Page 62 of The Witch They Fear

Even Nellie's mom can't resist mothering him. Incredible.

The food arrives—delivered by a boy on a bicycle who seems to know Odette personally and stays for a five-minute conversation about his grandmother's arthritis before leaving with a jar of something amber from behind the counter. Odette spreads the containers across the table in the back room: po' boys, dirty rice, collard greens, cornbread, a container of gumbo thick enough to stand a spoon in.

"Eat first," she says. "Whatever you came here for can wait until you've got food in you."

“Mama, how did you know?”

Odette winks. “Intuition.”

So we eat. And it's good. Like holy shit good. The gumbo is a revelation. The cornbread is the best thing I've tasted since I left the facility. Odette watches us eat with the satisfied expression of a woman who considers a full plate her primary form of therapy.

Between bites, Nellie catches her mom up about me—carefully, editing, leaving out the worst of it. She mentions my training sessions in general terms. Mentions the enforcers. Doesn't mention the fail-safe or the burns or the testing room or anything that would turn Odette's worry from manageable to emergency.

I appreciate the editing. Even if I suspect Odette is hearing everything Nellie isn't saying in the spaces between what she is.

"And Professor Malloy?" Odette asks, pointing her fork at Nellie. "She still running that class like a woman who has personally been wronged by every vampire in the building?"

"She's brilliant, Mama."

"She's a hurricane." Odette grins. "We were in the same graduating class at Merveille. She set a boy's desk on fire during finals week because he plagiarized her channeling thesis. On purpose. The desk, not the plagiarism. Well—both, actually."

"You went to school with Professor Malloy?" I ask.

"Honey, I went to school with half the witch faculty on the Gulf Coast. It's a small world when your species makes up twelve percent of the supernatural population." She tears off a piece of cornbread. "Malloy and I write each other every solstice. She sends me articles about ward theory. I send her tea that helps with her migraines. It's a beautiful friendship built entirely on professional respect and the mutual agreement that we'd kill each other if we spent more than three days in the same room."

Nellie rolls her eyes. "They're actually best friends. Mom cried when Malloy got the Devenir appointment."

"I did not cry. I had allergies."

"In December."

"Louisiana allergies are year-round, Nellie Marie."

They're doing a bit. I can see it—the rhythm of a mother and daughter who have been performing this particular comedy for years, the call and response of two people who know each other's timing down to the syllable. Odette gestures with her cornbread. Nellie mimics the gesture with her fork. They catch each other doing it and Odette swats her arm and Nellie ducks and they're both laughing.

I sit in the middle of it and let it wash over me. The noise and the warmth and the easy, unearned love of a family that's still intact. It hurts. It also heals. I'm not sure which one is winning.

The plates clear. Odette makes more coffee—strong, dark, served in mismatched mugs. The back room quiets. The lamp on the counter casts a warm circle across the table. The cat has relocated to a chair in the corner and is watching us with an intensity that suggests it knows why we're really here.

"Okay," Nellie says. She looks at me. I look at her. She nods.

Nellie sets her mug down. Wraps both hands around it. I recognize the gesture—she's bracing.

"Mama, you were right before. We didn't just come for the food and the company." She glances at me. I nod. "We need your help with something. Your expertise, specifically. I went through the restricted section at Devenir and came up empty, and I figured if anyone would know—"

"What kind of something?" Odette's eyes sharpen. The mom recedes. The witch steps forward.

"Show her," Nellie says to me.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the rune rubbing. Unfold it on the table between the empty gumbo container and a small vase of flowers. The angular lines stare up at us—grey graphite on white paper, still humming faintly against the wood.

Alive like the real rune is on my door back at Devenir.

Odette sets her coffee down. Leans forward. The second her eyes land on the rubbing, her face changes.

The warmth drains out of it. The laugh lines go flat. Her eyes go wide and then narrow and her hand comes up to her mouth and she stands up, pushing her chair back with a screech that makes the cat jump.

"Where did you get this?" Her voice is stripped of everything warm. The pressure in the room intensifies. "Where did you find this?"