“Is your uncle right?” he asked.
“Yes. I felt something. I’ve always felt different, but I don’t know what it means exactly when you say I’m one of you. Am I now an accepted member of this family for some reason?”
“Yes, you’re an accepted member, but we’re not just any family, Sage. We are all Wiccans. We were all born into it. You were born of a mother who wasn’t one of us, but your father was. You’re not the first who was born this way. Some have joined us; some have not. Your parents had the responsibility of bringing you up to determine if you would be one of us or not.”
“Wiccans?”
“We’re often referred to as witches, but that belies our true meaning and purpose because of how the word ‘witch’ was used to denigrate people with spiritual power and vision. Religious leaders thought we were heretics, children of the devil, when we have always been just the opposite. We do no harm, and those few of us who do evil know that they eventually will suffer three times as much,” he said.
“We tried to bring you along slowly, a step at a time. Your parents already have introduced you to our spiritual beliefs,” Aunt Suzume continued. “In our religion, our god and goddess complement each other. Think of yin and yang.”
“Our doorbell,” I said, looking at my mother. She smiled and nodded.
“We will teach you more about us, about yourself, now,” Uncle Alexis said, “but we’ve always known you have inherited much of what we are. Those visions and memories you’ve had are real. We believe the soul is reincarnated over many lives in order to learn and advance spiritually.”
“They weren’t simply mad dreams?”
“Oh, no. They were paths leading you back to your true heritage, your true self. The powers that you’ve observed in your uncle Wade and have begun to experience yourself are what we call white magic. Wade uses it to make a living,” Aunt Suzume said, smiling at him, “but, like us, he uses it to heal, to protect, and to fight negative powers. You have never used your visions to harm anyone, but you have used white magic to help someone, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I told you about this girl. Her name is Cassie Marlowe. She was being abused by her father. I used the pen Uncle Wade had given me to alert the school nurse,” I said, looking at him. “More white magic?”
Uncle Wade nodded and smiled.
“I suspected the resulting handwriting style was the style of the man who first owned it. It was clearly not mine, a perfect disguise enabling me to remain anonymous.”
“Exactly,” Uncle Wade said. “I knew you would use it for a good purpose one day.”
“You’ve always tried to help others, to make them happy. You’ve demonstrated humility, concern, and compassion,” Aunt Suzume said.
“How do you know all this, know that I’ve done more?”
“We know the way you know things that are beyond others,” Uncle Alexis said. “We have never been very far from you.”
I looked at my father. “You told me Uncle Alexis was away and you hadn’t seen him for a very long time, when he was always nearby.”
“We told you what we could when we could,” he said. “We were worried about moving you along too quickly and frightening you, Sage. We tried our best to be proper parents to you, proper Wiccan parents.”
“Who is my biological father? My birth mother?” I asked. I looked at Uncle Wade. Was he my real father? Was that why we always seemed more connected?
“Your biological father is an outcast,” Uncle Alexis said. “He is not part of our coven, our family, anymore. He was corrupted, drunk on his powers. He bewitched your birth mother, bewitched many women. To escape us, he took on another identity. For years, he has been on the run from not only us but also from other Wiccan families.”
“But he has returned,” my father said.
“For you,” my mother added.
“This was the man you were always warning me about, questioning me about whether I had seen someone watching me, stalking me?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this years ago?”
“We weren’t sure how you would turn out,” she said without blinking an eye. “We had to discover if you would be more like him or more like the rest of us.”
I looked at Uncle Wade. He had been trying to tell me some of this in his way. It was why he was always telling me to be more patient with my parents. My latest conversation with him returned to me, especially my confession about what I had discovered in my father’s office.
“The two other children you took in . . .”
“Were also of mixed blood,” my mother said. “But we were able to quickly realize that they weren’t going to be like us. We couldn’t keep them.”
“Were they my biological father’s children, too?”
“No,” she said quickly. “In their cases, it was the mother who had gone wrong.”
“A terrible disappointment to us,” Uncle Alexis said, shaking his head. “Every family has one or two, but we’ve had three.”
“Where are those children now?”
No one answered. I nodded. Some things needn’t be spoken for me to hear the answers.
“Where I might have gone?”
Uncle Wade nodded first.
“Why are you telling me all this now? Why today?”
“Because, as your parents just said, he’s come back for you,” Uncle Alexis said.
“Why now? Why did he wait so long?”
“He’s not stupid. He planned well,” Uncle Alexis said. “If it weren’t for your parents, he might have succeeded.”
“Taking you away with him would be a great victory for him over us,” Aunt Suzume added.
“Where is he right now?”
“You know,” my mother said. “You’ve met him.”
I felt my heart stop and start. My right hand fluttered up to my throat. I started to shake my head. It couldn’t be. They had to be wrong.
“Don’t worry. He won’t be here long,” my father said.
“How did you know he was here?”
