by Alina Banks
“Yes, she is.”
“So, if something were to happen to her, that would make me the leader of the coven?”
“It would.” Her eyes met mine. “I know what your next question is, and the reason I’m not the leader of the coven is because of who I am. I am the Guardian, Ana. Being the leader of the coven and the Guardian is always much more complicated, which is why the Canes and the Conways have always worked together, to make certain the source of power here is safe. I’m doing my best to work with Lilah in the way our moms worked together, but it’s not easy. She’s stubborn, and I get the feeling she still thinks it would be best if she didn’t have any power, so maybe it would be easier if the two of us started to plan out how things should work if she decides to leave Clermont again.”
Mom was waiting for me when I walked into the kitchen. “How did things go with Becca?”
“As well as can be expected, considering what we were talking about.” I sat at the breakfast bar, and Sasha jumped into my lap, taking some of the unwanted emotions from me. She’d done it before, but that was the first time I’d realized what it was. My familiar doing what familiars do. “She doesn’t think you’re going to stay in Clermont long term.”
“Now that the demon’s been dealt with, I’m not needed here.” Mom shrugged. “I did what I came here to do, and I could leave, but this is where you need to be.” She sighed. “We talked before Becca joined you. She understands you in a way I can’t, due to my disconnect from Clermont. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know why it happened. I just…Mom talked to me about it, about what it was like to feel that, and I know almost all the witches of the coven felt it, but I didn’t. I don’t. Not even when I first came into my power. I think, sometimes, it wasn’t meant to be me, but for some reason, I was born first.” She looked down. “When I was pregnant, I hoped you’d be a boy, even though I was certain you’d be a girl. If you’d been a boy, I wouldn’t have needed to worry. Boys don’t inherit the ability to use magic in the way girls do. You being born female…I knew the moment I held you in my arms, that you were special. Your dad talked to me about coming home, and I just…I couldn’t. Not even then, when I knew I was holding someone who could never be like me, because I wanted you to be free of this. But that was my choice, not yours.
“Knowing your choice is the reason I can’t leave. It’s better for everyone that you’re here, and I should have realized that long before I did. Had we made the move sooner, fewer people would have died. Had you been here before, had I been able to talk to you about this, had I made different choices…” She looked at me then, and I could see a mix of emotions in her eyes. “I was always selfish, Ana. I was always putting myself first instead of thinking about what other people might need, and that’s why innocents died again. Last time, we were doing everything we could to hunt down the demon and his minions, but it wasn’t enough. This time…it was my choices that led to this, and I can never make up for that. All I can do is try to work out how I can do better in the future, and after the conversations we’ve had, I know I need to let you do what you believe is right for you. Becca said she’d help you with that.”
“That is one of the things we talked about. I felt like we might have been getting somewhere before with all of this, but it seems like it’s one step forward and two steps back.”
“Everything about this is hard for me. I can’t understand you, but you also don’t understand me. When I realized how different I was than all the other members of the coven…” There were tears in Mom’s eyes, and she blinked, like she didn’t want them to fall. “I was meant to lead them when all I wanted was something else. Something different.” One of the tears fell, and she scrubbed it away. “Mom and I used to argue all the time because this wasn’t what I wanted, but it couldn’t be undone, and I hated her for so long. I blamed her for this when she had no choice either. She didn’t ask to be born with magic any more than I did, and neither did you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, sweetheart, there’s nothing for you to apologize for. This is my issue.” Mom stepped closer and put her hand on my shoulder. “I should be the one apologizing. You’re not me, and I kept acting as though you were, which was the wrong thing to do. I kept acting as though you were going to come to your senses and realize you didn’t want this power any more than I did. But that was never going to happen. Even when I offered to teach you, I was thinking you’d realize you wouldn’t want to be a witch. I thought you’d be the one to ask to leave. I thought you’d want to get as far away from here as possible, but that was me wishing for things for me, the way I always have before.”
For a few seconds, I thought about what to say next. There were so many things I could say, but I didn’t know if any of them were the right choice. I came to the realization that there was no right thing to say. “Mom, if you want to leave, then I’m happy to take on the weight of being the leader of the coven. Not that there’s much of a coven right now, but Miss Cane said she was working on getting more people to come back to Clermont, so hopefully that will work out. I can stay here. I’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, you will, but I think the time has come for me to accept that I can’t keep running away from my responsibilities, no matter how much I may want to. I am meant to be here as the leader of the coven. I might not feel the pull, but that’s no reason for me to walk away, especially since I know you feel it, and you need to be here to learn.”
