“No. You promised.”
As soon as my foot touches the last step of the back stairway that leads directly into the kitchen, all conversation stops.
My father sits at the head of the breakfast table, light hair falling into his eyes as he reads Castleview’s magical newspaper. My sisters are each in different stages of eating breakfast—slathering jam on biscuits or scooping eggs onto a plate.
But like I said, all that stops when I enter the room. “Where’s Mama?”
Dad clears his throat. “Your mother is?—”
“Here.” She enters the kitchen, black robe open, revealing plaid flannel pajamas that I kind of wished I was wearing because there’s a winter draft coming in from the windows. “I’m here.”
“We need to talk.”
She nods. “We can do it in the?—”
“Everybody out,” Dad yells, interrupting her. “Girls, grab your breakfasts and let’s go.”
With that, he and his magical newspaper vanish, along with my sisters, who vanish in smoky poofs one at a time.
“Oh, my biscuit!” Chelsea reappears to grab a biscuit slathered in what looks like purple possum-grape jelly and stuffs it into her mouth before disappearing.
Blair shoots me a sympathetic look before she, too, vanishes in a cloud of smoke.
“Coffee?” Mama points to the carafe on the counter.
“Yes, please.”
She grabs a chipped mug hanging from a wooden cup-tree and fills it, leaving room for cream. She slides it over, giving me the side-eye, before pouring her own cup.
I grab the pot of cream that sits near the coffee maker and let a good stream fall into the mug before stirring. My father likes his coffee as darkly roasted as possible. It’s well-known in my family that if you’re ever in need of a laxative, just ask Dad to make you some coffee, because that’ll do the trick.
Which means that over the years I’ve learned that the best way to counter numerous trips to the bathroom post-breakfast is to temper my coffee with an almost equal amount of cream.
When my drink’s good and doctored, I take a seat in front of an empty plate. Mama takes the chair beside me, which happens to be at the foot of the rectangular farmhouse table.
“You have questions,” she says, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “But before you ask them, there’s something I need to say. I’m sorry about not being here when you first arrived home. You needed me, but I was buried under alliances to shore up, and making sure that the other witch families knew that all our past agreements would remain intact.”
“I know.”
“But that’s not all.” She cuts the air with her hand. “Georgia was with me, and she’s the youngest. As the eldest, you wanted that to be your place, and I knew that. But Georgia needed a distraction. Nana’s passing hurt her.”
“It hurt all of us,” I argue.
She exhales heavily. “Your sister took it badly. She couldn’t even look at Nana’s body, so I said she could be with me.”
I nod, silently agreeing, and take a moment to study her. It’s been so long since I’ve sat at this table with just her that I haven’t noticed the newest fine lines on her forehead, or that more crow’s feet crinkle her eyes. She looks tired and worn out.
She looks how I feel.
One sip of my coffee tells me that I might have overdone it on the creamer, but better safe than sorry. “You knew about his wife.”
It takes all my control not to scream the words, not to bite them out, and not to lash at her. I have to hope there’s an amazingly reasonable reason why this information was kept from me.
She rubs her thumb over the rim of her mug. “I wasn’t there that day, when it happened. There was someone new working, who had only been with us for a few months.” She sighs and sinks back onto her chair and rubs her cheek with a hand boasting more age spots than I remember seeing before. “The queen, Tess, came, and she requested to be put into a book, one that was not in our stock. The rule is?—”
“All books must be vetted.” Even I know that.
She nods stiffly. “Correct. But the worker was told that Ihadvetted the book, which was a lie. From what I understand, Tess also threw her status around. So she was allowed into it.”
