Page 73 of Bewitched By the Voodoo King
The woman looked me up and down before her gaze snapped between Louis and Adelle. “They said they’re the parents of the Voodoo Queen. Which is odd because I didn’t think Rune had married Maple… Didn’t they just start dating?”
Adelle’s lips formed an O, and she snapped to attention, all while I was rooted in place. Rune was gone, but somehow my parents were here.
“They’re in the courtyard.”
“What perfect timing,” Louis chuckled.
Adelle rolled her eyes. “This is very bad. How can you laugh at a time like this?”
Louis shrugged as he led the way out of the kitchen, but all I could do was stare down at my dough-covered hands. My parents were here, and they’d told people I was the queen of this coven when the coven didn’t even know we were married. This was not good, not good at all.
Adelle wrapped her fingers around one of my dough-less wrists and led me to the sink to wash up, all while Louis waited in the doorway with his eyebrows at his hairline.
Even though myheart ached from everything they had done to me, I couldn’t stop myself from rushing into their arms. “Papa!” I sobbed as he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my hairline. He smelled like home, and somehow, it made the moisture in my eyes only worse. I couldn’t believe they were here. My mother rubbed circles on my back as they both held onto me like they were my lifeline…like they hadn’t lied to me my entire life. My body still stayed rigid under their attention.
“We tried calling, but when you never answered, we grew worried,” Papa murmured into my hair. I sniffled into his worn flannel shirt and almost laughed at how they were dressed. Definitely not the appropriate attire for the south, even though we were in November now. Some of the days were chilly, but it only lasted for a few hours before you regretted the long sleeves you donned in the morning. The air was still heavy with humidity, but at least it wasn’t blazing hot out.
My dad pulled back and his warm brown eyes searched my face. “Are you okay? Did we make a mistake?”
My heart only ached worse with his words. I shook my head. I would never say coming here was a mistake. I’d learned more about myself here in such a short period of time than I had in my entire life back at home. Even though this wasn’t amistake, I still felt the urge to scream in their faces.How could they?
Before I could say anything, two people stepped into the courtyard behind my parents. Two people I hadn’t seen in a very long time. They’d hardly aged a day, which was funny considering they’d sworn off their magic. My stomachplummeted as I really looked at my grandparents for the first time since I was nine years old.
The two people who had left me to a life of shame and whispers.
Oh, Ancestors, where was Rune?
“Hello, Maple,” my grandmother was the first to speak. “It’s been a long time.”
“Was it you?” There was no point in pleasantries; I was past that. I wanted answers. I deserved answers. “The one that stole my magic away.”
Her shoulders slumped under my brutal scrutiny. “There are so many things I want to say. There were so many things I needed to say back then.” She licked her lips and closed her eyes. “Locking your magic up was the last thing I wanted to do, but after your mother’s vision, we thought we had no other choice.”
My gaze left my grandmother and jumped to my mom. The woman that held me through most of my heartache and despair growing up, all the while she’d known. Not only had she known, but she’d been a part of the problem. My papa gripped the back of my neck and rubbed circles there. Once in my childhood, it would have relaxed me; now all it did was make me sadder.
“That last thing you wanted to do? Had no other choice? How abouttelling meinstead of letting me grow up feeling hollow? I wondered every single moment why I was the outcast, why I was broken.” I let out a bitter laugh. “And you both escaped from having to watch what you did. All the while, I wasn’t really an outcast; instead, I was just an experiment to you all.”
Adelle shifted on her feet behind me, and I knew she wanted to come to my rescue. I took a deep breath as all of their faces fell.
“I want to know why.” Another harsh laugh passed my lips. “I deserve to know why, and then you can all go back to the one place I never want to see again.”
There was so much to unpack with them standing before me, but I didn’t have time when I wanted answers myself. Closure would have to come later.
My mom took a step forward and tried to pick my hand up in hers. I pulled away from her touch and my father's while I crossed my arms in defiance. I wasn’t going to be placated by them any longer. The only comfort I wanted was in the arms of the Voodoo King, and I didn’t even know if he was okay.
Mom stepped away from me and sighed. “I had a vision that you would destroy not only an entire coven but also an entire wolf pack. There was blood and devastation everywhere. Your magic ripped through the entire town. I’d never seen anything like it before. I was terrified of what you might become and what we would have to do if you did such a thing.”
I blinked at her, unsure of what to say.
Instead, my grandfather spoke for the first time. “We knew about curses that would lock magic away, and we knew what it would cost for us, but we couldn’t let your magic not only destroy you but also an entire town. If we’d allowed that, then we would have had to lock you up. Visions, though, they aren’t set in stone… they must be taken as fact. If we hadn’t locked your magic away, then we would have had to have locked you away to prevent the vision from coming true.”
“And when you knew the vision might still come true when they called for aid?” How did this make any sense?
My papa’s shoulders slumped even further. “We thought that you growing up without magic was better than being jailed for something you might never do. When this coven called requesting aid, we knew that it would be okay. The curse would prevent you from harming anyone, and your magic would stay locked up.”
“Until it didn’t,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
My grandmother nodded. “Until it didn’t because you needed your magic more, and it knew that. There wasn’t a force in this universe that would keep it from you.”
