Chapter 34
MY EYES SHOOT OPEN, WET grass on my back, the orange sky, too bright. Lined by Mother and Jade, I immediately cry for Aven through my dry mouth.
“Aven’s fine,” Chantal says, her voice a warning. “SHE’s fine.” I turn my head to Aven in Chantal’s arms, her face concerned and terrified at the same time.
“What happened, dear?” Violetta asks over my head.
Rage consumes me, the vision seeming to have a heartbeat in my body.
She double-crossed us. Gave Franklin the protection spell that almost got us killed that night in Nightwalkers.
Which means she knows more than she’s let on.
I look at Mother, who’s pushing hair from my cheeks and holding my hand with a tortured look on her face.
My head moves to Jade, her eyes piercing into mine. So I think, did you just hear my thoughts? Did you just hear what I saw?
She nods, eyes two massive pools, and I want to scream.
“It’s this heat,” Jade says. “She’s been in California so long, she’s not used to her own hometown weather.”
I try to remember what Mother said—don’t burn everything to the ground when you get angry. Make your play. Set up your pawns, so I swallow. Sweat dripping down my face.
And I nod.
“Yeah. Sorry. Don’t know what happened there.”
I sit up, my eyes meeting Rosemary’s, whose legs are still perfectly crossed.
Her hands sit tightly in her lap, her face void of any emotion.
Do they know what I just saw? What the hell was that?
I’ve only been able to go back in time with a willing participant, never out of nowhere or without my consent.
“Let’s get you up,” Mother says, and though my legs feel like jelly, I manage to find my footing, Jade’s face still painted like a warning. Don’t say anything.
Listen to what they are saying! I think, but Jade only gives the slightest of shrugs, and I think it means she can’t hear a word.
“I’m okay, I’m fine,” I say, licking my lips, my stomach rumbling like a tropical storm. And Rosemary hasn’t moved.
Violetta rubs my shoulder, and I try my best not to recoil, my thoughts so hectic, Chantal looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“I’m better. I just…”
“Here,” Summer says, handing me a glass of water, her eyebrows furrowed over her big brown eyes. But I’m not going to drink one thing from this house, so I swallow and lightly shake my head.
“I’m okay, I’m a little nauseated, but I’m fine.”
“Shall we take a few moments and then reconvene?” Violetta asks, and I shake my head. Absolutely not.
“No, no. Let’s, let’s carry on,” I say, wanting this to be over as soon as possible so I can get my family the fuck out of here.
“You’re sure?” she asks, and Mother takes my cue.
“She’s okay. And Aven will be cranky soon and need to eat. Let’s go ahead and finish up. We have a new true witch to bless.”
My legs almost collapse under me again, but I call upon the deepest power inside me, something to keep me upright, begging it to get me through these last ten minutes, and then I can collapse.
And it works. The blessed water is poured over Aven’s head while the steel spike I envisioned holds me up like a scarecrow, keeping me from swaying back and forth, from losing my stomach.
I’m in a haze for the remainder of the ceremony, knowing that I need to keep my mouth shut and get us out of here as soon as possible. Thankfully, it ends once a few words have been said, and Aven is blessed as the newest witch and the next true witch within our coven. What. A. Crock.
We make it to the car, my excuse for not feeling well allowing us to leave quickly, and when we leave, Rosemary is nowhere in sight and Violetta is drunk.
We make it down the driveway and around the corner before I beg Mother to pull over so I can vomit.
Once I’ve finished, I lie in the back seat the best I can, my head resting on Aven’s car seat.
“What the hell happened?” Mother asks, her voice close to a cry.
I feel too weak to talk, but I need to get it out.
“When my lips touched where Violetta’s touched the chalice, I was transported back in time to Violetta’s parlor.
I was seeing from her point of view, and she handed the chalice to Franklin.
He said, ‘A little fire. Easy peasy.’ Then he drank the protection spell.
Rosemary was there too and someone else, I don’t know who it was.
But Franklin said something about making that person’s dreams come true. ”
Mother faces forward and pulls over the car.
After throwing it into park, she fights with the door latch until it’s open.
She marches in front of the car, places both fists at her sides, and screams. Screams so loud, leaves fall from the nearby trees, so loud I can see the anger exiting her mouth in sparks.
“Holy shit,” Chantal whispers, shaking her head. “Holy shit. They know about your affair with Bastian. They tried to have you killed in the fire. But they killed Bastian instead. And the aunts gave him the protection spell because they all knew we would come for him, thinking only he did it.”
“They created a secret deal with Franklin,” I repeat. “He was so livid about our affair and that I kicked the shit out of him that he went to them, and they all plotted to kill me.”
Chantal’s head falls forward as my dear mother screams her head off on the side of the road.
“Why? What do we do?” she asks, and she sounds defeated—so defeated, and I want to shrink away inside myself.
But then Aven grunts, and the hour journey home suddenly feels like days.
I grab his pacifier and place it in his mouth, and it soothes him for now, and just when I think I’ll have to peel myself from the back seat and yell to my mother to get back in the car, she slams her body against the seat, the door pounding shut as she throws the car in drive.
It all spins again, my stomach dipping and curving, saliva forming in my mouth.
“Why would the aunts want me dead?” I ask, but Mother only shakes her head, the shared bewilderment more than we can comprehend. “Why do I feel like this?”
“Because you were called to magic that you didn’t prepare or commit to. It has zapped your energy. It was a vision and a memory. Memories, you must have a willing participant. Visions can just happen. They can be from the past or the future.”
“Why did it happen?”
“Having Aven, coming back to New Orleans, must have unlocked something for the both of you. I wonder…Grandma was a Seer from the moment she was born.” She thinks for a moment.
“My dream was right. It told me we needed to go to this ceremony, told me we had to get it done. And now we know who our enemies are…at least two of them.”
“The other person could have been that Curtis guy, the one who told Franklin about you and Bastian, or one of Franklin’s fuck boys,” Chantal says.
I don’t have much strength to speak, and it panics me, my heart battering inside my chest.
“When will I feel normal?” I ask as Chantal’s phone rings.
“Just rest, you will get your strength back,” Mother says, looking back at me, face twisted with tension.
“It’s Jade,” Chantal says, picking up her phone. “Yeah, what the fuck?” she says to Jade and puts her on speaker.
“I heard everything. Franklin, Violetta, Rosemary, someone else. Fucking traitors!” Jade yells over the phone, and Mother’s knuckles clench tighter on the wheel.
“Could you hear Rosemary or Violetta thinking when I fell?”
“No, they must have a block on me. Which explains why I never heard about any of it.”
“How did this happen?” Chantal sighs, and the three of them talk over each other as I lie here, trying to gather myself.
Bastian is probably worried, but I don’t have the vigor to find my phone or even ask them to call him.
Instead, I just rest across the seat, my body bouncing with the car as I try to keep the nausea at bay and wish I could fast-forward time until I’m home with Bastian.