Jessica
To rid thyself of sadness, peel the whole of an onion.
Goody Fletcher, Book of Useful Household Tips
Of all the excuses I’d expected Derrick to give for his behavior, claiming to be the son of the goddess of all creation was not one I was expecting.
I had to admit, it was pretty creative. It made me laugh.
Not ha ha ha laugh. But metaphorically.
Rosalie was right: I really did have the worst luck where men were concerned.
“Good one,” I said to him. Then I straightened. I didn’t need the wall to support me anymore. I could manage the way I’d been managing for all these years: on my own. And with Dina’s shoulder to cry on. “Look, I’m going to go in there and be with Esther. Even if it turns out she’s not the Bringer of Light, she’s still my mentee, so—”
He looked genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”
I smiled at him—very sweetly in my opinion, given the circumstances. The circumstances being that what I wanted to do was knee him in the balls.
“Gosh, Derrick, didn’t you know? That prophecy you showed me last week was written by Rosalie Hopkins’s witchy old ancestress Elizabeth back in the sixteen hundreds. Which makes Rosalie the Chosen One, and her daughter Lizzie the Bringer of Light—a fact I would have thought that you’d be aware of, considering that you claim to be the son of the Mother Goddess, who is all knowing. Oh, well.” I’d started back toward the dining room doors, stopping only to pat him on the shoulder along the way. “Better luck in the next town, champ. I don’t care how magic your mother is. I think you should find different accommodations than my house tonight—”
He reached up and, with lightning-fast reflexes, seized my wrist, anchoring me to his side.
“Hey,” I said, looking up at him in surprise. Not because his grip hurt—it didn’t. The contact of his skin against mine was sending waves of painless gold fire all up and down me. He was playing with an unfair advantage, and he had to know it.
He didn’t let go, however.
“Who told you that?” He breathed down at me. “About the prophecy? Was it Rosalie?”
“Yes, of course it was Rosalie. Your best friend, who you snuck out onto the dock with last night at Trivia. Who else?”
“It’s not true.” He kept his hold on my wrist. The tingles continued, in parts other than my wrist, unfortunately. Honestly, I should have known all along that he was otherworldly. What mortal man could touch you on the wrist and make you wet between the legs? Dammit. “Yes, I talked to Rosalie last night on the dock, but to warn her about the muffins, nothing else. Can’t you see they’re trying to play us, Jess?”
“Who is? And I swear to God, Derrick, if you say demons, I’ll—”
“I don’t mean demons.”
“Who then? Your brother?”
“Yes. And Rosalie.”
“To what purpose?”
Derrick’s silver-eyed gaze had gone hard as flint. A drunk man in a tux came barreling through the dining room doors, evidently set on ordering something a little harder than wine from the bar, but got one look at Derrick’s steely-eyed gaze and muttered, “’scuse me,” and trundled right back into the dining room.
“You know,” he said. “Rosalie is a narcissist, so desperate for power and attention that she’ll do anything, anything at all to make sure she gets it, even put the lives of everyone around her at risk. Look what she did to you when she found out the boy she liked loved you instead. This is no different.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’re talking about an entire town, not a high school crush. It’s a little different, Derrick.”
“Is it? My brother has always had exactly the same issues as Rosalie, always needing to be the center of attention. He calls himself a Grand Sorcerer, for God’s sake. I’ve always had a relationship with our mother that he envied. I’m the one she asks for help when there’s a problem with a town like yours, not him, and it’s always driven him crazy.”
“Wow, that’s so funny, because Rosalie says that he says the exact same thing about you. Unfortunately for you there’s proof Rosalie’s great-great-granny wrote the prophecy. And Rosalie says Lizzie’s a witch. She can cast glamours.”
“Rosalie’s great-granny may very well have written the prophecy,” Derrick said, releasing his hold on me, and leaving me feeling warm and tingly . . . and regretful he hadn’t touched me in more places. But he dragged a hand through his hair instead. “And Lizzie very well may be able to cast glamours. But glamours won’t save us tomorrow night. You and Esther will.”
“Oh, I see. And that information came from your mother, the ancient pagan deity Gaia, I suppose.”
