Page 4 of Midlife Demigod Unexpected

“Oh goodness,” Hilda came forward and caught me in a hug.

I leaned against her but stopped myself from crying. My tears wouldn’t do anyone any good right now. We needed practical solutions. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“You’re my daughter. You always have a room here,” Hilda said. “Do you know what started it?”

My eyebrows knitted into a frown. “Your people,” I said. “One of them shot fire out of his fiddle and burnt up my building.”

My mother’s face went pale. “They came after you?” she asked in horror.

“It would appear so,” I said.

Her gaze dropped to the box in my hands. “What happened?” she asked softly.

Hilda’s hands balled into fists in her lap. “Can I get you a cup of witches brew?”

“It’s three thirty in the morning. I’ll take something a little stronger than that,” I said.

My mother gave me a wink. “Coming right up.” She went to the shelf in the cupboard where I knew she kept the good brandy. There was nothing like a warm shot of brandy and a hot cup of tea. I definitely wanted it tonight to help me relax and get some sleep.

“I want to find the bastard,” I said. “I think he was a demon. Fiery red hair and played a mean fiddle. He put me in a trance, I think.”

“What was his name?” Hilda asked.

“He didn’t give his name.”

“I can have Mae do a finder’s spell or something,” Hilda said, placing a hot cup of Witches Brew and the crystal brandy decanter of her mother’s in front of me.

“That’s her name?” I asked.

Hilda nodded. “Mae Hayes. I should’ve had her come down to see you when she first got here. Things have been a little bit crazy, though.”

I shook my head. It wasn’t my mother’s fault I didn’t have any magic talent. She had always wanted me to be in the Coven, but no matter what she tried, I had never exhibited any magic capabilities. Like, none whatsoever. From a young age I was good at doing one thing: pouring drinks. It was almost as if my father had known. When I was given O’Halloran’s, it was like a breath of fresh air, opening those doors and letting in my community.

My mom had Trina. Trina was the one with the magic powers and could be in the coven with my mom. Even Trina’s kids could be in the coven. I was more like a spare tool on the side that wasn’t particularly useful. Unless you need someone to make a pot of tea or pour a drink.

It didn’t mean I didn’t want to be magic though. I had wanted it so badly for most of my life, now it was kind of like a dull memory gnawing at the back of my mind.

“She’s nice,” Hilda said. “You’d like her. She’s sensible and down to earth. Positive all the time too, like you are.”

“You’re shitting me,” I said. “Now you’re telling me my replacement is like me?”

“She’s not your replacement,” Hilda said. “You could never be the Hayes. It’s a bloodline. And well, magic’s a bloodline thing, too.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have had sex with a human,” I said, referring to her infamous one-night stand that had created me back in the early seventies. One of those Normie’s passing through town. Even mom didn’t know much about him. At least that’s what she said.

Chapter 4

I was exhausted but still didn’t manage to sleep until the sun was peeking up over the edge of the horizon. I drifted into an uncomfortable rest where demons haunted my nightmares and the fires burned under my skin. I woke up groggy and exhausted around noon, surprised to find my mom still in the kitchen.

“What are you doing at home?” I asked. In the entire forty-some-odd years I’d known her, I’d never known her to not get up and go straight to the nursery. She even had pictures of her out there with me as a baby strapped to the front of her chest as she pruned vines and played in the plants. I’d always loved it and when I was younger, I’d thought that one day I would grow to have her skills, her magic, and follow in her footsteps. But I didn’t. Even the simplest spells were beyond my grasp. Spells to clean my room, spells to convince my mother to let me have a dog, none of them worked. Eventually I had given up on being magic. I had accepted the fact that I wasn’t.

I’d started hanging with some of the wrong crowd and it wasn’t until I’d turned twenty-one and inherited the pub that I’d actually decided I was going to make sense of my life. Even if it was running a pub in Cougar Creek. So be it. That was my thing. I’d distanced myself from my mother and she’d gone off and done all of her magic stuff with Trina. The last place I would expect to find my mother at midday any day of the week was home.

“What are you still doing at home?” I asked.

“You haven’t stayed under my roof in about, oh, I’d say about twenty-five years.” My mom smiled at me. “That’s worth staying home for.”

“Longer than that, I think?” I said.

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