"If you need to talk about anything, I'm happy to listen."
Run, Mona. Before I take you up on that generous offer and tell you things that would scare the legs off a spider.
"Thank you, I...things are complicated. For now, why don't we work on finding a match for your mom?"
Accepting my reluctance to divulge personal information, Mona did as I asked.
"Have a seat, Lexi." Vivienne welcomed me to the table. "My daughter thinks you're some kind of miracle worker." A warm smile under eyes that searched me for evidence of sainthood. Vivienne was either skeptical or less interested in my help than Mona thought.
"I wouldn't say a miracle worker, but I do try my best to put happy couples together, and Mona deserves every happiness. She's a lovely woman; you must be proud of her." The genuine praise and my smile drew some of the tension from Vivienne's shoulders, relaxed her spine. I would have to go slowly with this one.
"I am." Mona and her mother exchanged fond looks while I battled the jealousy that roiled up inside me. "And Mona's had such a run of bad boyfriend luck that I began to wonder if she'd ever find someone who made her happy."
"It wasn't that bad. You make it sound like I was three steps away from spinsterhood."
The mildly defensive edge to Mona's tone tensed me up. In my house, a statement like that would be followed by a challenge that escalated the discussion to an argument and next thing I knew, we'd be on the road to faerie Armageddon. I so did not want to be a spectator for the human version.
Instead, Vivienne fixed twinkling eyes on her daughter and said, "I only want you to be happy...and give me grandchildren."
Mona's grin matched her mother's even if her face blushed prettily. "Mom. It's only been a few weeks, let's not start painting the nursery just yet."
That was the end of it. No screeching. No flying spells. And they were still smiling. Is that how normal mothers and daughters act toward each other? With no frame of reference for normal, I just listened while Mona led her mother into telling me all the details I needed to know to find the older woman's perfect match.
Vivienne was a lot like her daughter: sweetly steadfast, caring, and gentle, but with enough fire and steel below the surface to carry her through the tragic loss of her husband. As the two of them spoke, a vision of their happy little family played gently in my mind's eye. Lovers parted by death make my job harder. Once a person has experienced the true merging of hearts, it can be difficult for them to accept there might be more than one person in the world to suit them. But a mere two seconds after meeting her, I knew there was a new man for Vivienne. A nice man who would treat her kindly and with whom she would make good memories and a lovely life.
Nudging Mona's ankle with my toe, I flashed her a subtle wink, and when her mother made noises about being late for a hair appointment, Mona walked her out and returned to the table. Watching them exchange hugs before parting ways touched the raw, motherless being inside me.
For someone who tends to move first and think second, Mona could be surprisingly perceptive at times. This was one of them. One look at my face and she dropped into the chair with a concerned look. "What's wrong? You look so sad." I could tell she was wondering what had happened in the last two minutes to put that look on my face.
Choosing my words carefully, I laid out the bare bones version of my life. "My mother left when I was an infant, and based on the way it all went down, no one ever expected to see her again. I was raised by," no mundane description of the faeries leaped to mind, "my aunts."
The faeries would be mortified by the moniker.
"A few weeks ago, my mother came back as if from the dead and all I can think is how she didn't love me enough when I was born to stay." A truth so deep I'd hidden it from myself until this minute. Tears burned my eyes, and I blinked hard to clear them while my stomach twisted into knots.
Mona's hand closed over mine and squeezed. The simple show of friendship and support unlocked the torrent of conflicting emotions I only thought I'd managed to lock up tight. I don't cry often. I think it's a witch thing. We're supposed to be powerful and stoic. And I guess you can add dramatic to the list because I made a small scene once the first sob escaped. It turns out I'm not a quiet crier. The noises I made sounded like someone stepping on a duck.
Bless her little heart; Mona took it all in like a saint. Any time another café patron slid a curious glance my way, she glared back at them like a she-bear defending a helpless cub.
Helpless is a good word to describe how I felt as the onslaught of painful memories flowed. Mommies would come to school to celebrate birthdays with cupcakes and ice cream. Mine, because Terra had no idea what was expected, passed unmarked. The faeries made up for the lack of classroom cupcakes by putting on elaborate mini galas in my honor. It's not every eight-year-old who gets to ride a unicorn for her birthday, but I would have happily traded the experience for a single hug from my mother.
The greeting card industry has made a killing over the years trying to convince people that time erases grief and given enough of it, the pain and fear will fade. No offense to the card companies, but what a fat load of hooey, and that's nothing compared to knowing your mother could have ended that pain by coming back around at any time and chose not to do so.
Nothing else ever cut me as deeply. Nothing.
Mercifully, the crying jag lasted only long enough to leave me feeling awkward and keep the waitress from bringing the check. When it all was over, I felt hollowed out, and clean. A feeling that died in flames at the sight of Delta slithering past the plate glass window. Again.
"Excuse me, Mona. I hate to dump a load of angst on you and run, but there's something I need to take care of. I'll explain later." Dashing away from the table, I tossed an I'm sorry over my shoulder, noted the astonished look on Mona's face and knew I'd removed all doubt from her mind. Lexi Balefire is a flake. The flakiest flake in the whole stinking snowstorm.