“Yes. I know how hard it must seem to believe, but yes.” He spat the words through gritted teeth. “It’s not information I generally share, because of exactly the reaction you’re having right now. I don’t relish people knowing that my mother makes a regular habit of roaming the earth looking for lonely, virile men by whom to impregnate herself, and then abandoning the baby with them nine months later because she has no interest in child-rearing, then going off on her merry way to find some other poor sap to screw. But she is literally the mother of creation. It’s what she does for fun. She’s been doing it since the dawn of time and will probably keep doing it until Armageddon.”
I stared at him. “Wait. Your mom got pregnant by your dad and then just . . . left you with him?”
“Yes.” When he noticed my expression, he jabbed a finger in my direction. “Don’t. Do not look at me like that. I do not have abandonment issues or whatever else Rosalie told you that my brother said. Dad and I were—are—fine.”
“I’m sure you are.” Still, my heart wept a little for the motherless little boy raised all alone on that desolate farm in Montana—if, in fact, what he was saying was true. “How many siblings do you have?”
“Far, far too many to fit into any normal venue for a family reunion, with the possible exception of the Grand Canyon.”
I shook my head. “I really . . . I really don’t know if you’re telling the truth. Or how to process this information if you are. Because if your mother is Gaia, that means she’s immortal. Which must mean that you are, too.”
He was shaking his head, as well. “No. No, it does not. Why do you think she keeps having children? She can’t bear watching us grow old and die. Every one of us leaves her, in the end.”
“Oh.” Now my heart swelled with pity for his mother. “Derrick.”
It all made sense now. . . .
Wait. No, it didn’t. None of this made sense. Nothing I’d heard this evening—this whole week—made sense. Why was I even standing here having this conversation? This guy was a stark, raving—
Except.
Except that if I believed magic was real—and I had incontrovertible proof that it was—why shouldn’t I believe that this was real, too?
Because none of it made any sense.
“But if you and Bartholomew Brewster have the same mother,” I asked, “why would she tell you that I’m the Chosen One and him that Rosalie is?”
“She didn’t,” he said. “Brewster and my mother don’t speak.”
I raised my eyebrows. “They don’t?”
“No. Does everyone in your family get along?”
“Yes.”
His eyebrows practically hit his hairline. “But your parents don’t even know you’re a witch.”
“Well, yes. But aside from—”
“Aside from you actively lying to them about the most important thing in your life, you mean.”
“Not actively. I told you . . . I consider it more omitting a truth they wouldn’t understand, and would only hurt them. I’m protecting them.”
“Oh, so it’s fine for you to omit truths to your parents to protect them, but wrong for me to omit truths to you for your protection?”
I glared at him. “Yes! Because I’m not a senior citizen. And stop trying to change the subject. Why don’t your mother and brother get along?”
“Have you seen him?”
“Stop it, Derrick. Is it because he founded the World Council of Witches?”
“For starters.”
“Because she believes it’s better to keep the existence of magic secret?”
“Not at all. Because she, like me, agrees that it’s too exclusionary. Magic is everywhere and in everyone. It isn’t an inheritable trait. But Brewster is so proud of having magic on both sides of his family—Mom chose a little bit too big of a loner when she picked out Bart’s dad—he made inheriting it the first of the nine rules of his organization.”
I thoughtfully fingered the amulet I still wore at my throat. “And the symbol of Gaia as its insignia.”
“Yes.” Derrick’s eyes narrowed with regret as he looked down at my throat. “She wasn’t too happy about that decision of Bart’s, either. But it is a protective symbol. I didn’t lie about that. I know I should have told you the absolute truth from the beginning. But she—I—we both didn’t know how you’d react. And you have to admit, it sounds—”
Completely insane? That’s what I’d been about to say when a huge burst of applause came from behind the dining room doors.
Then they broke open, and a flood of people came streaming out, most of whom went straight toward the bar. Like clockwork, Randy the bartender reappeared from the kitchen, along with several of his colleagues, and began taking cocktail orders.
I bit my lip, looking around. I saw Billy headed straight for me. “This isn’t the best—maybe we should continue this conversation another time. Like . . . tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Jessica. You can’t be serious.” Derrick’s fingers were on my skin again, but this time taking my hand, the look in his eyes pleading. “I—”
But he never got to finish whatever it was he’d been about to say, because a rainbow-haired meteor hit us out of the blue, crying my name.
“Jessica, Jessica!” Gabby threw her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. “Thank you so much! Because of you, I won! I’m a Harvest Princess!”
She was, indeed, wearing a crown of dried roses, spray-painted gold, with gold ribbons trailing down the back. Although the thorns had been removed, the leaves were still a bit stiff, and pointy enough to jab me all the way through my bra as she clung on to me.
