Chapter 3
CALLIOPE
Ishould have known I wouldn’t be able to keep anything from my parents.
As soon as I entered my house Saturday night, they were waiting for me.
They didn’t have a gift like I did, but that didn’t mean their Spidey Senses weren’t tingling.
Neither had ever failed to know when I needed them, whether I knew it or not.
My dad, Marmot, was a tall, lanky man with shaggy, gray hair that fell around his ears.
He always had stubble on his face for as long as I could remember.
In contrast, my mom was short, like Dosia and me, though I was the shortest. Her once-blonde hair was now a shiny silver, which I thought made her look all the more ethereal.
Together, my parents had four children. The oldest was my brother, Fennel.
He was fifty-three and had five kids between his two marriages.
He lived in a Pagan commune in New York that ignorant people would perceive as a cult.
There was no ‘high leader’ or anything unsavory happening in the community.
It was just a group of families who wanted to live cleanly and without the pressures of a mostly Christian-based society.
Then there was Savory. She was the stereotypical middle child.
Never married, always in trouble, and might be a little unhinged.
But at her core, my sister was a good person.
She just didn’t like to see animals being mistreated and may or may not lead an activist group that was entirely against zoos.
She also acted like she was fifteen instead of fifty.
Stellaluna, or Stella, had been Dosia’s mother.
She and her husband, Calvin, were killed when Dosia and her brother, Ambrose, were young.
They’d been living in California at the time.
After their deaths, Dosia and Ambrose came to live with my parents and I in Mount Grove.
If Stella was still alive today, she would be forty-eight.
I was an ‘oopsie’ baby. At twenty-four, I was two years younger than Dosia.
It was a fact we constantly played up, especially when we’d been in school together.
My parents were hippies and had always believed in free love.
As much as it wigs me out to think about it, I was also pretty sure they were swingers in their heyday.
I loved my parents, who had not only given me their all despite their advanced age at the time of my birth, but also had taken in their orphaned grandchildren.
They taught me how to understand my visions and inclinations.
They were also the ones who stressed caution, especially in a society that was not known to take kindly to witches.
My coven was small. Outside my own family, we only had a few local initiates. I was also the only one with an active power and a Third-Degree Wiccan. Since we were so small, I took on the role as High Priestess, but did not use that title.
But even a High Priestess had to answer to her mother when she did something bad.
Since I beat Dosia, Pumpkin, SJ, and JJ back to my parents’, I knew that Dosia hadn’t told my mom about what I’d done.
Plus, she said she wouldn’t, and I trusted her.
My parents had phones, but they didn’t like to use them.
I had a feeling scientists had an easier time teaching gorillas sign language than I had teaching my dad to text.
Basically, the rule was, don’t text him unless you’re dying in a ditch, and even then, expect a delayed response.
I had to clean his phone out of unread messages once a week to keep his storage usage down.
I had to remove the ‘group chat’ feature from his phone after he tried to send a dick-pic to just my mom and ended up sending it instead in the family group—the one with the children and grandchildren also in.
That had not been a fun conversation.
Not knowing when Dosia and Pumpkin would return from the fair, I headed to my bedroom and my parents followed.
After settling Oolong in his cage for the night, I crawled onto my bed. Putting my back to my headboard, I clutched my pillow to my chest. “How much do you know?”
My mom sat at the corner of my bed. “Enough to know you paid five hundred dollars to win a date with him.”
I winced. That wasn’t enough. That was all. “I had to. This other woman would have won and she—”
But my mom wouldn’t let me finish my argument. “Calliope, it’s not time! You’re messing with Fate!”
Fate was such a cruel bitch. I know it was wrong of me, but I hated Fate.
How was it my fate to sit back and watch the man I love not even know I existed because it wasn’t time yet?
Was it my fate to suffer through this daily torment while counting down the days like a prisoner awaiting their release?
My parents called my visions a gift. Most days, I agreed with them. But then there were times, and specific visions, when I didn’t. When I knew that my gift was nothing more than a curse.
“You’re messing with forces you can’t control,” my mom continued. Her normal jovial demeanor was now stern and authoritative. “He is meant to be yours, but not yet. You need to be patient.”
