Page 39 of Wicked Love
“No!” Zelda shouted. “I have more I wish to say.”
The witch stopped, his hands outstretched, and he looked to Delphine. Her eyebrow went up, and she nodded to the witch, who returned to his seat. “You are always free to speak, Zelda.”
“I want to stay with Melasina Cormier,” Zelda said clearly. “I prefer to be with the members of our coven rather than locked away in a crypt. I am always available to the leadership for anything they might need but I request that my resting place be one that I find more pleasing.”
“No,” Talia rose again. “This is not right! She’s a necromancer! The daughter of a filthy necromancer! How do none of you see it?” She threw her hands in the air.
“I would like to speak,” Jasper said.
Delphine frowned. “Is there anyone who doesn’t wish to speak at this very moment?”
Wisely, everyone remained silent.
She sighed. “What is it you feel you must say, Jasper?”
“I would like to refute Talia’s claims,” Jasper strode to the center of the room, standing about a foot from me. “We did, as she says, see Sariah Cormier seeking a corpse from a grave. And Sariah was exiled. But she is not dead. And Talia knows it.”
“He is mad,” Talia spat, crossing her arms.
Jasper looked to the left, and the hooded figure that was sitting next to him stood, and drew back the hood.
“I am Sariah Cormier,” my mother said in a soft voice. “And I’m very much alive.”
There was a moment of silence, and then the room burst into noise so loud that I wanted to cover my ears. But I only had eyes for my mother.
She stepped out from the second row of seats and came over to me. “Is it really you, Mellie?” she asked softly.
I took her outstretched hands in my own. “Is it really you?”
Tears fell down her cheeks as she nodded.
“How?” I asked.
“Jasper found me,” she said, turning to smile at Jasper.
“Jasper, explain yourself,” Delphine said loudly.
I pulled my mother close, putting my arm around her waist and standing over Zelda’s reliquary. The feeling in the room was high, and I didn’t want her getting knocked around or stepped on.
“Well, I didn’t see that coming,” Zelda said. “Is that really Momma Grave Digger?”
“Zelda!” I said. “Not the time!” I looked up to see Delphine watching me, rather than Jasper. I smiled, hoping I wasn’t making my situation worse.
“I found notes in the Cormier file,” Jasper was saying. “Initially, I had no doubts of Sariah’s guilt. I followed her that night. I saw her,” he looked over to me, and I could see the apology in his eyes.
He’d seen her? He followed her? He’d said that before, but his words sunk in now.
“But in the last three years, there have been two reports of witches in our coven who felt they saw Sariah in Arkansas. Both were dismissed, with no reports of follow-up. I also found an address in the back of the file. In Arkansas.” The room went still.
“I asked Talia about it, and she claimed no knowledge. So I went to Arkansas, and found Sariah Cormier, living at the address listed in the file. When I found Sariah, she didn’t recognize her name. I convinced her to come back with me, since my magic is still not working correctly and asked a friend to search her memory, to see if she’d been living under a spell. And she was. A spell put on her by Talia Dumond.”
“What? You’d believe that filthy woman over me?” Talia shouted. “What in the world would I gain by casting a spell over her?”
“It wasn’t what you gained,” Mom said. “It was about taking away from me. You wanted Marshall. But he chose me. And even after ten years, after we’d built a life, had a child together, you couldn’t let it go.”
“What are you inferring, Sariah?” Delphine asked.
“I’m not inferring anything. I’m stating a fact. Talia Dumond used magic against me. She enchanted me so that I would behave in a manner that would insure my exile. And then she took my memory, and let my husband and daughter believe that I was dead.”