Chapter Thirty
When I stepped through the front door, the house was different. It took me a few minutes to realize I recognized it, and that was when I heard the voices coming from the kitchen. They weren’t particularly loud, but I could tell it was two people having an argument, so I made my way over to the door, where I could watch Mom and Grandma. Mom was wearing the kind of dress I’d only seen in pictures before. She was pretty, prettier than I was, so I could see why Dad had fallen in love with her, even if she wasn’t the kind of person I would have spent much time with. Grandma was wearing something similar, and it was obvious from where I was, that she was doing her best not to let her emotions get the better of her.
“Lilah, I know you don’t want to walk this path, but it’s not a choice. I didn’t have a choice when I was your age. I did what I had to do because that was the only option I had.” She raked a hand through her hair. “I understand that you want to live a normal life, but we’re part of a family called upon to look after Clermont and protect it from the demon that wants to claim it.”
“How do I even know this demon is real, Mom?” My mother shook her head. “You’ve told me about it multiple times, but there’s no proof. Everything you’ve told me to read proves to me that this demon could be explained in a hundred different ways. I know what you believe, but I don’t, and I hate that you’re forcing me to do this. I don’t have any connection to this stupid town. I never have, and I doubt I ever will. What I want, is to leave when I’m old enough and never come back.”
“Come with me for a moment.” I thought Mom was going to argue, but instead, she followed Grandma out into the garden and to the wall that hid the door for the sanctuary. “Reach out to touch the door.”
Mom did, and the door didn’t open for her. She sighed. “I can only get into the sanctuary when you’re in there, because of how the magic works. I’m…different.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m different. I don’t know how this happened. All I know is that this is how things are, and this is not where I should be.”
“A self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe. They can happen.” Grandma studied Mom. “Your choices are going to lead to complications in the future.” She reached out to touch Mom’s shoulder. “I can feel the power you might have had, but it’s something you pushed away because this wasn’t what you wanted. For as long as you’ve known that you are a Conway witch, you’ve pushed the power away, and that’s something I understand, even though I can’t condone it. You realize that this is going to affect your children.”
“Sometimes, things don’t always go according to plan.” Grandma looked straight at me, and I was sure she could actually see me. “I believe the time will come when you change your mind as to whether or not you want a child, and I believe you will come back to Clermont. You may never be who you could have been, because of the way you pushed away your power, but that doesn’t mean you will never accept what you are, and it doesn’t mean you’ll never come home.”
“Being a Conway witch is something I can’t see myself accepting. This…” Mom sighed. “I want a normal life, Mom, and I can’t have that here. I’m sorry I’m not who you want me to be, but I have to be who I am.”
Turning, Mom looked straight at me, but there was no sign of her actually seeing me. Instead, she walked through me while I studied Grandma, wondering whether or not I was dreaming. “How can you see me?”
“You have so many lessons to learn, Ana, that this is going to become normal for you.” She gestured for me to go over to her. “I know you’re thinking of me as Grandma now.”
“Right now, I have no idea what to call you. My mind picks different things each time I come across you, which is understandable, I suppose. I’ve never had the chance to meet you in real life.”
“Who is to say this isn’t real life?” She smiled. “You heard what I just said to Lilah. I think she did this to herself. When she was coming into her power, she focused so much on how she didn’t want to be a witch that she wrapped it around her and made it impossible for her to be who she could have been. Maybe it’s better that you didn’t grow up in Clermont. That way, you couldn’t do the same thing she did.”
“Both of us are very different people. I would never have made the choice Mom did, because she made the selfish decision to put herself first, rather than Clermont. I never would have done that.” I shrugged. “At least, I don’t think I would. Being here…I knew from the beginning that there was something happening to me, and from that point on, I wanted to know what it was. It was Mom who made the decision to keep the truth from me. It was her fear of me being a witch that stopped her from coming back to Clermont sooner, and it’s going to take a long time for me to forgive her for that. I’ve had so much taken from me, Grandma. I feel like I should always have been here. I should always have had a chance to learn.”
Dad was making breakfast when I stepped into the kitchen. He looked over at me, his eyes meeting mine for a second, and then he looked back at the pancakes he was making. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired, mostly.” I shrugged. “Is Mom already at work?”
“She got called in early. I think she explained, but I went back to sleep afterwards, and I don’t remember what she said.” He glanced back at me. “I know you’re still angry with me for not telling you the whole truth, and I don’t blame you for feeling that way. Keeping it from you…I’ve talked to Lilah a lot through the years about that choice, in the hope that I’d be able to get her to change her mind, but nothing worked. She was so certain she didn’t want you to be trapped the same way she was, she couldn’t see how different the two of you are.”
“Mom said we weren’t going to be moving, but I don’t think she really wants to stay.”
