Page 115 of The Lone Wolf Café
I understood. I hated it, and it made my blood boil and my stomach churn, but I understood. Hollenboro had been a prison for her, but Mount Desert Island was, too.
My mother had no help. No answers. And for the past fifteen years, she’d been held hostage by her own powers, feared and misunderstood by those who were supposed to love her, not knowing she was actually one of the rarest and most powerful witches in existence.
A sudden realization hit me, as swift and sharp as a knife, and it sent my mind spiraling into a panic.
My mother’s story… it could have been mine.
If I hadn’t left the island, if I hadn’t met Rowena and uncovered the truth about my heritage and powers, I could have met the same fate. I would’ve been bonded to Cecil, permanently stuck on Hollenboro, coming into my empath abilities with no way of knowing what they were or why it was happening to me. Icould’ve gone mad, unable to get help, my mental state declining until I was unable to raise my own children. Unable to be a functioning member of my pack.
Leaving Hollenboro wasn’t a childish, rebellious defiance of fate. Itwasmy fate. I was always meant to do this.
To meet Rowena.
To uncover my identity.
To save Wisteria Grove.
To find my mother, and save her from herself.
But the thought of what my fate could have been, if I hadn’t left, shook me to the core.
“Nettie?”
I felt cold fingers squeeze my hand. I looked up at Rowena’s beautiful brown eyes and tried my best to appear composed.
But Rowena knew I wasn’t. She’d always been good at that.
I didn’t know how to respond. Rowena was staring at me, my mother was staring at me, and I could feel the walls of the café closing in like a prison. A cage.
The cozy fireplace suddenly felt like a furnace, and the clammy beginnings of sweat stuck to my neck.
I needed some air.
“I…” My gaze drifted to Rowena, then over to my mother. I let go of Rowena’s hand. “I need a moment.”
I abruptly stood up, my chair screeching on the hardwood, and bolted out of the café and into the back garden.
It was forty-five degrees outside and I wasn’t wearing my cloak, yet the cold-but-not-quite-unbearable night air felt like salvation. I took long, deep breaths, noticing the tiny, barelyvisible trails of steam from my exhales drifting off into the darkness.
The Lone Wolf Café’s back porch was small, with only two old wrought-iron chairs and a round table barely large enough for two cups of tea, let alone my baked goods. But it was quiet. Peaceful. And most importantly, there wasn’t anyone else around.
It gave me time to think. Because my overwhelmed mind was on the verge of breaking, and I couldn’t handle the rest of the world right now.
I took a seat on one of the chairs, the thick metal cold as ice under my thighs. I folded my hands in my lap, gazed off into the pitch-black forest in the distance, and processed the new bits of information one by one.
I succeeded in calming down Big Red.
I don’t have to leave Wisteria Grove.
Big Red is actually my long-lost mother.
My mother isn’t dead.
My mother is alive.
And she’s been only a few dozen miles away.
For the past fifteen years.
