Chapter Twenty-Four
T hirty minutes later, I was still battered, bruised, and incredibly sore. But I was grateful to be sitting in my high-backed chair at the café, instead of on a ferry back to Hollenboro.
I was grateful just to be alive.
I had fainted shortly after reuniting with my mother, and she, Rowena, and Adrian scooped me up and rushed me back to the café.
Once I regained consciousness, even more nauseous and sore than before, Rowena and Adrian got to work tending to my wounds.
Rowena concluded that my ribs weren’t broken, just badly bruised, and made a strange-smelling poultice meant to help with inflammation.
She bound my ribs in a more permanent brace, and both she and Adrian alternated pouring a variety of teas and tonics down my throat, in an attempt to both combat my nausea and heal any internal injuries.
Once Rowena and Adrian were satisfied I was fully patched up and wouldn’t faint again, Rowena offered to make me some coffee.
I sighed with relief once the familiar nutty smell filled the air, and I sank further into my high-backed chair, adjusting my rib brace as Rowena lit a match next to the fireplace.
My mother had been silent the entire time. She sat at one of the little round tables, in a creaky old chair that she’d turned around to face the fireplace. She glanced in my direction every once in a while, but she mostly stared vapidly off into the distance.
I recognized that empty-eyed gaze. I knew that while her body was here in the café, her mind was long gone; likely replaying through all the events in her life that had led up to this point.
Just like mine was.
Now that my injuries were tended to and I was no longer semi-conscious, an uncomfortable mixture of emotions bubbled in my stomach.
There were dozens of them, all twisting and writhing and conflicting with each other, and I feared I’d be sick all over again.
I had so many questions, so many things I didn’t understand, and I needed answers.
What I needed was to talk to my mother. My brain felt like it was about to boil over, like a teapot left on the stove for too long.
Adrian brought me my coffee. I accepted it graciously, letting the mug sit in my hands for a few minutes before I took a sip. They were still sore and numb from the cold.
“So… that’s really your mother?” Adrian whispered, faintly gesturing in the quiet redheaded woman’s direction.
“Oh. Uh, yeah, she is.”
“Wow. Small world, huh?”
I was silent. Rowena forced a faint chuckle for Adrian’s sake.
He cringed and chewed his bottom lip. “Sorry. Bad time for jokes. Anyway, I’ll see myself out. I hope you two have a good night.”
Adrian walked toward the door, his boots clicking on the old, creaky hardwood, but he turned back around as soon as his palm was on the handle.
“Nettie, Rowena…” He sighed. “What you did tonight…I can’t thank you enough. This whole town can’t thank you enough. I hope you both know that.”
“We do,” Rowena smiled and nodded. “It’s just… been a long night. The three of us have a lot to discuss.”
“Of course. I’ll see you two in the morning. I’m sure the mayor will want to stop by and talk with you both.”
The mayor . My stomach twisted in anticipatory knots. I knew that when we awoke tomorrow and faced the rest of the town, our fate would truly be decided. The witches that helped us tonight viewed us as heroes, and I hoped that eventually, the rest of the town would feel the same.
The door slammed shut as Adrian left, and me, Rowena, and my mother were left alone in the suffocating silence of the café.
Rowena settled into the high-backed chair next to me, knowing what was about to unfold.
Tomorrow, we would meet with the town and discuss the aftermath of our successful mission. But tonight, I was sitting across from my sorrowful, exhausted mother for the first time in fifteen years.
And I needed answers.
Our gazes found each other, and I studied those tired, wrinkled eyes again.
She was a beautiful woman, pale-skinned and fiery-haired with bright green eyes.
I was certain that when she was happy, when there was a smile on her face, the traces of her youth shined through.
But right now, she looked like she hadn’t slept for days.
Or slept well for years.
My mother opened her mouth and closed it again several times, mustering up the courage to speak.
“I imagine you have a lot of questions.” My mother’s voice was strained and tense as she stated the obvious. She was quiet, not quite whispering but lower than normal conversation volume. As if it hurt to speak. “Why don’t we start wi–”
“Where were you!?”
I snapped my mouth shut, clenching my teeth in regret. A few minutes ago, I had been completely calm, lulled into a trance by both my exhaustion and the pain-relieving tonics Adrian had given me. But now, I felt like I was about to explode. With anger, tears, or both.
