“Don’t be. You’ve done nothing wrong.” Lauren’s voice was unexpectedly sharp, and she was shooting angry glances at the Twins. Why would she do that? They were so sweet and lovely.
“We have time.” Lyra made a dismissive gesture toward Lauren. “I shifted to pushing summer colors.”
“Like your lovely skin.” I smiled at Lyra. My voice sounded weird to my ears, sort of muffled and slurring like I was drunk.
“Ladies, that’s enough.” Brianne’s glare cut through my haze. Whoa. She had the kind of glare powerful men can only hope to achieve. The Twins grinned innocently, lifting waifish shoulders to their ears. They waved their hands toward me.
Once they lowered their hands, a jolt of electricity shot through me, planting my butt firmly in the seat. I braced myself with the edge of the table. My head tilted backwards, and the dancing butterflies in my stomach suddenly coiled into a tight ball. A wave of nausea rolled through me. I trembled all over.
Swallowing water down, I fought the urge to vomit. Again. I no longer wanted to giggle, that was for sure. Embarrassment bloomed in my core. I’d been a fool, for reasons I couldn’t understand, and the meeting was only halfway finished.
So much for a good first impression.
CHAPTER 6
“What just happened?”
“I’m sorry, Simone.” Brianne was at my side, though I hadn’t seen her get up. She shoved a plate of cookies in front of me. “The sugar will help. The Twins don’t always have respect for our Board Meetings.”
Lydia and Lyra managed to look sheepish, almost wilting under Brianne’s mom voice. I lifted a cookie, breaking it in parts and shoving a small piece in my mouth. Nothing made sense. Not the shifts in my sensations or the casual talk about dying fur and druids. I wanted to believe Agatha had been treating mass delusions when she died, and they were all a part of it, except I’d have to question my own eyes.
“We were just testing the waters.” Lydia’s formerly lilting voice held an edge of defensiveness. “She’s supposed to be able to fight it.”
My throat closed over the cookie I’d been fighting down. A sort of righteous anger burned inside me. My stomach soured with it. What was I supposed to be able to fight? Magic? Spells? I didn’t even know they existed until twenty minutes ago.
Looking at the Twins now, they were still lovely, but the glow was gone. Their features appeared sharper to me, and the colored skin seemed faded. Just two more mean girls, magical or not.
Everyone was staring at me. I wanted to stick up for myself. I wanted to reassure them that Agatha knew what she was doing when she left everything to me. But how could I do that? I didn’t believe it myself.
Whatever was going on, I was on the precipice of my entire world being upside down. Again.
They had doubts about me. I could understand that. But messing with me in a professional setting was a cruel way to express them. Did I have authority over them now? I thought back to the words I’d been compelled to say at the start of the meeting: Ephemeral Supreme.
I may not have known ephemeral, but I knew supreme. It was the leader of a witches’ coven.
The thought tightened the knot in my throat. Did they believe I was a witch? Were they witches? Was this a coven?
I hovered in this state of believing everything I’d seen and none of it, all the while a table full of people and one empty chair sat and waited. And yes, I believed the chair was waiting for me to respond. As if it could read my thoughts, it gave a little jiggle.
My throat clogged deeper. My mouth was drier than the desert. I took a sip of water, hoping to release the pressure building within me. It didn’t work. I’d just have to trust my words. I took a deep breath.
“I don’t understand what is happening. I’m not sure if I’m awake or alive or what.” I turned my attention to the Twins. “I’m pretty sure you two can snap me like a twig without even breaking your nails.”
Their smiles grew sly, telling me I was correct about that. Yikes.
“What I can say is that we’re all in unfamiliar territory here. None of you know me or know who I am, beyond some girl from high school who hasn’t been to Treater’s Way in thirty years.”
I took another sip. Whatever was coming up seemed like too much for me to handle. I couldn’t swallow it down, nor could I bring it to the surface. I kept rambling.
“I grew up here, though. My mother ran this place the whole of my childhood. So I must know something, right? Surely, I couldn’t have been raised here and not seen, um”—I gestured around—“this before?” I turned to Ethan. “Right?”
Ethan shifted in his chair and glared at his fingernails. For an aggressive lawyer, he really didn’t like confrontation. Same, dude. It was Lauren who spoke for him.
“What do you remember, Simone? Anything?”
“Honestly, it’s all a distant memory.” The clock I hadn’t seen gonged, and my ears buzzed. A flash of something ranthrough my mind. Water and trees. A small park bench. Me, a hair over eighteen, crying until I was empty inside. Boiling rage. An uttered oath.
But as I tried to grab the memory, the rage simmered, and the image faded. The clock gonged again, and Brianne shifted in her chair.
