Page 144 of Gift from the Wing

Her magic washes across the room and Oakly practically falls into her open arms. It is a heady dose of happiness and even though I could block it out, I don’t. There’s no sense in blocking out a surge of ecstatic hormones.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you. Willow’s told me so much about you and yes, I’ve been incredibly nervous, but I’m also stupid excited. This is freaking amazing.”

“Stupid excited? Freaking amazing? Are you kiddingme?”

“It’s her gift. You left yourself completely open and she’s pumping you full of her happiness.”I laugh.

“You may want to dial it back a bit, Aurora, or she’s going to be a chatterbox,” I tease.

“Oh, sorry, my girl. I’m just so thrilled. I went from having no daughters to two in such a short amount of time. All my dreams are coming true,” she says sweetly, and both Oakly and I melt.

When you go from not receiving this type of affection to being overwhelmed with it, it’s emotional.

“Okay, come on, you two. I’ve got the kitchens bringing coffee, Gaster dropped off pastries, and my whole afternoon cleared.”

Linking her arms through ours, she steers us past a number of rooms, her office, and out through her patio doors where everything she just claimed to have waiting is spread out across the table. Plus, Tanith is sunbathing in her gardens.

It doesn’t take long for the boost in excitement to wear off for Oakly and she eases back into her normal level of happiness. Once that occurs, the conversations start to flow seamlessly.

“I’ve never seen someone get so sick in my life. Granted, I should’ve known better than to let her drink that much. We can get ill here from too much drugs or alcohol, but I just figured by that point her stomach would’ve toughened up from being in the realm for a month.” Oakly picks, recounting the embarrassing night I spent bound to her toilet.

“I still get ill from transporting too much. Not as bad as that night drinking, but I don’t think it’s going to go away.”

“Ugh, I thank Elementra the only time in my life I’ve been that ill was during my pregnancy with Corentin. My goodness, that was awful. It lasted months but eased up. I was rejoicing that it was over, then I swear the second Tilly became pregnant with Tillme, it started all over again right along with her. As if we just couldn’t do anything without the other,” Aurora says and the sweet smile stays plastered to her face, but I sense the sadness lurking below.

“What was it like having siblings? From the stories I’ve heard and CC’s still obvious shenanigans, it seems like it would’ve been a blast,” Oakly asks.

I’ve wondered the same sometimes but usually shut it down. If I had a sibling growing up, they would’ve endured what I had to and that would’ve been a miserable existence. I’m thankful my siblings, blood and bond, came later in life.

“Wild but magical. We never had to worry about being alone or making friends. It was already built between us. The three of us were always up to something. Trouble mostly, let me tell you. Our mother made life very uncolorful, let’s put it that way, but Orien always found the magic in everything. Our favorite game was hide-and-seek, and we surely passed that on to our boys. Unlike them, though, we weren’t allowed to do it outside. We were limited to the central wing.” She smiles softly, no doubt falling into the past.

“Thinking back about it now, it’s so funny. Tilly and I always made Orien be the finder. Which in hindsight, no wonder we always lost. He had the gift of sight. We’d hide all over the wing and he’d find us in a split second, but on days when our mother had been particularly harsh or something happened, our favorite spot to hide would be under his bed. We didn’t know it then, of course, we thought for sure we outsmarted him but no, on those days, he was letting us win, just trying to cheer us up. Anytime we needed a good cheering up, Tilly and I would hide under his bed.”

Her musical laugh drifts all around us and we join in on the happy memory. I, too, have those fond moments. Hide-and-seek was certainly a favorite among the original Vito siblings because CC brought it to my life as well. We hid all over that forest until I created a clearing.

Just as I go to tell her about my own little hide-and-seek victories, a tickling across my mind halts me. I feel the words, the memory trying to push itself through, and I coax it gently. Encouraging it on.

My sweet, sweet Aurora. She’s going to have a field day to find out I was hiding in plain sight, just down the hall from her for years and years.

My chair crashes against the ground as I spring from my seat, panting. The reluctance to the words was because they weren’t my own. They were just a blip of a sentence thrown in with a hell of a lot of truth bombs that were dropped on me the day CC’s memories came through.

“Willow, what’s wrong?” Aurora asks, concerned. Both her and Oakly stand from their chairs rapidly and stare at me as if we’re about to be attacked.

“That big little shit,” I mumble.

“What?” they both ask.

“CC. He’s been playing the ultimate game of damn hide-and-seek.” I huff before turning fully to Aurora. “Where’s his bedroom? Where you’d hide under his bed?”

“In the central wing, right down the hall from my room.”

“Will you take me there, please?”

At her nod, she scurries ahead, with me and Oakly hot on her heels. Whatever we’re about to find has my adrenaline pumping and my curious little heart doing cartwheels.

After a flight of stairs and numerous lefts and rights, we finally approach a door like any other, except it’s so much different. This is the strongest I’ve felt CC’s presence outside of the south wing.

“It’s…nothing’s really changed since he was a boy. Even after he moved into the south wing, we weren’t willing to change a thing,” Aurora says almost to herself as she turns the knob gently.

---