followed her lots of times and always saw something different. I thought I was hidden, but she knew I was there, and one day she called out to me. She told me Aunt Rose had taught her how to control her powers. Her gift, she called it. I did too at the time. I couldn’t understand how my parents could view this gift, or her, so badly. We shared secrets from then on. We became close, and I loved her very much.”

  She stared into the dead ashes of the fire, lost in a past that was long gone. Lily shifted, and it caught her attention, she carried on talking.

  “When she was eighteen, she met Drew. He was like her. I don’t know where she met him, just that she fell in love and was moving in with him. She was happy. The look that haunted her eyes for so long was gone. But it came back again.” She drew in a deep breath, her eyes distant again.

  “She thought he was having an affair. She confronted him, but it wasn’t an affair he was having. She’d said that she wished it was another woman, because the reality was worse. She became strained, dark circles under her eyes, constantly twitchy.”

  “What was he doing?” Lily asked.

  “She wouldn’t say. She told me she was going to leave him. But there was no leaving Drew. She was his, and he wasn’t letting her go. I begged her to come home to us, but she wouldn’t. When she was eight months pregnant with you, she disappeared. She sent me one text saying she was sorry and that was it. Then one day, she turned up on the doorstep with you. You were six months old. She didn’t say much, just that she was going to see Drew but didn’t want to take you along. I didn’t want her to go, but she said he wouldn’t hurt her. She never came back. She was killed. Knocked over by a hit-and-run driver.” She turned away, tears evident in her eyes.

  Lily was detached from it somehow, it didn’t make her feel anything. It was as if she was watching a play, just another story and not the reality it was. It didn’t make her feel anything.

  “You said magic killed her. How?”

  “Don’t you see? If she wasn’t cursed by it, she wouldn’t have died. None of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have been sent away from home by our parents, she wouldn’t have met Drew, and she would still be alive. The only good thing that came from all this is you. I never regret taking you in, never.” She lifted a hand and stroked Lily’s hair.

  Lily leant into her touch, closing her eyes. “I wished you’d told me this before,” she whispered. “Didn’t you think I’d find out?”

  “I prayed and prayed that you never would. I thought at first you’d escaped it, that the curse had skipped a generation like it had before. When you were six, something changed; you’d stare off into space, and then when you’d come around you’d have no memory of it. Your teacher mentioned that it could be a form of epilepsy. The doctors seemed to agree you had absence seizures.

  “It was shortly after that I saw Drew watching you when we were shopping. I moved us from one end of the country to the other. Every time I’d go somewhere, he’d pop up like a bad penny. He never tried to contact you, never tried to take you away, but he always made sure I knew he was there. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for months, and I’d think that maybe I’d finally lost him, but he always found us.” She shook her head angrily.

  “Your seizures changed. I tried every different medication the doctors offered, had every test done, and nothing came back. They labelled you as cryptogenic epileptic: seizures with no apparent reason. They were getting more frequent, and I was terrified it wasn’t normal. So, I started to ask around, went to those new age shops, fortune tellers, palm readers, but they were all fake. Charlatans just making money from people. And then I finally found the real thing. A herbalist in London who was also a witch. I told them the bare bones, and they told me it wasn’t epilepsy but your magic growing. I demanded some way of banking it down. They made the tablets, and they worked. Until we came here.” She snorted in disgust. “I should have left here when I realised he was here. I should never have let you guilt me into staying.”

  “What?” Lily struggled to put it all together, and then it clicked. “That morning, when you wanted to move us to Ireland, was it because of Drew?”

  “He’d left a note. You put it on the table for me.” She laughed bitterly and rubbed at her face. “I know you’ve missed out, Lily. I know that. I wish things had been different, but they aren’t, and I did the best I could.”

  “
Why did you hide from him?” Lily asked. “If he made no contact, why keep running? And why keep me from him anyway? He’s my father.”

