“Alright,” I relented. “Sleep. But I expect both of you to be up at the crack of dawn and ready with forty years’ worth of answers, got it?”
Mom and Grams nodded, if a little hesitantly, and I marched myself right out of that kitchen and went into my bedroom.
But I didn’t sleep a wink. Instead, I spent the next five hours coming up with a list of questions to ask them. It might have been a little--okay, a lot--Type A of me, but I couldn't help it. When my brain felt so disorganized I was worried it might explode, the best way for me to deal with it had always been to put my thoughts down on paper.
And boy, did I have a lot of those.
9
The next morning felt like Christmas. That is, it would have, if Christmas was dark, and scary, and full of secrets and lies.
Maybe Christmas was actually a bad analogy.
But I sure as heck sat next to my door that morning and waited until I heard the familiar clomp of my mother’s feet charging down the hall, headed for the kitchen and her coffee, which was pretty much like liquid gold to her in the mornings. A few seconds later, I heard Grams’ little pitter patter as she also headed toward the kitchen, a lot more gracefully than her daughter did.
“Okay, Shannon, this is it,” I told myself, sucking in a breath as I stared down at the image in the mirror.
The face was familiar, but that was the only thing I still recognized about myself. There were dark circles under my eyes, ones that I would have never allowed to exist as the Boston D.A. My usually styled and smooth hair had turned into a frizzy, curly mess that resembled my mother’s head full of crazy hair, and there was a darkness in my green eyes that almost scared me.
Not an evil darkness, of course. More like one of determination and… well, I wasn’t quite sure what else was there. All I knew was that my own eyes were unfamiliar to me.
My inner poet wanted to make some grand statement about how that look in my eyes was reflective of my inner change and turmoil, of the secret darkness I’d kept hidden inside of me for so long.
Was magic dark? Did my newfound status as something out of a children’s fairytale mean that I was also evil, like the Queen in Snow White, or Ursula in The Little Mermaid?
Mom and Grams certainly didn’t strike me as evil. They didn’t even like to kill the spiders that wandered into the house to get out of the Portland rain. And I definitely couldn’t say that the patrons of Magic for Real seemed like they had any sort of vile plots brewing in their minds.
Or at least, I wouldn't have said that as a teenager. After seeing the number of acrylic-nailed, kale-drinking, copy-and-paste blondes that had come into the store over the last few days, I was absolutely sure at least a few of them were trying to cast a spell or two on their high school nemesis.
But did that make them evil?
It was too much to think about on an empty stomach. I shook my head, fluffed my hair to attempt to get some sort of order back into my life, and went downstairs to get all of my questions answered.
“Good morning sunshine!” Mom grinned at me as she handed me a cup of coffee.
“You don’t talk in the morning,” I pointed out gruffly.
That was possibly the understatement of the century. Usually, if anyone so much as breathed too close to Elle McCarthy before ten a.m., they’d find themselves with a wad of gum in their hair and rocks in their boots before they could even apologize.
“I’m trying something new,” she asserted, drifting back across the kitchen to take a seat at the table.
I took a suspicious sip of my coffee before I stopped and spit out the warm, comforting liquid.
“You haven’t drugged this or anything, right?” I demanded. “Added some sort of memory potion so I forget all about witches and magic?”
“Of course not!” Mom gasped.
“Child, we have never lied to you about magic,” Grams said seriously. “We’ve always told you that magic existed. It was you who chose not to believe in it.”
“You never told me I was a witch!” I exclaimed indignantly. “There’s a pretty big difference between: ‘oh, yep, this rock has magical energy,’ and ‘by the way, you happen to come from a line of creatures born out of myth and legend.’”
“Well, we were expecting you to get your powers, just like the rest of us,” Mom retorted. “And when you didn't get your magic, I figured it might be best to let you stay in the dark, so you didn’t feel so badly about yourself. Besides, you were off in Boston going to college, and then you met Kenneth, and you seemed so happy with him that I didn’t want to ruin it.”
