Chapter Eleven
Eleven
A s the shop closed that night at six, Poppy and Sera lingered by the front door. Liberty glanced over at them. Something was up.
“What?”
“Did Merle find your dad?” Poppy asked. “We wanted to ask you all afternoon but we’ve been so busy.”
“It’s so mad,” Sera said. “I’m trying to keep up with making the grimoire covers you suggested but they’re flying off the shelves. Wes found me a printer who did a sample print run and I’m going to check it out tonight. If they’re good quality, I’ll order a batch for our Samhain event.”
Liberty forgot that she told them about her dad. She’d almost been afraid they knew she’d had hot, rocking sex in the back room. Which was silly when they’d definitely cheer her on for it. But no, they wanted to talk about her dad.
She really was detached from her normal. This was something they routinely did. Catch up with each other and offer support in hard times. She glanced over at the large table at the front area of Poppy’s tea shop and saw that it was set with three cups. She took a deep breath.
It was as if by learning her father’s name, she’d lost who she was. Lost where she belonged in this world. In her world. Today was her day for lots of realizations, but she had no idea how to push herself back to where she’d been now that she’d cracked herself open.
She glanced down at her watch. Two hours until she had to be at Merle’s for D&D. It was time to renew her ties with Poppy and Sera.
“Tea and talk?”
“Yes. You’ve been so...not yourself lately,” Poppy said carefully.
“We were planning an intervention if you tried to flake on us again,” Sera said.
“I’m sorry, girls. I just—this thing with my dad has me flustered. And with each step I take to figure out what’s next I just keeping getting blocked, and then I get back up and try something else,” Liberty said as she followed them over to the table.
They sat down and Poppy muttered a few words under her breath that she’d learned from her grandmother, her own little spell. Then she poured each of them a cup of tea.
Steam rose from the fine bone china cup. Liberty put her hands around it, absorbing the warmth as she inhaled the fragrance. It was Poppy’s autumn blend and smelled of pumpkins and nutmeg. She took a deep breath and some of the tension in her soul dissipated.
She’d needed this.
She’d been so afraid of hurting anyone with her anger that she’d been keeping those she loved at a distance. Maybe because she was lying to her mom, she was trying to punish herself.
“Maybe the universe is telling you to let it go,” Sera said.
“Probably, but I hate being told what to do,” Liberty reminded her.
They all laughed. “There are times when you have to adult it, you know. Ask the tough questions and be honest with your answers.”
Again, Sera came in clutch with the advice that she needed to hear. Not that Liberty wanted to. But Sera was making a lot of sense.
“What questions? Because right now all I’ve got for sure is, who the fuck is the man who knocked my mom up?” Liberty said.
Poppy and Sera exchanged concerned looks and her stomach sank. This was an intervention. Her friends had been talking behind her back. For a second, she was mad. But then when they both looked back at her with those gentle smiles and love in their eyes, she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
These two women were sisters she trusted to be honest, steadfast and have her back always.
Sera chewed her lower lip for a minute. Liberty’s friend had a hard time being tough with people who mattered to her. After growing up in the foster care system, Sera was used to people leaving and had developed a habit of saying the right things to make them stay.
“Firstly, why aren’t you telling your mom? The fact that you’ve kept this from her makes no sense.”
“I know. I almost told her last night, but she didn’t come home until late and then this morning... I just couldn’t.”
Poppy reached over and put her hand on Liberty’s, stopping her before she took her first sip. “Why is that? Ask that as you drink.”
Poppy was going to read the tea leaves in the bottom of Liberty’s cup when she was done. For the first time since she’d done that ritual in her apartment and felt her magic swirling out of control, a part of her relaxed.
She had been denying herself one of her greatest strengths. This friendship with these two women. Not only had she cut herself off from her mom, but her grandmother wasn’t reliable anymore as reality shifted around Nan and her mind played tricks on her. Liberty had always found her strength from the feminine bond and she’d let that wane.
She closed her eyes, so many thoughts jumbling in her mind, trying to find the thread that connected them all. Why was she afraid to let the women in her life come on this journey to find her father?
Why was she determined to do it alone?
She had never been alone. Not one moment in her life. She’d been surrounded by love and magic from her earliest memory. Liberty even found Poppy and Sera when she’d left to go to college, creating a new threesome in her life of chosen family. They had always supported her. And yet she’d given them only the barest parts of the truth as she tried to figure out why hearing her father’s real name at this point in her life was throwing her into a tailspin.
She wasn’t sure, but she needed answers. To stop hiding from her friends and her mom. To stop fearing whatever it was that they would say to her.
Was that what was keeping her silent? Was she afraid that her friends would tell her something that made this all go up in flames?
