Jessica
For long life, vitality, and attractiveness, drink wine.
Goody Fletcher, Book of Useful Household Tips
“Of course I wanted to meet you,” Gaia said, tearing at the bread in the basket Mark had reverently delivered to our lunch table. Not that Mark knew Gaia was the mother of all creation. I highly doubted Dina had shared that piece of information with him.
But I’d introduced her to him as Derrick’s mother when we’d shown up at Mama Giovanni’s without a reservation after Gaia asked me to have a late lunch with her.
“Oh, Mrs. Winters!” Mark cried, his dark eyebrows nearly hitting the roof. “Yes, of course we have a table. You know, we’re big fans of Derrick’s.”
“Isn’t that a delight?” Gaia looked from me to Mark with eyes that shined. “One does so want one’s children to be liked. It’s a pity when they aren’t. I do have some children who aren’t very much admired, you know. It’s the risk of having children. There’s no guarantee that all of the seeds we plant will flourish. Some can turn out to be damaged at the root. But everyone does seem to like Derrick.”
Mark’s eyebrows hit his hairline at the “damaged at the root” line, but he gamely escorted us personally to the best table in the house, the white-tableclothed table for two in the front picture window looking out over the Post Road.
“Here you are,” Mark said, pulling out a chair for Gaia, then handing us both menus. “Don’t hesitate to ask for anything we can get in order to make you more comfortable. And buon appetito.”
Then he was gone, leaving me alone with the Mother Goddess.
Or at least as alone as we could be, considering that right outside the window streamed hundreds of tourists and locals alike, coming to take in the official start of the Tricentennial festivities. The construction of the tents and dance floor for the ball had been completed, and the Post Road was now closed to vehicular traffic along the courthouse square, so pedestrians had taken over the thoroughfare to stroll in the late afternoon sunlight with Tricentennial Tricorns (cookies shaped as tricorn hats) and Connecticut Confections (bags of kettle corn). Soon, Gabby would change into her Harvest Princess gown and go out to offer unsolicited facts about West Harbor history to the tourists.
And I’d have to keep Esther from being attacked by either demons or wolves or both.
“Oh, Jessica,” Gaia explained with a sigh, “all of this is my fault. I’m the one who sent Derrick to find you.”
I stared. “You did?”
“Yes. I normally don’t interfere in my children’s affairs. It’s better if parents don’t, for the most part. Otherwise, how will they ever learn to stand on their own two feet? But I do so want Derrick to be happy. And Bart. Oh, Bart. He’s my damaged root. I’ve had several, of course, but he’s the latest.”
She waved to the server, who came hurrying over to refill our glasses from the bottle of pinot gris she’d ordered. She waited until he’d gone away before continuing. “He was so thoroughly spoiled by his father, he grew up to be convinced of his own superiority over others. Now the only voice he’ll listen to is his own. It pains a mother to have to admit that about one of her own offspring. But in Bart’s case, it’s true.”
I was still trying to digest the fact that I was sitting at Mama Giovanni’s with Derrick’s mother, Gaia, and so had barely touched my wine, let alone any of the bread she was genuinely attacking. For such a tiny woman, Gaia had a pretty voracious appetite.
“So let me get this straight,” I said. “You sent Derrick to find me.”
“I did, yes.”
“Because you believe there’s a rift in West Harbor—”
“I don’t believe it, Jessica, darling. I know it. I think that should be obvious to anyone.”
“And you want him to be happy.”
“I do. Of course it’s wrong for a mother to have favorites, and I’m not saying that I do, but Derrick—he’s sensitive, don’t you think, Jessica?” Her dark eyes glittered intelligently at me over the top of her wineglass. “Perhaps every mother says her son is sensitive, but I’ve had many sons, and I know some of them have—how shall I put this? Lacked empathy. Derrick’s positively brimming with it. And I want him to be happy.”
“And you think . . . I could make him happy?”
It was a guess. A wild swing at a ball I wasn’t even sure she was throwing in my direction.
