Chapter 14 #2
Iris is first. She walks out of the kitchen with a pot in her hands.
She wears crisp black trousers, a white blouse, and a bob cut sharp enough to slice air.
Her eyes narrow, assessing, as she sets the pot on the table and then turns to me with a cool grace that makes me feel like I’m about to be cross-examined.
“Lucky,” she says, not Kade, not Shade—my real name. And that’s just a little bit terrifying. It isn’t just Willow who knows my real identity, the dangerous one. It’s someone else as well. Someone I don’t know.
Iris extends her hand. Her grip is firm, her palm cool, and her expression doesn’t change.
“Iris,” I reply, and my voice almost cracks. I rein it in, force a smile. “It’s really nice to meet you.”
Suddenly, Opal breezes in, barefoot. She’s wearing a linen skirt hanging low on her hips and a little cotton top that leaves very little to the imagination.
It kind of feels like this woman is only wearing clothes at all because she has to in order to be polite company.
She’s a stark contrast to her sisters with her very blonde hair hanging all the way down to her waist. She beams like the human embodiment of glitter.
“The boy!” she cries, and before I can process it, she throws her arms around me.
I freeze with the hug ambush. She smells like incense and sugar. My arms hover before I give in and hug her back.
“You’re taller than I thought,” she says, stepping back to look me over like she’s choosing a horse at auction. “Good. Sturdy. Willow needs sturdy.”
I bark a laugh. “Um, good?” I say, unsure exactly how to respond. “At least I’ve got that part covered.”
Willow groans. Iris pinches the bridge of her nose.
My eyes dart downward as motion pulls them. From the hallway, a plump gray cat pads into view. Slow. Deliberate. Her green eyes lock on me, unblinking. She stops two feet away and sits. Just sits. And stares. Straight at me.
The hair on the back of my neck rises. I’ve been scoped out by mobsters, by cops, by people paid to kill me. But never have I felt so judged as I do under this cat’s unholy scrutiny.
“Uh,” I mutter, shifting under the gaze. “Hi?”
The cat does not blink.
Opal grins like Christmas morning. “Oh, don’t be nervous! She’s just making sure you’re good enough for Willow. That’s Grandma.”
I blink. “Say what now?”
“Grandma.” Opal waves a hand toward the cat like this is common knowledge. “Our grandmother. Reincarnated. In cat form. She walked in one day and never left.”
Willow slides her hands into her back pockets, looking down at the gray feline.
“She has the same personality. Demanding, bossy, smarter than the rest of us. She only ever sleeps on this one blanket that Grandma made when I was seven. She refuses to eat fish, just like Grandma. Somehow, she’s allergic to milk, just like Grandma. She even growls the same way.”
“She wandered in here on the one-year anniversary of Grandma’s passing,” Opal says, casual, easy. “And guess how old the vet said she was at the time? One.”
The cat flicks her tail, rises, and with a long, deliberate movement, rubs against my leg. Approval granted? My pulse skitters.
Opal claps her hands. “See? She likes you! Grandma always knows. Oh!” She crouches down, addressing the cat with reverence. “Grandma, this is Willow’s boyfriend. Lucky.”
I blink. Once. Twice. Five times. “You just…introduced me to the cat?”
“Grandma,” Willow corrects, deadpan.
I glance at Iris for sanity. She meets my eyes, face perfectly blank, then arches one brow in a silent Yep, they’re both ridiculous, but they both fully believe this shit.
I choke on a laugh and scrub a hand over my jaw. This family is unhinged. And I think I might be obsessed already.
“Sorry, Grandma,” I apologize to stay in the cat’s good graces. “It’s really nice to meet you.”
“Should we eat?” Opal immediately says, changing the direction of the conversation, giving me whiplash. Her tone is eternal enthusiasm.
The spread is unlike any Thanksgiving dinner I’ve ever seen before. Am I surprised? Not one bit.
The dining table looks like it’s been set by three people who didn’t speak to each other about the meal prep beforehand. Which, apparently, is exactly what happened.
Willow made roasted chicken with herbs and lemon, plus these blistered green beans that smell like garlic heaven.
Then there’s Iris’s contribution: a mushroom and…
is that dandelion? root stew that smells like forest floor in liquid form.
It’s probably incredibly healthy. Iris has an apothecary after all.
But my stomach is already bracing. And then there’s Opal’s bowl of chaos: quinoa, citrus slices, sunflower seeds, and are those…
are those mini marshmallows? Just floating around in there like they belong?
