“Are we in Flag?” I asked, surprised to be so far away from the valley where I lived.
“Yes,” the older woman responded as we drew near the dark, double-doors at the end of the corridor.
She opened them to a stunning semi-circle of a great room with panoramic views of the forest below. A half-moon-shaped conference table dominated the center of the room with a sleek, cream quartz top that could easily fit twelve people. Instead, four luxury wingback chairs waited behind the table, three dark leather and one soft cream. Someone occupied each chair with the curved table separating us from them. A man and a woman, with the woman in the cream chair, sat on the left, while two men sat on the right.
One of them was Uncle Patrick, Kenneth’s older brother. He stood and made his way to us. “Sweetheart, come here and tell me what’s wrong.”
At first, I assumed he spoke to me, but then my mom's arm dropped from my shoulders and she moved into his embrace. “Patrick,” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”
Patrick bent down and kissed my mom's forehead.
I stared at the pair, puzzled. Mom had always been friendly with her husband's brothers, but I’d never seen her hug one of them or act so comfortable around them. Either my mom became rather close to her brothers-in-law or something seriously strange was going on here—and I wasn't talking about my situation.
“Hi, Uncle Patrick. Uh, what's going on?”
Uncle Patrick smiled at me but still kept his arms around my mom. “I suppose you would be confused and right now is as good a time as any to explain. Lydents, that's who we are, tend to marry in groups. I’m your mother's third husband.”
My jaw fell slack. “Th-third? As in…”
Mom shook her head. “Honey, it's not what you think.”
I moved back quickly, but Uncle Henry stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “What am I supposed to think? It's not normal, Mom. Why?”
“Because it’s our way,” the woman in the wingback chair answered as she stood up. “You might not understand everything right now, but you will in time.” Her flaming red hair tumbled down her back as she made her way across the hardwood floor, her crisp, full-length white dress suit swishing when she strode over to us. Stopping by Uncle Patrick and Mom, she held her hand out to me with a generous smile and kind eyes. “I’m Myra.” Her nails were short and painted pink, like a young girl’s despite her being closer to her mid-forties.
“Carly,” I returned as I took her hand, and instantly, the light within me I accidentally stole stirred. Warmth and comfort filtered from her grip to mine, and all the guilt, shame, and anger inside me melted away. It was an incredible sensation.
With tears in her eyes, she let go after a moment and placed her hands on my shoulders. “His light, you did not steal it. He gave it to you freely. The Spirit Whisperer wanted him to. You are needed among our kind, and you won’t be the last. Do you understand? His light, his magic, it’s a gift. And that is by far the highest honor any Lydent could ever give. You’re one of us now, Carly.”
She lifted her palms from my shoulders as I processed this information, stunned. I was one of them? Somehow, some way, this woman in front of me could tell if I was one of these Lydents or not.
“So, it’s true?” the man who had sat close to Uncle Patrick asked. “She’s now Lydent?”
The woman turned around to him and acknowledged it with a slight dip of her head. “She is.”
My mind worked a mile a minute. “What does that mean for me?”
Now, both men stood and approached us. I was surrounded. The same man who spoke a moment ago explained. “It means schooling at Hydrent school for magic, and rules that must be adhered to.” He paused behind Myra and studied me with keen interest. “I’m Gaston, Myra’s first husband."
What did he want me to say? "Uh, hi?"
"There are rules with magic and regulations to keep us safe.” The other man flicked his hand, and a silver band wrapped around my wrist.
I jerked back as the weight of it settled. I lifted my hand, inspecting the adornment. It was a plain silver bracelet that wrapped around my whole wrist. “What is this?”
Uncle Henry patted my back. “Don’t worry. Saul just put a restraining bracelet on you. You’re new and...special. We need to make sure you don’t get into any unwanted trouble.”
