by Karen Ranney
Yet sitting there he had the odd feeling that he should probably have prepared for this visit more. If nothing else, gone to the gym a few times.
The neighborhood wasn’t the best. There were a group of kids that looked to be high school age huddled on the corner. They looked toward his Ford, all of them laughing. He wondered what they would have done if he’d driven Breanna’s Porsche. It had belonged to her father and consequently she had a soft spot in her heart for it.
He got out of his SUV and approached the house, not unduly surprised when the front door opened.
Grace had been twenty-two when he was born. He was forty-one which meant that he was staring at a sixty-three-year-old woman, one who looked about thirty. She had dark brown hair, his blue eyes, and his height. Her face only had a few laugh lines around her eyes, and a dimple near her cheek. When she smiled her teeth looked perfect. None of the yellowing that indicated a thinning of enamel as you age. If he hadn’t known how old she was he wouldn’t have been able to guess.
“Derek?”
“Grace?”
She nodded, then stepped aside in a wordless invitation to enter her small home.
He walked through the door, followed her down the hall and through an arched doorway to a small living room.
His birth mother evidently liked a Japanese minimalistic simplicity.
The couch was moved out from the wall to accommodate a sofa table behind it. On it was a collection of spheres that caught the light, casting colors onto the pale yellow walls.
The curtains were sheer, less for privacy than to allow the sunlight into the room. The couch was a pale blue embroidered fabric. The rug beneath his feet had touches of blue and yellow on a white background. Everything was spotless, dust free, and curiously sterile. There were no pictures anywhere. No portraits of a loved one. No memorabilia designed to spark comment or recollection. The occupant of this room could be a teenager, an octogenarian, or any age in between. There was no indication of a life well lived or love felt.
It was a room designed by a person who held her emotions inside in order to protect herself. He didn’t know if it was because of anything that had happened in her past or what she was afraid might happen in her present or future.
He chose the end of the couch. Instead of sitting beside him or even on the chair opposite him, she remained standing.
Something brown and fast darted across the room, skidded to a halt, and stood in front of him, growling.
“Twinkles! Stop that! You have better manners than that. Go and get in your bed.”
As quick as he’d appeared, the Chihuahua turned and headed for the plush dog bed beside the chair.
“I am sorry. He’s testy on the best of days. He really doesn’t like visitors. Neither does Bubbles. My cat. She’s in the other room. She’s quite a young cat, but acts as if she’s a thousand years old. Very wise. Very knowing.”
He wasn’t a cat person. He preferred dogs, but dogs that didn’t have an attitude.
“I’ll go get the coffee,” she said. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“Not on my account. I don’t need anything, really.”
She only smiled. “It’s the Hawaiian blend that’s your favorite.”
While she was gone the Chihuahua kept staring at him, occasionally growling at him as if he thought Derek was going to steal the silver.
A few minutes later she entered the room again, carrying a tray that looked too heavy for her to manage. He stood, took it from her, and put it on the coffee table.
Grace made him feel like he’d fallen down the rabbit hole.
“Who told you about the coffee?” he asked, taking a cup from her. He’d start with the easy questions and advance from there. “Was it Angie?”
She shook her head. “I only spoke to her twice. It was too difficult, otherwise.”
Her voice was young, as young as her appearance. It didn’t tremble or quaver. Instead it seemed to hold a note of self ridicule as if she didn’t take herself seriously.
“Breanna warned me that you weren’t going to accept things easily.”
He put the cup down and stared at her. “So, you never talked to my mother but you did talk to Breanna?”
“Breanna and I were friends. I like to think we were close friends.”
He found that difficult to believe. Breanna would’ve said something. She would’ve come to him and told him about meeting his birth mother. She wouldn’t have kept something that important from him.
Yet was that a true statement? She hadn’t told him who Susan was. Instead, she’d lied about the other woman’s relationship to her. Lied about the trust fund, too.
“Okay, that answers the coffee question. How did you know it was me on the phone?”
“That’s a little more complicated.” She took a sip of her coffee and smiled at him.
At another time he might have called the expression beatific, but not now. He was annoyed and more than a little confused.
“How did you do the word on the windshield?” He’d figured out how it was done the other night. If you took your finger and made a pattern — or drew a word — on glass, the oils from your skin would repel steam later. Someone had drawn the word to spook him.
“Word on the windshield? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He explained about the word Mother.
She frowned. “I didn’t have anything to do with that, Derek. I don’t engage in transposition.”
“What the hell is that?”
“What you just described. Someone was trying to communicate with you.” She put her cup on the tray and folded her hands. “Have you considered that it might have been Breanna?”
Every thought vanished from his brain. All except one: his birth mother was definitely nuts. There was no other explanation. First, the warning she’d given him. Now this question.
“She evidently wanted you to talk to me. Why else send you a message?”