“So, just a heads up—we don’t really do Thanksgiving,” Opal says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“We celebrate a sort of... late Mabon instead. It’s the Pagan harvest festival, all about gratitude and balance, giving thanks to the Earth for what it’s given us.
We just do it today because, well—everyone else is already cooking and pretending to be grateful, so it just makes sense.
Each of us makes something we love, and we eat until the universe feels balanced again. ”
I grin, because it is exactly what I would expect from the Vale sisters. There isn’t a traditional bone in their body. “I love that,” I offer honestly.
“Dig in!” Opal beams.
None of the sisters hesitates in dishing up, so I don’t either. My mouth waters at Willow’s chicken. But it feels like a culinary crime when I scoop some of Opal’s confusing chaos into a heap next to it. I wonder if I’ll be tripping later as I ladle some of Iris’s soup into a bowl.
I start safest. I fork up a bite of chicken first. Willow’s cooking saves me from immediate collapse; it’s tender, bright, perfect. “This is…amazing,” I tell her, and mean it.
Her grin could power Vegas for a year. “It was Mom’s recipe. She loved to cook. But I think I was the only one paying attention when she taught us.”
Awesome. My greatest fears have been confirmed. The rest of tonight’s dinner just might give me flashbacks to the smoothie of Satan at Phoenix’s clinic.
“Can I ask?” I say, instead of being terrified of what’s to come. “What happened to your mom? You’ve never really talked about her much.”
Each of the Vale sisters looks at the other, and instantly, the weight of the room shifts. They don’t exactly bristle at my question, but there’s a protectiveness that’s instantly there in each of their faces.
“Mom was protective of us, after what she saved us from,” Willow says, finally meeting my eyes. “She said she’d never let anyone take advantage of her or us again.”
“My senior year of high school,” Opal takes over, “I kept seeing this shadow outside my bedroom window. At first, I thought I’d summoned a bad spirit, called in something I didn’t mean to. But it was a man.”
Oh shit.
I set my fork down as the reality that this is going to be dark and heavy hits me.
“Mom finally caught the guy,” Iris says. Her eyes are fixed on the table and she swallows once. “He was literally peeping through Opal’s window. Mom grabbed a shovel that was leaning against the side of the house and swung away.”
Opal’s face is pale, serious for the first time since I’ve met her.
“Mom beat him within an inch of his life,” Opal says.
She bites her lower lip, her emotions threatening to break through.
“The police happened to drive by while she was setting him straight. They tackled her, put her in handcuffs. They sentenced her to two years of prison time for battery.”
“Even though that asshole was spying on a minor?” I snarl as something twists in my gut.
“The man got three months for it,” Opal says coldly. “Though he didn’t serve a day. He spent all of it in the hospital, surgery after surgery, trying to fix what Mom did.”
It almost feels like I should have guessed this was what happened with their mom. It somehow fits perfectly.
“Mom had only been in jail for four months when she had a stroke,” Willow finishes the story in a way it shouldn’t end. “Considering where she was, it took them too long to get the help she needed. She died on the way to the hospital.”
“That was four years ago,” Opal wraps up with the simple fact.
“I’m so sorry,” I offer, placing my hand on Willow’s knee beneath the table. “Every bit of that was messed up.”
“Yeah,” Willow confirms with a measured tone. “Sadly, life doesn’t always play fair.”
There’s something unspoken that passes between us. This is why sometimes you have to take justice into your own hands. Like Willow does.
“Enough sadness,” Opal says, perking back up instantly. “This is supposed to be a happy day. Eat up, you guys.”
The time has come, I know it. I have to move on to the next dish.
I take a spoonful of Iris’s stew. It tastes like licking a moss-covered tombstone. Bitter, earthy, with a medicinal bite that makes my tongue curl. My throat tries to lock up halfway through, but I force it down, nodding like I just tasted my favorite egg drop soup.
“Interesting,” I manage.
Holy shit. Why does that burn in my stomach just a little bit?
Iris watches me with sharp eyes, no expression. “It’s all from my own garden. Fresh harvest. I sell the dehydrated version on my website. Always sells out.”
She knows what it tastes like though. She absolutely knows.
And then there’s Opal’s creation. I scoop up a spoonful of quinoa and seeds and—yes, marshmallows—and pop it into my mouth before I can think better of it.
The texture is…confusing. Crunchy, squishy, sour, sweet. Like chewing through a mood swing. My brain actually short-circuits.
Opal leans forward, eyes wide. “Well?”
I choke down the bite, swallow hard, and croak out, “Festive.”
Willow kicks me under the table. I glare at her; she hides her laugh behind a sip of cranberry juice.