“It’s for you to keep an eye on me? That's a bunch of—”
Mom’s hand whipped out to take hold of my raised hand with the new restraining bracelet. “It’s fine. Right?” She smiled, giving my hand a quick squeeze with a hopeful expression. “You barely spend time with me anymore. This will be good for us, all of us, and now, you get to know everything.”
Mom practically glowed with excitement. My shoulders dropped, and I returned her squeeze. “It’s not like I have a choice, anyway.” I glanced down at my red swimsuit, now dry. “Is there something I can change into?”
“Here.” Myra flicked her wrist, and in a flash, she dressed me in a short black dress with white horizontal stripes, my shoulders barely covered with cap sleeves.
On my feet, I now sported wedge sandals with leather straps, and on my toes, purple nail polish peeked through. My sandy blonde hair, once gnarly from pool water, now curled in clean waves at my back. I didn't think I’d ever been this dressed up before.
When my attention returned to Myra, she wore a smug expression.
I shifted on my feet. “Um, thanks?”
She looked pleased. “I didn't do too bad.” She gestured to my mom. “We'll have to schedule a shopping trip.”
I groaned. I just wanted to get out of here and go home. Dad must be concerned.
***
Mom took uncle Patrick’s car when we left, since we shimmed directly to the council’s home, and now we were driving through the forest of pines, vastly different from the desert setting I’d been in only hours before. Mom chattered nonstop about how sorry she was for not leveling with me about her other husbands. An uncomfortable topic for me, since they were the men I called uncles! She agreed it was out of the norm, but she fell in love and didn't think I'd understand. She wasn’t wrong. How did her relationship even work with all of them? I shook my head, trying to rid those thoughts. I didn’t need that image in my head.
As Mom pulled into the long driveway, I exhaled and remembered the first time I came up here…
For a young girl like me, the place appeared gigantic. Just like now, tall pine trees loosely lined the driveway up to the house, but instead of soft snow that had blanketed the ground before, brown dirt with pine needles now covered the road. Back then, when we pulled up to the house, boys had been in the large front yard, trudging through the thigh high snow, gathering up snow to build two structures across from one another as if they were on teams. At the time, I thought they’d been putting together an igloo of sorts, but I was in for a treat. They’d built dugouts. A place to gather snowball ammo and shelter from incoming fire.
I’d met Hale and Zander before, and the two of them greeted me at the car door, excited to introduce me to their friends.
“Hey, Hannah!” Hale tugged me out of the car and onto the slush-filled ground. “Come see what we're doing!”
That's when I met Baxter and Colten. I recalled being full of life, young and free. They let me play, even though I wasn’t very good. I think, initially, that's why they kept me around. I was an easy target.
“Stop hitting me!” I’d growled, wiping the snow from my face.
Baxter laughed, shoving another fist full of snow in the back of my jacket. “Then move it, Car!”
I whirled around and smacked him right in the face with the snowball I’d packed in my hands. He jerked away and the snow on his face turned red.
“Ahhhh!” he cried, bending over and holding his nose as it bled.
I instantly felt sorry. “I’ll go get my mom.”
Before I could run off, he caught me by the sleeve of my jacket with his free hand and peeked up at me. “No, Car,” h
e whined. “I'm not a sissy.”
The other guys came near. Zander gave him more snow and plopped it on his face while laughing. “Here, this will help. She knocked you good, Bax.”
“Ouch-ouch. Man, not so hard.”
Colten hit Baxter’s shoulder while sending me a friendly smirk. “Spilled blood makes you one of us, Car.”
Hale slung an arm over my shoulder and pressed a hand full of snow in my face, softer than I did to Baxter.
Shaking my head, I spit it out. “Ack, no.”
I guess that saying was true, boys like girls who could hold their own. After that, the guys and I did nearly everything together, and I struggled to keep up with them. Up until the day Kenneth made it clear I didn’t belong here…
I shook out of my memories, taking in the homestead, as Mom parked in front of the three-car garage of the two-story mini-mansion cabin.