“Honestly, love, I don’t think your mom truly knows what she wants. Everything we’ve been through…I didn’t know about the demon until your grandfather died. I don’t think she believed it was real until that happened, and I know she blamed your grandmother for far too long.” Dad flipped the pancake, and I could tell he was using that time to think. “Being a witch isn’t easy, but for her, it was harder. She knew she wasn’t like the others. It was a conversation she had with your grandmother about a self-fulfilling prophecy that…I don’t blame your grandmother for what happened. I think she was right. I think your mother wanted a normal life so badly that she did whatever she had to do in order to make that happen, and that meant she pushed her magic away, because then, she thought she wouldn’t have to take her position as the leader of the coven. After everything, she told me far more than I think she should have, because she needed someone to talk to.”
Nodding, I sat down at the breakfast bar. Sasha jumped up onto my lap, and I stroked a hand over her fur, grateful all over again for the gift. “What do you think we should be doing next?”
“Staying in Clermont. Leaving the town right now is just going to lead to more problems. Enough people have died, and now, we have to work towards fixing the damage that was done. The demon…he’s going to try to come back, because that’s what he does. I remember when your mom was first told about the demon. She did everything she could to make herself believe it wasn’t real. She didn’t want to have to deal with something so complicated, but in the end, she didn’t have a choice. He was real, and the minions it chose would do anything to open the door. Had I not been warned by your grandmother, I might have been taken by the minions myself, but she told me what to look out for. I will always be grateful to her for that.”
“Was there ever a point when she told you something that Mom didn’t?”
“She probably told me more than your mom did, because she wanted me to know what was coming. Lilah…up until the end, she did what she could to pretend that everything was going to be fine. When she was around me, she never said anything because she didn’t want me to know how bad things were. I understood it, but that was always a sign of how things would go when we had a child. She never wanted to accept you were different, even when you were showing signs of it. She wanted us to keep pretending you were just a normal girl, even when you started asking about Clermont, and it seemed obvious to me you were interested for a reason.”
“Back then, it was more because I wanted to understand why you left everything behind. Now, I understand it was due to that link I was already feeling, and I wish I’d known the truth earlier. I wish I’d always known what I could be. I could have learned so much more before all of this. I could have started working towards being the person who could be the leader of the Clermont coven.”
Alex sat next to me on the bus again, and I looked at him. He looked back at me. Even though we’d already talked things through, I knew he was going to bring it up again. “This isn’t something we should talk about on the bus.”
“No one will be paying any attention to us.”
“Still, if you really want to have this conversation, we should be in a more private place. The questions you’re going to ask are ones I’m not certain I’m going to be able to answer, anyway.”
“Why is that? You don’t know the answers? You don’t want things to be more complicated than they already are? You don’t want me to know?”
I almost smiled. “I probably have some idea of what the answer is, so it’s not that. It’s more the other two.” I shook my head. “Telling you these things…people in Clermont seem to prefer not to know the whole truth about anything, so there’s no reason for me to think you’re going to be different.”
“I’m not like that, Ana. I would like to know the truth, and I think you know much more of that truth than I do, which means you’re probably the only person I could ask.”
He sighed. “Principal Woods wasn’t just a murderer.”
Everyone in the school already knew about that, so I wasn’t too worried about Alex bringing that part of it up, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before we got a new principal. While the school looked for one, it was the part of the vice principal to take over. “There was something…did you really think I was going to be able to pretend that I didn’t see what was right in front of my eyes?”
“Honestly, I didn’t know.” I shrugged. “Everyone’s different. Some would choose to forget what they saw, for their own sanity. Others…well, they’d want to know the whole truth, no matter how complicated.”
I turned towards him and looked at him seriously. “I could tell you, Alex. I could be the one to break the silence, but then, you’d have to go home knowing the truth, an
d I can’t say that the truth won’t change the way you view your family. Their choices were made for what they believed were the right reasons. I’m not sure I agree, but I also don’t want to affect the relationship you have with them. I can tell you anything you want to know, as long as you understand that.”
For longer than I expected, Alex stared at me. I could see he was working out what the best choice was, so I gave him the time he needed.
“I know they haven’t told me the whole truth about anything, and there are things you’ve told me that are starting to add up. Maybe I shouldn’t know yet, because I do have to go home tonight.”
Nodding, I reached out to take his hand, which was more of a surprise to me than it was to him. “I know what it’s like to have people hide things from you, and I don’t want to be that person, but sometimes, as much as I hate to say it, it makes sense to not tell the whole truth about some things. You already know more than you should because of what we went through together, and I like you too much to walk away from this friendship, so the likelihood is, you’re going to learn more. You’re going to understand what it really means to live in Clermont.”
Curling his fingers around mine, he smiled. “I think I’m already beginning to, and being with you…I know it’s going to change my life.”
“Being with me?” I smiled back. “Is that your subtle way of asking me to be your girlfriend?”