Page 80 of The Child of Rue Royale
She slams something onto the island, my eyes following her fingers as she says, “They’re about to fuck around and find out.”
There, standing on our kitchen island, is our coven’s sacred chalice, the same one Franklin drank from for the protection spell.
“How did you get that?” I ask, my skin suddenly burning.
“I broke into Violetta’s and stole it.” She looks pleased with herself, her mouth turning upward, her black bangs fanning across her forehead. But she’s also fed up. It’s been a year since Bastian was murdered. Since Franklin almost killed us in Nightwalkers, and she’s been looking for answers almost every day since.
“She’s going to notice it’s gone!” I yell.
“Then we better hurry. I’m tired of it, Aster. I’m done. I’ve been thinking about this since the blessing ceremony. You are on the verge of being a Seeing Witch, like my mother, I know it. She saw something special about Bastian…though we don’t know what.” She looks at him with an annoyed glare, and he lifts a shoulder in response.
I shake my head. “I’m not a Seer.”
“You had a vision at the blessing ceremony. You can have another one. You need to see who was with the aunts and Franklin so we cantake them all out, and fast. This has gone on long enough. It’s ending now.”
Bastian looks back and forth between my mother and me, quietly digesting her words, and he nods. “She’s right. What were we just talking about? The life we want. No sense in dragging it out any longer.”
“I don’t know how the vision at the ceremony happened, how I was able to bring it on.”
“I think you being a mother has unlocked this power. It happens all the time. You had a baby and had a vision only a Seer would have. Let’s give it a shot. We’ve got nothing else to lose.”
“Yeah, just my entire life. Everyone and everything I love. If I’m a Seer, why can’t I see parts of the future, like Grandma?”
“Yours is different. Grandma’s was visions of the future that came to her without asking. Yours is visions of the past that come to you without asking. You can go in the past without a person’s memories taking you there.”
My jaw tenses as my mind turns her words over and over. I’ve always known I was a powerful witch, but I had never considered having any extra gifts.
“You really think I’m a Seer?”
“Let’s see if you are,” she whispers.
Under normal circumstances, I would be overjoyed to have a new ability. But right now, the load just keeps getting heavier and heavier.
“The aunts wanted me dead but didn’t want the blood directly on their hands. What other lengths will they go to wipe us out?”
Mother walks over to me, pulling Aven into her arms, and he instantly beams into a smile. “We aren’t going to find out. Are we?” she says to Aven, and he giggles instantly. “If you can pull this off, then you’re a Seer. Now, get Winnie. We’ve got work to do.”
I sit in the circle of my spell room, my face flushing in waves of hot and cold, the pressure on me to perform this time. Aven naps only two rooms over, Bastian lounges in the chaise he bought himself, while Mother crosses her legs in front of me.
“I’m scared I’ll get sick like last time,” I say, stomach dropping from how weak I felt.
“Last time happened without your permission. You’ll get stronger. And this time you’re welcoming the vision, asking for it. You’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” I say, clearing my throat and looking around my new spell room.
I light the candles around us with a sweep of my hand, the glow they create inducing an immediate calm, my cauldron in the corner bubbling with sage for focus and valerian for calm.
I meet eyes with Bastian, and it’s as though he can sense my trepidation, feel my heart banging inside my chest. Because he licks his bottom lip slowly, dips his head, and says, “This is what you do, baby girl. You make things happen.”
I inhale, nodding, grateful for his vote of confidence, his voice soothing me. To love someone as much as I love him, to have my heart completely wrapped around his. I still can’t believe he’s back, and it’s like he was never gone.
“I love you,” I tell him, and he winks, then I look to Winnie.
“Show me,” I softly instruct my grimoire, and her pages fly open, rattling until it reaches a spell titled “Ojo.”
My wrists pull, Winnie telling me we’re on the right track. To keep going. Don’t stop.
“The wine,” my mother calls to Bastian, lifting the chalice in the air. He rises, pouring red wine into the chalice until it’s near brimming. She gulps from it, then hands it to me.
