by Lila Veen
“Do you like the artwork?” Gabe asks me, glancing back with a cruel smile. “My father painted those.”
“Disgusting,” I tell him. He shrugs.
“It’s history,” he says. “You Coven have your history, and we Order have ours.”
“Gabe,” I say, tapping him on the shoulder so he will face me. “Why did you choose the Order? You could have been welcomed into the Coven. You have powers. It’s unusual, but you are part Coven.”
“The Order didn’t reject me like my own mother did,” he replies flatly. “My mother is Lisette Lavanne, and to the Coven, that means everything. She cast me out before I could even taste her milk. She would have left me to die, but my father saved me. For that, I owe the Order everything, and will always use my ability to craft for their advantage.”
“But you’re not one of them,” I say softly. “Just like Heidi isn’t one of them. I can’t believe she would choose to do something so hateful toward someone who is her friend, like Eleanor. I can’t believe she would do this to her own husband. Mother and I are another story. Heidi was always threatened by us, and she’s always wanted….” I trail off, because I don’t really know what Heidi wants, or has ever wanted. Did she ever express the desire to be anything to me when we were growing up? Was I too selfish and wrapped up in myself to care what Heidi ever felt or wanted? I stop talking and Gabe turns to continue down what seems to be a never ending spiral. My mother has been absolutely quiet, as though she’s anticipating something. I’m dizzy, and I realize that the stairs are turning us in circles, but we are finally at the bottom. The floors are stone and the walls are grey, giving the basement of Blackwater United a dungeon quality. Mostly it appears to be a large empty room, with a large wooden table in the center and ancient looking high backed chairs surrounding it. There are three doors on either side of the table, and one at the head. Gabe goes directly to the one at the head, and I hear soft singing from behind the door. No words, just humming. “Heidi,” I whisper.
Gabe stops in front of the door. “You don’t seem to have a very good idea of what your sister wants. But the Order does. The Order has given her what she wants and what she needs so very badly. Her own family, who is Coven, doesn’t seem to have a clue. So remember that, dear Leah, when you step through that door and see what the Order has given your sister who has been left completely ignored and alone for so long by her own people, just as I have. She and I belong together.” He opens the door and I gasp.
Heidi sits in a rocking chair in the center of the room. She wears a white gown and her hair is long and loose around her shoulders. She looks far younger than her thirty-one years, like a child. In her arms is Eleanor and Drew’s baby boy, his soft blonde hair an angelic puff around his head, framing his perfectly shaped skull like a halo. Heidi doesn’t even look up when we walk in. She is lost in rapture for the infant. Her eyes show it. Her arms cradle the baby boy, who appears healthy, and she strokes the infant’s legs, cheeks, hands and belly. Her humming continues. “Heidi,” I say softly, going to her and kneeling beside her. “Heidi!” I say more loudly when she doesn’t respond. I look helplessly at my mother, who stands at the entrance of the room looking horrified at Heidi’s trance-like state. Something is so wrong with this picture.
“Shhhhh,” Heidi says to me. “You’ll wake him.”
The baby sleeps on, though, and Heidi turns slightly away from me and continues to coo and hum. “What’s wrong with her?” I ask, turning to Gabe. “What did you do to her?” He smiles and shrugs and I turn back to Heidi. “Heidi, listen to me,” I say. “Eleanor needs her baby back. This is not your baby. You can’t keep this baby.”
“Of course it’s my baby,” Heidi says. “I gave him life. He’s mine.”
“What the hell is she talking about?” I ask Gabe. He smiles and says nothing, infuriating me. “Heidi, you did not give birth to him. You were never pregnant. You supposedly went through the adoption process, even though I highly doubt any of that was legal. Eleanor gave birth to him and he was taken from the hospital. He’s not yours. You and Gabe stole this baby, and he needs to go back to his mother. Jack knows, I know, and Mother knows, Heidi. You can’t keep this up. Someone will find out and put you in jail.” My mind shifts to Bill Cousineau, and it dawns on me that perhaps he’s been in on the kidnapping from the beginning. All of his threats against me today about the Order taking over all seem to point to the idea that I’m completely helpless in this game. “Oh god,” I say aloud when it all hits me. Gabe’s connections, the Order running the police department, everything is starting to fall into place.
“He’s mine!” Heidi shouts. The baby’s eyes snap open and he begins to cry. Heidi sits up and begins to pace the room like an animal, soothing him against her shoulder, bouncing him and walking. “I gave birth to him, and he’s mine,” she continues. “This is my baby. How dare you come in here and tell me he’s not mine?”
“Heidi,” I say calmly, feeling the fury start to churn inside of me. “You are not this baby’s mother. You didn’t give birth. If you’re his natural mother, then you’d have milk to feed him. You don’t have milk.”
Heidi whirls around, ice blue eyes glaring. “Don’t have milk?” she repeats. She tears the shoulder of her gown away, exposing a swollen white breast and squeezes it. Miraculously, milk dribbles down from her darkened nipple. “What do you call that?”
I start to back away slowly, feeling the ice in her gaze, and not understanding what I’m seeing. “What did you do to her, Gabe?” I whisper. “What the hell is going on?”
