Chapter 3
Hanna
I’d practiced what I was going to say the entire way back to my parents’ house.
Be calm. Be an adult. Don’t let her see you sweat.
By the time I turned onto the long, tree-lined drive, my stomach was already tightening—like the house itself was something I wasn’t good enough to return to.
Even the car I drove felt alien in this shiny, extravagant place.
It was my grandmother’s. A classic. And no matter what my mother said, I was never going to get rid of it.
She wanted me to drive one of the ridiculously overpriced convertibles that she did, but for the first time ever, I’d stood strong against her.
Grandma Hanna—the witch I’d been named after—had insisted that it held everything I needed inside of it.
The thing that I needed the most though—her—wasn’t in the sedan with me.
Taking a deep breath, I looked up at the Greyleaf estate—since nobody in their right mind would ever actually call it a “house”.
My grandmother had scoffed at how my father had broken down the old home she’d lived in with her husband and built this monstrosity instead.
Despite my terrible mood, the thought made me smile.
She’d curled her lip when my father had revealed it years ago.
I’d been young, but I remember how she’d said that she never would have given him free rein with the house and property if she knew he was going to do this with it.
The ‘monstrosity’ rose at the end of the road like something out of a magazine spread about generational wealth and emotional distance.
It was beautiful, objectively. White stone glowing under the late afternoon sun, windows tall enough to make you feel like you were being watched, and ivy climbing the front columns with the kind of grace that the house and everyone inside of it—except me—managed to have in droves.
The lawn stretched wide and perfect, trimmed within an inch of its life, not a dandelion in sight—even though they were an important part of our culture and one of the main ingredients in every single one of our potions.
I still remember my grandmother taking me out with her as a little girl, filling the pockets of her dress with them, grinning at me and showing me one of the little yellow beauties.
“Do you know why we work with dandelions, my sweet?”
Her nickname for me filled my heart with longing, the memory bringing a rush of grief.
I’d shaken my head, staring up at her with awe, like I usually did. She was the most wonderful woman in the world, and I was certain she was the only person that loved me.
“Because they have many gifts. They can help with manifestation,” she told me, “by blowing on the seeds and sending out your dreams into the universe. They can even help you communicate with the other side,” she added, before giving me a stern look, narrowing those beautiful green eyes that I always wished I’d inherited.
“But most of all, they grow in the most difficult conditions. No matter how inhospitable the land, they find a way. Most people consider them weeds or pests or average. But they’re beautiful and strong.
They hold their own kind of magick.” Her eyes softened as she cupped my cheek. “Just like you.”
I squeezed my hands on the steering wheel, promising myself that I was finally going to be strong. I didn’t need Corwin. We didn’t need Corwin. Our business would be fine without him.
I lowered the window, sucking in a breath and struggling not to throw up. I didn’t know how I was going to tell them what I’d seen. I wasn’t even certain of what their reaction was going to be. I just knew that I needed to breathe.
The circular driveway wrapped around a marble fountain, shaped like some Goddess or another, pouring endless water into nowhere.
My grandmother had snarked that the least they could do was make it a tribute to the Goddess Mother—the deity of the witches—but my mother had sniffed and pretended she hadn’t heard her.
My father had taken another chug of overpriced whiskey.
The sound of the water falling was soft and steady, like the house whispering keep your voice down, don’t make a scene.
I slowed to a stop, staring up at the familiar facade—tall, stately, flawless.
The kind of place that photographed well but never felt warm.
I used to imagine it would look smaller once I grew up, but somehow, it never did.
Stepping out of the car, I wobbled my way across the pristine stone. The front doors loomed like a warning—heavy, polished, perfect. I took a breath, squared my shoulders, and reminded myself that I couldn’t shrink to fit a house that was built to make me feel small.
But my hands were still trembling when I rang the bell to the house—that big, echoing monument to good taste and emotional repression. The door opened before I could even knock—that was the thing about my parents’ house. Privacy wasn’t a value here; presentation was.
My mother opened the door shrouded in pearls and disappointment. “You look… Oh my, Hanna,” she said, eyes flicking over my tight dress and heels like I’d shown up barefoot to a board meeting. “I hope no one saw you like this.”
“This is the outfit you picked for me,” I told her, not defensive, just stating facts.
“Hmm,” she pursed her lips. “It looked better on the mannequin.”
“Nice to see you too, Mom,” I muttered, stepping inside.
The air smelled exactly the same as it always had—a mix of polished wood, lilies, and lies.
Although I wasn’t certain what lies smelled like, I knew that the pretentiousness of this house had a stench that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Everything gleamed, too. The black-and-white marble floors buffed to a mirror shine, the chandelier dripping light like champagne, the massive staircase that curved up toward portraits of relatives who’d probably all disapproved of me, too.
