by Heloise Hull
Making Midlife Madness
Forty Is Fabulous 2
Heloise Hull
Henwin Press LTD
Contents
Making Midlife Madness
Before You Begin
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Afterword
About the Author
Copyright © 2021 by Heloise Hull
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Any appearance to real people is purely a coincidence and should not be inferred.
Created with Vellum
Making Midlife Madness
It took Ava forty years to discover her identity. It took the Council ten minutes to decide she was a threat.
I’ve survived my forties long enough to discover I’m cursed. Figuring out how to break the curse is a whole other problem.
My arrival in Aradia set off a series of unexplainable events—the veil breaking down, ghosts arriving by the shipload, and Aurick becoming… beautiful? Now, the dying god has finally started dying, and everyone fears his re-birth.
Fortunately, I have my new found powers and my Siren Squad to help me. Only, I have no idea how to actually use my powers, and the Council arrested me on sight.
At least, I don’t have time to think about my ex or to wallow in my misery. In fact, getting divorced at the age of forty doesn’t seem so hard anymore.
There’s nothing like an angry archon hell-bent on global destruction to give me a little perspective.
Sic habebis gloriam totius mundi.
Ideo fugiet a te omnis obscuritas.
By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world
and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
-The Emerald Tablet, translated by Issac Newton
Before You Begin
In the book that follows, Ava mentions her time as Cleopatra VII in Egypt. If you’re confused, you’re not crazy. You just haven’t yet read Making Midlife Memories, book 1.5 of the Forty Is Fabulous series. It’s a short story about Ava’s vision the first time she astral projects with Manu on her way to see the Council. The events in the short story directly precede this book. However, it is not necessary to have read it to understand what follows. Think of it as a bonus scene!
If you’d like to read Making Midlife Memories, simply sign up for my newsletter, and I’ll send you a free copy. You’re under NO obligation to stay on my list, but if you do, I promise I only send out new release notices and sales/giveaways every few months. You can also follow me on Amazon for new release updates.
NOTE: If you don’t read the short story, you won’t miss anything in the main arc of Making Midlife Madness. It simply deepens the relationship between Ava and the god in the cave. But if you do choose to read it, please know the novella is grittier than Ava’s story thus far. Be prepared for blood, sex, glory, and even an ancient Roman recipe for honey fritters. If you’re cool with that, then sign up and I’ll send you a copy!
Prologue
Versailles, France.
December, 1748.
Maria Leszczyńska.
Running. Always running. The influence doesn’t appeal to me. I refuse it.
“Maman, you must. Madame Pompadour will outshine you.” Henriette’s eyes begged me to agree with her on this matter. I cupped her face fondly. My eldest daughter, Louise Elizabeth, and her twin, Henriette, were wise beyond their twenty-one years. Growing up in the most conniving and strategic court in a thousand years would turn any young woman into marble. Beautiful, hard, and sharp when shattered.
“I will not challenge her. I haven’t shared your father’s bed for a decade. Why should I begin now? He is a king. He has needs.”
“Because she makes you a fool by her very presence!” Henriette exploded.
Louise Elizabeth idly picked at her stitches. “I don’t see the fuss. Madame Pompadour is quite charming. Voltaire speaks highly of her.”
Henriette whirled on her sister. “How dare you? You finally deign to return to Versailles, and suddenly you have the foresight to decide what is good for our dear mother?”
“Girls,” I said gently.
Louise Elizabeth stood, her sewing forgotten at her feet. “Are you jealous that I am married and a duchess? Or are you jealous that Father asks for my advice several times a day while ignoring yours?” Her eyes blazed. “Well? Which is it?”
“Enough!” I said sharply.
Their heads swiveled to me, unused to harsh tones. These, my darling first borns. They nearly killed me in labor, my body almost ripped in two. They may yet with this bickering.
They were always inseparable. Their childhoods were spent as an extension of each other. Despite her obvious beauty, Henriette urged on Louise Elizabeth’s ambition while remaining content to stay in the shadows. They had suckled together at my breasts. It was unheard of, so I was forced to sneak into the royal nursery at midnight. I knew I had magic in my veins and in my milk. I knew I would spend this life doing nothing with it. I was tired of it. So very tired. It was my fate, my curse. Twins fated to fight, destined to die. But if I could give a little protection to them… if something got through… perhaps they could outrun my folly.
I sat down abruptly, unable to fathom this malediction. How many more lifetimes did I have to pay? When would I be free of my mistakes? When would my children?