She smiled and wagged a finger at me.
“Ah-ah-ah,” she said. “I told you. I don’t like to interfere—except when I have to, of course. I’m not saying whether or not you make Derrick happy. That’s for the two of you to decide.”
“Right,” I said. “But you do think I’m the Chosen One.”
She laid a hand over mine, smiling warmly. “I do, darling. You saw for yourself what Esther was able to do in your presence. She really is a most remarkable girl.”
“She is,” I agreed. “And you’re really Gaia? As in . . . the Mother Goddess?”
She nodded, her shining black curtain of hair—curled under just where it skimmed her shoulders—swinging. “Yes, darling. I swear it. I know it’s been a difficult past few days for you. Years, even. And I know that Hopkins woman has been an absolute shit to you. I’m sorry for swearing—but sometimes it’s called for. But you’ve handled all of it so admirably—really, very admirably. And you’ve only the next few hours to get through, and then everything will be all right. I’m almost sure of it.”
“Almost sure?”
“Well, no one can be absolutely sure of anything, Jessica.”
“Not even a goddess? That’s what you are, aren’t you?” When she smiled and nodded at me, I plunged on. “Then why can’t you just get rid of the rift? Why can’t you prevent evil in the first place?”
“I could, of course, but I already told you: I don’t like to interfere. Children never learn from their mistakes if their elders are always swooping in to rescue them—and, from my experience, that applies to adults, as well. You’ve all been given free will. You must make your own choices. All I can do,” she went on with a sigh, “is hope those choices will be good ones, and try to guide you as best I can when they look as if they aren’t. But I will say that, in most cases, your choices have not disappointed me.”
“By ‘your choices,’” I said, “do you mean humans in general, or my choices specifically?”
“Humans in general,” she said, and let out a surprisingly hearty laugh. “Why, Jessica? Do you think I’ve been spying on you?”
“No!” I reached for my wine, hoping she was telling the truth. Because I wasn’t sure she’d have such a good opinion of me if she’d seen what her son and I had been choosing to do to one another all over my house the past few days. “Not at all.”
“Well, I have,” she admitted, causing me to almost choke. “That’s why I knew you were West Harbor’s Chosen One—and my son’s. But I only looked a little. And it was because you’ve performed so many spells over the years, invoking my name. Even a goddess can’t help looking when she hears her name over and over again. Oh, how heavenly!” She glanced past my shoulder, then rubbed her fingers together, looking excited. “Our stuffed artichokes are here. I haven’t had one of these in ages.”
“Special of the day,” Mark said, proudly setting a plate down in front of each of us. “Would either of you care for pepper?”
“Now how would I know before I’ve tasted it?” Gaia asked, showing a bit of her flirtatious side.
Mark played along. “Good point. You taste it and let me know.”
“I will,” Gaia said, and gave him a smile that looked the way Derrick’s fingers felt—like the sun coming out after a long winter’s day. Mark went away grinning, while I continued to sit there in complete disbelief.
What was happening? What was happening to my life? My hometown was sitting on the precipice of apocalyptic disaster, and I was eating stuffed artichokes with the mother of my not-so-fake witch boyfriend? A mother who also happened to be a primordial deity, who freely admitted to having been spying on me—but “only a little”?
How was any of this even possible?
“What’s wrong, darling?” Gaia asked. “Why aren’t you eating? Do you want pepper? How rude of me, I didn’t think to ask. Don’t worry, I’ll get him. Mark? It’s Mark, isn’t it? Oh, Mark!”
“No,” I said, gripping the tabletop. “I don’t want pepper. I just . . . I know it probably sounds rude, but I just . . . I’d love some kind of proof that this—any of this—is true. That you’re really . . . Gaia.”
“Oh, is that all?” She laughed. “Well, why didn’t you say so sooner, darling?”
A second later, I looked out the window beside our table and saw Derrick, dressed in a full tuxedo, riding down the street on a motorcycle.