To the right was the sitting room, where no one ever actually sat. If you asked me, it should be called, the room that was added on to show off wealth without actually having a purpose, but what did I know?
Cream furniture, silver-framed photos, art that didn’t mean anything except cachet.
Even the curtains looked disciplined—perfect folds, no rebellion allowed.
Once the house had been demolished and rebuilt, I hadn’t been allowed to run around or make noise.
I’d always wondered if my parents had wanted a child—or just an heir.
I could hear the faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway, steady as a metronome for all the things you couldn’t say here.
The walls held silence like a secret—polished, pretty, and heavy.
When I was a kid, I used to run my fingers along the banister just to see if I could get away with leaving a single smudge. I’d been yelled at every single time.
Now, standing in the same spot years later, I caught my reflection in the hall mirror—totally out of place as usual—and thought how strange it was that a place could look like home but never feel like it.
My father was in his armchair, reading the paper as if global crises were more manageable than family conversations. Mom followed me inside, already suspicious.
“So? Did you and Corwin finally decide on the guest list? You’ve kept the Greyleaf family waiting long enough,” she demanded.
I inhaled for a long moment, holding it inside me before I quickly confessed what I’d come to say—like ripping off a bandage. “Corwin is sleeping with his assistant.”
Silence. For one hopeful second, I thought maybe she’d hug me. Or at least blink. Instead, my mother sighed, long and theatrical, like I’d just confessed to misplacing her favorite vase.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you must have misunderstood. Men like him don’t just—”
“He did.” My voice cracked on it. “I walked in on them. In his office.”
Dad looked up from his paper, frowning.
“That’s… unfortunate,” he said, in the same tone he used when the stock market dipped.
My mother pressed her hand to her chest, not out of sympathy, but calculation. “You should have handled this privately. You know how this will look if people find out. His family has influence—”
“Mom!” The word burst out of me, sharp and desperate. “He cheated on me. What do you want me to do, send him a thank-you note for the humiliation?”
She stiffened, her face tightening into that familiar look—the one that meant I’d just embarrassed her by being a real person. By being me.
“Lower your voice,” she hissed. “You’re being emotional.”
I laughed, small and broken. “I am emotional. I just got cheated on by the man you picked out for me like he was a handbag, and you don’t even care.”
“Of course I care,” she said with a sniff, folding her arms over her chest and rapping her long, manicured nails against her forearm. “Now how are we going to handle this?” she asked, narrowing her eyes into empty space.
“I guess we can contact everyone and tell them the wedding’s off,” I sighed, wanting to scrub my palm over my face but knowing that it would smudge my makeup and I just couldn’t handle another insult from my mother.
Her gaze sharpened on me. “Of course not. That’s ridiculous.”
I frowned, confused. “Well... they’re going to find out that the wedding’s off. It should come from our side.”
She scoffed. “You’re being silly, Hanna. The wedding’s not off.”
I froze, confusion swirling inside me before realization made its way to the surface.
“Mom,” I said in a slow, low voice. “You can’t seriously still expect me to marry that prick?”
“Language, Hanna,” my father snapped from where he was still reading his newspaper, only chiming in for that moment.
I looked from my mother to my father, baffled and heartbroken. “You’re joking, right?”
“It’s not all about you, Hanna,” my mother said, rolling her eyes as if I was just being dramatic.
“This is about the company. The marriage is what’s going to solidify the relationship.
They won’t want to continue if we don’t have any skin in the game and we need them for the expansion.
We need you,” she added and I stood there, appalled and betrayed.
“You want me to marry the guy who I just walked in on with his assistant?” I hissed. “Because of the fucking merger?” I demanded.
“Language,” my father barked, his newspaper snapping shut with his temper.
“You’ve both lost your minds,” I laughed, looking from one to the other again. “I’ll never marry him.”
“Yes, you will,” my mother’s voice was sharp, walking over to grab my arm the way she always did, tightening until it hurt and I knew she would leave a mark.
“Because a man that good-looking was always going to cheat on a woman like you,” she sneered, her eyes dipping to rake over my overweight body with disgust. “So you can deal with this and pretend it didn’t happen or you can go and apologize for overreacting. Those are the two options.”
I sucked in a disbelieving breath, searching the face of the woman who’d birthed me. The unsympathetic glare she was giving me told me everything I’d always known but never wanted to confirm to myself. She didn’t care about me, much less love me.
I yanked my arm out of her hold, holding back my wince at the pain. She was too shocked to react. I’d never done anything like that before. Defiant wasn’t exactly a word that described me.
Until now. I’m going to be like the dandelion, Grandma. Finally.
I backed toward the door, clutching my purse to my chest like armor. “I’ll never marry him,” I whispered, shaking my head. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Then I left—spine straightened with pride and anger, my reflection in the glass door warping just enough to make me look like someone new. Someone who might actually start believing in themself.