“Maman!” They fussed over me, their argument regarding the king’s lover put aside but not forgotten.
“Girls, I feel a chill. Would you send for a servant to stoke the fire?”
“Oui, Maman,” they murmured, properly chastised. I watched their retreating backs, wishing I did not already know.
Henriette would die unwed, barely twenty-four. Louise Elizabeth would mourn as if her own soul had been irreparably torn, but she would join her sister in death soon after. At least she would experience the joys of motherhood first. My son, my darling, would pay his own price. Eight of his thirteen children would die in infancy. His young wife would die in childbirth. He would die before ascending to the throne.
I never understood why the magic didn’t extend to him. I assumed it was because he wasn’t a twin. Instead, his surviving son, my grandson, would become king, and he would marry Marie Antoinette. Together, they would plunge France into war. I suckled four of my ten children. My twin daughters, my two sons. All four died an early death.
My curse raged on.
Chapter
One
There’s no other way to put it. My body felt like it had been hogtied, sucked through a straw, and spit out the other side into a nauseating free fall. Manu, my jailor, tightened his grip on my shoulder as if he were worried I could still escape in this state.
If only.
Moments ago, I had been on Aradia, defeating a necromancer and protecting my new friends who had quickly become family. Or was it years ago? It was hard to say. Everything felt twisted. My arms, my mind, even my time stream.
Instinctively, I reached out to break my fall, but the Gordian Knot burned into my wrists, pinning them to my side and disabling my magic. Still, I could feel the world rushing toward me. I braced for the collision.
My head hit the floor with a dull crack, and I had just enough time to feel the cold hard tiles of my prison cell beneath my body before the world went dark again.
I heard him before I saw him. The voice sounded familiar but ungraspable, like a repressed memory fighting to the surface. All I could tell for certain was that he was annoying and grating.
“Why the hell are you taking a nap on the kitchen floor?”
My brain tried to process the sounds, to make sense of their tone and tenor.
“More importantly,” he continued at unholy decibels, “what are you doing here? I thought you had left for good.”
With a monumental effort, I forced my eyes to open a crack. The tiniest of cracks. Still, the light from the room shot a hot spear into my brain. “Ugghh,” I managed to respond.
The world around me was burnt yellow. Like a scorched egg yolk. That was funny. My kitchen had a burnt yellow ceiling. Did the Council have the same decorating tastes as me? While a reasonable choice for a kitchen, it felt questionable for a prison.
“Are you drunk?” the voice asked.
Slowly, the pieces began to come together, and I shot up. I’d gone from living on the beautiful island of Aradia to… “Oh crap.”
My eyes finally focused. What they saw wasn’t pretty. Jim’s furious face stared down at me. He had his arms crossed and his foot tapped manically, like it was keeping time to his anger. Behind him, Marla, my ex-assistant, stood with her mouth agape.
I probably had a similar look on my face. How the hell did I end up here? Wasn’t I headed to face interrogation at the Council? A terrible thought wiggled into my brain. Had they kicked me out of the supernatural world for good? Forced me to come back to this world, as if nothing had happened?
I needed a moment to think, but Jim didn’t give me one. “I can’t believe you’d be petty enough to return to my home unannounced.”
“Your home?” I repeated.
“Yes, my home.”
“Pretty sure we bought this place together.”
Jim’s smile smeared across his face. “I don’t remember you writing any checks.”
“Because I was at our home taking care of our children!”
A headache the length and width of the Grand Canyon threatened to split my mind in two, and my wrists ached where the Gordian Knot had tied them together. Even the muscles in my pinky toe hurt. That wasn’t to mention the normal aches and pains of turning forty and doing overly strenuous activity. Like realm hopping.
“Regardless, you need to leave.”
I rolled my eyes and instantly regretted it as the world began to spin again. It was typical Jim to act like it was my fault I left after I caught him in bed with my ex-assistant. That was fine. I didn’t want to hang around anyway.
“Did you happen to see how I arrived?” I asked, rather kindly in my opinion.
“I assume inebriated and by the front door.” Jim threw a knowing look at Marla. “I told you we should’ve changed the locks.”
So that was a no. I glanced around my kitchen. After the past few days, the normalcy of the stainless steel appliances and Home Depot furnishings seemed more out of place than a talking chipmunk. Or a shape-shifting crow who loved fashion.
Where was Manu, my jailor? He could tell me what was going on. Unless, this was hell and I was now undergoing my eternal punishment. Getting stuck with Jim and Marla in our suburban West County home certainly was hellish.
