Chapter 22
22
“ N ana, I need you to stand still.”
My grandmother hovers in front of me, a skeptical look smeared across her face. She knows I’m up to something; she just doesn’t know what.
“Why?”
“I’m going to spray this potion on you, and it’ll make you invisible.”
She folds her arms. “Are you that ashamed of me?”
“Yes,” I deadpan, but then quickly add, “No, of course I’m not ashamed of you; but you know what will happen if the town finds out about your existence.”
My grandmother scrunches up her face and scowls. “What? They’ll think that our family is cursed and that our daughters are horrible people? Does that sound about right?”
“Yes, it does,” I say brightly. “Now. Are you ready?”
“I suppose.”
“Stand still.” I pull out the atomizer that Devlin had at his house. Who keeps an atomizer? An inventor, I guess. This was the potion that I most wanted to make—to make Nana invisible so that she could walk around freely without ruining my family.
I spritz her with the mist and she instantly vanishes.
“Did it work?” she asks.
“It sure did,” Devlin says, coming up behind me. “Are we ready?”
I grin. “I think so. Nana, want to go for a ride?”
I can’t see her, but I sure do hear her when she says, “I thought you’d never ask.”
Normally we would travel by magic to get to a new location, but Devlin insisted on driving. I didn’t complain because it’s a perfect winter day for once—not blisteringly cold with a freezing wind chill. A warm front moved in last night, and it feels like early spring.
So he got out his convertible, we picked up Nana and we are heading into the countryside.
As we pass through Castleview, I get a good look at all the charming Tudor-style homes and the shops that line the center of town. Lots of humans are here today, visiting stores, buying clothes and jumping into books.
As my gaze scans the horizon, my phone buzzes. Storm’s texting me. Yes, even though we’re magical, we still use cell phones.
Had a great time last night.
I type back, Yes. Thank you for the bear.
When can I see you again?
My stomach clenches. When can he? After the break-in at Devlin’s, I’m not sure when I want to see him, if I want to see him at all. I’m working a lot the next few days. Let me check my schedule.
Checking my schedule? That’s the kiss of death in a relationship. I might as well tell him that I’m washing my hair, like women told guys they didn’t like back in the olden days.
Plus, this is real. This is a serious decision I’ve made. This puts my entire family’s magic in jeopardy to simply blow him off.
The weight of that is tremendous It crashes down on me, and I press a hand to my forehead in worry. But as much as I’d love to pursue things with Storm, it doesn’t feel right. It just…doesn’t. He’s fine and all—I mean, on paper he’s perfect, but just receiving this text made a sinking feeling open in my stomach.
I shouldn’t ignore that. Should I?
But Storm just texts back, I’ll touch base with you when I’m back in town.
It feels like I’ve been given a lifeline that I don’t want.
“Everything okay over there?” Devlin asks.
“Oh yeah. It’s fine.” I tilt my head up and get an eyeful of sun that blinds me. “Just checking the sun. It’s still there. Working overtime. Go, sun! I knew you could do it.”
“Storm texted her,” Nana tattles from the back.
Devlin doesn’t say anything, and I glance over my shoulder at Nana and scowl at her. No clue if she saw me, but just doing it made me feel better.
We head out of town into the Tennessee country, and within minutes we’re flanked on both sides by rolling meadows that were cut for hay in the summer. Large round bales sit on the empty fields.
Horses whip their tails and cows gaze lazily at us as we drive down the four-lane highway before turning off onto a smaller, two-lane road.
The area is simply breathtaking. The road is bordered with pines that stand tall. They remind me of an army of ants lining both sides of the long driveway.
When the trees recede, the view opens up to hundreds of gray grape vines.
My jaw drops. “Your grandmother owns a winery?”
“It’s small,” Devlin admits sheepishly. “But it pays the bills.”
“How do I not know this?”
He winks. “Because my grandmother didn’t get it until a few years ago. It was my present to her. She always wanted one, wanted to be like the French, so…”
“So you bought it for her,” I muse, my heart warmed by his kindness.
We park and Devlin gets out to tell his grandmother that we’re here.
“Try not to shed a tear, dear,” Nana quips, ruining the moment. “Remember how much you hate him.”
I crane my head around. “If you keep that up, I’ll make sure that you stay invisible forever.”
“Fine. I’m sorry. But you have to admit, it was nice of him to do.”
“It was very nice,” I say. “All right. Let’s get out and I’ll hit you with the antidote.”
Five minutes later and Nana looks as good as new—if by new, you mean dead. And a ghost. Perhaps I should say, she looks perfectly Nana.
Devlin escorts his grandmother out of the charming stone home with vines crawling up the sides, to greet us.
“Blair,” she says, opening her arms. “It’s been so long.”
Devlin’s grandmother has her white hair pinned up, and she’s wearing a long brown cardigan over a green dress. She pulls me into a hug, one that’s so warm and soft I practically melt in her arms.
