Page 69

He wasn’t about to tell his mother about Lucy’s warnings. She was overprotective enough as it was.

But Jocatta was sharper than Blair gave her credit for. “Well, we’ll just pretend you’re telling the truth.” She ran her thumb and pointer finger along the chain of her necklace. “So, you’ve come here to see if I know anything about Lucy. Other than the obvious history you both shared. I’m not certain now is the time⁠—”

Blair’s father leaned over to whisper something in his wife’s ear. She looked a little stricken, pursing her lips before turning back to Blair.

“Very well. But—” She held up her palm for emphasis. “You must promise to remain calm.”

Of course, at those words Blair’s pulse began to race. Regardless, he nodded, his left hand curling around the arm of the couch.

“There is a reason we avoided telling you this,” Jocatta said carefully. Her jaw was tight, her eyes meeting her son's with apparent difficulty. “Your life has been challenging enough. We didn’t wish to add to your⁠—”

“Jocatta,” his father intoned. His raised brows seemed to act as a gentle reminder for her to get to the point.

“Lucy was your sister.” Her words were so quiet and choked, they might have been another crackle of the logs. “She was taken from us when she was very young. Accused of witchcraft.”

The breath left Blair’s lungs as if he’d been struck. For a moment, he felt stricken, immobilized. “Why?” he managed at last.

Jocatta’s delicate hand rose to touch her lips, perhaps to hide their trembling. She gazed into the grate. Flames flickered in her pale eyes like a forest fire reflected in the moon. “After we had our first two children, your sisters, your father and I thought we were safe, believing that my condition mustn’t be hereditary. As soon as you and Lucy came along, we knew we had been mistaken.”

Blair felt as though his head was floating somewhere north of his body. “Were we twins?”

Jocatta nodded. She could no longer hide the pain in her expression. “Lucy had a harder time controlling herself than you did. One day, not long after your second birthday, she grew restless at church.” She shook her head slowly from side to side, and Thomas moved his chair closer, resting a hand on her back as dark tears pooled in her eyes again. “We tried to get her away, but we weren’t quick enough…”

Blair’s stomach twisted as his mother’s words conjured the terrible scene in his mind’s eye.

“The church leaders took her from my grasp.” She held out her hands, palms up, staring down at them as she relived the moment. “There was nothing any of us could do…except to hide you away. To keep you safe, to make sure no one could ever get close enough to harm you.” Her voice took on a determined edge, and she fixed Blair with a look equal parts vulnerable and severe.

For the first time in over three hundred years, the trajectory of his life finally made sense. He could see it clearly now, the way his mother’s fear had always pressed into him like an iron into silk, searing his life with her trauma.

“My brother Nathaniel purchased this land for us,” Thomas expounded. “He helped us move our family out of Boston so that we could keep you from being taken as well.”

Blair didn’t know much about his uncle Nathaniel. He was known to history for being appointed as a judge at the start of the Salem Witch Trials, only to step down before he had the chance to serve, claiming he was displeased with proceedings. Perhaps this explained why.

His confused thoughts jumbled together in his mind. How could his mother and father let their young daughter be taken away from them without a fight? His mother’s full range of abilities made her a formidable opponent; why hadn’t she transformed in order to steal back her baby girl?

But the answer hit him before he had the chance to ask. If Jocatta had revealed what she was to save Lucy, it would have put them all in even graver danger. Instead, she and Blair’s father must have believed they had no choice but to protect the family they had left.

“So, you decided to stash me in the attic like a piece of outdated furniture in the hopes I would be content,” Blair said, his tone level. “Or, at the very least, complacent.”

“Everything we did was to keep you safe, and to keep others safe from you.” Jocatta’s pale eyes gleamed. “Never forget the part you’ve played. You never learned to master your emotions.”

“You never believed I could. And let’s face it, you never wanted me to.” The resentment that had remained carefully locked away with him up in the attic for decades tumbled out in one messy heap. “Even when you saw a different kind of life for me, you tried to keep me from it. You hid your vision like I wasn’t worthy of being anything more than a shadow. That’s what you want from me still, isn’t it? What would you like me to do, Mother? Return to the attic so you can shackle me to the floor? Would that satisfy you?”

The sudden distress on his mother’s face stunned him into silence. A second later, his nerves—already so close to unravelling—received an electric shock as a pounding started behind his eardrums again. Blair ground his jaw, trying to keep the sound at bay, forcing himself to stay in the present as his hand clenched around the arm of the couch.

“How interesting,” Jocatta observed, and Blair couldn’t believe that after the grievances he’d just unloaded onto her lap, she had the audacity to smile. “I believe your friend must have overheard your little outburst. Based on your reaction.”

If his relationship with his mother was less fraught, Blair might have felt comfortable coming to her for advice on how to handle the intensity of his reaction to Iris’ heartbeat. As it was, he felt only a humiliated defiance as he stared her down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jocatta stirred her spoon around her teacup. “You might consider trying to focus on Iris herself, rather than her heartbeat. Try to connect with her soul, or her spirit, instead. In time, the rest should fade.”

Blair wondered how many of his strange symptoms he shared with his mother, then whether he would ever feel safe discussing them with her. The heartbeat situation was clearly one she had familiarity with, though he felt her advice could have been a little less condescending. But there were still questions he needed answered. “What happened to Lucy after she was taken away?”

Jocatta sucked in a sharp breath. It took her a long time to answer, and when she did, her voice was hushed. “For years, I believed they had killed her. And when you were taken from us all those years later, I thought I had lost you both.” She placed her fingers over her trembling lips. “Then, about a month after your disappearance, I saw you in a vision. The moment I laid eyes on that defeated young woman beside you, I knew that she was our baby.” Fury flashed in his mother’s eyes, and her hand tightened around her necklace again. “Both of you were suffering, in unimaginable danger, and I couldn’t see where you were. I couldn’t get to you. It was…” She squeezed her eyes shut, a shudder racking her slim body.

Jocatta paused for a long moment before continuing. “I later learned that Lucy was spared death as a child to be sold like cattle. A life of servitude, only to later be slaughtered like a sacrifice. All that time, she was out there, and we didn’t rescue her. I can never forgive myself for that. It will haunt me forever.”

Blair was certain this story would haunt him for the rest of his days, too.