I had to hand it to the Council. If this was their idea of a sick joke, they really knew how to turn the screws.
Before Jim could say anything that would force me to kill him and put me in danger of getting arrested in the mortal world in addition to the immortal one, I dusted myself off and marched toward the door. “This is clearly a huge mistake.”
I reached for the handle, but the moment I touched it, a thousand watts of electricity passed through my body. At least, it felt like it. I flew backward into Marla’s arms. She yelped and caught me. Both of us tumbled to the floor.
“What the hell?” I untangled myself and stared at the door.
Jim’s eyes bulged bigger. “What was that?”
I ignored him. He didn’t deserve an explanation.
“Ava, I don’t know what is going on, but I need you to get out of my house.”
“Our house,” I corrected absently, studying the door frame. I didn’t see anything keeping me in, but clearly I couldn’t get out. I probed at the empty space. It felt different from the wards around the Basilica of Aradia that the island used to keep me out. More like an electric field that snapped and crackled when I touched it. But how?
“Manu?” I called tentatively into the front porch. “Hello?”
Jim scowled. “Who’s Manu?”
“Just a guy. You haven’t seen anyone weird hanging around have you?”
“I don’t even know what he looks like.”
“You’d know if you’d seen him.”
Somehow, Jim’s scowl deepened. For a second, I worried that his face might collapse in on itself, like a black hole of annoyance. “Okay,” he said. “I see what’s happening here. If this is some elaborate prank to make me jealous, it won’t work.”
“This may shock you, Jim, but my world no longer revolves around you.” I avoided the truth, since Manu wasn’t something I could explain, even to myself.
“I bet he’s here somewhere spying on me,” I muttered as I opened the cabinets and peeked out the windows. “He’s probably just invisible to MILFs.”
“Oooh,” Marla crowed. “I’ve always wanted to be a MILF.”
I stopped mid-stride and faced her, not sure where to begin. Explaining that, in my new world, the term was actually a rude way to refer to non-magical entities wasn’t a place I was ready to go with my husband’s lover.
Jim stepped between us. “You’ve been gone for three glorious weeks. Was that just to get my hopes up?”
“You took two decades of my life, my financial security, and my job, and now you want to take my house? I don’t think so.” I dug my heels in and crossed my arms, making the snap decision to play it off for now since I had no idea how to get out of here. “If you need me, I’ll be in the twins’ old room.”
A flash of disgust passed over Jim’s face. I knew it well, but I no longer cared what made his lip curl. The thought was liberating.
“I’m calling the police,” Jim threatened at my retreating back.
“Great. They can help me unpack!” I called, conveniently leaving out the fact that there wasn’t anything to unpack, being a trapped prisoner and all.
My feet traced the steps of the familiar hallway carpet, worn to threads in places. I couldn’t help putting my fingers in the divot next to the stairs where the boys had launched toy cars from sling shots in the fifth grade, and I still smelled their dirty gym socks from their last season of varsity football. I’d definitely need an air freshener.
Lord, I’d have to ask Jim to buy me one. No, I’d have to ask him to buy me anything I needed. I couldn’t leave, and my gold was back in my room at Villa Venus. Jim had refused to buy tampons when I was screwing him. A whore in hell had a better chance than me.
I reached the top of the stairs and steadied myself on the rail. The boys’ room was on the right, and a cr
ush of memories almost forced me under, but I stopped myself from crying by biting the insides of my cheeks. It was exactly as I remembered. Broken guitar strings, video game consoles, posters of race cars. They’d shared a room until sophomore year of high school when they finally decided to separate. Jacob took the basement while Josh stayed upstairs.
I trailed along the edges of their shelves filled with trophies from various sports. Soccer, baseball, football. You name it, they tried it. Football was the only one that stuck. I hated it at the time—still did. Now that the She-Wolf’s memories were coming back, I wondered if it was her curse that made them want to be so physical.
My curse.
I sank onto the bed, trying to make sense of everything. Being back in Missouri made Aradia seem so far away, almost like a dream. Was I really a wolf? It seemed impossible.
“No,” I told myself sternly, wiping a tear with the back of my hand. “You will not forget and you will not doubt. Aradia was real. It happened.”
But if that were true, it opened some uncomfortable questions. Was I dangerous? Was I human? Did that angry god in the cave gift me an immortal soul when he cursed me? He certainly knew he wanted to be able to always find me.
And my boys… Thessaly said others would come for me and probably them as well. Right now, I could only hope Coronis and Nonna’s magic kept them safe.
