38. Unrepentant
Unrepentant
Ash makes good on his promise. We sleep between rounds three and four for about two hours, and that’s the only sleep I get until I slip out of bed at five a.m.
We agreed to do this at sunrise—when Elizabeth cast her spell—so I have to be home by then. I pull on my clothes in the kitchen after pressing a kiss to Ash’s forehead.
He’s a deep sleeper normally, but this morning? He’s practically dead to the world.
Just as I hoped he’d be.
I may be vicious, I may calculated, I may have fucked my soulmate into a sex coma so he wouldn’t come after me.
But I’m also unrepentant.
The drive home is quiet. A thick layer of snow fell last night after I arrived at Ash’s, but the morning is clear. The sun will shine today.
I only hope I live to see it.
The house welcomes me in with a jolly creak, but I barely hear it over the crackling of fire. I’m drawn to the back doors and there it is.
Hazel and Grandma have created what has to be the biggest—and most illegal, if I had to guess—bonfire I’ve ever seen. It’s at least ten feet tall, and it’s beckoning to me seductively. The flames are almost asking me to come and play.
It calls to me, just like it always does. Literally and figuratively.
My feet carry me forward as I answer the summons.
“No, no!” Grandma waves her hands and approaches, pushing me back inside. “You can’t connect yet. Not until sunrise. Stay in here.”
“What did you do to it?” I ask, allowing her to herd me like a cattle dog does a sheep.
She closes the doors to the backyard. “Nothing much. I did my own little ritual with some of my personal herb bundles and added them in. Focus, protection, connection, family—that sort of thing.”
It’s taking all the strength in my body not to run outside and dance around it like some sort of feral cat.
“Mrrroww.”
Speaking of feral cats. I turn my gaze downward to Belle, who sits beside me with a glare on her elegant face.
Got it. Go outside, get mauled by cat.
“How much English do you understand?” I ask her, scratching behind her long ears.
I don’t imagine the eye roll I get in return. “Mrrow.”
“Don’t sass me, I’m basically your mother.”
She hisses before nudging something at me with her paw. I didn’t even realize she was hiding something beneath her.
I crouch down and pick up the compact I took from Mom’s room when I first read her letter. It’s as if Belle knew I’d need something of Mom’s with me today.
“Thanks, Belle.” I kiss her forehead.
“So, do we actually have any idea what we’re doing?” Hazel asks, emerging from the backyard but quickly shutting the doors behind her.
“We’re letting the magic guide us.” I snort laugh. “Or something like that.”
She can’t hide the way her eyes soften at my laughter. At the easiness of it. Something happened last night that has made me shed so much of the anger I feel.
Maybe it’s that I know what to expect from Hazel now.
Maybe it’s just that I’ve changed in the last few months.
But watching her watch me is healing in its own way.
Grandma lays her bangly-jangly hand on my shoulder. “You jest, but that is most of the plan thus far. We’re entering uncharted territory, my dears, and that means we do not have the comfort of a map.”
“But we do have ground rules.” Hazel crosses her arms. “No pushing. If you feel any sort of resistance, or see some sort of twinkly light situation, you stop. We reassess. We decide if we want to try again on some other significantly witchy day. Yes?”
Some habits are hard to break, it seems. Hazel will probably always feel a level of protectiveness over me that is more than sisterly love.
“Yes,” I say. It’s easy to agree right now before we’re really in it. I don’t know how hard it’ll be to pull back once I’ve connected to Mom. But I will try my hardest.
The first stream of sunlight breaks above the trees in the backyard, a little sliver highlighting the wood floors beneath me.
It’s time.
Without a word, we file out to the backyard. To the bonfire piled high and leaking magic in each plume of smoke.
Mom will be resistant initially, I’m sure. But there’s no way she won’t want to take the opportunity to be free of Hell.
And of Draven.
Although I know we didn’t get the whole story when it comes to their relationship. And that’s more than a little unsettling.
“Hazel and I will be right here. We’ll each have a hand on your shoulders so you can pull from our magic,” Grandma explains. Her smile falters as her blue eyes scan me. She knows how risky this is, but she wants to try.
The conflict is clear in her growing tears.
I don’t tell her that I’ll be fine. I don’t tell her that she has nothing to worry about. I don’t tell her that this won’t be the last time she sees me with life in my eyes.
We both know they’d be empty promises that I can’t make. Shouldn’t make.
“Let’s get started,” I say instead. “Before we lose the sunrise.”
She nods and I circle the fire. My instincts tell me that where I stand is important—that every little decision needs to be correct or we’ll fail—and I follow them. I trust them.
I trust myself. Trust my magic.
I finally choose the place where the sun will hit last, the darkest part of the yard, and plant my feet.
Hazel takes my right shoulder first, clamping both hands on it in an almost too tight squeeze. Her nerves filter through the touch, but so does her determination. She’s not the woman she used to be. She’s not the scared-of-life hermit who didn’t believe in herself.
I’m proud of her. Of the woman she’s become despite losing Dad and enduring Mom.
Grandma takes my left shoulder a beat after, her touch lighter. More hesitant. It’s strange having Hazel be the confident one of the two. As much as Hazel has changed, so has Grandma. And not for the better. She still makes her sarcastic quips, but she doesn’t own them anymore.
She hides behind them.
I don’t know what she’ll do if we get Mom back. Worse, I’m not sure what she’ll do if we don’t.
Their magic flows through their touch, a cooling sensation against the heat of the flame. It’s grounding, a contrast that helps me focus. No more emotions, no more worrying. I can’t focus on anything but what’s in front of me. The fire.
Mom.
I stand close enough to let the heat lick up my skin. To just about risk burning my eyebrows off.
Even so, somewhere inside I know I won’t burn. Can’t burn.
I’m a dragon. And dragons don’t burn.
Closing my eyes, I open my mind. Clear the way for the voices to filter through. I don’t grab on to any, though, just let them pass by like snowflakes on the wind as I search for Mom.
Search for the voice of the woman I always wanted more than anything. The one who kept me at arm’s length for my entire life. I replay our happiest moments. I remember the scent of her perfume. I try to see her the way Dad did.
Time stops in my small bubble. As I use the fire almost as a looking glass. I’m not in Hell, but I can feel it through the haze. I can’t see whatever counts as ground and sky, but I can feel the heat and the souls.
I could be searching for five minutes or five hours, I have no ability to tell. I’m just sifting and flicking through.
Until I’m not.
Until I finally smell her perfume. Feel her sadness. Recognize her soul.
“Hi, Mom.” I don’t say it verbally, but I know she hears me. “It’s time to go now.”
“Laura—” she begins, unable to hide the weariness in her tone. She’s in my head.
“Mom. If you want me to leave you here—really leave you here—then I will. But I want to help you.”
She only takes a moment before replying. “Okay, but I have one condition.”
Any empathy I’ve had for my mother slowly slips out of my body one droplet at a time. One condition? After I’ve literally risked my soul for her? After I thought maybe she’d taken some ownership of how she treated us?
“What? What do you want?”
“If you grab me, you have to grab him, too.”
Him? If she says Draven, I’m turning around and not ever coming back.
“You do realize I’m not a goddamn Uber, right?”
She sighs, as if annoyed I’m even questioning her. “It’s both of us or neither of us.”
“I’m not—” I start.
“It’s Peter. Your dad,” she exhales heavily. “And I’m not leaving here without him.”