While traditional cabins had brown exteriors, Mom painted this one a soft gray, accenting it with fire-red steps and a front porch floor that led up to the chestnut front door, surrounded on either side with peek-a-boo stained-glass windows.
“You'll have your own bathroom this time,” Mom stated carefully before she got out.
My gaze darted to her as I unbuckled. “They moved out?”
She knew full well who I was talking about. “Yep. Both of them and a few of their friends.”
My brows scrunched as I got out of the car. “With Baxter and Colten?”
“Mm-hm." Well, that wasn’t unexpected. My stepbrothers and their friends were closer than anyone I knew. I’d probably add me to that as well if it wasn’t for the fact I wasn’t around a lot. But when I visited, the five of us always found time to hang out. “Where to?”
Mom gave me a knowing look and nodded her head in the direction opposite of the cabin. “Next property over.” She walked to open the door that entered the laundry room on the side of the house. “You know, they ask about you from time to time, wondering how you’re doing.”
I schooled my features as we entered the kitchen, but my heart skipped. I cleared my throat. “Really?”
In the few years I did live with my mom full time, the five of us had grown close. From the snowball fight with us kids playing together, something happened. Back then, I would have never guessed it, but now as I thought back, the friendship was soft and instant.
Mom turned on the lights in the kitchen. “Really. They miss having you around.”
I sighed. Mom didn’t know why I moved away. I was too embarrassed to tell her, and she always seemed so happy with Kenneth. I didn’t want to ruin that for her.
Mom put her purse down on the counter and continued through the living area to the stairs that lead up to the second floor.
“Since they moved out, we've changed things,” Mom explained as we trudged upstairs and down the hall, to stop in front of Zander’s old room. She opened the door and walked in. “This is your room now.”
I followed her in to find a queen-sized bed with a dusty-plum comforter situated in between two blind-covered windows. A million pillows in all different sizes were stacked against a shaker-style headboard. Off to the right was a dresser with an antique mirror above it. On the left side, a door I assumed led to a closet.
I was never supposed to have been in Zander’s room before, and at first, I’d just seen it in passing. There was a big personal boundaries speech about it, and now I knew why. My stepbrothers probably practiced magic in their rooms.
When we got older, Kenneth caught me in this very room with them. The three of us had been on Zander’s bed, my stepbrothers on the outside edges while I sat in the middle, watching a movie. Kenneth was not pleased.
“It’s slightly bigger than the one you were in before, and of course, we redecorated it for the next time you came over. I know purple is your favorite color, and creams and gray go well with it,” Mom said, pulling me back to the present.
I walked over to a window and hummed an agreement, my thoughts scattered like the pine trees across the side yard. I still struggled to process everything, even though my mind seemed to be numb. Everything was going to be different.
My gaze drifted from the side yard to the distant cabin next door where a light glimmered. It was something someone would take for granted as the sun glinting off the window pane, but I knew better. Someone had just shimmed into the house. I snorted. At least the Lydents didn’t have to worry about oil price spikes. I guess that was one good thing about magic.
“Do you like it? Some of the stuff is from the old bedroom, but the rest is new. Well—” I turned around, and she gave me a rueful smile. “New to us.”
I wrapped my arms around my body as I leaned back against the wall and breathed. “It’s nice, but Mom, what am I going to do about my life?” I threw my hands up in the air in a careless gesture. “I have a job, well, at least I hope I still do, and Dad, he’s going to freak when he realizes I haven’t come home. Even if I called him to say I decided to move up here with you, it's kind of sudden, and also hard to believe.”
“Am I really that bad?” Hurt was evident in her tone, as her lips pressed tightly together.
I dropped my arms and took a hesitant step toward her. “It’s not you. It’s just, when you got married to Kenneth, I liked him. He made you happy. As you guys became closer, I realized I didn’t fit in here, and I missed Dad.” That was a total lie, but I wasn't going to tell her that. “I finished school and started to make a life for myself when I got dropped, quite literally, back into yours. It’s a lot to take in in one day. Hell, I really need to talk to Dad.”