“You believe in that? Extrasensory whatever? Ghosts and after life messages?”
He could swear her smile held a trace of pity. “I wish that she’d had the chance to tell you everything before she died. It would have made this conversation so much easier.”
Was insanity hereditary? Should he get himself checked?
“Tell me what?”
“About your heritage. Or even tell you that she was a witch.”
“You’re saying Breanna was a witch?”
“A quite accomplished one. Her father was one as well.”
He reached for his coffee and wished it was something stronger.
“Wouldn’t he be a warlock?”
She shook her head. “Witch doesn’t apply to one gender or another, Derek. That’s a mistake everyone makes.”
The sooner he got out of here, the better. “So, my wife and my father-in-law were both witches. And what’s this everything she should have told me?”
“Did you never ask yourself why you were adopted?”
The change of subject jarred him, but he answered her anyway.
“You wanted to finish college without the burden of a child to care for. Not an uncommon situation.”
She stared down at her hands. “It nearly killed me to give you up. I think something broke inside me that day, something that has never been fixed. I wanted you with all my heart and soul.” She looked over at him. “I wanted you in my life, to share my every waking moment with you. I wanted to teach you everything I knew. In the end, though, I did what would be best for you. The way to protect you.”
He knew he was going to regret asking this, but he didn’t have a choice. His curiosity was in overdrive. “Protect me from what?”
She looked away, her gaze on the coffee pot as if it were a crystal ball. He wouldn’t be surprised if she whipped out one of those. The only thing she’d said so far that he could possibly accept was that giving him up had been difficult for her. The rest? Not a chance.
“Not from what. From whom.”
“Okay, from whom?”
“Life isn’t what you think it is, Derek. There are things you don’t know, but that you need to know.”
She still wasn’t looking at him. He didn’t need her to wax philosophical. All he wanted was the answer to the question.
“Who are you talking about, Grace?”
“Your father.”
11
Derek hadn’t given all that much thought to his natural father. He supposed, in the back of his mind, that he thought Grace’s youthful indiscretion had been with a college student, someone her age who’d been terrified of the prospect of a child.
When he said as much to her, she smiled.
“Your father is a very important man. One might say he’s the most important man in the entire world.”
Her voice didn’t sound young now. Instead it held a somber undertone, as if she were delivering a dire prognosis to him instead of a fantastical comment.
“What is he, a Saudi prince?”
“Oh, if that were only the truth.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment and he wanted to jump over the coffee table and shake her to get the words flowing freely.
“I was fascinated by all the stories and rumors I’d heard. I was intrigued by his power, you see. I felt it even being in the same room with him. The atmosphere was charged as if electrical sparks flowed from him.” She looked at him and smiled a strange, almost sad, smile. “I was a foolish girl, but I fell in love with the stories, first, and then the man.”
“So who is this most powerful man in the world, Grace?”
Maybe his father was the scion of a wealthy family. Or he had some political pull. He ran through a number of names of famous San Antonians about the same age as Grace. Some of them were powerful, but not to the degree she seemed to believe.
“A wizard, Derek.”
Of course he was. Did he expect any less? After all, she’d just outed Breanna as a witch.
He put down his cup, stood, and headed for the door.
“Derek.”
“Thanks for the coffee, Grace, but as for the rest, I’m not buying it.”
“Breanna said you’d say that. It’s one of the reasons she didn’t tell you. She said you were stubborn, that you were a pragmatist. According to her, you said everything has an answer and a reason.”
He said that often. Very well, she might have met Breanna. She might even have been friends with her, but the other? The woo-woo stuff? No, not on a bet.
“She wanted to warn you, Derek. Exactly what I’m doing now.”
“Sorry, Grace, I don’t believe you.”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. Good. Let her be annoyed or half as angry as he was becoming. A moment later she extended her hand toward the archway, wiggled her fingers, and spoke a few words.
“Did you just curse me?” he asked. “Not impressed, Grace. I’ve already been cursed.”
He turned and headed for the door only to be caught up by something that felt like a spider web. Hundreds of sticky fibers clung to his face. He tried to brush them off but they stuck to his fingers. His arms were suddenly encased. The more he tried to free himself the tighter they became. Kicking at them didn’t help, either. One foot was suddenly caught up in mid-air.
What the hell?
“You won’t be able to leave until you hear me out, Derek.”
She stood, moving past him in the archway without being affected by the web. Once she was facing him, she continued.
“You’ve never heard of NASACA, have you?”
“Whatever you’ve done, whatever kind of trick this is, stop it.”
“I’ve spelled the doorway. It won’t last long. Fifteen minutes at the most, but long enough to get you to listen to me.”
“How did you do it?”
She blew out a breath. “You’re as stubborn as Breanna said. Must I do something else to get you to believe?”
“Believe in what, exactly? Witchcraft?”