“Oh, now you care about my relationship with Kenneth?” I snapped. “You never liked him. You should have jumped at the chance to bring me back home.”
“Look, Shannon, contrary to what you might believe, I really wanted you to be happy with him,” Mom sighed. “But I also know that this family doesn’t exactly mix well with the opposite gender, and I wanted to make sure you were prepared for that.”
Intense hurt flooded her emerald green eyes, and the biting words that had leapt to my tongue soon fell away. I couldn’t argue with my mom when she looked at me like that.
For the first time since I’d met Kenneth, I realized that my mom didn’t actually hate him. She was serious.
She knew how it was going to end before I ever did, and she just didn’t want me to get hurt. As angry as I was about all the lies and deception, that realization tugged at my heartstrings. Underneath it all, she was still my mom, and she just wanted what was best for me.
Only, right now, we heavily disagreed on just what that was.
“Okay,” I sighed. “I get it. Not completely, but… it’s okay.”
“Thank you.” Mom offered me a slightly watery smile. She bit her lip nervously and sucked in a breath.
To be honest, it kind of shocked me. My mom wasn’t ever a nervous person. She was bold and brash, and as annoying as it could be, it was also one of the things I admired most about her. So the worried energy that flowed from her in droves made my heart pound in my chest.
This wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want my mom to feel terrified to even talk to me. But, at the same time, the betrayal I still felt ran deep.
“Well, what do you want to know?” Grams broke the silence by asking.
“Um, everything?” I laughed lightly. “What’s this whole thing with getting powers at twenty-one about?”
“That’s a McCarthy clan curse,” Mom explained. “Or gift, depending on how you want to look at it. Each clan has their own little… quirk, let’s say. In our family, only the women possess magic, and they don’t come into their powers until they’re twenty-one years of age.”
“So how come I didn’t get my powers then?”
To be honest, now that this whole magic thing was out in the open, I was a little bit hurt that I hadn’t gotten my magic on time.
Assuming, of course, that whatever was going on with me was, in fact, magic, and not just some sort of random coincidence.
“I’m not sure,” Grams sighed. “We waited and waited, hoping you’d call us up one day and say that something strange had happened, and then you’d finally believe in all of the things we’d been telling you since you were a child, but you didn’t. And then your twenty second birthday came and went, and your twenty third…”
Grams trailed off as she thought about all of the years she’d spent waiting for me to grow into my powers. A twang of hurt twisted in my stomach at the look in her eyes. I felt like I’d disappointed her without even meaning to, like I hadn’t lived up to the unspoken expectation placed upon me at birth.
“I decided it was better you didn’t know,” Mom said when it became clear Grams was lost in her thoughts. “I thought that, maybe, you could live a normal life. Being a witch isn’t exactly easy.”
“Yeah, I think I’m figuring that out,” I mumbled, a little annoyed about all of the weird occurrences that kept happening to me. At least now I could put my finger on their cause.
“What do you mean?” Mom asked.
I looked back up at her, and saw that confusion had filled her green eyes.
“I thought you knew I’ve been doing magic,” I responded. “Well, not ‘doing,’ exactly. None of it’s been intentional. But I made the fight attendant let me on the plane, even though I was terribly late. And I popped this lady’s tire out just with my mind.”
“You got your powers?” Grams gasped. “Now? After all this time?”
Yet again, I was feeling like the odd man out.
“Yeah,” I responded hesitantly. “Is that super weird? I can’t be the only late bloomer in the family. I even got my period late.”
Fifteen, to be exact. I’d ended up lying about my monthly visitor the entirety of my freshman year of high school.
Once again, Mom and Grams shared a look.
“Hey!” I interrupted their silent conversation. “I thought we were done with the looks now that I’m in on the whole witch thing?”
