Talk about your role reversals. Usually it was the woman charging gung-ho into wedding planning and choosing flowers and menus and bridesmaids dresses and all that, but as much as I wanted to be married to Connor, I also wanted to make sure our marriage would last. And that meant breaking the curse so it would no longer be a threat to us…or to our child’s spouse, or any more of the Wilcox wives.
“You’re right, of course.” He turned to look out the window, at the ranks of ponderosa pines flashing past. Here there weren’t many wildflowers yet, but grass gleamed green between the dark pine trees.
Spring. A time for beginnings…including my own.
It was not quite four o’clock by the time we pulled into my garage. I’d left the house just six hours earlier, and yet it felt as if everything had changed in those few short hours. Then again, I supposed it had.
The house was quiet and still, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator as we came in through the back door. In less than a week this stillness would be effectively destroyed by the arrival of the contractors and all their equipment, and I was glad that the start of the remodel had been delayed until after Memorial Day. It would have been awful to come back here with Connor, only to have a bunch of workmen knocking out walls and tearing out countertops.
“I’ll call my aunt,” I said as Connor dropped his bag on the kitchen floor. “She’s working, but since it’s Tuesday, she’ll be closing up at five. Then we can go over and talk to her.”
“Is she going to be okay with that?” he asked, expression dubious. “I mean, I have a feeling she wasn’t too sad about my being out of the picture these last few months.”
“Well, she’ll have to be okay with it, because you and I are together, and that’s not changing ever again.” I paused, considering. He’d been right when he said Rachel wasn’t all that broken up about the separation. She’d been as comforting as she could manage, but even with that I could tell that she thought the universe had righted itself, with me back here in Jerome and Connor in Flagstaff, and a safe span of miles between us. The news that he and I were back together would not be exactly welcome.
“No, it’s not changing,” he agreed, coming over to me and pushing my hair away from my neck so he could place his lips on the sensitive skin there.
That welcome fire licked through my veins, and I thought longingly of the king-size bed up in my room, and how much I’d like to be lying on it with Connor. But we’d made love only a few hours earlier, and we had business to take care of. The bed would have to wait…but not for too long, I hoped.
I went to the old rotary-dial phone that hung on the wall next to the refrigerator, bit my lip, and dialed Aunt Rachel’s number.
* * *
As I’d expected, she welcomed Connor’s return with about the same enthusiasm the residents of Hamelin must have greeted their town’s infestation of rats. Still, she did agree to let us come over around five-thirty, which was about all I could ask for. And when we arrived at the apartment, I saw that, being Rachel, she’d set out a pitcher of iced herbal tea and scones she’d baked that morning, along with a bowl of strawberries.
“Thanks for all this,” I said, putting a scone and a strawberry on one of the small dessert plates she’d put on the coffee table with the rest of the refreshments.
She shrugged, but I couldn’t help but notice the way her expression softened as Connor bit into one of the scones, chewed in apparent ecstasy, and said, “Wow, Angela, now I really understand how you turned out to be such a good cook. You definitely learned from the best.”
Even so, she made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “We do what we can. Anyway, I don’t really know how much I can help you. You’ve asked me so many times before, and all I can give you is the same answer. Sonya never told me anything when she came home all those years ago, and believe me, it wasn’t because I didn’t keep asking.”
That I could believe. My aunt was pretty good at the whole third-degree thing. “How in the world did she explain me?” I asked after breaking off a third of the scone and trying to eat it in small, decorous bites rather than wolfing it down. Rachel did make the best scones.
“She didn’t.” My aunt leaned forward and poured herself some of the tea, although I noticed she ignored the scones. “That is, all she told me was that she’d met somebody, which was sort of obvious. I mean, we’re witches, but we don’t really believe in immaculate conceptions.”
Next to me, Connor made a noise that sounded like a cough but was probably a suppressed chuckle. Ignoring him, I said, “So she never gave a name? A place? Anything?”
“No names.” She set down her glass of iced tea. “I have your birth certificate, but it didn’t have anything in the field where the father’s name is supposed to be.”
“Can I see it?” I asked.
The briefest of hesitations, and then she nodded. “Sure. You should probably keep it now anyway, along with your other important papers. Just give me a minute to dig it out.”
She got up from her chair and went upstairs, presumably to her room. I knew she had a small chest on a shelf in her closet where she kept her own paperwork — the deed to the building, insurance papers, passport, that sort of thing. What she wanted with a passport when she’d never even left the state, I had no idea, but I supposed it was a good piece of identification, if nothing else.
For some reason I felt uneasy, although I couldn’t quite think why. Maybe it was simply that I’d never seen my birth certificate. To distract myself, I turned toward Connor where he sat beside me on the couch and commented, “That was smooth, complimenting my cooking…which is about the same thing as complimenting hers. Keep that up, and she may actually start to like you in about five years or so.”
“That soon? She must be a real pushover.”
I couldn’t help grinning as I reached for a second scone. Hard to believe I was still hungry, after everything I’d eaten at lunch, but suddenly I felt ravenous. Maybe it was the make-up sex.
