Chapter 20
Twenty
I awaken on the floor in the living room with my legs on the sofa and my head resting on a pillow with a cool flannel over my forehead. Aradia is fanning me with a copy of Gardeners’ World.
“She’s awake,” she shouts, panicked but relieved, towards the door before turning to me. “Are you OK?” She strokes my forehead lightly.
“What happened?” I slur slightly.
“You have been out for hours. Your emotions spurred on a magic blowout. Quite spectacular but completely validated, obviously.” She carries on wafting me with one hand and stroking my hair with her other.
I try to sit up, feeling wobbly. Aradia helps me from behind and I turn and use the sofa to prop myself up, so I am now sat on the floor.
Granny rushes in with someone behind her: my mother.
“How is she?” my mother asks quietly, her eyes tired and dark.
“She’s awake at least.” Granny scurries to sit beside me. My mother sits awkwardly on the armchair across from us.
“Why are you here?” I stare directly at my mother with eyes of daggers.
She rubs her hands in her lap and lets out a defeated sigh. “I know everything, Harri. About you and Sam. The twin flame you both possess. I know about Greg and the Belfours. I know about your father and I think it’s time you do too.”
My heart stops. She is serious. My whole life has been a lie. Planned out for me. Every move calculated.
“Someone better start explaining,” I say emotionlessly. I just want to know the truth.
Aradia and Granny look at each other then look at my mother.
“Maybe it’s best we leave you both to it for a moment,” Granny says tenderly before Aradia helps me onto the sofa opposite my mother. I am still angry with them but I still adore them too. I know whatever they did was in the best interest of me. But my mother… I am not so sure.
They stand. Granny touches my mother’s shoulder with a sympathetic squeeze and follows Aradia out of the door.
“I can imagine you’re feeling confused and angry right now,” my mother whispers.
“You have no idea.” I look at her. She’s not the woman I am used to seeing. This woman before me is broken and defeated. Part of me actually feels sorry for her. The fire in my belly simmers down and I calm my demeanour. “But you’re here, and I’ll listen.”
She nods thankfully and slowly. “OK, thank you.” She adjusts herself in the chair and places her arms on her legs, leaning forwards in my direction.
She lets out a breath and brings her gaze to mine.
“I hated being a witch. I hated the idea of it. I hated the history of it. It felt like a label that I didn’t get to choose.
I remember as a kid, my school mates would tease me for being a little different.
The girls who were in to makeup and boys would laugh at my stupid dorky glasses and dark hair. ”
She chuckles to herself in memory before carrying on.
“You know, I used to love literature, but literature doesn’t make you popular.
” She pauses for a moment. “Oh, but Aradia though… she soaked in every ounce of who we are, and it made her glow. Nobody thought she was weird. Nobody messed with her. But me, I was the runt of the litter they would say. Silly old Cassie didn’t inherit her sister and mother’s beauty.
” Her eyes water a little and my heart starts to ache in empathy.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” I say quietly.
She smiles softly and nods. “It was just how it was and unfortunately in time I began to resent them for everything they were. I dyed my hair, I wore makeup, worked out, stopped eating, changed my clothes and avoided home as much as I could. I managed to get a place in Oxford, just like you, my clever girl.” She smiles at that and wipes a tear that has started to roll down her cheek.
I can feel myself well a little as she continues.
“I met your father, and he was the polar opposite of everything I used to be.
His family, as you know, were wealthy Germans who sent him to England for an education and the hopes of him becoming successful.
Unlike me, your father wanted to be just like his father, powerful and rich beyond his dreams. I was his trophy wife.
And I relished in the fancy parties, expensive gifts, holidays and houses.
We had you, Harriet, and then it changed.
“My mother, your granny, sensed your arrival and of course they came to see me. It had been over seven years since I had seen them. They managed to find out where I was living and turned up. I had told your father that my family had passed away, so of course their arrival was quite a shock for him. They were besotted with you, and it’s clear to see they still are, Harriet. ”
She smirks weakly at me. I nod but don’t change my expression, still listening intently to this woman before me. The part of my mother I have never met.