“Patient?!” The word spat from my mouth with as much venom as a snake.
“Patient? Don’t lecture me on being patient, Mom!
I have been patient for eight years! I have sat back and watched him live his life without me because I know,” I tapped my chest under the pillow, “that it isn’t time yet.
I was the one who saw our first date. I was the one who had to do the math to know that he isn’t meant to be mine yet. ”
Her expression turned sympathetic. Gods, I hated that pity look. It was worse than her angry look. “Then why did you bid on him? Why did you interfere when you know it isn’t time yet?”
“Because I am tired of waiting!” I shouted.
I could feel the tears build in my eyes as my chest constricted.
“I am tired of waking up alone. So tired of watching him when he’s close enough to touch!
So tired of counting down the days when the number doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller!
So tired of watching everyone else in my life find love while I have to ‘be patient’,” I mocked with air-quotes.
My dad stepped forward. “Baby, you know there has to be a balance.” I’d always looked to my dad for wisdom.
He was so even-keeled. He rarely lost his temper, and his very presence in a room had a calming effect.
He claimed he wasn’t an empath, but I had my doubts.
“You were given a gift, and this is the price you have to pay.”
“Then maybe I don’t want my gift!” Despite my anger and defensiveness, my words did not come out as the shout as I’d meant them to be. “Dad, I love Quinten. I couldn’t just sit back and watch him be manipulated.”
My parents exchanged a glance before my mom asked, “What do you mean?”
Sitting back, I took a deep breath. “There was this woman in the crowd. I don’t know her name, but she was bidding on Quinten.
I had no intention of interfering. Really,” I insisted at their doubtful expressions.
“I’d gone there to speak with Dosia, nothing more.
But then I had a vision. It was different than usual.
I wasn’t standing in the background watching.
I was looking through the eyes of the woman from the crowd.
She was standing in front of her bathroom mirror.
She was on the phone, telling someone she was pregnant.
” I shook my head. “It’s hard to explain, but I know she’s not pregnant now. I could see that.”
“And you saw her become pregnant with Quinten’s baby?” my mom inquired.
Again, I shook my head. “No. No, not specifically.”
My parents looked at each other. “Calliope,” my dad said softly. “If they’re meant to create a baby, you can’t—”
Pain lanced my chest. Tears spilled over my lids. “What was I supposed to do, Dad? Let him be manipulated?”
“What makes you think he was being manipulated?” my mom asked. “You said you only saw her on the phone in the bathroom.”
I paused, thinking hard on that answer. “I don’t know yet,” I finally confessed.
“I’ll admit that this afternoon, my actions were selfish.
I didn’t want him to have a baby with someone else.
But I’m missing something…” My voice trailed off.
This happened sometimes. It was like missing a puzzle piece.
I could see the shape, but not the image.
Sometimes, though, it wasn’t what I saw, but what I felt, what I tasted.
Certain situations and visions had specific tastes, like sweet or bitter.
What I didn’t know, though, was if the vision I’d had of the woman in her bathroom was bitter because of my own personal feelings or because she was being dishonest.
When I didn’t continue talking, my mom reached forward to place her hand on my foot. “Baby, did you speak to him? Does he know you won his bid? Is there any way to undo this?”
I licked my lips. “I declined the date. Some of the club were offering labor hours instead of a date. I asked him if we could switch. Sometime this week he’s going to come over to my shop and help me get ready for the Grand Opening.”
This news was a relief for my parents.
“We’ll come too,” my dad started to offer, but I bolted upright.
“No!” It was bad enough I lived with my parents and had led a relatively sheltered life. I didn’t want Quinten thinking of me as a child, even though I was almost twenty-five. “Absolutely not! I do not need a chaperone.”
My dad’s lips pursed into what was almost a frown. “As long as you’re sure. Just, please, be careful.”
The caution in his voice made it sound like he was telling me to use protection. At least he wasn’t trying to give me the safe sex talk again. There were just some things a daughter did not need to know about her father’s sex life.
“I will,” I promised.