“What, exactly, has been happening to you?” Mom asked carefully. She even pushed her coffee mug away from her as she listened to my answer. That was how I knew this was serious.
“I mean, not much,” I shrugged. “I haven’t blown anyone up, or anything. But there was the tire thing, and the flight attendant, like I mentioned. And the moving boxes seemed to pack themselves. I don’t even remember doing those. Mostly, though, it was the vision I had last night that sealed the de—”
“VISION?” Grams shrieked, standing up so freaking fast she knocked her mug full of her morning tea over.
“Jesus!” I gasped as the boiling liquid rapidly made its way across the table toward me. I snatched a dish towel from the rack behind me and mopped it up before any of the scorching liquid could cause permanent damage.
“Mama, calm down!” my mother hollered.
Instantly, Grams plopped back down in her seat, and then proceeded to stare at her hands and mutter something that was completely incoherent.
“What is going on?” I was pleading with them at this point. It felt like, every time I stepped one inch closer to the truth, I was pushed an entire foot and a half backward.
“It’s nothing,” my mom said quickly.
“It is so clearly not nothing!” I challenged. “You’ve already told me this much. What is it about the vision that freaked you out? Do you want to know what I saw?”
“NO!” My mom roared. The abruptness of her outburst scared me so badly that I instantly slammed my mouth shut. Mom took in a deep, steadying breath and forced herself to calm down. “I’m sorry. Just… don’t ever speak of this vision again, alright? To anybody.”
Her expression was pleading. And pleading was not a look Elle McCarthy wore, well, ever.
“Fine,” I hissed. “I won’t talk to anyone. Including the two of you. This house is full of nothing but lies and deceit, and I want absolutely nothing to do with it.”
I leapt from my chair, grabbed my purse from the rack, and sprinted toward the door.
“Shannon, wait!” My mom called after me, but I didn’t even bother to slow down in the slightest.
I was tired of the lies. I was being lied to in Boston, and it had ruined my marriage. So I’d come home, to the place I’d thought I would be safe, so that I could start all over again, and build a life from the ground up.
But even my new foundation had been seeded with swindling, tricks, and deceit.
10
I didn’t even know where my feet were carrying me until I arrived. And, at that point, I was standing outside of Rockstar Coffee, heaving.
I’d run there. I was vaguely aware of that fact. It probably hadn’t helped the image of disarray I’d had going on when I looked in the mirror that morning, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I didn’t normally step out in public looking anything less than put together, but, hell, if the rest of my life had crumbled to dust, I might as well allow my appearance to do so as well.
As my bad luck would have it, I was once again greeted by the pimple faced, judgey cashier when I walked into Rockstar Coffee. The place was mostly empty, seeing as it was barely seven a.m. on a chilly Portland Saturday, but I liked it that way. I needed some me time, away from literally everyone else in the world.
“Let me guess,” the kid sighed as I approached, “dark roast coffee. Cream and sugar. Nothing else.”
I was about to nod when I started to think about it.
Everything else in my life seemed to be going to hell? So why not live a little and try something outside of my usually perfectly formed box.
“You know what, kid? Give me one of those zebra mocha things, and a chocolate croissant.”
The kid raised an eyebrow and stared at me for a moment, trying to figure out if this was some sort of prank. After about thirty seconds, he must have decided that I was, in fact, serious, because he shrugged and typed it into the computer.
“ZEBRA MOCHA AND A CHOCOLATE CROISSANT!” He hollered over his shoulder, even louder than the last time I’d been in, if that was even possible. Then, he turned back to me and gave me the total. “Eleven oh two.”
This time, I didn’t even blink. I’d started to get used to the outrageous prices here in the new Portland. As far as I was concerned, hipster was just a fancy way of saying expensive.
I handed over my card, let him ring me up, and then sat down in the little, isolated table while I waited for my breakfast. If I could even call it that. The meal was so full of sugar I wasn’t sure it counted.