“N-Nettie...” I could see the emotion welling in those tired eyes. “I know you–”
“You’ve been gone for fifteen years! I had to raise my sisters all by myself!”
“Sweetheart, I…”
“We thought you were dead!”
My mother broke into sobs again, and I could feel hot, salty tears forming in the corners of my raging eyes.
“Nettie…” Now it was Rowena who spoke up. She reached across the end table, her arm brushing my empty coffee cup, and squeezed my hand.
She inhaled deeply before she spoke. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through right now. I know it’s tough, and you’re processing a lot of emotions. But I think you should let your mother speak.”
I inhaled too, my breath catching in my throat as I fought back tears. Rowena was right. I was a tangled mess of emotions at that moment.
When I was young, I used to imagine what would happen if I could see my mother again.
Either in a dream, or in the afterlife, or through some miraculous reincarnation.
I replayed what I would do and say over and over again in my mind.
But no matter the daydream, it always began the same – with me joyously throwing my arms around my mother in a loving embrace, telling her how much I missed her.
How much I loved her.
It was nothing like reality. My mother was here, alive , and when I first encountered her in the pumpkin patch, I could barely even return her hug. And now, she was sitting right in front of me, ready to answer fifteen years of burning questions, and I’d just yelled at her.
I’d made her cry.
I felt like a horrible daughter.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, fearing that if I spoke at a normal volume, I’d burst into tears. “Please, continue.”
Rowena gave my hand another squeeze, and I reciprocated.
Gods, I was so grateful for her.
“A-alright.” My mother paused for a moment, shifting in her seat and fiddling with her calloused fingers in her lap. She seemed to be thinking of what to say next.
“First of all,” she continued a few seconds later. “I see that you’ve discovered your powers.”
I nodded. “Yes. Rowena explained that I’m an empath. That my magic lies in emotions.”
“So that’s what it’s called,” my mother whispered in awe, her voice soft and contemplative. “All these years… I never had anyone to ask.”
“You’re an empath, too?”
“Yes.”
“But… where does it come from? Do we really have witch blood?”
“You see, Nettie…” My mother bit her lip. “There’s a part of your family history you don’t know about. I imagine it wasn’t spoken of after I disappeared.”
“What was it?”
“Well, your father is a full-blooded werewolf, with your paternal line on Hollenboro tracing back hundreds of years. My father is also fully werewolf, and he currently serves as the Alpha for our pack here on Mount Desert Island. But my mother, your grandmother… she was a witch.”
My grandmother… was a witch?!
So, Rowena’s theories about me having witch ancestry were true.
I was three-quarters werewolf, and one-quarter witch.
It explained so much: from how both me and my mother were able to break through the witch barrier, to our empath abilities, and even why my father was always so hesitant to talk about my mother’s side of the family.
“We visited her once,” my mother continued. “She was a traveling witch, a baker who sold her goods all over Maine. But she had a cottage in Kennebunkport, and we traveled down there when you were four years old.”
I did remember. Brief flashes of memories flooded my mind.
Long white sailboats floating in a harbor while squawking seagulls swooped overhead.
A little Cape Cod house on the shoreline, painted a bright sky blue, and a front garden bursting with life and color.
A homey kitchen, with lace curtains and antique moose figurines, that smelled of sweet dough and ripe blueberries.
That cookbook, sitting on a counter, its pages crisper and its spine less worn.
Oh gods! The cookbook!
My grandmother’s cookbook. I had been using it for years, always keeping it nearby.
It was my most treasured possession. And the whole time I’d been using it, learning the recipes by heart…
not knowing the cookbook once belonged to a witch.
A kitchen witch, who could infuse magical energy into food.
I thought back to Juniper praising my goods for their anti-anxiety effects. Saying she’d be a regular customer from now on.
Maybe I had a trace of that magic in me.
Maybe I really had been selling spelled goods all along.
I just hadn’t realized it.
“But…” The biggest question I had was still unanswered. “Why did you leave us?”
It made my chest ache to say those words aloud. If my mother had survived falling into the ocean, washing up on the shore on another island, why didn’t she ever come back?
There was only one possible conclusion.
My own mother left us.
She abandoned her family. Faked her own death.
But why ?