“Dude, you invited another player? The party’s getting kind of big,” Darren said as he arrived at Merle’s.
They’d been roommates in college and had stayed close. Darren lived in Bangor and usually drove over early. They usually had dinner and beers before they played D&D with the rest of their friend group.
Darren hadn’t played D&D before college but joined when Merle started this local group. Darren ran a small sporting goods store in Bangor that had been in his family for generations.
“It’s Liberty.”
“Liberty Wakefield...interesting.”
Darren knew that Merle had been into her for a while. He was one of the few people that Merle trusted and the two of them talked about everything. Darren’s family relationships were complicated too, so he understood things other people just didn’t.
“That’s one word for it,” Merle said. He hadn’t really had time to process everything that happened today. But that was the effect that Liberty had always had on him.
He wasn’t ready to discuss it with Darren, so he wanted to change the subject, but since Liberty was new to the group he had a feeling everyone was going to be asking about her. Merle really should figure out what he was going to say about it. They weren’t dating exactly, just...sort-of-dating.
Darren laughed and patted him on the back. “I picked up a pizza in town. Let’s go out back and eat it before it gets too cold.”
Merle grabbed two cans of Guinness from the fridge and led the way. His house was a work in progress, but his backyard was finished. He’d put in a seating area, a grill and a large table where they’d played D&D all summer. Darren sat down and took a slice after Merle handed him a beer.
“So, Liberty?” Darren said.
“She asked me for a favor, and since Mandi can’t play because of baby Grace, I figured we could use a sixth player who was here for the campaign. In exchange for my help with her project, Liberty’s filling in for Mandi. She’s only going to play for six sessions,” Merle said. Somehow after all she’d said to him in her back room this afternoon. Six sessions—one session per week that lasted three to four hours—seemed way too short an amount of time.
He wasn’t sure she’d figure out what was going on with her dad in that time. This might be a longer journey for her. He wondered where he fit into that path or if there was room for him.
He was bringing her into his life and opening up more to her than any other woman and she was...hesitating.
Then again, so was he. In that way they were already a perfect match.
“Sounds reasonable. And the others are totally going to buy that,” Darren said.
“But not you?”
“I know you too well. This is Liberty, who you’ve been into since Poppy introduced you to each other. She’s like the one person I’ve seen rattle you. I can’t wait to meet her.”
This could be awkward. He wasn’t used to having people from the different segments of his life cross over. Darren had heard him talk about his cousin and her shop but he’d never been to it, and they’d never met.
There was potential crossover between the D&D crowd and the witchy crew. But after a lifetime of having to keep his lives separate, it was his default to separate, to protect himself from the worst.
As Darren started talking about their last campaign and things he was going to do differently this time, Merle sat with the fact that he’d never faced those anxieties and kept all of that behind when he’d left home.
Well, fuck.
Had it just been an impulse to bring Liberty into this part of his life? In reality, he was still more comfortable showing people what they expected him to be.
Brutal as it was, he fit himself into what the different parts of his life needed. Keeping each part separate might have started in high school, but it had become a habit, the way he’d structured his world.
Even Darren. They bonded over drunk nights in college and then the long walks they’d taken to sober up and get over their hangovers. Both of them had felt like misfits in different ways. There was no one who knew him better. And Merle had kept him tucked away from his family.
Even Poppy.
Frankly, there wasn’t a good reason for that other than habit and fear. Liberty meeting his family would be like letting a genie out of its bottle, and there would be no going back.
But what fear could he still be carrying out here in Birch Lake, where he felt the most at home?
Perhaps he didn’t feel at home anywhere.
He didn’t trust people to like him when he was himself, when he wasn’t being the man they’d come to know. The man that Liberty knew was one degree away from how he felt inside. Still a fumbling nerd—that was never going to change—but more comfortable in his own skin, less frantic about hiding his interests.
It scared him to imagine anyone seeing all of him, even the disappointing pieces. But hearing Liberty say that she wasn’t confident that he’d like her true self made him want to try. To prove both of them wrong.
“Merle? You okay?”
He shrugged. “This is the first time I’m letting two people from different parts of my life meet.”
“I noticed you tend to keep college and D&D friends away from Work Merle and Family Merle,” Darren said, giving him a sly smile. “But it’s cool. I’m looking forward to seeing you with the one woman you’ve mentioned to me.”
Merle shook his head. “I didn’t mean to do that—keep you separate.”
“I know. Your family fucked with your head. Luckily mine is just a hodgepodge of weirdos,” Darren said.
Darren’s family were all very different and yet they all accepted each other. It was one of the many things that Merle envied about his friend.