Still, I hugged her back, wincing against the pain. “Congratulations!”
“It never would have happened if it weren’t for you,” Gabby said, releasing me finally to dash tears of joy from her professionally made-up eyes.
“It would, actually.” Esther, who’d followed along behind Gabby, wore her seemingly permanent expression of wry amusement. “Only nine girls showed up in the end. There were nine crowns. So you all won.”
“Stop it, Essie!” Gabby’s mother had followed her daughter into the bar area as well, and now she smiled gratefully up at me. “Gabriella would have won anyway, no matter how many other girls she was up against.”
“She would,” I said. “And just to be clear, contests that judge women on their looks are sexist and limit—”
“Dad!” Gabby’s shriek of joy was so piercing it nearly broke my eardrum. She darted through the throng toward a balding older man in a business suit. He threw his arms around first her, and then his wife when Mrs. Aquino joined them.
“Sorry I was late, mija,” Mr. Aquino murmured affectionately into his daughter’s hair.
I was startled from my enjoyment of this family reunion by Billy saying my name. He seemed to have got his facial coloring under control. “Jess, how are you? So glad you could come. Are you thinking about joining the club? I’m on the selection committee and I’d be happy to put in a good word for you—”
“Uh, no, thank you,” I said. “Just here supporting a friend. I don’t exactly own a yacht. I only own a car thanks to you.”
“Do you like it?” His smile was wide. “I know it’s not the same as your old car, but it has some impressive features. The amount you’ll save on fuel alone—”
“I love it.” I couldn’t help being aware of Derrick’s burning gaze.
“And you know you don’t have to own a yacht to join the Yacht Club,” Billy assured me. “There are all sorts of membership privileges besides reduced dockage fees—”
“You know what? I left my phone at my table with my coat.” I gave him a smile that wasn’t nearly as wide as his, but at least I tried. “I’m just gonna go grab them. But we’ll talk later, okay?”
“Oh.” His face fell. “Okay.”
I spun around and headed quickly back into the dining room to snatch up my things. I just wanted to put on my coat, make sure Esther had a ride home with the Aquinos, then head out—alone. I needed some time by myself to clear my head.
Derrick and Bartholomew Brewster were the sons of Gaia?
Gaia was real, and walking the earth, and making baby daddies out of lonely farmers in Montana (and apparently Oxford deans in England)?
I could believe that my hometown was located on a hell rift. But the Mother Goddess, not being a particularly good mother?
That was a hard one to swallow.
All of this was just too much, too fast. If Rosalie wanted to be the Chosen One, that was fine with me. All I wanted was to be left—
And then it happened. I walked out of the Yacht Club dining room, my coat on, bag in hand, and spied Bartholomew Brewster talking to Esther near the grand piano in the bar.
No. Just no.
That was not happening.
Sure, Rosalie and her daughter, Lizzie, were both standing right there as well, looking dazzling in their matching ice-blue sheaths.
And I spied Derrick a few feet away, looking tall and fairly menacing in his all-black ensemble, his gaze still burning, but in a different way, and this time directed at his brother.
But this just wasn’t okay.
I walked up to the little circle and said, “Esther, I’m leaving. Can I give you a lift home?”
Esther looked surprised. She’d evidently been enjoying whatever Brewster had been saying.
“Oh,” she said, glancing around the crowded room. “I thought I’d get a lift home with Gabby.”
“No.”
Everyone glanced in surprise at Derrick. His gaze met mine, and stayed there. “Change of plans. You’re going with Jessica.”
Esther looked from one to the other of us, bit back whatever sarcastic remark she’d been about to make, then said quickly instead, “Let me go get my coat,” and ducked back into the dining room.
“Derrick!” Brewster held his arms open wide for a hug that his brother didn’t step into, and eventually, he dropped them. But he didn’t drop his jovial tone. “What a pleasure to see you. I’d heard, of course, that you were here in town.” He shook a finger at his younger sibling as if at a naughty child. “You see? I always know. I have spies everywhere. How have you been, my boy?”
Derrick looked as if he wished Esther had blown his brother’s head off with her hands. But he only said, “Fine. And you?”
“Well. Very well. Sad that the only time I get to see you is at functions like this. What do you say to coming back to my hotel after this, and joining me for a nightcap so we can talk—really talk? This lovely young woman here arranged for me to have the most spacious suite—” He gestured at Rosalie, who ducked her head, managing to look modest for what was probably the first time in her life.
