Page 47 of The Witch's Shifter
Not that I’m surprised. It seems everything I do displeases Evelyn Silvermoon. Only Selene can ever do right in her eyes.
Selene drifts toward the cottage. When she gets to the veranda—which Alden so graciously repaired this past spring—she reaches out to trail her lithe fingers across the railing. “I remember sitting on these stairs with Auntie, crying over a boy who’d been mean to me in the village,” Selene says, voice breathy. Her eyes get a bit glassy in the falling light, and she doesn’t bother wiping her tears away when they streak down her moon-pale cheeks.
Next, she walks around the side of the cottage, and her tears dry when she sees the big garden and chicken coop. The chickens are staring up at the kitchen window intently, where I see Rowan moving about. He’s probably preparing their dinner: a mix of cracked corn, wheat berries, barley, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and green peas. When he sees us standing outside, he flashes us a bright smile, and it warms something inside me.
Then I’m reminded of Faolan vanishing in Faunwood, and I wonder where he is. When I step into the cottage, will I find him in the parlor before the hearth? Or perhaps lingering in the kitchen? Or has he disappeared into the woods? That last possibility pulls the smile from my face.
I wish there were something I could do to make him feel more comfortable. But perhaps I’m just being selfish, wanting him to meet my family so soon after meetingme. It’s a lot—I understand that—especially for someone not used to being around so many strangers.
Selene squats down, her dress whispering around her, and she holds out a palm toward the three chickens. The hens approach her immediately, no fear or trepidation, as if they know she’s a good person, someone they can trust. Selene giggles as they peck at her palm lightly.
“They’re wonderful,” she says, looking back at me over her shoulder. “I’ve always wanted chickens.”
Behind us, Mother sniffs disdainfully. Selene and I exchange a look but choose to ignore her—it feels familiar, like most of our girlhood.
The kitchen door opens, and Rowan appears atop the stairs, long hair falling loose about his shoulders, the golden stitching in his emerald tunic gleaming in the rapidly fading sunlight.
He is absolutely beautiful, my red-haired knight.
“Ladies,” he says, flashing us a smile. He’s still wearing his polished boots—if my family weren’t here, he’d likely be barefoot right now—and the soles thump lightly on the wood as he descends the stairs and steps into the side yard. “I see you met our girls.”
Selene stands and nods, long silver hair bright in contrast against her dark cloak. “They’re lovely. What are their names?”
Rowan points to each hen individually as he says, “Lucy, Marigold, and Whisper.” Then he holds out the big bowl of chicken feed. “Would you like to feed them?”
Selene appears to swell with delight. “I’d love to!”
Rowan laughs, and he steps closer to Selene, guiding her toward the chicken coop, the hens trotting along behind them.
With them off at the coop, I turn to my mother.
Her gaze is faraway in a manner I’m not used to, and it gives me pause. Her eyes—deep purple with hints of silver, like the storm clouds she can summon from the sky—sweep across the sunny yellow cottage. There’s a slight furrow in her brow and a pucker to her lips. What’s going on in her mind? Is she thinking of my auntie, her elder sister? Is she regretting the rifts between them, the wounds that were left unhealed?
For as long as I can remember, Mama and Auntie didn’t get along. There would be arguments and fights, raised voices and cruel words. I can still recall asking my auntie once when I was still a girl why she and my mother didn’t get along—the concept of not being best friends with one’s sister was as foreign to me asthe languages spoken halfway across the world. We were sitting in her rocking chair before the fire, and I was drawing my fingers through her long silver hair. The words she said to me have been imprinted upon my heart ever since.
“Sometimes people—even sisters—don’t always get along, despite loving each other deeply.” She cupped my face in her hands and held my gaze. “What’s important is that we’ll always be family, no matter how many differences lie between us.”
Is my mother thinking about those differences now? Wondering if she could’ve handled things in another way?
My auntie’s passing was rather sudden, and we didn’t have much time to emotionally prepare for her departure from this plane. In the days and weeks that followed her death, Selene and I struggled deeply with her being gone. But my mother was stoic, straight-faced even as the funeral rites were performed and Auntie’s body was returned to the earth she loved so much in life.
Thinking about it now, I’m filled with a mix of anger and sorrow. I want to shake my mother and ask why she behaves in this way, why she acts so distant and cold when all we’ve ever wanted is to be wrapped in her embrace, to feel safe and loved and accepted by her. And maybe that’s all Auntie wanted too, but Mama was never able to give that to her.
As if she can hear my thoughts, my mother turns her face and meets my gaze. The faraway look in her purple eyes shifts into something harder, as if she just closed a window she hadn’t realized had been left open. Why won’t she let me in?
“Would you like to come inside?” I ask.
I’m not sure I’ve ever said this aloud to anyone, except maybe Selene, but my mother terrifies me in a way no one else can. Maybe it’s because I’ve always sought her approval, her acceptance of me, and when it’s not given, it leaves me feeling crushed, like an absolute failure and disappointment. Thereminder of those feelings—the ones I was running from when I moved to Faunwood—makes my stomach pinch uncomfortably. I reach down to run a hand over my belly, reminding myself of the beautiful life I’ve carved out here, with Harrison and Alden and Rowan... and maybe even Faolan.
My mother nods once. “Yes.”
I lead the way up the stairs and through the side door into the kitchen, and as I step into the house, I’m overcome with the smell of... Is that potato soup? Only now do I realize Alden is stirring a big pot that’s bubbling over the flames in the hearth, and when he looks up, his cheeks are red from the heat.
“Welcome home,” he says. He’s got my apron on, but it’s much too small on him, and the result makes me cover my lips with a hand in an effort not to laugh.
Beside me, my mother arches a brow.
I wouldn’t say she’s ever had much of a sense of humor...