Chapter Eight
Ducking into doorways and behind other pedestrians, even though she never once turned to look behind her, I carried on an argument in my head the entire time I trailed Delta. I already knew supernatural abilities lurked underneath her very convincing disguise, and there was a better than average chance she was leading me into a trap. She'd wanted to talk during our previous encounter, but I wondered if whatever warm and fuzzy feelings she'd had toward me evaporated the instant Sylvana had shown up and frozen her solid.
More importantly, she thought Sylvana had the Bow of Destiny, which meant she had information about my mother that could be useful to me. Once I started thinking about Sylvana, it was hard to concentrate on anything else.
What would I say to her after dumping her off without a word? For the hundredth time since making the connection between Athena and Sylvana, I replayed the memory of our first encounter in my head and parsed it for clues to her state of mind. Each glance, the nuances in her speech, the way the touch of her hand felt warm on my neck--all fodder for speculation. The debater inside played both the pro and con side.
Pro:
My mother gave me what I needed to bring me to the fullness of my power. Without her, my chance for awakening would have passed me by forever. Plus, she had wanted to protect me from Delta. My mother was good.
Con:
In the process of giving me what I needed, my mother used a glamour even I couldn't penetrate and worse, she'd manipulated me and clouded my mind. If Delta was to be believed, she was in possession of a magical bow that was supposed to belong to me and was lying to me about it. My mother was bad. Wicked to the bone.
And now Delta was gone. I'd been so busy daydreaming I'd missed the fact that my quarry was no longer ahead of me. Son of a witch, I'd lost her. Fuming, I hurried to the next intersection and looked in both directions hoping to spot which way she'd gone. Nothing. She could be in any one of a dozen buildings by now or skulking somewhere close by, waiting to do something. What that might be, I wasn't sure, but it probably wouldn't in
volve tea and cookies.
Tempted to stomp my feet all the way back to my office, I resolved to do the adult thing and merely mutter a few phrases under my breath that would have made Terra turn my saliva to soap--the faerie method of washing your mouth out for cussing. For once, my beloved city failed to lift my spirits, and I paid little attention to her as my feet ate two blocks of concrete sidewalk.
That was as far as I made it before annoyed resentment gave way to the dark caress of the same compulsion I'd felt at the festival. A whisper at first. My gut said I needed to go, to follow the call only I could hear. Time and reason fled as I mindlessly sought the source of the piper's tune. Right, then left, then right again, my feet carried me to Tidewater Park before the driving need left me and I reeled at its sudden loss.
Quivering tension tingled through my limbs, and I felt like I'd just come out of an extended sleep with only a faint memory of how long it had been since I closed my eyes. My internal GPS or rather my LPS (Love Positioning System) kicked in hard, and the force of it nearly drove me to my knees. It was becoming obvious that the two experiences were related.
While I stood there ignoring the voice in my head who talked like Yoda and blathered on about the force, the pull intensified and focused on a young couple strolling toward the picnic area. Little hearts and birdies could have been circling the pair, they looked that deeply in love, so what did they need me for?
The answer came quickly and in the form of my half-brother who dodged out from behind a tree. He tossed a sardonic smile my way and hit the lovebirds with some kind of whammy. The couple turned on each other so fast it was hard to believe they'd been in lockstep only moments before.
Torn between going after Jett or fixing things with the young couple, I made a split-second decision and took off after the ill-fated lovers as fast as I could without calling attention to myself.
The idea of busting up possible soul mates made me sick inside. It went against everything I'd built my life and business around, on top of making me wonder just how many more times Jett had botched up the works with me being none the wiser. Shoving the weight of that burden aside as best I could, I knew I had to do something to fix this--and fast.
"...ever saw in you, to begin with."
"Right back at you. And by the way, that pot roast you're so proud of always comes out dry."
You can criticize a lot of things, but a woman's pot roast is sacred, so I tried to diffuse the tension.
"Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing your discussion, and I wanted to say..."
"Butt out, lady." Waves of negative emotion poured off the man like black smoke. Jett had certainly done his job well. I sensed Serena's hand in whatever spell he'd tossed. Talking reason wasn't going to cut it, and I had no real experience as a mediator anyway.
What would Cupid do? WWCD. My life reduced to an acronym and a question I had no idea how to answer. Hell, I could barely process the concept of my male parentage, much less predict with certainty the reality of what he might expect from me in any given situation. Add that to the list of conversations I needed to have with my mother. It would go somewhere after where have you been and what were you thinking. Probably repeated a couple times for good measure.
His face a furious mask, the guy turned on me, reaching out to give me a shove while the woman, who still retained some shred of dignity, grabbed his arm to stop him. When his hand made contact with my arm, darkness blanked my vision for a split second, then cleared to shock me with a vision.
Technically, it was two visions. One where the couple lived a happy life with a passel of kids and all the ups and downs that true love can weather. The second was quite different; sadly, I watched them go their separate ways and spend the rest of their lives in search of the love they had lost. I couldn't let that happen.
I took a step back, and they promptly forgot all about me and went back to screaming insults at each other.
Thanks for the useless visual, I said to no one.
