Page 82 of Dark Flame
The prickle behind my eyes travels back down, this time in my veins, igniting the very flames they spent years teaching me. Anger stirs. Arthur and Violet Hartman, whoever they were and whyever their reasoning, kept me from my true potential.
“Harlow,” Morgan calls softly, doubling back when I’ve made it no farther than the street’s corner. “We’re almost to my house where we’ll talk, but I’d like to show you something first. I understand it must be confusing.”
You don’t, though. You have no idea what it feels like to learn you had an entire other life at one point. That the life you had was a well-orchestrated performance.
I force my mouth into a smile, because it’s not her fault I’m mentally spiralling.
It is her fault,that slithery voice returns, making me shiver uncomfortably.She’s High Priestess. She is to blame for everything.
“Harlow?” she calls again, and I shake off the sensation while ignoring the unwelcome voice and follow her up the road, this time staying beside her until she brings us to a stop in front of a house.
Similar style as the others. Two storeys done with polished wood, a wraparound porch that covers two-thirds of the house, and a large bay window overlooking the polished yard. A stone path connects the sidewalk to the red front door and is decorated with various kinds of flowers.
“Do you recognize it?”
“Should I?” I ask, even knowing I should and why she’s wondering. The house might seem unfamiliar, but an energy pulls my feet from the sidewalk to the pathway, an invisible wall of power urging me forward. Parts of me know it, even if I don’t.
Morgan’s hand wraps around my wrist. “We’ve taken care of it, never allowing another to reside in it. Perhaps deep down, I hoped for this outcome, that you’d come back to us one day.”
My throat and heart swell with a newfound ache, only this time it’s welcoming too. Pressing my lips together, I nod and duck my head to follow her, unable to formulate a reply. To return to the place I once called home is…unlike anything I could have ever dreamed, but it’s also nothing I’vehadto dream of. Something that I didn’t know was possible until recently.
Morgan leads me to a similar-looking house and through the grey front door. The modest foyer immediately opens to a sitting room, a fireplace along one wall and a couch facing away from the window overlooking the front yard. She passes by and down the hallway lined with pictures—my attention unable to land on any one long enough to make out the people in them—and into the kitchen filled with modern appliances and a granite U-shaped countertop.
This is nothing compared to the mortal-looking home I grew up in. Mom and Dad seemed determined to hide anything cultural, while Morgan’s home seeps nature and magick—life.
Candles cover many of the surfaces, and there are various kinds of plants hanging from doorways and walls, wrapped around posts. A wooden pentacle hangs on the kitchen wall, and beside it, an ankh—the symbol of love, life, and reincarnation. Paintings depicting the numerous versions of Hecate are scattered around the downstairs. Herbal scents emit from every room, welcoming, delicious, and easing to the mind, body, and spirit.
My magick sings. This is more than before the accident, before I lost my powers, before their return hours ago. My eyes flutter shut as I take it all in. Thelifethat pours from its walls. The soul awakening mine.
This may not be my house, but I’m home regardless. Whatever Violet and Arthur did, they raised half a witch—and Alec got the outcome of that. The scared, powerless, and weak version of me. The witch never truly connected with nature how I should have been. No wonder Hecate abandoned me. I wasn’tme, not really.
Inside the kitchen, a woman turns from where she’s pouring hot water from a kettle into a mug. At our entrance, her mouth slips lax, as does her hand. The kettle crashes onto the counter, sending hot water surging from it. She would have been burned if not for the spell Morgan casts its way to suspend it midair—and the speed the woman darts away from it and towards me.
“There’s no fucking way.” Her purple eyes flick between Morgan and me, pausing on Morgan. “Mom, this isn’t real, right? Thiscan’tbe real. She isn’t…you’re—” Her hands come up to cover her mouth, one layered over the other while her talking continues, now an unidentifiable mumble.
Morgan slides by my shoulder before heading towards the counter. “Harlow, meet my daughter, Carina. Re-meet, I suppose.”
I study the woman in front of me, seeking some recognition in her. In the shine of her brown waves, in the flicker of her eyes, in the softness of her face. But she—Carina—remains a mystery to my wiped memory.
Carina drops her hands, her mouth still doing this gaping fish movement. “There’s no way. You—youdied. We were supposed to play outside the day you—oh fuck.” She spins on her mother. “This isn’t fake?”
“No.” Morgan retrieves two new mugs and begins filling them. “I know you have a lot of questions, but I’m going to ask that you make yourself busy elsewhere until Harlow gets settled.”
Carina pouts, obviously not enjoying being kicked out, but truth is, I’m thankful she is. I don’t know how I can get the entire story out to one person, let alone one who’d likely react dramatically to the details.
“Of course,” she agrees after a moment. “Goddess, you have no idea…” She reaches for me but drops her hands at the last second. “Welcome home, Harlow. I’ve missed you.”
And then she heads down the hall. The door clicks shut behind her, and I take a breath.
“You two were best friends as kids,” Morgan comments, carrying over two steaming mugs towards the round table in the corner of the room. “Come, please sit.”
The table’s beneath a window that overlooks the side of the house and down the road to the home she said was mine. If Carina and I lived this close to one another, I imagine we’d still be close. Like sisters, perhaps. A friend through everything. A witch going through all the same changes I did. I faced puberty alone, but understanding my ever-changing bodyandmy powers with a friend would have been nice.
I choke down the grief with a tentative sip of the herbal tea, singeing the edge of my tongue as I do. It’s a welcome sting, distracting me from everything else.
Morgan wraps her palms around her mug and shifts in her chair, leaning as close to the table as she can. “I’ve dreamed of being able to speak with you again so many times, and now that you’re in front of me, I don’t know where to begin.”
“Maybe I should go first. I, uh…I’m aware the people I called Mom and Dad weren’t my birth parents, although I only learned that this morning. Long story, but I found journal entries written and apparently, they were wiping my memory. That’s why I don’t really remember anything.”
