Chapter III.19 #2
That, Miria had no trouble believing. Nor did she doubt that Adaline wanted to make herself useful.
So even though everything took longer because she had to take the time to show Adaline where items were stored and how to prepare food (and she could use no magic to help with any of it), Miria obliged.
Besides, Adaline’s insistence on being her hands meant Miria could ask Tuli to keep an eye on the woods, and she felt safer knowing the golem would be keeping lookout.
Nonetheless, her hands trembled with exhaustion by the time they sat and ate, but the food and the tea helped.
“What is it you need to tell me?” Adaline asked as she sopped up honey with her bread. It would have taken too long to start a fresh loaf, so Miria had cut thick slices of yesterday’s leftover bread, warmed them, then slathered them in butter and honey to soften them again.
There was no putting it off any longer, and without knowing if or when Adaline’s family might make it past Miria’s spells, she knew better than to delay. She just wished she was more prepared mentally. Emotionally. Although, to be fair, Miria doubted more rest would help either of those things.
“I never told you how I became a witch,” Miria said, wondering where to start.
Adaline blinked, as though Miria had said something more like, I never told you how I became a human. “I just assumed it was the usual way, like how I became Lady Adaline. I was born it.”
Miria understood that. If she hadn’t become a witch, she probably would have thought the same. “That is one way, I suppose. But very few things just are.”
She was sounding like her nana, and though that pleased her, Miria didn’t mean to lecture Adaline on the nature of change. She was simply procrastinating because this confession was difficult.
“There are many ways to become a witch,” she said, starting over.
“They all require you to be born with magic in you, but as I’ve explained, while that is uncommon, it is not exceptionally rare either.
In my case, I became a witch because my father traded me to the former witch, my nana, for a spell. ”
“Traded you?” Adaline gasped and almost knocked over her teacup. “Gave you away?”
Miria nodded.
“So your nana was not your nana. She accepted you as payment?” Adaline spit out the word.
Miria cupped her hands around her teacup, letting the heat seep into her skin.
All the salt and the sugar she’d consumed were slowly making her feel better, but this conversation would be as draining as casting a significant spell.
“Yes, but do not think badly of her for it. She was helping me. She was my nana in all ways but blood, which is the least important way. My father was very poor, and I was very young at the time. My mother and grandmother had died. I had no one to raise me properly as a girl. My father considered me useless. Even my brother, who was many years older and capable of learning my father’s trade, was of little more interest to him.
At least not then. He traded us both, or tried to. ”
Adaline flinched at the word she’d been using to describe herself all morning.
“He thought the witch would likely kill us, use us for our blood or some nefarious magic,” Miria continued.
Although she could reflect on the circumstances that had led her to Yali with more perspective these days, perspective didn’t numb the feelings of betrayal.
Perhaps nothing could numb a person to the knowledge that someone close would trade your life for gain.
Not even the charm around Miria’s neck could contain all of her emotions.
“My nana didn’t like that about him, and she saw my potential.
She took me in, and she let my brother believe he escaped so he could return home.
She saved me. Saving children is part of what a witch does, and she needed to train a new witch. ”
Miria provided Adaline with a bit more about her childhood, the way Yali had cared for her, the lessons she’d received in this very room. How she’d never gone looking for her family, especially the man who hadn’t cared whether she lived or died.
It was hard reliving these memories, particularly with Yali’s death so recent, but it was harder still to get the rest out. Miria knew she was delaying, waiting for Adaline to ask the inevitable question.
But Adaline didn’t ask it as quickly as Miria thought she might.
She fumed on Miria’s behalf instead, paced about the table and pulled Miria into her arms the way Yali once had, as though she could make up for all the love Miria had been owed by her blood relatives.
Miria didn’t need the sympathy or indignation, but she didn’t mind the hugs.
Finally, however, Adaline found the question Miria had been waiting for.
“You’ve never even been curious what happened to your father and brother?
I don’t know if I could have refrained from searching for them.
It’s best that I’m not a witch because I would have turned all my magic against them. You are a better person than I am.”
“I tried to pretend they didn’t exist, mostly.
I saw my brother again for the first time that summer you were here last. Do you remember that day I got so angry that I called down a storm?
That was because I ran into him. That was why it was better I ignored them.
” Miria’s teacup was empty, and she considered making another pot, but that would just be another excuse to delay speaking.
She pushed her empty cup away. “I can’t ignore them any longer. ”
She grasped Adaline’s hands, recalling her nana’s words about Adaline and timing and pushing on fate.
“I am not a better person than you, though I’ve been a more patient person.
Until now. It seems our lives are more entwined than not.
Maybe me finding you lost in the woods the day we met was a coincidence, or maybe there is a greater story here.
But the way it stands is this—the man your family has arranged for you to marry—he is my brother. ”