Mom’s eyes filled with tears.She blinked rapidly until they cleared.“I’m as angry as he is.We’re on the same side, but he’ll forever see me as the enemy.”She picked up the plates and gave me a sad smile.“Let’s not think about any of that.You’re hosting your first dinner party.”
The timer went off.“And I have pastries to get out of the oven.”
Mom grabbed a handful of forks as well and went back out to the dining room.
I let the croissants cool for a minute while I took down another platter.I brought out the teapot and filled everyone’s cup, except for Declan, who had filled his own pint glass.I left the pot on the table and went back for the dessert.
“If anyone would prefer something different, let me know.”I handed the platter to Bracken to pass, took my seat, then lifted my teacup to sip.With a jolt, I stopped myself in time before my lips touched the cup.Mom was the last person to touch it.I’d almost dropped myself into a vision related to Mom and probably Dad, given where her thoughts were as she pulled these from the cupboard.Clearly too much was going on tonight; I’d forgotten to do a cleansing spell, and Ineverforgot to spell the things that had to touch my body.Since I was a child, I’d been doing it.It was second nature.The emotional upheaval was getting to me.
Declan held up the platter.“Are there enough for me to have two?”He was grinning, but I could see the concern in his eyes.He was asking if I was okay.
I nodded.“I have more in the kitchen.”
Everyone seemed to enjoy the dessert, which was good.Frank had a second as well before we got back down to business.
“Why all of a sudden?”Robert asked.“Coreys and Swans have lived in the same town for generations.Where is this hostility coming from?”
Mom seemed to still be processing what had happened with Dad, so I answered.If there was one thing I’d been taught by Mom and Gran, it was family history.Well, that and how to do magic at a very early age.I needed to be able to protect myself from predators who seemed unnaturally obsessed with my fae blood.
“It’s a long and convoluted story,” I told him.“We’ve always been rivals, but only in the minds of Swans.Coreys have never thought of Swans as anything other than lesser.”
Bracken cleared his throat.“If I might interrupt.I doubt anyone told you this story, given my sister and her secrets, but it was whispered that Mary’s husband William may have had a dalliance with Catherine.”
Mom, Elizabeth, and I stared at him with wide eyes.
“What?How have we never heard this?”I looked at Mom, who appeared as confused as me.
Bracken nodded.“It’s quite true, I’m afraid.William never confirmed it, of course, and Mary would never speak of it, but I knew.”
“Wait,” I said.“Did she know that you knew?Is that part of why she was always so horrible to you?”
He lifted a shoulder.“No idea.Most can’t read my facial expressions, and I certainly never told her I knew.Anyway, about nine months after the affair started, Catherine gave birth to her son William—cheeky, that.William, the son, went on to father Milo and Milena.William, Mary’s husband, was a Jacobs.Like the Bishops,” he said, nodding toward Uncle Robert, “they are a powerful East Coast wicche family.Mary married him to fortify the Corey line.I believe Catherine had the same idea.Hurting Mary, stealing what belonged to Mary, was a boon.”
“How have I never heard this?”Mom asked.
“Well, I mean, come on,” I replied.“It’s not like Gran was going to broadcast that.”
Faith looked between me and Bracken.“Grandpa Will has been gone for a long time.Did Gran…?”
“Oh my goodness,” Elizabeth said, patting her daughter’s arm.“Of course not.”After the words came out of her mouth, though, a little line formed between her eyebrows.She was wondering too.
“All right,” Robert began.“But that doesn’t explain why the Swans have it out for the Coreys.That sounds more like why some Coreys might have a problem with a particular Swan.”
I looked at Bracken for that answer.I’d started telling the family history, but I had apparently missed a lot, so I deferred to the historian at the table.
He sighed.“It’s all rather petty and tedious.I don’t know if William, the cheating husband, promised to leave Mary for Catherine or if she assumed he would.Regardless, Catherine, with a pregnant belly or a newborn baby, seemed to be forever turning up where Coreys were.Mary was incensed.For his part, William looked at Catherine as though they’d never met.”
Frank gasped.“Gran spelled her own husband to forget his mistress?”
Bracken took a sip of tea.“I have no idea, dear boy.I must admit, though, I had the same thought myself.William was a powerful wicche.Mary, though, was more so.She could have done it, if she’d wanted to.”
Robert shook his head at the entire situation.
Bracken caught it and said, “Exactly so.I left town after that, so someone else will need to take over the telling.”
Mom had her head back in the game, so she took over.“This isn’t the most important part of this discussion, but William, the son, tried to date me.”At the looks of horror around the table, she nodded, looking a little sick herself.
“I’m going to assume he didn’t know we were half siblings because that makes me more comfortable.”She grimaced and continued.“Coreys, in general, tried to avoid Swans.It was drilled into us from an early age that Swans were beneath us and not worth our time.My grandmother Marion hated them.She never passed on an opportunity to insult them.”