Connor must have felt the same way, because he gave that scone the side-eye and asked, “Are you sure you’re just eating for two? Because I don’t think even I could keep up with you at the rate you’re going.”
Somehow I managed to resist sticking my tongue out at him, which was just as well, because Rachel returned in that very moment, holding a piece of paper in one hand. It was faintly yellowed around the edges, which I supposed made sense, considering that it was more than twenty years old.
Well, twenty-two, to be precise.
“Here it is,” she said, handing to me. I took it from her with fingers that shook only a little. “I’m not sure how much it’s going to help, but….”
“Thank you,” I told her. “It’s still more than I had.”
She resumed her seat in the armchair and picked up her neglected tea. “I suppose I should be glad that Sonya at least brought the birth certificate with her. It would have been just like her to not even have that.”
The condemnation was clear in her tone, and I couldn’t really blame her. To have your sister who’d disappeared almost a year earlier show up out of the blue, bringing a newborn with her — well, on the scale of life disruptions, that had to be close to an eight or nine. I didn’t know very much about my mother, but it was pretty clear to me that she hadn’t been the most responsible person in the world.
An awkward silence fell. Connor reached out to get another scone, probably just for something to do rather than because he was at all hungry. I smoothed the birth certificate out on my knee, scanning the little boxes for the pertinent information. Aunt Rachel hadn’t been entirely accurate about the “father of child” fields — they weren’t entirely blank, but instead had “UNKNOWN” typed in all of them. But at least I could see that I’d been born at Hoag Hospital, in Newport Beach, at 11:30 p.m. on December 21st. Also, I was able to see from the “mother of child” fields that she’d been living at 822 Oceanfront Drive, also in Newport Beach. There wasn’t an apartment or suite number, so I
assumed it must have been a house.
So my mother had fled Jerome — and the responsibility of being the next prima — to live in a house in Newport Beach, California, where she’d met…someone. Was he a tanned, blond surfer type? There weren’t many of those in northern Arizona, that was for sure. But that didn’t make much sense, since from what I’d seen in pictures of her, my mother’s hair was much lighter than mine, a warm pale brown with a lot of red in it. If my father had been blond, wouldn’t my own hair be at least as light as my mother’s, rather than the near-black it actually was?
Like every McAllister, she had access to a good chunk of money that was her own, so the house could’ve been hers, or it could have belonged to my father. Or maybe she hadn’t lived there at all, had spent all her time in Southern California crashing at various hotels, and gave a made-up address at the hospital when they asked for her information. I had no idea, and obviously neither did my aunt.
Finally I looked up from the birth certificate to see both Connor and Rachel watching me. “Sorry,” I said. “I guess I kind of got lost in this.”
“It’s okay,” Connor said. “Do you think it will help?”
“Maybe,” I replied, my mind working furiously. He and I needed to talk…alone. Not that I thought Aunt Rachel would attempt to interfere, but there were some things I would rather not discuss in front of her. I shifted away from him so I faced my aunt and added, “Thanks again, Rachel. I really do appreciate…all of this.”
To my surprise, she smiled and nodded. “I probably should have given it to you a long time ago. I suppose I thought there wasn’t much point in focusing on the past. Now, though….” Her gaze slid somewhere toward my midsection, and I knew she was thinking about the baby — the child she was sure would kill me.
“Now, it could really help.” I carefully folded up the birth certificate and tucked it inside my purse, then got to my feet. Connor rose as well, saying,
“Thanks for the scones and the tea.”
“You’re welcome,” she said stiffly, and I thought I saw the glitter of sudden tears in her eyes. “Just — just take care of her, Connor.”
Clearly startled, he replied, “I will. I promise.”
She nodded, and he and I murmured a few awkward goodbyes before we let ourselves out. In silence we walked back up the hill to the house, Connor’s hand in mine, while my free hand clung tightly to the strap of my purse with its precious piece of paper inside.
It wasn’t until we were back at the house that he spoke again. “So what’s next? Does having the birth certificate help at all?”
Hard to say, but I knew there was only one way to find out for sure. “It might.” I paused, then went on, “I’m glad you packed stuff for a few days. Because it looks like we’re about to take a road trip.”
5
Going to California
It wasn’t quite as simple as that, of course. Southern California was the territory of the Santiago clan, and if Maya de la Paz hadn’t interceded on our behalf, I don’t know if we would have even been allowed to go. After all, even a clan as large as the Santiagos might be less than thrilled at having the prima and the primus of two different witch families descend upon them. But after I explained the situation to Maya, and she passed on a carefully edited version of our reasons for needing to travel to Newport Beach, we were given grudging permission to travel there, as long as we promised not to stay for more than a few days, and to only go to and from Newport.
That seemed fair enough, so I agreed to those conditions. After all, we weren’t going to California to visit Disneyland or see the Hollywood Walk of Fame or watch a Dodgers game. Newport Beach was the only place we probably needed to go. I could only hope that our business wouldn’t take more time than the mandated two or three days.
I knew I didn’t have time for a lengthy phone conversation with Sydney about everything that had happened, but I also knew she’d never let me hear the end of it if I left her completely in the dark. So after I ended my call to Maya, I sent a quick text to Syd. Connor & I worked it out. We’re going to California for a few days.