“Kenneth already took care of your father. He sent the boys to mind-sweep your dad into believing you came up for a visit.”
My mouth fell open, appalled she could be so casual about this whole thing. “Mom,” I practically growled, and her back stiffened. “What does that even mean? You know what? This day has really been shit. A boy died, and his magic went into me, and now you tell me that either Zander or Hale went to mind-sweep Dad? What the hell is wrong with you people? Shouldn't you all be planning a funeral? Or taking food to that poor family?”
Mom’s lips parted as her eyes widened in shock. Immediately, I regretted my words. Her lips pressed as anguish flashed in the depths of her soul-searching eyes. When she spoke, it was the barest whisper. “That boy's name was Philip. He had a full life ahead of him. He trained so hard because he wanted to become a Warrior, but most of all he wanted to be someone great. Philip died an honorable Lydent death because he sacrificed his light in the end—for you. The Spirit Whisperer might have given him a nudge, but in the end, it was his decision.” She stepped forward, her gaze intent on mine. “I can never be what you have become. I will never be the mate my husbands have lost. I know they love me as a human, but a connection between Lydent mates is sacred. I was just lucky enough Kenneth fell in love with me, and the others followed. Carly, you are only one of four Lydent women in the whole state. And you met two of them today. The women in the world of magic are scarce, and Philip just gave the Lydents something to rejoice about. You. His memory, his gift, will not be forgotten. So, don't judge until you know everything.”
She swung around and walked to the door. With her hand on the doorknob, she paused. “The celebration of Philip's life will be tonight. They will release his body to the earth then dinner afterwards. I hope you’ll come. The least you could do for him, for his family, is honor the gift he gave you by honoring him.” With that, she walked out and shut the door.
I moved to my bed, flung myself onto the many pillows, and screamed. Heaven help me.
Chapter Three
I stayed up in my room, a million thoughts going through my mind, and eventually rummaged around the room until I found a notepad and a pen. I decided to write down all my questions and then demand some answers.
My questions filled three pages of the notepad before I found myself doodling. It was a pretty good drawing of the silver tattoo my stepbrothers got when they
turned thirteen. Some tradition or something Mom explained when I caught a glimpse of it on the back of their necks, both in the same spot. After learning all four of them had it, I wanted one, too. Of course, my eleven-year-old mind had no idea what it was or why they had them, I just wanted to be one of the guys. Fit in. They told me I couldn’t have one.
I remembered that as the day when our friendship began to change. We still hung out, and when I turned fourteen, my interest shifted. Kenneth took notice. That same summer, I went to visit my dad and didn’t come back. Oh, I went to visit my mom every now and then, and the guys demanded my attention. As I got older, they became more protective. They saw me as their little sister; I saw them as more.
Staring at the drawing of the guys’ mark, it taunted me, reminding me something was off with me. I wasn’t very good at drawing before, but I drew a perfect replica of the tattoo. It reminded me I carried someone else's light. My body was no longer my own, or at least, it felt that way.
Frustrated, I tossed the notebook aside. I didn't have any clothes, my makeup, or even my shoes. I could wear the outfit Myra put me in for Philip’s celebration of life, but what would I go to sleep in tonight? And what would I wear tomorrow?
I’d just gotten off the bed and straightened the dress I wore when a knock sounded at the door. I figured it was either Uncle Henry or Uncle Patrick. It was weird calling them that now, but I’d called them uncle since I was twelve. It would feel weirder not to after so long. The knock sounded again, and someone entered. Instead of one of my uncles, my stepbrothers walked into my room.
I yelped when Zander scooped me up around the waist and swung me around. “If it isn't Callin’ Carly,” he teased, using the childhood nickname they used to call me because I’d call out for people instead of finding them first. “Always causing trouble.”
My hands rested on his arms as he set me down. His moss-green eyes, unlike his dad’s dark ones, glinted with amusement.
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