There wasn't time to contemplate any hidden meanings in the vision, and with no other recourse, I'd have to go all witchy on the situation. I ransacked my memory for anything useful and hit on a love spell I remembered from one of the books in the sanctum. Another moment to make some adjustments, and then I whispered:
"Wind, water, earth, and fire
Hear my call; know my desire
May two hearts beat in time once more
And hate return to its consort
As I command, so mote it be!"
Hushed words, rippling power, and a final intake of breath before the spell slid through me; a reckless rush of energy tinged with the darkness born of a negative working. Three times power would return to show me the truth of this making. I could only hope my desire to help would balance the scales, or I was in for a world of hurt. But, it had to be done.
Twinkling motes carried my intent across the air toward the man and woman walking a few feet ahead of me, and I wished I knew their names. It seemed like the least I could do given the havoc my brother had created in their lives. The spell hit with a shiver and the faint scent of ozone.
It took about two seconds before all hell broke loose.
As though they were Stepford families out on furlough, every person within shouting distance turned on the unwitting victims of my spell. Instead of pitchforks and torches, the crowd wielded whatever they had at hand. The poor couple went down in a hail of Frisbees, softballs, and a picnic basket. It wasn't just people who went berserk. A squirrel leaped onto the man's back as he tried his best to protect his woman.
What had I done? I turned my concentration on the couple and pointed directly at them, hoping nobody in the vicinity noticed I was acting like a complete lunatic and tried to undo whatever mistake I had just made:
"Reverse my spell, cleanse the slate
Return the love of true soul mates."
The spell dissipated, but not before a baying beagle lifted his leg and loosed a stream all over the prone woman. My plan to handle this with magic collapsed like a house of cards and, hoping guilt was not written plainly over my face, I rushed to help.
"Are you all right?" With the spell lifted, the crowd wandered off, most shaking their heads as if to dispel an unbidden daydream.
"Did you see what just happened?" The man helped the woman to her feet and began searching her for signs of injury while brushing bits of grass and dirt from her clothes. She had a Frisbee welt on her arm, a purpling raw mark on one knee, and a look of disgust over the wet dog stain on her Capri pants. "Grace, are you hurt?"
"I'm fine. Just a bit winded from when you landed on me, and a little wet. What happened? One minute we were walking along and the next..." Grace turned her head, luminous brown eyes scanning the area for signs of threat, "...you landed on me."
At least the fight was forgotten.
"My name is Lexi, and I was right behind you." I tried to lay my spin on things. "It looked like you were in the wrong place at the right time. A total coincidence."
"Are you kidding me? You call it a coincidence when someone tosses a picnic basket at you? That's pretty specific if you ask me. Those people were throwing things on purpose. I saw their faces, and they meant to hurt us." The hand not wrapped around Grace's arm gestured wildly toward the rest of the people in the park. "I ought to call the cops."
"James!" Grace injected enough heat to pull his focus back to her. "Whatever started this, it's over now, and there's dog pee dripping into my shoe. Just take me home." When he stubbornly stood in place, she tugged on his hand, "Please."
With great reluctance and an annoyed glance back at me, James allowed Grace to pull him away from the scene of the incident. I watched them walk away before turning my own feet toward home. Not only did I have the worry of how the spell's energy would return to me, but I had to go back and describe the debacle to my familiar, Salem. I was not looking forward to that.
By now, Jett was long gone, and if he'd meant this to be a show of power, h
e'd come out on the losing side, but only just. I was going to have to step up my game.
Chapter Nine
Kin was the first to arrive at my house for dinner; Flix was also slated to make an appearance, bringing the head count to a comfortable eight including Salem and the godmothers, who needed no excuse to throw a soiree but were also using us as guinea pigs for their next party planning endeavor. We were expected to taste test their menu, and they demanded nothing less than brutal honesty, which hopefully would not be used against us at a later date.
The Balefire, crackling loudly from its hearth in the parlor, was visible through the open adjoining door to the dining room, but every bit of heat it produced got sucked right up the chimney during warmer months thanks to an effective faerie charm. Since Vaeta let it slip that as the fire's mistress, I could change the color of the flame with nothing more than my will, I'd been experimenting. Tonight, I'd gone for shades of purple to complement the current color scheme in the dining room. Storing up points with the faeries never hurt.
Lavender linen so soft it felt like silk draped the expanse of the dining table, illuminated by a series of twinkle bulbs suspended from the ceiling by an invisible thread. Golden light danced off hand-blown glass goblets rimmed with a strip of silver inlay and matching cutlery. The entire center of the table was a tangle of multi-colored orchids and some exotic greenery I couldn't name.
"Hello dear!" the four of them chorused as Kin entered the kitchen which was, for once, pristine even though Terra, Evian, Soleil, and Vaeta had been cooking and preparing for dinner in there all afternoon. Terra rushed forward to envelop Kin in a hug that prompted a blush (having your head crammed into a faerie's voluptuous bosom will do that to any guy) and accepted the jar of homemade caramelized onion jam he offered with a puzzled expression.
All Spell is Breaking Loose: Lexi Balefire: Matchmaking Witch (Fate Weaver Book 2) Page 6