It was loud in the bar, and I was standing a few feet away from him, but I could have sworn I heard Derrick grinding his teeth.
Still, his reply was the height of politeness. “That’d be great.”
Then Brewster turned his eyes—the same silver as Derrick’s, only somehow lacking their brightness—on me. “And feel free to bring your young friend here, Miss, uh—”
“Sorry,” I said, since I’d seen, with a burst of relief, that Esther was coming toward me with her coat and backpack. “I have to go. Maybe some other time. But this was a lovely evening.” I plastered a wide fake smile across my face. “Thank you so much.”
“I guess we’ll see you both tomorrow, then,” Rosalie said, looking from my face to Derrick’s, “at the ball?”
“Maybe,” I called back over my shoulder as I took Esther by the arm and began to steer her through the crowd and toward the exit. “Bye for now.” I’d had to wrench my gaze away from Derrick’s. His stare seemed to plead with me for my forgiveness.
But I needed the one thing I knew we didn’t have: time.
“Maybe?” Esther echoed as I dragged her to the door. “What do you mean, maybe? You aren’t going tomorrow?”
“Of course I’m going tomorrow,” I said. “I just don’t know if I’ll see them.”
“Who? Mrs. Hopkins? Or—” She gasped, her eyes widening. “Oh my God. Are you and—”
Gabby came rushing over, her gold rose crown askew on her rainbow-colored hair. “Wait! You’re not leaving yet, are you?”
“We are,” Esther informed her, soberly. “Mommy and Daddy are fighting.”
Gabby sucked in her breath, looking anxious. “No! Why? Is it demons?”
“No, it’s not demons.” I paused in the vestibule to open my bag for my key fob. “Derrick and I are not fighting. We had a little disagreement, that’s all.”
“How do you know it’s not demons?” Gabby asked. “It’s nearly Halloween. Maybe demons have possessed Derrick’s body and are making him fight with you.”
“Yeah.” Esther nodded. “As a Sagittarian, he’d be especially susceptible. Sagittarians are always up for adventure.”
I glared at both girls. “It’s not demons. Esther, say good night to Gabby. We have to go.”
“Hold on,” Gabby said. “I’ll come with you. My parents never get a night out alone. It will be fun for them to hang out at the Yacht Club. You can drop me off at Esther’s, if you don’t mind, Jess.”
Which is what I ended up doing, chauffeuring the two girls in the back seat of my new car like I was a rideshare driver. The moon was only a day away from being full, so bright in the cloudless night sky that I could easily see the road before me despite my headlights, shining like a river. . . .
As well as the sleek body of the gray wolf running alongside my car.
Yes. That’s right.
Though I was certain I had to be imagining it, there it was, the mythical wolf everyone else had been reporting.
Or at least an extremely large, light gray dog, loping fast as lightning, leaping over hedges and under guardrails in order to keep up with me.
Since I was fairly certain that no canine could keep up with a car going forty miles per hour, I wondered if this was some sort of hex Rosalie had put on the rearview mirror, so that every time I glanced into it on a moonlit night, I’d think I was being followed by a wolf. And not only one. As my speed increased, so did the number of wolves. First one, then two, then four, until finally we were being followed—or escorted—by an entire pack of wolves, their silver coats and eyes gleaming in the moonlight, their paws silent on the frozen grass.
The girls in the back seat didn’t notice. They were giggling away with one another, flipping through images from the night on their phones. I wasn’t about to ask them, Hey, do you see those wolves out there? and freak them out. Well, freak Gabby out, anyway.
I was relieved when I pulled up in front of Esther’s house and saw not only every light in her house blazing (as usual), but also that the wolves had vanished.
They’d probably never been there in the first place, I told myself. I’d probably imagined the whole thing. Maybe the entire village of West Harbor was suffering from mass hallucinations. Something in the drinking water?
“Good night,” I said to the girls as they got out of the car. “Try to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”
Esther paused before closing the door. “Thanks. And hey, Jessica? I don’t know what Derrick did, but I personally don’t think you should be too hard on him.”
I blinked. “Oh?”
“No. He’s not really that bad—for a guy.” She shut the door, then ran up the steps to her front porch, where she waved good night.
I waved back, then drove away. I didn’t see a single wolf during my ride home.