"...Mom?"
My voice catches on the word. Is this a trick? Some kind of magical illusion making me see things that couldn't possibly be here? My mom is dead, and therefore this can't be real.
An icy numbness burrows into my heart, steeling me against unwanted emotions. My entire adult life has been defined by the day I lost my mother. A part of me died with her, as I shut myself off from feeling the type of love that could lead to that type of loss. More than one therapist tied her death to me seeking companionship with unavailable or inappropriate men, like my music professor. Her death crushed me in a way nothing else ever would or could. But now she's here. And I don't know what to feel.
"Hi, Sunshine," she whispers, tears rolling down her cheeks and coming to rest on her smiling lips.
Sunshine. She always called me Sunshine, and I haven't heard that nickname since. I wonder how much that word, stuck deep in the recesses of my psyche, led me to name my daughter Rain. Like somehow the opposite word would lead to the opposite outcome. I squeeze my baby a little tighter, needing her for emotional support right now far more than she needs me.
My mom looks from me to the baby, a grandmother's love radiating off her face. She doesn't move to touch Rain, probably because she knows my guard is still way up. If she was hoping for a joyful mother-daughter reunion, she picked the wrong way to go about it. "How?" I ask, choosing the only question I can give voice to right now. A deep hurt in my chest is threatening to crash over me, and I have to keep it at bay if I want to get through this.
"Come, join me by the fire," she says, extending a hand to help me up. "I'll tell you everything, but I also need to prepare you for what's to come. You're still in danger."
Yeah, no shit. I'm surrounded by the people who have been trying to steal my baby.
Seeing no other choice if I want answers, I stand and follow, my gaze taking in everything I can as I try to figure out where I am and who I'm with. About a dozen figures cloaked in dark robes form a circle around us, pretty much exactly what you'd expect a creepy cult to do. Their faces are cast in shadows from their hoods, and none of them move. They could be statues for how still they are, but I wouldn't bet on it. My guess is they are armed, with magic and weapons. Whatever they're packing, they're no doubt ready to intervene if I go off-script. I clutch Rain harder to my chest, then ease off when I realize I'm about to wake her. My skin thrums with the power in this place, and I suddenly feel desperately alone.
I try to quiet the sound of my heart pounding in my head and reach for that small strand that still connects me to Darius. Will he feel where I am? Will he know I'm in danger? Try as I might, I can no longer sense him tethered to me, and this breaks me almost more than anything else has. That sense of loneliness is now completely consuming.
With hesitant steps, I join my mother by the fire. My uneasiness is at war with another, deeper part of myself--the child in me who recognizes with longing the way my mother walks as if her feet barely touch the ground; the way she flicks her wrists like a ballerina, so graceful and lithe. She had been a dancer once upon a time, and though she mostly abandoned her studio sessions when I came along, my fondest memories are of us dancing together in the kitchen while baking banana bread.
I study the woman before me now, and I see that same grace, that same easy fluidity, and I know that part of my mother couldn't possibly be faked. Which makes all of this so much harder. While I'm desperately clinging to my fear to keep me alive, I'm also trying hard not to fall into that safety net she always provided. It's a dichotomy I don't know how to justify within myself, and I'm torn apart by it. Once I'm close enough to the flames to feel their warmth penetrating the cold that has sunk into my bones, I look for a place to sit. My legs feel unstable, whether from exhaustion or from the recent revelations I'm not sure. As I search for a stump or a log, I hear my mother speak in a slightly affected tone.
"Lángol."
I look her way just as she finishes waving a wand--like, an actual witch's wand, and suddenly two flames leap from the fire, turning a radiant blue as they split from their source, one landing behind each of us. I jump a little, afraid of getting burned--since that's what fire does. Meanwhile, my mother sits back into the blue flames beneath her, and the fire expands around her body like a really bizarre bean bag chair.
"Go ahead, Bernie," she says in her soothing tone. "It's safe."
Safe is debatable, but I'm curious despite myself. I inch closer to the blaze, noticing that it's warm but not painfully hot. I ease my body down and feel a resistance come up to meet me. It molds around my body like a cushion, and just like that, I'm relaxing in a fire chair. Well, relaxing may be too strong a word, but tensely sitting for sure.
I have plenty of questions about the seat she just conjured, and my mom must notice because she starts to explain.
"Fire is one of the greatest tools for a witch," she says. "It's part of the reason we've been able to survive despite--"
"Why are you after my baby?" I ask, cutting her off.
As much as I want--and need--to know what she is and where she's been all these years if not dead, my most immediate concern is keeping Rain safe.
My mom just shakes her head, a pained look in her eyes and a quiver in her lip. "To save you, sweetheart. We've been trying to save you."
She seems entirely earnest, but things haven't been as they seem for quite some time. Recent events have primed me to stay skeptical of everyone, and that definitely includes my dead mother.
"I don't understand." I really don't. I don't know what to ask, because I'm too overwhelmed. Too many questions are crowding my thoughts to pick just one.
"I know, Sunshine. There's no way
you could. Even after I explain, there
will still be parts that don't make sense, but I'll do my best to ease your mind." My mom takes a moment to compose herself, wiping away some tears and dabbing a handkerchief under her nose In the most extreme, unnatural
wn
circumstances, she's stil kind of normal. Like a regular mom, sitting in a chair made of fire after pulling off a supernatural kidnapping. Someone sign us up for our reality TV show, stat.
"You might never trust me," she says. "I accept that, and part of me expects it. But I won't stop trying to save you, and hopefully, you'll come to understand..." she pauses again, her voice cracking with emotion. "You'll come to understand that everything I've done is because I love you. More than anything."
I want to believe her, almost as
much as she wants to be believed. She sounds so sincere. Her tears, the emotion straining her voice, the look of love she gives me that's so reminiscent of my memories of her. It's almost too perfect. Too much like a movie scene. Either I've become jaded, or I'm missing something here. Still, the child in me wants more than anything to trust
what she says, because the alternative might just break me.
She leans forward, her gaze locked on mine, her words earnest as she continues. "I found out I was a witch on my twelfth birthday, which is the year most girls' powers manifest fought it for a long time, not wanting to believe I was different. You know how it is at that age. You just want to fit in. Then I went through a rebellious phase, discovering all the worst uses for my powers and--"
"And what does this have to do with me?" I ask sharply, leaning forward with Rain held firmly in my arms. "With what's happening now? Kidnapping me and my child?" I really do want to hear my mother's life's story, but there's a time and a place. This is neither. "Everything changed when you were born, Bernie," she says quickly. "I'm not trying to ramble on about my past, but I think you understand how becoming a mother upends your world. And you're starting to understand how much crazier it is when you know magic exists, for better and for worse."
Her words give me pause as I realize my estranged mother and I have something very much in common. Well-played, mom.
"Nanny filled me in on the prophecy after you were born, and I briefly lost my shit on her for waiting until I'd had a child to drop that bombshell." It's nice to hear mom sounding a little like me. "But once I cooled down, I knew what I had to do. I went all in. I wanted to master my powers, to harness my capabilities, all so I could protect you. And then..."
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