And I was totally and utterly hers.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN: ROWAN
Aline’s eyes burned into my back as I moved around the kitchen, filling the kettle and setting it on the element to boil. Every inch of my skin crawled with the sensation something terrible would happen if I didn’t make the tea perfectly and count the Great Hall windows. Aline was watching me and I needed to do this on my own and why was she watching me?
My hand trembled as I reached for the cups. I dropped one on the flagstones. Ceramic sherds skidded in all directions.
“Oh, dear. Let me help.” Aline hurried to my side.
“I’ve got it.” I tried to grab the broom, but it fell through my fingers and clattered on the floor. Aline grabbed it up and swept the broken cup into a pile beside the counter.
“Do I make you uncomfortable, Rowan?”
“Yes.” I stared at the mess on the ground. “Don’t take it personally. Everything makes me uncomfortable.”
“Did you want to ask me something?”
I nodded.
“About your parents?”
I nodded again.
“They died in the ritual.” Aline closed her eyes. “I didn’t know that before. So many died that night. So many children grew up without their parents. I’m sorry if I upset you earlier.”
“Please…I really want to know.”
“It’s funny.” Aline picked up two blueberries from the container on the counter and popped them in her mouth. “All those years I was trapped, I thought so much about Maeve but I never once considered what had happened to everyone else and what a mess we might’ve left behind for all of you. They were witches, of course. Dana was a water user, and Charles was earth. I’m not surprised you inherited his power along with his good looks.”
“I don’t even know what they looked like. There aren’t any pictures.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Dana was always snapping away with a camera. She had hundreds of photographs of the coven in an album – our rituals, our parties, everything.”
“Corbin’s parents threw out a lot of stuff, after—” I caught myself. It wasn’t right to tell Aline about Keegan. That wasn’t my story.
Aline frowned. ‘That’s not right! They shouldn’t be erasing our history like that! I can’t believe Andrew would do that– he was always going on about how we’d know so much more about the mistakes of the past if we didn’t burn so many books.”
“He changed his mind.”
“I don’t believe it!” Aline glanced out the window into the garden. “Where does he live now? I’ll ask him.”
“No!” After Corbin’s dad made such an effort to reach out to his son through Maeve, I didn’t want Aline showing up at their house and scaring them away again. “I mean, he’s not involved in Briarwood anymore.”
“Now I really don’t believe you. Andrew promised me he’d watch over Maeve. He’d never back down from a promise like that.”
“He has his reasons. That’s why we’re all here. We watch over Maeve now.” The blueberries dripped juice trails down her fingers. I counted the trails as they twisted around her arm. “Can you please just tell me about my parents?”
Aline grinned, her own questions forgotten as she swept her hand in a dramatic flourish. She relished her role as the sage oracle from the past. “Let’s see… I grew up here at Briarwood, as you know. Your mother Dana lived in Pembroke Hall just over the hills – on the other side of Holly Avenue, near Raynard Hall. We played together while our mothers did magical things. I didn’t like Dana’s mother much – she was always scolding me for having rumpled clothes and unruly hair. Sometimes Dana snuck over to Briarwood at night – I’d leave the kitchen gate unlatched and she’d sneak up the secret staircase and we’d stay up all night wishing on the stars.” Aline popped five more blueberries into her mouth. “Sometimes when Dana came in the night, I could tell she’d been crying. She always had bruises on her arms and legs. She said she bruised easily. I believed her at the time.”
My hands gripped the edge of the table so hard the knuckles turned white. I hated to think the violence that had been a daily part of my life had been my mother’s reality, too.I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
“Dana’s parents sent her away to a fancy boarding school. I stayed here at Briarwood. I didn’t want to do anything except practice magic every day and build the new coven. My parents had a few friends they trusted – but it wasn’t the coven I imagined; a true melding of kindred souls. My mother couldn’t wait to hand it over to me so they could retire to the Maldives. When I was 21 my parents moved out and I moved all my friendsin.” She threw up her hands. “It was free love – any witch or weirdo was welcome. People in the village called us a commune. Rumours flew around about the orgies and naked dancing going on at the castle. I loved every moment of it.”
I bet you did.
“By this time, Dana had started her law degree at Cambridge. She came back for the uni holidays, but her mother forbid her to see me. Imagine her precious daughter friends with the local witch? The scandal! But I guess Dana had enough. She appeared on the kitchen doorstep one night, her face bruised, a battered suitcase in her arms and a fierce look in her eyes. She moved in to my bedroom and we stayed up all night wishing on the stars and she told me she wanted to leave her law degree and Cambridge and join the Briarwood coven.