“We weren’t sure until yesterday,” my mother said. “When his son couldn’t overcome what we had placed in front of our house to protect us from evil spirits, we knew his spirit was among us. His son has followed in his path because he was brought up with him. I’m sorry.”
“Summer’s not evil. He can’t be.”
“Think,” my mother said. “Has he used what powers he has inherited to harm others?”
I couldn’t swallow for a moment. My lungs seemed to seize up. What was done to poor Ned Wyatt, Skip pushing Jason down the stairway, the fight in school, what he had done to the girls and the boys at Jason’s house—all of it came rushing back at me. He used his powers to do all those evil things. I understood why I was so suspicious, but I wouldn’t see it because he was sincerely interested in me.
“I believed he was in love with me,” I said. “I have strong feelings for him, feelings I can’t deny.”
“You have to deny them. He’s your half brother,” my mother said. “Don’t tell us you never sensed it?”
I looked at her. Yes, I had sensed it. I had sensed it last night. That was what made me resist. How much did she and my father really know? Did they know he was here? Did they let it happen to see what I would do? Their faces seemed to be saying yes.
I shook my head. “This can’t be.”
“It is,” my father said. “It can be, and it is.”
A new hope occurred to me. “But does Summer know who I am?”
“Yes,” my mother said quickly, too quickly.
“We’re not absolutely sure,” my father added in a softer tone, “but most likely, yes.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“You must,” Uncle Wade said. “You must accept that what we are telling you is the truth. We never lie to one another.”
“Don’t be nervous,” Aunt Suzume said with a warm smile. “Don’t be afraid.”
“There is much for you to learn now about us, about yourself,” Uncle Alexis said. “You will be part of our family. We’ll teach you how to use your powers and your wisdom for great good. You’ll have special responsibilities, and you will swear to obey our rules and our laws and follow our beliefs. Above all, you will swear to protect us. You can begin now by accepting all we have told you. It’s a joy to have you,” he added.
I looked at my parents. Never before had they looked as happy and as loving as they did at this moment.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you,” my mother said. “We had to be sure you are what you are.”
“How are you so sure now?”
“We know you haven’t used your powers for evil, but we also know you are in a dangerous place now, with your father and his son trying to win you away. Both your father and I sensed that this was a crisis, and Alexis decided it was time to bring you into our family to have its protection,” she explained. “The temptation is too great.”
The mysteries and secrets I saw as flies caught in cobwebs in our house began to break free. I understood now why my parents did not want me telling stories about visions and dreams. There were things that had to be kept hidden so as not to bring unwanted attention to them, to us all.
“Those things I found in your office filing cabinet, Dad, those pictures and documents.”
“What about them?”
“They were real, weren’t they? They weren’t jokes you and Uncle Wade created.”
“Yes, they’re real.”
“How old are you?”
“We’re both old enough to be beyond our Wiccan powers. They weaken with age, but not for the first hundred years or so,” he said. “That’s why your mother and I foster children who are questionable. It’s our responsibility to the family now, how we can still contribute to the Belladonnas. But you must believe me when I say you have been different for us. We do love you, Sage, love you no less than if you were our biological child.”
I looked at everyone’s face and saw how they were all studying me and my reactions. Was this the final test? The truth and how I would accept it? Would I still refuse to accept it? Would I flee?
“What exactly will happen to me now? Am I to leave? Live with someone else?”
“No, no. You’ll continue as you are,” Uncle Alexis said. “And as I said, you’ll take your place among us, and in time, you will completely understand yourself and what good you can do. It will be different now that you know all this, but you have the wisdom of ages in you, and we’re confident you’ll be someone of whom we can be proud.”
“What about my father and Summer?”
“You must not worry about that,” my father said. “What needs to be done about them will be done.”
“And my mother, my birth mother?”
“What about her?” Uncle Alexis said.
“What happened to her?”
“Nothing bad.”
“Where is she?”
“She has her own life, her new family. She’s fine. We made sure of that.”
“Does she know what happened to me?”
“No. She doesn’t even remember giving birth to you,” Aunt Suzume said. “It was for the best. It had to be. We only use our powers for good, and it was good for her to escape your father and what he had brought.”
“Me. He had brought me!”
My outburst surprised them all, and for a moment, no one spoke.
“If we didn’t do what we had to do, she wouldn’t have survived. She wouldn’t have the good life she has now. It’s okay,” Aunt Suzume added. “You don’t have to worry about her.”
“But I can’t stop thinking about her. I want to know who she is. I want to see her.”
“She wouldn’t know who you are. You’d frighten her,” Uncle Alexis said.
“I don’t have to tell her who I am. I want to know who she is.”
No one spoke. I knew this was an unusual situation for them, a situation my biological father had caused. It was untested ground, but I was willing to test it.
“It’s what I want,” I said firmly. “If I’m going to live with the truth now, I want the whole truth. I want to know exactly who I am. I won’t swear to anything. I won’t accept anything less.”