“Sorry, anyway, they told me about how Gloria had a vision of you and Sam as twin flames. How both of you together would be able to protect more of our kind with your powers joined together. Your knowledge and wisdom would surpass any of us before you.”
“So, you knew?” I question, my heart in my stomach.
She nods. “I did.”
“And you didn’t tell me? All of you knew and you didn’t tell me.” I can feel the tears begin to spill out of my own eyes.
She slides down onto her knees and pulls herself towards me, grabbing my hands in hers. “It became complicated,” she says, panicked.
I pull my hands away from her. “How?” I scowl.
She sits back on her knees and looks at me, her eyes now puffy and red with emotion.
“The night your grandmother told me all of this, your father, he listened to every word from outside the door.
Of course he did. He was shocked that I lied about my family so probably wanted to understand why.
That night he demanded that they leave, that he would not have such nonsense around his family.
At first, I felt in awe of him. Protecting us.
Protecting you from a life of having to watch your back against witch hunters that would so desperately take you.
“Things were perfect for a while, but soon it started slipping.
I noticed him drinking more, getting into debt, and trying to gamble to make the business work.
We had become accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and he was struggling to get the big break he needed, to prove to his father that he was as good as he was.
I know that sounds silly, but it was all your father thought about, day and night.
“One evening I came home from a friend’s and I found your father in his study stinking of whiskey and with old newspaper cuttings, journals, books and literature surrounding him.
All about witches. The more he looked, the deeper he fell down the rabbit hole of our kind.
He learnt about the power we have and how he could use it for his own gain.
From that night it was never the same. I was a pawn in his journey for greatness.
In the public eye we were a happily married couple but behind closed doors he worked away as much as he could to avoid being with me.
I helped him with my powers, I helped by predicting the future of businesses he invested in, by reading his competition and letting him use my power…
” She stutters trying to get the words out.
I gasp and shake my head in disgust. I had no relationship with my father really, but I never imagined he was just as bad as the Belfours.
“Why didn’t you leave?” I say solemnly to the woman laid bare in front of me. A woman I don’t recognise. Who is full of pain and sadness. Not the cold-hearted bitch I always thought she was.
She smiles. “Why do you think? He knew that others of our kind existed, more specifically, my family. If I left, he would come looking for me and find them. And the biggest part of this was you, my darling girl. I hoped and prayed that you would never reach the age of knowing. I kept you wrapped up in the luxury we had in hopes it would extinguish any ember of power within you. I kept you from our family so that they could not influence you. I just wanted you to live a normal and lovely life. But your father fell more and more from anything good. He and Mr Belfour both wanted one thing: to be the most powerful men in London. And so, your father stupidly let slip about me one drunken night with Mr and Mrs Belfour. Obviously, they were already well accustomed to using witches. Girls they had paid for from the dark corners of the earth. But to have a witch who was well to do? Well, that was an opportunity the Belfours just could not resist. So, in promise of keeping our secret safe, they wanted you for their son.”
“Greg?” I whisper.
She nods. “Greg. It was planned from the moment they knew. Greg was told that you were his betrothed and he must marry you. And you to him. I begged Mrs Belfour to allow some normalcy in this, which she agreed out of pity for a mother losing her daughter. So, you were pushed together. Greg already knew who you were that night in Oxford where you first met. They promised me though that you would be cared for and looked after by them forever more. What they wanted was your offspring. The Belfours’ fortune is built on blood magic.
To have their own bloodline of magic would change everything. ”
“So why not just find any other witch?” I question.
“Because you are the daughter of an extremely wealthy and powerful German businessman who was willing to join our families to create more power and money. That’s not any old witch, is it?”
I shake my head.
She inches closer to me. “I hoped that if I kept you away from magic enough it would lie dormant, if I was cold and distant you wouldn’t feel the warmth that magic needs to grow, never to be awakened.
You would marry Greg and have a somewhat happy life and your children would again lie with that power dormant within them.
Eventually killing off the power and our line stopping with us. ”