  “Haven’t you heard anything I said? Sarah was terrified of him! She took you away from him for a reason! When she left you with me, she told me to keep you safe, to protect you. I made a promise to her, Lily. A promise I initially kept because I loved her, but one I carried on keeping because I love you. You started to call me Mum, and it was easier telling people I was your mother. People would ask, but when I said that I was a single parent and that your father had died, they backed off.”

  “Were you really never going to tell me?” Lily screwed her hands together. There was so much to take in, and she was reeling.

  Her mother sighed heavily and rubbed at her forehead again before looking at her. “No, I wasn’t.”

  Lily didn’t know what to make of that. She had no idea what to think of the whole thing. She was dangling over a bottomless pit, just waiting for the cord to be cut.

  “Lily, I know he presents this image; a kind, gentle image. He fooled my sister. For god’s sake, don’t let him fool you too.”

  “Was he physically abusive?”

  “I don’t know. She denied it, but I don’t know.” She sighed heavily and stroked her fingers through Lily’s hair again. “He’s dangerous, and so is your magic.”

  “I have to talk to him.” She braced herself for the reaction she knew was coming.

  “You can’t! You must stay away from him!”

  “I need to hear his side of things. I have yours and a little bit of what she told you, but I have nothing from him.”

  “You don’t believe me.” She sat back, breaking contact with Lily. She put her hands into her hair and closed her eyes. “Of course you don’t believe me! I’ve lied to you for nearly eighteen years, why would you believe this to be true now?”

  Lily reached for her hands and held them tightly. “I’m hurting and confused, but I want to believe you. I remember the last eighteen years too, or at least most of them. I know you love me, and I don’t doubt that. I love you too. You’re still my mum, whether you gave birth to me or not. But you’ve hurt me. And I need to know who I am, Mum.”

  She wouldn’t stop calling her Mum; it was who she was. Lily wanted to believe what she’d heard today, wanted to think that the lies had stopped. She wanted to believe her so badly it made her heart ache.

  “Please, please, stay away from him, Lily.”

  “Are you afraid of him because of what you think he did to Sarah, or are you afraid of him because you’ve seen him do something bad?”

  “She didn’t want you near him and that was good enough for me. Why would she do that if he wasn’t dangerous?”

  “It was eighteen years ago, Mum. Maybe he’s changed. Maybe he regrets the things he did?”

  “I wish I’d gone with my instinct when his note came. I don’t know why I thought it would be different this time. I was so torn. You’ve made friends here, you have a boyfriend, you have a life, and you’re not a child anymore.” Lynda sighed heavily. “I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

  “I’ve already spent time with him. He told me what he thinks I am, gave me those books. He’s a teacher at my school. What could he possibly think of doing?”

  “Why don’t we go to London for a couple of days? We can go up tomorrow. I’ll take you to the shop I get the tablets from. They can reassure you that the tablets are fine to keep taking.”

  “Keep taking them? Why?”

  “You can’t seriously tell me you want this curse? And it is a curse, Lily, a gilded curse. It’s not natural. It’s not normal.”

  “You don’t understand it.”

  “And you do? From a few talks with the devil himself?” She shook her head, a determined glint in her eye.

  “I doubt he’s the devil himself.” Lily snorted. “He’s a long way from home if he is.”

  “You know what I mean. Besides, the devil would probably be safer than that man!”

  “I’m sorry, Mum. I am going to talk to him, and I’m not going to take any more tablets.”

  “Lily, please...” She faded out. Tears dripped down her face. “You’re going to throw away eighteen years. Everything I’ve done to protect you will have been for no good.”

  “I know she made you promise, and you’ve kept that promise. I’m not a child anymore. I can’t continue to hide behind your skirts. I need to find out who I am, who he is, and then I can decide where I want to go from there. This opens new possibilities for me, Mum. I won’t be controlled by my seizures. I can learn to drive, I can go to university, do all the things that weren’t possible before.”

  “Nothing will change, your seizures will still happen. The tablets were reducing them. If you stop taking them, you will get more and more seizures. Have you forgotten so soon what they’re like? How they affect you?”

  “The tablets were blocking me. I can learn to control the visions; I can learn to box them so I don’t fit at the drop of a hat. I’ll be—”

  “Who told you could control the visions?” Lynda’s eyes sharpened. “Did Drew tell you that?”