“Get out!” Heidi screams. The baby is at her breast now, sucking hungrily on Heidi’s milk. “Leave me and my son in peace. I don’t want to see you again, Leah. You either, Mother,” she spits. “You two take everything I love, but you will not take my son. You took our father’s love, you got all of the power, but you will not get J.J.”
“What did you do to her?” I turn and shriek at Gabe, pushing at his chest with my hands. “This is not my sister. You’ve brainwashed her!” I feel my head start to throb the minute I touch him. “Stop that!”
“Don’t yell at me,” he tells me calmly. “I gave your sister something she wanted very badly. Something she could never have done without my help.”
“Maybe you should have tried knocking her up the old fashioned way,” I snap. “Or were you born without a dick?” The fury inside of me is bubbling over, I can feel it. I can’t hold back any longer. Head pain be damned, I leap at Gabe, trying to claw at him and then scream from the pain. He pushes me away and I’m thrown against the stone floor, clutching my temples in agony.
“You don’t touch me,” he mutters softly. “No one touches me.” I stare at him, wondering what the hell is going through his brain right now. “Get up,” he commands. “You’ve found what you were looking for. Now leave, before I take your craft. And I won’t stop at that, I’ll take your life.”
“Someone will find out about this,” I tell him, picking myself up off the floor. “The adoption can’t be legal.”
“It’s completely legal,” Gabe assures me. “Now get out of here. You and your mother have seen what you came to see. You know the truth, but you won’t be able to change anything. Bill Cousineau will do anything for me. I practically pay his salary. He’ll come after you for killing that trash husband of yours.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I say.
“No, perhaps you didn’t,” Gabe replies. “But he was still trash, and I’m sure you’re not completely innocent. You’ve bewitched my brothers to the point where they would die for you. You come back to town and start going through my brothers like a whore in heat. You’re trash Leah. You’re the offspring of two opposing powers and you’re nothing. Your craft is weak. It’s not even worth reaping you because I don’t even feel threatened by you.”
I shriek and the rocking chair collapses where Heidi has sat back down in to feed the baby, making her fall to the ground. I leap as the baby falls from her arms but he hits th
e hard stone floor with a sickening thud. Heidi scrambles to help him, and his screams fill the room. I try and get to the baby before she can, but Gabe stops me with a hand on my shoulder, holding me down. I feel the pain in my head from his touch grow so fierce that my vision turns white from the searing pain.
“NO!” I hear my mother scream, and I feel a shove and the pain stops suddenly. I look up and everything is blurry, except for the flash of my mother’s hair and those animal yellow eyes.
Chapter 31
How we left Blackwater United is a blur, but somehow, my mother and I have found our way back to Betsey and are safely inside. Gabe’s car is gone from the parking lot. My mother hasn’t said a word, but I can tell something isn’t right with her.
With shaking fingers I dial Theo’s number on my phone. He answers right away. “Where are you?” I ask him frantically.
“At your house, with Jack,” he replies. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
I shake my head, no, but realize he can’t see me. “I don’t think I can drive right now,” I tell him. “Do you think you can come get us?”
“Where are you?”
“In the parking lot of Blackwater United Methodist Church,” I tell him. There is a long pause on the other end of the phone, and then I can hear some shuffling around. “Hello?”
“Don’t move, I’ll be there,” Theo says, sounding as though he may be panicking more than I am.
“Bring Jack’s car, not yours. My mother might need to lie down in the backseat,” I tell him, glancing at my fragile ghost of a mother.
“I’ll be there,” he repeats, and hangs up.
I put my phone back in my purse and turn to my mother. “Mother, say something to me, please,” I plead with her.
She turns her face to mine and stares at me blankly. “I can’t see anything,” she says in a flat voice.
“What, you mean you’re blind?” I ask her. “How many fingers am I holding up?” I hold up four fingers, because everyone holds up two. That’s just too obvious. My eyes widen as she slaps them away. “Well, I don’t think you’re blind.”
“I can’t see, Leah!” she repeats in a louder voice. “I don’t know what’s coming, I can’t see anything!” It’s already growing dark out, I notice, the days are getting shorter. The dimmed light of day makes my mother’s eyes appear dull and grey. Her hair has come loose and strands fall down around her neck, making her appear not much older than I am.
“You can’t see what, Mother?” I ask her softly. She appears hysterical, almost like I do when I have an asthma attack. “Tell me what you mean.”
“Gabe,” she whispers. “He took my powers. He reaped me.”
“Oh god,” I say, putting my head on the steering wheel. “That was meant for me, wasn’t it?” My mother is silent, staring away from me now, out the front window. I realize what actually happened back in the church. Gabe meant to reap me, but my mother intercepted. I can’t even look at her, knowing that I’m the reason she just had everything taken away from her. “I should have stayed away from Blackwater like you asked me to,” I mutter. She doesn’t say anything, which I take for silent agreement. We sit for a few minutes, not speaking until I see the lights of Jack’s car pull up behind us. I get out of the car and run over to Theo, throwing myself into his arms. Theo tells Jack to bring my mother back to the house. Watching my tiny mother helped up into Jack’s monstrosity of a vehicle seems unusual. Theo hoists her up into the back seat, and I note how frail she appears and like a rag doll, she needs to be pushed and arranged and belted in as she lies down. Theo drives Betsey for me, following Jack home. I look over toward him and a streetlamp casts an eerie glow on his face. I notice his jaw is clenching repeatedly, confirming what I already feel – everyone would be better off without me. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” I finally gather the courage to say.
