Page 41 of Big Little Spells
My father loves a Healer when he needs to be healed, of course. But witches can be as snobby as anyone else. Maybe more so, because we live longer and can summon our ancestors to personally teach us what they hated. Hashtag not all witches, etc., but for some, there is always a divide between the more intellectual designations and what my father has been known to call the blue collar witches. Praeceptors, Warriors, and Historians tend to live in the fancy old houses in these stately witch towns. Guardians, Healers, and Summoners tend to stay closer to the natural world.
No one really knows what Diviners do, because there aren’t that many.
“Marriage is an important step for any witch, and the right choice can always brighten a witch’s prospects,” my mother intones, giving my father what can only be called a very married sort of look.
“Or dim them,” he mutters. “A Healer.” He says that as if he’s struggling to find a way to make that palatable. And then, as we watch, he gets there. The same way he always does. “The Norths are very powerful Healers, of course.” He says that like he’s actually extending his unsought permission right now. Beside me, Emerson stiffens. And also crushes my hand. “He’s Adam North’s son, correct?”
“You’ve met Jacob, and his parents, a million times,” Emerson says from between gritted teeth.
“We meet so many people. We’re ambassadors, Emerson.”
La-di-fucking-dah, I say where only my sister can hear me.
Emerson chokes on a laugh.
My mother finally goes for a smile. Better late than never, I guess.
“That means there’s a wedding to plan! After we clear up this mess.” She drops Emerson’s wrist and waves a hand. Not to cast a spell, but to make it clear that I’m a part of the mess in question. “We don’t have much time to find the perfect Beltane dresses, but don’t worry. I’ve brought a selection.” She stops smiling and gives us that very serious look that makes me feel all of about ten years old. “We have less than twenty-four hours to get this sorted, girls.”
Girls.
We’re just girls to her, still. Something that would be offensive if we’d spent every day of the past ten years together. The fact that we haven’t and she can’t recognize that we’re not the same girls she left here...rankles.
I want to get into it. But instead there’s a certain amount of shell shock that carries Emerson and me forward. Or it’s my mother’s magic nudging us along. I’m honestly too numb to tell.
“I’ll handle the Beltane gowns, Desmond,” my mother is saying. “Why don’t you take the temperature around town?”
“Thank you, Elspeth,” Dad says, his “polite” version of telling her she’s an idiot. “I’m already having drinks with Festus tonight.”
Festus Proctor, the Joywood Guardian. Related to Zander and his father somehow, distantly, though Festus is insufferable. Go figure him and my father would have something in common.
My mother’s smile is all cut glass, as brittle as it is bright. “Wonderful.”
My father stalks off toward the study in the back of the house that has always been his man cave. Emerson and I are still being herded toward the living room when Ellowyn comes in from the kitchen.
“Hey, I’ve been waiting for you. Weren’t we going to...” But Ellowyn trails off when my father brushes past her without acknowledging her. She gapes at him, then turns back and sees my mother. And her face shows all the shock and horror Emerson and I managed to keep at bay. Well, mostly at bay. “The Wildes actually found their way back home. Just in time for a little repeat of high school. I guess that figures.”
My mother goes full Elspeth. She manages to seem as tall as one of the oaks outside, as elegant as she is unnerving. Her dark eyes gleam with distaste. Even the unquestionable sophistication of her glossy dark hair in its omnipresent French twist seems malicious. “And you’re still haunting Wilde House, Miss Good. Perhaps you should go home, assuming you have one, and make sure your hapless mother has approved your dress for tomorrow’s events, as that’s how my daughters will be spending their time this evening.”
“Oh, she already has, Mrs. Wilde.” And Ellowyn has always possessed the talent of speaking the truth she’s cursed to tell, but in a tone of voice that makes it as insulting as if she was bludgeoning everyone around her with lies. “Not to draw unflattering comparisons here, but she said I can wear what I want. Since I’m an adult.”
“She always did let you roam freely, didn’t she?” Elspeth doesn’t say, and look how that turned out. She doesn’t have to say it when she’s raking Ellowyn from head to toe with that look on her face. Elspeth has always been so proud of how she married up—not that she’d ever describe it quite that way, but it was clear, always, she married correctly.
Unlike Aunt Zelda, her sister, who married a Guardian who was beneath her. And Ellowyn’s mother cavorting with a human? Downright humiliating.
Ellowyn looks over at me and I know that if I look even slightly upset, she’ll stay and draw my mother’s fire. She’s always been good at it.
But I give my head a shake. I’m good. Why shouldn’t I be able to handle my own parents? In fact, it would actually be in my best interest to win them over. To get them on our side. To start them on a path toward doubting the Joywood’s “good” intentions—
Let’s not get delusional, I tell myself.
Ellowyn gives both Emerson and me little shoulder nudges of support as she passes and then leaves through the front door like a human. Loudly.
Mom is now unmistakably steering us into the living room. She strides before us, spine so erect it functions as another expression of her disappointment in me. In both of us. Back then she was so certain her children were on the path to glory. She used the Beltane prom to throw Emerson together with Carol Simon’s doucheweasel son and wasn’t happy when I engineered a chinchilla situation to distract Emerson, since Emerson never would have refused Mom’s interfering no matter how little she liked it.
Back then Mom was all, if only Rebekah would listen. If only Emerson could put more behind her power. Maybe she thinks this is a redemption tour.
I want to tell her to wake up and smell the revenge plot.