  “I guess,” Lily hedged, unwilling to bring either the boys or Jonas into this. She avoided her eyes and stood up, dusting off her knees.

  “I don’t think you should dabble in this. I think you should rely on the tablets so you can lead a normal life.”

  “How is this a normal life?” Lily threw her hands up in the air. “I can’t be left alone for too long, I can’t have a bath without supervision, I can’t drive. I’m restricted on what types of jobs I can consider. How is that normal?”

  “And how is making it snow in summer normal?” she demanded, shaking her head. She folded her arms, unwilling to be swayed.

  But Lily wasn’t going to be a coward anymore. When the boys had insisted there was something different about her, she’d fought them and denied it, and it had done her no good. She was what she was. She had to find out or spend the rest of her life being a coward. And she was going to do this whether she had her mother’s acceptance or not.

  “It might be my normal. You’ve denied me the chance to know things that are my right to know—”

  “No, Lily—”

  “No, let me finish, please!” She cut her off. “I know that you did your best for me. But now it’s up to me. And I choose to find out what I can and make an informed choice for my future.”

  “I’m scared. I’m not like Sarah, and I’m not like him. I won’t be able to help you if magic is involved. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “It’ll be okay. I know it will.” She had the boys behind her, but she couldn’t tell her that.

  “The confidence of youth.” She shook her head. “He wasn’t going to stay out of your life until he died, no matter what I prayed for. Just, for god’s sake, be careful. Don’t trust him. Don’t let him get too close to you emotionally. He may be your father, but at the end of the day, it’s only sperm he contributed. You don’t owe him anything, and don’t take anything he wants to owe you!”

  “I won’t. I will be careful. If it’s any consolation, the boys don’t like him much and will make sure that I’m safe.”

  “They’ll be no match for him, Lily. Don’t rely on them to help you. They won’t stand a chance and could even get hurt. Why don’t we pack up and disappear, leave before he knows we’ve gone. Now you know we’ll be in a better position to hide. We can work together to stay hidden from him. We can just go.”

  Lily knew she meant well and knew she was trying to protect her. Fresh tears filled her eyes. “I can’t do that. I have to know. I have to find out, or it will eat me up inside. I will always be wondering ‘what if’.”

  She saw the defeat in her mother’s eyes as she stood up, putting her hands on Lily’s shoulders. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Lily stepped into her arms. The betrayal was
there still, the hurt, and she didn’t think it would ever completely leave her. But she knew it had been a decision based on love and a promise. Lily knew the weight of promises made. She’d made one to the boys, to never reveal what they were, and she’d do her own lying to keep that secret.

  Magic

  She turned the key and let herself into the cottage. Any guilt was washed away by the knowledge he’d given her permission to go into his house. Granted, he hadn’t given her permission to go through his things as she intended, but she’d live with that easily. She wanted answers, and she wanted to see what she could find while he wasn’t around.

  She’d group-texted the boys, telling them she’d talk to them when they got back from college and that she wouldn’t be in for the rest of the day. The twins had told her that Drew was at college but he hadn’t questioned her absence. So she’d taken the chance to look around his cottage.

  She knew the first thing she was going to look for, not because she doubted them, but to see with her own eyes that he’d violated her trust. She knelt and pulled the rug back from the edge of the spiral staircase. The design Nate had shown her on his phone lay there. She got up, not bothering to put the rug straight, and crossed to the cabinet that sat under the window. Anger fuelled her search as she pulled open the drawers. They were all empty and smelt of damp and age.

  A vase of faded artificial flowers sat sadly on the windowsill. A dead fly lay on its back, legs frozen in a macabre dance. The mantelpiece held an old-fashioned clock that ticked loudly in the quiet of the room. That was it. There was nothing else. No personal belongings at all.

  She nipped back into the kitchen and checked the car park. There was no sign of his car, and the clock on the wall told her she had hours before college finished for the day. Gathering her courage, she went back into the living room and climbed the stairs to the rooms above.