“Magic.”
He stared at her.
She shook her head. “You really must believe, Derek. It’s your legacy.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and I sure as hell don’t know how you’ve done this, but stop it right now.”
“Not until you listen.”
“Then hurry up and tell me because I’m losing my patience.”
To his surprise she smiled at him. “In addition to looking like your father you sound like him, too.”
He didn’t give a damn how his father sounded.
“The Meriduar is a group of five regions formed centuries ago to protect those of us with…” Her voice trailed off. “Abilities. Perhaps that’s the easiest way to say it. Jeffrey North is the leader of the European group.”
“I take it this Jeffrey is my biological father.”
“Yes, he is. He’s a very powerful wizard.”
“Not a witch?”
She shook her head.
There was a contingent of people in Austin who believed themselves touched with magical powers. They’d formed a political group and insisted upon coming before the legislature with various proposals to promote magic.
He’d always ignored them like the kooks they were.
This woman was his mother. She’d given birth to him and then ensured that he was raised by people who would care for him. He had always believed himself to be a sane, practical man. He had goals. He had dreams and visions. He knew what he wanted in his life. Some of that had already come true, with his job and marrying Breanna, with plans for children a few years down the road. He didn’t believe in fantasy. His was a life structured by facts, dates, quotes, documented actions, and research.
Yet everything had been turned on its head with Breanna’s death. Now Grace expected him to believe what she was saying, speaking the words in such a calm and matter-of-fact tone that he was almost drawn in.
“I know this is all very difficult for you to understand, Derek. You’ve been protected from the truth all these years. I argued against it, but no one listened to me. They thought if you were a civilian that you would be safer, somehow. They ignored my advice because of what I’d done. Jeffrey was only here for a meeting between all five regions. I shouldn’t have even met him, but I did.”
Maybe if he stayed silent she would release him from whatever was keeping him trapped.
“People kept telling me it was an allure that he generated through a spell. It might’ve been. Or it might have been who he was down deep. It didn’t matter in the end, you see. I fell in love.”
That part he understood. He had an idea of where this story would go and when she continued, he wasn’t disappointed.
“The discovery that he was married came as a nasty surprise. So, too, did Millicent’s threats.”
“Who the hell is Millicent?”
“Jeffrey’s wife. It was Millicent who said that she’d kill you. Jeffrey had no children and I think she wanted to keep it that way. I was determined that she would not get to you. That’s why I gave you away.”
He really didn’t care why he’d been adopted, only glad that he had been. He didn’t even want to think about what his life would have been like with Grace as his mother.
She wasn’t finished. “Breanna knew my story and she knew about Jeffrey. His powers have only expanded over the years. Many people believe that he’s become too powerful and they’ve fought against him in their own way.”
“Great, people in your group believe he’s a powerful wizard. How does that affect me?”
“You don’t understand, Derek. It isn’t just that you’re Jeffrey’s only child. It’s that you have his bloodline and mine as well. I come from a long line of formidable individuals. Although he’s the most powerful wizard in the world you’re even stronger.”
“What?”
“You’re a wizard, too. Don’t you understand?”
“I don’t believe in magic.”
She smiled. “That’s like saying
you don’t believe in God. God doesn’t care whether you believe in Him or not. Neither does magic.”
“So you’re saying that God and magic can coexist in the same universe?”
“Of course. Who do you think invented magic?”
“I thought you people prayed to Satan.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. That Satanism. That’s not magic.”
“Whatever you call it, I don’t believe in it. I only put my faith in things I can see or touch or feel.”
He felt a little strange saying that since he was caught up in an invisible web that incongruously smelled of caramel. She didn’t, however, call him on it.
“Yet you could be the most powerful wizard ever known,” she said. “Breanna said it would be difficult for you to accept the truth. Angie and Paul made a mistake. Their mission was to protect and guard you. They thought the best way to do that was to lead you away from magic. I wish they would have instructed you in it.”
“You’re saying that my parents do this magic thing, too?”
She nodded.
He had a headache beginning between his eyes.
“You want me to believe that Breanna knew all this? Knew who my father was, who Angie and Paul were, all of it?”
“More than that. She was instructed to date you, marry you, and become your wife.”
“She was a plant, is that it? Someone who could watch me day in and day out and report back to some gigantic mastermind of this entire thing?”
“The NASACA.”
“The what?”
“NASACA. One of the regions of the Meriduar. It stands for North America, South America, Central Africa. The American division is headquartered here in San Antonio.”
His headache was getting worse.
“Your meeting was orchestrated, Derek. So, too, your ultimate marriage, but Breanna fell in love with you. It was the best resolution from my point of view as your mother. Angie and Paul didn’t feel the same, unfortunately. They knew that Breanna’s power was beyond their own. They wouldn’t be able to control her like they would someone with fewer abilities. Or a civilian.”