“I’m thinking that you’re a fool for confronting Gabe without me there to protect you,” Theo says. “I think you have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
“He reaped my mother,” I say. “I know exactly what I’m dealing with.”
“And it took an incident like that to prove it to you!” he says, raising his voice above the normally even tone he usually has. The result is that I burst into tears. “Okay, stop, I didn’t mean to yell,” Theo says.
“No!” I cry, “You’re absolutely right! I’m reckless. I came back to Blackwater to get away from my crazy life and asshole husband in Chicago and make amends with my mother and sister. What I end up doing is taking two lovers and getting my husband killed and my mother’s power reaped by a psychopath, while my sister kidnaps my best friend’s baby and thinks she gave birth to it.”
“Your sister was going to kidnap that baby whether you came back to Blackwater or not,” Theo replies. “You couldn’t have stopped that.”
“But then I wouldn’t know, or care, and my mother would be just fine,” I say.
Theo grabs my hand and squeezes it. “Leah, I know she wasn’t fine before. How do you feel with Ash being gone right now?”
“Horrible,” I admit, feeling bad because I still have Theo right next to me. “Like half of my heart has been ripped out.”
“Your mother hasn’t been fine since your father left Blackwater, Leah,” Theo says. “You haven’t really been the cause of her not being ‘fine’. You know that.”
I sigh. “Theo, let’s say she does see my father again. I don’t know if she will, but what if? Would she still feel the same way about him? Would he still be her catalyst?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I honestly don’t know how it works.”
“For once, I feel like I know as much as you do,” I tell him. “So what happens now?”
“I think you should tell Eleanor what we know,” Theo says. “I also think Jack should come with you.”
“Okay,” I agree, nodding. “And you come with as well.”
“Are you kidding?” Theo replies. “Of course I will. After what happened tonight, I’m not leaving your side until I know Gabe is dead.”
*
“What’s wrong with her?” Jack wants to know, meaning my mother.
“Where is she?” I ask him back, purposely avoiding the question. I’m not really sure how to answer him.
“She went upstairs to her room,” Jack says, blocking me as I try to make my way past him up the stairs. “Don’t bother her, Leah. I think she wants to be alone.”
“Jack, she’s my mother,” I tell him. “I have to go see her.” Jack glances at Theo, as though he’s in charge. I’m suddenly dying to know what passed between them when they were at the house alone together, and in the car to get us. What would Theo have to say to Jack at all? Still, they seem copacetic from the exchange they’re having. Theo nods and Jack moves aside. I charge up the stairs and to my mother’s door. “Mother?” I say, knocking softly. “Mom?” She doesn’t answer, but I let myself in anyway and close the door behind me. I glance at my mother lying prostrate on her large bed under her white down comforter. The room seems frigid, as though the heat isn’t working at all, and I notice her window is wide open, swirling gusts of cold air through the room. I walk over to it and put my hands on the rail to push it closed.
“Don’t,” my mother’s voice says in a whisper from her bed. “Leave it.”
“You’ll get sick,” I tell her, echoing the very sentiment she would give me when I would go outside in the cold without a hat on when I was a kid. “I’m closing it.”
“I like the air, it lets me feel something,” she snaps, and my hands drop to my sides. I back away from the window and turn toward her and sink down to perch myself on the edge of her bed. “You should leave.”
“Blackwater or your bedroom?” I ask her.
“It’s too late for you to leave Blackwater now,” my mother says, yawning loudly. “I’m exhausted.”
“I’ll go,” I tell her. “But I want you to tell me something. Do you regret that I came back to town? Do you wish
I’d never set foot in Blackwater again?”
“Leah,” she replies. “I wish you’d never left, and that’s the truth.” I sit in stunned silence, not expecting that answer from her at all. “Do you regret leaving?”
“I regret everything right now,” I say. “Everything I’ve done these past couple of weeks has amounted to complete disaster.”
“Not everything,” she replies. “You have two men who would do anything for you and some people have no one.” She doesn’t add that she can include herself to the list of “some people”.
“Two people are too complicated,” I declare. “I would have been happy with one.”
“All love is complicated,” my mother replies. “It’s not worth it if you don’t have to fight your way through it.”
“What if I don’t want to fight?” I ask her. “I just want everything to work and everyone to be happy.”
“Then make it work, Leah,” my mother tells me. “You’ve found yourself in a love triangle. Well guess what? A triangle is a completely functioning shape. It has three lines that connect on all sides. What do you get when you have two lines?”
“I have no idea?” I reply.
“It could be an ‘X’ or it could be parallel lines side by side that never actually connect,” she explains. “I’ve seen it both ways. Heidi and Jack operated parallel to one another. They existed side by side, living their own lives their own ways without ever connecting at any point.”