“Good to see you, Lilly.”
She puts me at arm’s length and studies me. “It’s better to see you. I told Devlin he should’ve brought you by ages ago.”
I admire the view of the country home. “You have a beautiful place here.”
“It’s all because of Devlin. He made my dreams come true.” She gives me a wide smile and then turns her attention to Nana. “And Rebecca”—oops, there went her friendly tone. It’s turned more chastising. “What do you think you’re doing returning as a ghost? Trying to ruin your family?”
“Lilly, if you knew what we were up against, you’d thank me.”
“I doubt they are,” she replies, nodding to me.
Nana shrugs. “My family will come around.”
Lilly tosses back her head and laughs. “Come in, all of you. I was just about to make cookies. Blair, you can help me while Devlin does what he needs to.”
I shoot Devlin a look that silently asks if he wants me. He smiles warmly, telling me that he has enough to go on to do what we came here to.
“All right, then. Let’s make some cookies.”
“Have you ever made crinkle cookies?” Lilly asks.
“No. But I rarely ever bake at all.”
She tsks. “Baking is one of the things that always made me happy. It would make Devlin happy, too, when he’d come home from school to a house that smelled like sugar.”
“Hm. I’m going to have a look around while the two of you bake,” Nana says.
Lilly waves her off. “Fine, fine. I’ll catch up with you later. You can tell me what heaven’s like.” She lifts a gray brow dramatically. “Unless you went to the other place.”
“Lilly Ross, you know as well as I do that my mortal soul was never in that sort of danger.”
The old woman chuckles. “I just like to get your goat. Go on, I’ll keep your granddaughter busy while you snoop around my house looking for my secrets.”
Nana rubs her hands together like an evil genius. “Oh goodie. I get to pry. See y’all soon.”
And without another word, she slips into a wall and vanishes.
For a moment I stare at the spot where she disappeared. “I would have bet that Nana wanted to talk to you before snooping.”
“Oh no. Rebecca wants us to get to know one another,” she says while pushing a cannister labeled SUGAR toward me. “We need one cup.”
“It doesn’t bother you that my grandmother has, you know, returned from the grave,” I say, sounding all morose and Friday-night-horror-movie-ish with my voice.
“No, no,” Lilly replies, smoothing her hands down her apron. “There are worse things in life than a dead relative returning to get her granddaughters married off.”
She cocks a brow at me, and I bury myself in measuring the cup of sugar that she’d requested, letting the granules drop like a waterfall into the yellow Tupperware mixing bowl sitting in front of me.
“Now you’ll need to sift two cups of flour,” she tells me, and I’m relieved that we’re no longer talking about my grandmother and marriage.
There’s a steel contraption with a crank and mesh on top, and I assume that’s the sifter. I go about my chore—I mean, baking.
“Aren’t you going to ask why your grandmother wants us to get to know one another?” she says slyly, giving me a flirty look.
Well no, I wasn’t going to ask, but since she said something… “Why does she?”
“I suppose it has to do with my grandson.”
“Oh, of course. But we’re not, you know, together.”
She purses her mouth like she’s trying to hold back a smile as she cracks eggs into her own yellow Tupperware bowl. Wow. These mustard-yellow bowls must’ve been all the rage back in the day.
“Why not?” she says.
“Why not what? ” This little crank thing is harder than it looks. I have to actually work to get the sucker to move.
“Why aren’t you together?”
“We’re just friends.” Great answer because it does give her what she wants to know, but it’s vague enough that I don’t have to explain anything.
“Why’s that?”
I dump another half a cup of flour into the sifter. “Why are we just friends?”
“Mm hmm.” Lilly’s still cracking eggs, not looking at me as if she’s not paying attention, but I know from experience talking to women about relationships that she’s probably hanging on every word.
“We’re friends because…” Why is this so hard to answer? Why are we just friends? “Well, we dated in high school.”
“I remember. Devlin has never been so happy in all his life.”
I pause. “As in high school?”
“Yes. When you’re done there, we’re going to add our wet ingredients to our dry.”
“Sure. I’m done.”
She scoots her bowl over, and I do as she says, mixing until my hand is tired from working the spoon.
“Now dump it out, but first flour your surface.” I do both and she instructs me on how to roll the dough into a ball. “Now wrap it up. We’ll let it refrigerate for a few minutes while we drink tea in the sunroom. Then we’ll put the dough through the crinkler.”
All of that happens and ten minutes later we’re sitting in a sunroom that’s filled with so many potted plants that this space has instantly become my new happy place.
I’m ready to talk about anything—except Devlin—and assume that conversation’s over until she says, “But back to my grandson—like I said, he was the happiest I’ve ever known him when you were together. I don’t know why you broke up, but he was never quite as cheerful after that. And to be honest, when I saw him happy back then, it was the first he had been so since the dark days with his uncle.”
The what? “He never mentioned anything about that.”
