It’s 2 am when we arrive at the new house. Alaric has a gate and door code ready for Mum, who leaps out of the van to type them in. She flings the door open and gasps. (Like mother, like daughter.)
“Winnie, come look!”
I follow her inside. She turns all the lights on and stands in the middle of the room, spinning in wild circles. “It’s beautiful! I can’t believe it’s all mine!”
It’s strange to see her in a room with crisp white walls and a floor that isn’t hidden beneath mouldy papers.
Strange, and wonderful.
Maybe this is just what she needs – a place that’s truly hers, away from memories of my father, away from the idea of a perfect childhood she wishes she’d given me. I know that a new house won’t fix her desire to hoard, but for the first time since I left her house at eighteen, hope fills my heart when I look at her.
Maybe, with my support and love, and with a team of professionals who will help her manage her hoarding, my mum could be free of her stuff.
The Nevermore Coven marches inside, carrying the boxes of things Mum has already acquired that I haven’t managed to sort yet. Maisie and Celeste get to work stacking the kitchen shelves with groceries they brought with them, while Komal and Mina fold new towels (I resist the urge to run over and colour-code them) and discretely whittle down Mum’s overzealous crockery purchases. Isis and Beth re-arrange the furniture to make it, in their words, “Feng Shui AF”. Arabella perches on a bar stool, filing her nails and calling out wan encouragement.
Alaric looms in the doorway, surveying the scene with furrowed brows. His eyes flick to me, and the corner of his mouth quirks into a question I don’t yet have an answer for.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “You don’t know what this means to me, what you’ve done.”
“Ihave done nothing.”
“Alaric.” I elbow him in the side. “You bought my mother ahouse. You convinced all my friends to go along with your crazy scheme and drive down here in the middle of the night to move her in. You convinced my mother to go totherapy, something that she’s never before agreed to. I don’t know why you did all this when your wife is waiting for you in Italy?—”
“I never married Perdita.”
I raise an eyebrow. “But?—”
“I’ve had only one wife who matters to me, and she never agreed to marry me for real.”
“Why are you two still hanging around?” Komal tosses her keys to Alaric. “We’ve got this. Go show Winnie her place.”
That’s right. I’d been so preoccupied with Mum that I’d forgotten Alaric said he got me a place too.
My eyes widen in surprise at the keys in Alaric’s hand. “Can you even drive?”
“I am a centuries-old vampire prince from one of the most noble bloodlines of the Nightshade Court.” Alaric holds out the keys to me. “I have no clue how to work that infernal contraption. You will drive. I will work the mapandchoose the playlist.”
Alaric may be able to read a map on his phone now, but he hasn’t fully grasped the concept of traffic because he leads me on a zig-zagging journey across the city before yelling at me to pull over in front of an old Victorian brick factory.
“Alaric, this isn’t a house.” I frown at the old brick facade as Alaric fumbles with the keys. The place is beautiful in a derelict, industrial way, but I don’t see …
Oh.
Alaric holds open the enormous factory door so I can glimpse that magazine-worthy interior. Whatever genius designed this place kept the high ceilings and period features, including the old pipes and brick pillars, but they’ve installed a contemporary interiorwith glass, steel and richly veined marble surfaces. A comfy corner sofa stretches around a central fireplace that’s already ablaze, and warm lighting and cosy rugs make the huge open-plan space feel homely.
“Viviana gave me the name of her architect, and he happened to be about to put this place on the market when I called,” Alaric says as he drops the keys back into my hand. “The moment I saw it, I thought it screamed Her Most Majestic Madame Winifred.”
Heat from the fire warms my face as I walk through the galley kitchen, running my fingers over the marble benchtop, touching the shiny new coffee machine, and kicking off my shoes to feel the soft rugs beneath my toes. I notice little details:
A record player and a bunch of records stacked on a shelf. All bands from my Get Shit Done playlist.
A stack of vampire romance novels beside them, bookmarks marking page sixty-four.
A purple container on the kitchen counter labelled ‘Reginald’s Hot Chocolate Mix.’
A series of storage baskets beneath the coffee table, just waiting to be filled.
A large painting placed between two of the high windows, taking up nearly the whole wall, of the night sky over the valley, with Black Crag silhouetted in the distance.