“Thanks,” he said.
Poppy saw a boat anchor in her teacup after Liberty had finished, which meant to slow down.
It was not the time for action, according to yet another magical sign.
Well the universe was doing a good job of keeping her in this holding position. The anchor appeared in sector two—the teacup had three sectors when you looked at the bottom of it, and the leaves tended to cluster and take different shapes in the three different areas.
At first, Liberty wanted to argue that maybe it wasn’t an anchor, but it was clear. Sector one was an arrow. Fast paced and frustrating times. That certainly didn’t help.
Sera suggested, and Liberty agreed with her, that the fast pace and frustration was all coming from her. That she was trying to force this knowledge of her father to appear right away when she really needed time to adapt to it. Time for the goddess and the universe to figure out what was next for her.
Finally, in sector three was the candle. That represented help arriving from friends when one didn’t know what to do. Fitting since she’d been also thinking about how grateful she was for her friends when she’d finished her tea.
“I’m not sure what’s next,” she said.
“Tell your mom,” Sera said.
“I agree. It’s eating you up keeping it from her. Whatever she says to you about this, it can’t be worse than whatever you’ve made up in your head,” Poppy said. “Believe me, I know. When I told my mom I was getting a divorce, I thought she’d be all ‘told you so,’ but she didn’t.”
“Of course she didn’t. She might have looked at you all judgy,” Liberty said. But she was mostly joking. Poppy’s mom was very aware of her place in society and what her friends would think, but she was always there for Poppy.
“Yeah, I know. But she just nodded. She told me that I lived in Poppy’s World and saw everyone else as their most...idealized self. She was glad I’d woken up,” Poppy said. “Which immediately made me wonder if I’d made the wrong choice.”
“You didn’t make the wrong choice. We all thought it was good that you divorced him too,” Sera said. “He led you on. You know that. I don’t care what your mom said about Poppy’s World. Alistair played on that and romanced you for a tea recipe. What a dick. If you’d let me give him that spell—”
“No. I agree it’s good I divorced him. Especially since everything with Amber Rapp put us in the spotlight,” Poppy said.
“Now he’s trying to weasel his way back into your life because everyone wants your tea,” Liberty said.
“It’s more than that. We’ve been chatting in my online tea society and things are...amiable.”
“I do need to tell Mom. I hate keeping this from her. I can’t talk to her about anything because all I can think is that I know his name and how hurt she’ll be that I didn’t come to her earlier,” Liberty admitted.
“Yeah, I bet it’s hard,” Poppy said. “Just do it.”
“We’ll come with you if you want, but you and your mom might need to discuss him by yourselves,” Sera said. “I’m the least experienced with parent stuff, so whatever you want.”
“Thanks, but I do think you’re right. Mom and I need to talk. I’ll do it tomorrow,” Liberty said.
“Why not tonight?”
“I’m playing D&D with Merle and his group. And I don’t want to miss it,” she said.
Poppy gave her a cheeky grin. Sera laughed. “I’m happy to hear that. So...?”
“So that’s it. We are going to go on a date this weekend. And we hooked up.”
“Yay. It’s about time,” Sera said. “I like you two together.”
Liberty did too. But with the recent massive sign from the goddess that she still wasn’t herself, and her own doubts, she wasn’t sure she should be starting anything with him. Because she did like him. She didn’t want to hurt him.
When she was at her most unpredictable, it was a dangerous time emotionally.
But for tonight, she wanted to pretend she was her old self and just enjoy flirting with Merle. The uncertainty of how she was going to navigate a relationship with him alongside Nan’s deterioration and finding out more about her father was a big ask. She wanted tonight for herself.
She was curious about this other part of his life too. He talked about D&D a lot in the shop because he was always getting books from Sera or asking Liberty about which crystals were best for healing and other properties—all in the name of whatever campaign he was designing. And she’d been intrigued. Well, if she was honest, she’d been more intrigued the first time she’d seen his butt in those jeans he habitually wore. But his interest in the arcane teased her. Made her wonder if he could understand her.
There was so much about Merle that drew her in and she’d been smart to keep him at arm’s length, because if their encounter in the back room had shown her anything, it was that once she’d let him close it was hard to push him back out.
She’d spent the afternoon feeling as if he were still with her. Maybe it was the lingering scent of his cologne on her skin or the slight tingling that spread on her lips and throughout her body. But as much as it scared her...she’d enjoyed it.
Enjoyed how he helped her calm her frustration and how he showed her that maybe the past wasn’t where she needed to be looking for answers to the questions she had about herself.
Maybe she needed to be present. With him. And that was more than she knew how to handle at this moment.