Lilly stirs honey into her herbal tea. She asks if I’d like some and I decline. She taps the spoon against the edge of her cup and sucks off the honey that’s clinging to it. Then she looks around and takes a sip.
“Hm. Delicious. This would be even better with those cookies. But, soon enough. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, about Devlin and his uncle. Did he ever tell you about that?”
“No.”
Lilly nods. “Of course not. It was terrible. You see, after his parents died, Devlin blamed himself. He told me what happened, and he told his uncle, too. His uncle, instead of helping the boy through his grief, decided to use him to make money. He wanted Devlin to help him win the lottery. He expected the boy to perform like a trained monkey, and when he didn’t, Devlin would be punished.”
She shakes her head. “Devlin never told me all of it—but I know there were beatings; he was starved sometimes.”
My heart explodes in sadness and anger. “His own uncle did that?”
“Yes,” she replies, her tone heavy with sadness. “As soon as I found out, I took the boy away, but the damage was already done. Devlin saw his gift as a curse, and when his uncle got ahold of him, those feelings only intensified.”
I could relate to that—kind of. On a very small level. I knew what it was to feel like the gift you’d been given was nothing more than an albatross around your neck. But I didn’t know any of this about Devlin.
And it broke my heart.
“It’s amazing how well he’s turned out, considering,” she says, pushing her rocking chair back and forth. “Oh, I know he’s dated some women, won’t get attached to them for fear of being used like his uncle did to him. But I will say this”—she tips her head to me, and her hazel eyes, Devlin’s same combination of colors, are earnest—“he never brought any of those girls to meet me. You’re the only one that I met, the absolute only one, and of course, I liked you best. Which I would have anyway, I’m sure, even if there had been others.”
“But there have been,” I argue. Why am I arguing?
“He’s a man. Of course there have been women. But he never cared about any of them. Not like he does about you.”
“But he doesn’t?—”
“He brought you here, didn’t he?”
“Well yes, but that’s just because…” My voice trails off because I don’t know what I’m going to say. I have no idea how to finish this sentence.
She smiles kindly and pats my hand. “Come. The cookies should be chilled enough by now. Let’s put them through the crinkler and bake them.” She smacks her lips. “Our tea will taste so much better with a hot cookie.”
It’s impossible not to inwardly chuckle while this sweet old lady takes the reins and steers us back into the kitchen, where she pulls out what looks like a large Play-Doh shape maker that you push dough through a hole.
“Okay,” she says, taking the dough from the fridge. She puts it down on the table and removes the plastic wrap. “Now we’re going to make the crinkles. This is normally the shape of cheese straws, but I like the shape for a cookie.”
She shows me how to load the “gun” and push out the dough. It’s surprisingly fun to squeeze dough through the hole and then cut it. It’s like being a kid, but much more fun because I actually get to eat the final product.
And while we work, I can’t help but ponder on everything that she said. I’m the only woman that Devlin ever introduced to his grandmother? Wow. I don’t even know how to unpack this information.
Not only that, but if I ever meet Devlin’s uncle, I’m going to kick him in the kneecaps—and the balls. Who forces a child into seeing visions so that he can win money? And who punishes that child when they don’t see the future? Devlin was already scarred enough from his parents’ death. Then he was used for his gift. It makes me want to strangle something.
But it also makes me realize why Devlin never said one word to me about his power. Why would he have seen it as a gift when all it did was bring him sorrow?
Holy cow. We have more in common than I ever realized. We were both given powers that we saw as curses. So if anyone understood what was going on with me emotionally in high school, it was him.
Worse, it makes me realize that maybe my feelings are becoming more than friendly. Maybe I actually want?—
“How’s it going in here, ladies?”
Devlin’s entrance is so abrupt that I jump out of my skin and drop the dough pusher thingy on the table with a clang. “Sorry! I didn’t hear you come in.”
“No worries. Hey, are those crinkle cookies?”
Lilly pats his shoulder. “They sure are.”
Devlin kisses her soft cheek. “You know these are my favorite. Blair, have you tried the dough?”
“No.”
“That’s the best part.”
Lilly swats at him. “Oh no you don’t!”
But she doesn’t try hard to stop him as Devlin pinches off a thumb-sized bite of dough, breaks it in half and hands it to me.
“Be warned, you’re eating raw eggs,” he lets me know.
“I’m warned,” I reply with a giggle.
Lilly throws up her hands in mock frustration, but there’s a spark of love in her eyes when she looks at Devlin. “You two. Get out of here if you’re going to eat all my dough.”
Devlin pops his into his mouth and grabs my hand. “You don’t mind if I steal her, do you, Gigi?”
“I don’t mind. She’s been help enough. Come back in fifteen minutes for cookies. Maybe Rebecca will show her face and keep me company while you’re gone.”
Devlin leads me from the kitchen and glances over his shoulder, grinning. “I can’t wait to show you what I discovered.”