Page 86 of The Royal Street Witch
There’s something about hearing that, when all this time, I thought she would kill me, literally kill me. I clutch onto her, mouth open, but nothing comes out.
“I am here because you need me now, more than ever. You can’t scare me away.”
“I needed you the whole time,” I whisper, looking up at her, eyes opened but unfocused.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Why didn’t you know? You’re the parent, I’m the child. You should know when your child needs you.”
She laughs like it’s funny and shakes her head. “I thought you were very much aware that I don’t know shit, especially about parenting.”
“That was always our problem,” I say with a hiccup. Chantal’s wrapped her arms around her knees. She’s never seen me like this, the put-together responsible one, and its shaken her.
“Aster,” my mother says, her chin on top of my head, her arms wrapped around me. “I had to go. I had to leave this impossible life. I’m sorry. I’m here now.”
It’s an apology at least, something I never thought I would receive from her and she’s holding me so tightly.
She’s pulling me up and guiding me to my makeshift bed on Chantal’s couch. Yanking the blanket to my chin and sitting by my side, her hand smoothing my hair from my face.
“Chantal, how about some calming cakes?” she asks, and Chantal rises and heads straight to her freezer.
My mother’s eyes turn back to me, the corner of her lip pulling up. “Who did it?”
“Franklin Maltese,” I say, my voice robotic, no trace of humanity left in me.
“Well, tell Mother what happened. Because we are going to kill that son of a bitch.”
Killing a vampire isn’t something to take lightly. I tell her everything, like I’m a sinner in confession and she’s the priest. I tell her and Chantal, the one thing I’ve kept to myself, about the potion—the potion that breaks every witch law—but I know I need to be honest.
The three of us huddle next to each other as if we’re trapped in a box, but it’s just to be close. My mother sitting next to me on the couch, Chantal on the floor. And when I tell them about the potion, about the day Bastian came to me in the shop, both of their mouths draw open and I ready myself for the consequences of my actions.
My mother clasps her hands together and draws them to her nose. “I knew it,” she says low and breathless. “I knew you were special. You can create any spell, you can do anything.”
“You guys actually went out in the day together and no one saw you?” Chantal asks. She’s a mixture of shock and irritated, my betrayal stinging her.
“We only went out a few times in the Quarter, and I performed a disguising spell. He took me to California and it wasn’t needed there. But that’s where it went wrong. That’s where he got sick and we needed help. And that’s how Franklin found out that we were together.”
“But not about the potion?” my mother asks and I nod.
“He doesn’t know about the potion, only that we were in love.”
“You went to Cali-fucking-fornia?” Chantal’s voice cuts into me.
“I had to protect you. This is why.”
She sucks her lips into her mouth, nodding, but visibly upset.
“I didn’t know what to do, I fell fast and hard and I resisted him, I really did. But he got me…and he was wonderful. I’m so sorry.”
“Who else knows about the potion?” Mother asks and she’s plotting.
“Cassius. Only Cassius. It was meant for him.”
“Cassius dies,” she says, and Chantal’s eyes slit.
“No,” I say, my voice hard as stone. Her eyes challenge me but maybe it’s the tightness in my jaw, my slow intake of breath that makes her head nod and her mouth open.
“Cassius lives, but his memory may need altering.”