In fact, I told myself that nothing I ate for the rest of the day counted. I wouldn’t worry about calories, or sugar, or how much of my daily iron intake was in whatever food I decided to stuff in my mouth. No, today was purely about eating my feelings.
Which I did, as soon as the croissant showed up at my table. I stuffed half the thing into my mouth at once and closed my eyes as I felt the warm deliciousness melt across my tongue. It was as if the silky smooth chocolate was a temporary cure for all of my pain. For just a few seconds, I could forget that my life had turned into an absolute mess quicker than I could have blinked.
In fact, I could almost delude myself into believing I was back in Boston, enjoying a nice treat the morning before I had to work a hard case. As soon as the day was over, I’d head to my perfect home, where my husband would be waiting with a bottle of red wine and the newest Marvel movie on our giant, flatscreen TV.
“Are you eating that food or having sex with it?”
Hunter.
I’d recognize his voice anywhere, especially when it was booming down from right above me like some sort of God.
Slowly, I opened one eye and looked up at him.
“What’s it to you?” I demanded. “We weren’t supposed to meet today.”
“I’m not meeting you,” he laughed. “I just happened to decide it was a good day for a coffee, walked into my new favorite coffee shop, and, lo and behold, here you are. Looking like you’re about to become one with the back half of a chocolate croissant.”
“It’s my comfort food,” I replied defensively, not even aware that I was sharing personal information with a virtual stranger.
His eyes were just so… magnificent. It was like those steely gray balls in his head absorbed every rational thought I could possibly have, and I was left with a big old pile of goop for brains.
“Your comfort food,” he repeated, as his bushy brown eyebrows knitted together. “Something’s wrong.”
It was a statement, and not a question.
For the first time since I met him, which wasn’t actually all that long ago, I saw what seemed to be genuine compassion in his eyes. But then, a cloud floated over them, and they turned almost…
Calculating?
It was a weird thing to see in this man’s eyes. I didn’t know him all that well, but he didn’t really strike me as the calculating type.
For a split second, I wondered if he was a witch, too. Maybe he could sense my powers, or something sort of magical
and cool like that. But if he could, why hadn’t he said anything to me? Especially since we’d already been talking about the case a bit.
“Nothing’s wrong.” I decided denial was my best path and shook my head in a way that was meant to be discouraging.
“Nope, you’re lying.” Hunter cracked a smile at me.
“I, uh…” I was trying to say no, that I was telling the truth. But I’d never been a very good liar, even as a child. That was probably why it was my job to prosecute the liars.
“Get up,” Hunter instructed suddenly.
“What?”
“Get. Up,” he replied with a dopey, boyish grin. “The best cure for sadness is to get up on your feet and move about. Let’s go, Shannon.”
“I don’t want to move about,” I whined, almost like a child. “I want to sit right here and mope.”
“Not gonna happen.”
Before I could protest any further, I was being unceremoniously yanked out of my chair. It was all I could do to grab the last half of my croissant and the mocha, which I’d had the foresight to put in a to go cup, before I was nearly dragged out of the coffee shop.
“Hunter, where are we going?” I was trying to make my voice sound demanding but, to my utter dismay, I couldn’t keep the hint of excitement out of my tone.
So sue me. Hunter was good looking, and there was something about him that just drew me in--not that I’d ever act on it--and it was a little bit exciting to have a man like that just decide he wanted to spend time with me so spontaneously.
Kenneth was never spontaneous. He used to plan his entire day down to the minute, and he’d charge one of his poor clerks with making sure he kept to the schedule. That was probably why I married him. He was just as neurotic as I was.
But Hunter as the exact opposite of neurotic. Hunter was instinctive. He moved like an animal, and made decisions on the fly, and thought with his gut instead of his head.
I could tell those instincts were what made him a good P.I., even if he wouldn’t let me see it yet.
“Okay, sit,” Hunter ordered.
Forty, Fabulous and Fae Page 6