They all continued to stare at me, and then Aunt Suzume broke the heavy mood when she smiled. “She’s a lot like me when I was her age,” she said. “Stubborn and determined.”
“All right. We’ll see what we can do,” Uncle Alexis said. He looked at everyone else. “Let’s let her rest. She doesn’t realize how tired she is and how all this has affected her.”
“Alexis is right. Just rest,” my mother said. “Later, we’ll all gather for a celebratory dinner and for the rituals that will bind you to us and us to you. Every day from now on, you’ll learn more and more about us, what we believe, how we help each other, and how we can help others. Nothing more will be kept from you. I promise.”
Uncle Wade stepped forward again and kissed my cheek. “Now you will be another magician in the family,” he said.
My father kissed me, too. “I always believed in you, Sage, always.”
They all turned and walked out slowly.
I lay back on my pillow. Uncle Alexis was right. This confrontation was mentally and emotionally exhausting. My head felt like my brain was overflowing, pouring thoughts and images out so fast it made me dizzy. It was like overeating and waiting for it all to digest. I closed my eyes and drifted off, but not for long. Something getting very hot stung me and woke me. I had left Summer’s pendant in my bed. Slowly, I picked it up and looked at it.
Could I just forget him despite what I knew about him? My father wasn’t as confident about what he knew and didn’t know as my mother was. This pendant didn’t just turn warm. He made it turn warm, I thought. He was calling to me. I rose slowly and went to my window. It was nearly two o’clock. I had promised to meet him at the lake. If I did, would my new extended family think I was betraying them? Was it possible to do anything they wouldn’t know about?
I looked toward the lake. The partly cloudy sky was playing hide-and-seek with the sun, but the rays made the water a dazzling silver. A lone crow flew close to the water and then turned into the forest as if something had frightened it. The breeze strengthened and seemed to shake the trees. Just as suddenly, it stopped, and all looked still, more like an oil painting framed in my window.
My father had said I shouldn’t worry about Summer or his father. “What needs to be done about them will be done.” What did that mean? Was Summer already gone? What about the pendant and what I had just felt? I strained to look closer at the lake. He’s there, I thought. He’s waiting for me. He has to be. He was just as much a victim of his father as I was. Yes, he did bad things, and he was far more capable of doing them than I was, but I must have seen something good in him to care about him even now, even after I had heard the truth.
I stepped out of my room and listened. Everyone was in the living room talking. What was it Summer had said? He walked on a breeze? I imagined it, imagined myself doing it, and descended. Softly, I opened the rear door and slipped out. Then I hurried around the house and toward the lake. Half of me hoped he would be there, and half of me hoped he wouldn’t. I followed the path Uncle Wade and I had taken when we had our little talk not so long ago.
Farther along, there was a place on the shore that jutted out a bit into the water. The narrow land looked like a natural dock. To the right, the forest had a thicker patch of trees and bushes, but the leaves had dried and fallen, creating a rug of dark orange and brown. I waited and listened. Foolishly, I had come out without a jacket or a sweater, and the cooler air stung my cheeks. I hugged myself and was ready to turn back when I heard him say my name.
I turned and saw him standing at the edge of the woods. He wore a black sweatshirt with the hood up and had his hands in the pockets.
“I knew you would come,” he said, stepping toward me.
&
nbsp; “Do you know who I am, who we really are?” I asked. I had no time to build up slowly to my important questions. Everything was going to happen quickly now.
He stopped but held his smile. “Of course. I knew who you were from the first day I entered the school,” he said, with that cool, confident smile I had at first admired. Now it filled me with dread.
“How did you know?”
“I would have known just looking at you, listening to you, and seeing the way you looked at other people.”
“But that’s not the way you knew,” I said.
“No.” He stepped closer.
“Our father told you, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but what difference does it make now?” He reached out to touch me, and I stepped back.
“What difference does it make now? We have the same father, Summer.”
“That’s why we’re special people, Sage. The rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to us.”
“Not that rule.”
He didn’t lose his smile. “You’ll get over that,” he said. “We’re the prospective parents of the wonder generation to come. What we can do, what we can see, will be nothing compared with what they will do and see.”
“Your father’s told you lies. He seduced your mother, just as he did mine. He’s not a good man.”
“No. He’s a great man.”
“You’re wrong. He’s hurt you deeply, taught you all the wrong things to do and believe. You used your gifts to hurt people, Summer.”
“Please. You can’t feel sorry for them. Besides, what I did was for you.”
“Me?”
“To protect you, to keep you close, and to win you to me. It’s right that we have the power to enjoy each other. We deserve whatever we can get. They don’t matter. We matter.”
“I can’t think like that.”
“That’s because you were brought up by them,” he said, nodding at our house. “They’re stuck in the old ways. They’ll die out. You’ll see. We’re the future.”
“Is this what your father has been telling you?”
“I told you. Our father’s a great man with great vision. They’re jealous of him. That’s all. They know he doesn’t need them, and they can’t tolerate it. You belong with him, with me.”
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