She must have been home, because the reply came back almost immediately. OMG, really? I need all the deets!
I’ll tell you everything when I get back.
Why California?
It’s where I was born. I need answers.
OK. Have a safe trip. I’m jealous. :-P
She always had wanted to go to the beach. Unfortunately, this wasn’t really a pleasure trip, more a fact-finding mission. I kind of doubted I’d be hanging out on the sand and working on my nonexistent tan.
Don’t be jealous. Sand is highly overrated.
:-D
I couldn’t help grinning as I locked down my phone and set it on the nightstand.
Since by the time everything was all arranged it was too late to head out — unless we wanted to show up in Southern California at roughly three in the morning — Connor and I spent the night at the house, where we did get to break in that king bed all over again. And then we were up early the next morning, grabbing breakfast in Cottonwood before we made the big push toward Phoenix and then on across the desert and into California.
Through all this he’d been seemingly content to let me plan and make the decisions. Maybe he was remembering what Marie had said about this being my journey, and how he would only be playing a secondary role. It wasn’t until we were heading south on I-17 and were about an hour outside Phoenix that he asked, “So what is it you think you’re going to find?”
“I’m not sure. Something. I have an address. That’s where I’ll start.”
“An address where your mother lived more than twenty years ago,” he said. His tone was gentle, though; I could tell he wasn’t trying to make trouble, but only helping me to see more clearly what I was doing. “Southern California isn’t like Jerome, you know. People generally don’t live in the same places for years and years. I doubt you’ll find anyone who remembers your mother.”
“I know,” I replied. Then I shot a quick glance over at him before returning my attention to the road. “What makes you such an expert on California? Have you been there?”
“No, but I went to college with a few people who grew up there.” He frowned, drumming his fingers on a jean-clad knee. I could tell he wasn’t used to being chauffeured around. Or maybe something else was bothering him.
“What is it?” I asked. “If my driving makes you that nervous, I can pull over at the next rest stop, and we can switch.”
Immediately, he shook his head. “No, that’s not it…although you may want to let me drive once we get into the more populated areas of SoCal. I doubt you’re used to that kind of traffic.”
“And you are?”
“At least I spent four years in Phoenix.”
“True.”
He was quiet for a bit, watching the scrubby desert landscape flash past outside the window. “It’s California. I wish we didn’t have to go there.”
“What, you’re not into swimming pools and movie stars?”
“Not particularly, but that’s not what I meant.” Frowning a little, he shifted in the passenger seat so he was more or less facing toward me. “People might think we’re the wild west here in Arizona, but it’s really California that’s wild. Or Southern California, at least. Yes, the Santiagos are the clan in charge, but they’ve had some challenges to their authority.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. Not that I’d paid much attention to what was going on with the clans outside my immediate area — the Wilcoxes had generally been enough to occupy my mind — but this was the first that I’d heard of any of this. “Like what?”
We’d bought some bottled water at the Safeway in Cottonwood, and Connor took a swig of his before replying. “About six years ago — just when I was working on transferring from Northern Pines to ASU — there was some trouble in California. It’s a big population, new people coming in, trying to integrate. It’s the same with the witch clans,
I guess, although in this case it was more smaller subgroups, not whole clans. They were moving into Santiago territory, and there was a lot of friction. I think Maya de la Paz actually took a few in. There were even a couple who wanted to come up to Wilcox territory.” He frowned, putting his bottle of water back in the cup holder in the center console. “They weren’t too reputable, and I guess they thought they could come up to Flagstaff and do whatever they wanted. Damon disabused them of that notion pretty quickly, and that was the end of it, because even they weren’t prepared to go up against Damon. I’m not sure where they eventually ended up, but it wasn’t anywhere around here.”
This was disturbing news. I’d always been raised on the idea that clans and clan territories were immutable, that once you were born in one, you pretty much stayed put. True, tiny Jerome couldn’t handle the entire McAllister contingent, and so we spilled over into Cottonwood and Clarkdale and even Camp Verde, just as there were Wilcoxes outside Flagstaff in Williams and Winslow and points even farther east, all the way to the New Mexico border. But that was understood to be their land. It wasn’t as if they’d decided to pick up stakes and move into a whole other clan’s territory.
“So should I be offended that no one asked to move onto McAllister turf?” I inquired, smiling so he wouldn’t take my question seriously.
But that’s exactly what he did. “The McAllisters don’t control a lot of space, when it comes right down to it. You barely have room for your own people. We’ve got a lot of space up and down I-40, and of course Maya’s territory is huge. Some of them were okay, and I suppose it’s good that Maya took them in. But in general, you should count yourself lucky that they didn’t try to move in on your land.”
I could tell from the quiet, intense tone of his voice that he wasn’t joking. Even though this had happened more than five years ago, obviously it had made an impression. And while it probably was something that had been discussed by my clan’s elders and most likely a good number of the McAllister adults in general, it wasn’t a topic my aunt would have wanted to share with me, especially since I would have been sixteen at the time and embroiled in school. As I’d learned over and over again, the people around me in Jerome had been pretty damn good at keeping secrets.
Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3) Page 7