by J. E. Lezah
“Interesting,” the doctor said as he leaned in close, and placed a tiny ear against Giles’s chest. “Hmmm. Yes. Yes,” he muttered. With broad padded thumbs, Dr. Bluegill pushed against Giles’s cheekbones and forehead.
“Ouch,” Giles grumped.
“Sssh.” Fumbling in his medical bag, Dr. Bluegill took a hand mirror and placed it near Giles’s nose and mouth. “Now breath on this.”
Giles huffed out a sharp breath causing condensation on the glass.
“The good thing is, he’s alive.”
“You don’t say,” Giles said, his eyes wide with feigned excitement.
“Is there bad news?” Aldara asked.
“Your powers are a bit water logged, but they should dry out soon.” The doctor wheezed out a chuckle.
Aldara closed her eyes and prayed for grace and patience to make it through this conversation.
Giles laid his head back. “My powers aren’t a problem since I don’t have any.”
The old wizard squinted at each of them over the rim of his glasses.
“It’s true, Dr. Bluegill,” Aldara said. “Giles is diamage.”
“Impossible,” Bluegill demanded. “I know a witch when I see one.”
“Obviously not,” Giles commented off hand.
The sound that came from Dr. Bluegill was akin to a bullfrog with a stutter. Aldara’s eyes widened at the sight of his bulbous nose turning bright red. She wanted to say something to calm the situation, but she was afraid it would make the situation worse, not better.
Dr. Bluegill pulled a white candle from his inner coat pocket. “Flambeau,” he commanded and the candle flame sprang to life. Without asking he grabbed Giles arm, and held it out before him.
Sensing the unease in Giles, Aldara did her best to give him a reassuring nod and smile. The problem was, she wasn’t convinced herself.
“Mm hmmm,” Bluegill hummed, as he ran the flame beneath Giles’s wrist.
Aldara could see his lips move, but no words were spoken audibly. She could make out the phrase “reveal your secrets”.
Giles cried out, pulling his arm away, and cradling his wrist. “Don’t you guys take an oath or something to harm none?” He groused.
“What the heck is that?” Aldara asked, pointing to Giles’s wrist.
“What?” Giles asked.
Grabbing his hand, she flipped it over, revealing a tattoo of interconnecting lines, squiggles and dots.
“What the hell?” Giles sat up in bed.
Anger smoldered deep within Aldara as the recognition of the sigil. In the realm of witching, sigils were almost as distinct to a family as their crests were, and this one all but mirrored the one on her ceiling.
Tightening the belt on her robe, she headed for the door.
“Hey,” Giles called out. “Where are you going?”
“To find my mother. Magnie Hastings’s got some ‘splaining to do.”
17
Aldara could hear her parent’s voices coming from the study. She pressed her ear to a crack in the door trying to eavesdrop. If only she could understand more than mumbles. Where was her bottle of “The Walls Have Ears” potion when she needed it. Really all she needed was a bit of canine earwax, and she might could pull it off.
Aldara cut her glance to Ismarelda, who smiled up at her. The thought was so tempting, but taking the time to wrestle with her dog was not on the agenda.
Aldara’s hand stilled on the door knob. “What am I waiting for?” She asked Ismarelda. “I’m mad at them.” She dropped her hand, and examined her feelings once more.
Somewhere between Giles’s room and her father’s study, her frustration turned to a mixture of jealousy and all out anger. But confronting her parents in her current state was a recipe for catastrophe. She took a deep breath, centering her thoughts and emotions. “You can do this,” she cheered herself on. Aldara straightened her shoulders. She had this. She knew she had this, if only Ismarelda had allowed her to have it.
Before Aldara could stop her, Ismarelda began whimpering and scratching at the door.
“Sssh, Marelda,” she scolded the dog. “Hush.”
Standing on her back legs, Ismarelda pawed at the door handle, opening it on the first try.
“Aldara?” Magnie opened the door fully to her daughter. “We thought you would be with Giles.”
The nervous quality to her mother’s voice brought out the skeptic in Aldara. “I was.” Aldara watched the interplay between her parents as she walked into the room.
“Has something happened?”
“I don’t know. You tell me,” she said.
Magnie stepped closer. “What are you talking about dear?”
Aldara chewed her bottom lip. How could she calmly tell her parents how confused and hurt she was by the realization the last ten years of her life had been a lie. She clenched her fists at her side to keep from shaking. She could feel the hem of her mother’s dress brush against the back of her shoes.
“Why have you never told me Giles was a witch?” Aldara addressed the question to her father.
Keene visibly stiffened at her question. “I don’t know what you mean.”
She turned now to her mother. “Who is Giles?”
Magnie played with a tendril of hair at the base of her neck. “Oh no,” Magnie cried. “You have amnesia.”
Aldara rubbed the heel of her palm against her forehead. “I don’t have amnesia mother. I need to know who Giles really is.”
“He’s your assistant, Aldara.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Aldara let out an anguished cry and flopped onto the settee where she was quickly joined by Ismarelda.
Keene balanced on the edge of his desk. “Then what do you mean?”
“Why does he bear the family sigil on his wrist?” She looked to both her parents, who, at this point were speechless. With composure born of anger, Aldara settled back into her spot, petted Ismarelda, and waited. If there was one thing she learned in being an event planner, it was that the number one rule of negotiations was the first one to speak loses.
“Tell her,” Keene said.
“But we made a vow.”
“My darling,” Keene’s tone was gentle as he spoke to his wife. “Enough time has passed. We can share this with her.”
Her pulse thudded in her temples to the point she could almost feel her body sway with each pounding beat. “What aren’t you and father telling me?” Aldara did her best not to yell at her parents.
From the wide-eyed stare of her mother, Aldara could only surmise, whatever the answer to her question, it had to be huge. Why else would her parents keep Giles’s identity a secret? “Come on. I know he has to be related to me, but I don’t know how. Is he uncle Morty’s son?”
Morty Merkimer, Aldara’s uncle on her mother’s side was a bit peculiar, which in retrospect, took a great amount of trying. When he was younger, Morty was a well-respected archeologist, who spent most of his time studying hieroglyphs of ancient cultures. He was pretty sure what the Native Americans called the Sky People were actually a coven of witches from the north lands.
In search of answers, Morty decided to investigate the forbidden Cave of the Sky Giants. No one was sure what happened in there, they only know he hasn’t been the same since. Often he would be found wearing tin foil hats and hiding in hollowed out trees mumbling to himself. Occasionally he would shout the words…Rooga Rooga Roo. If asked what he meant, Mortimer would pretend he was invisible.
It didn’t make sense. None of the past few hours made sense. If Giles had been her Uncle Morty’s son, then why would they keep that a secret? Was it possible they let her live and work with a member of her own family and without telling her? Better yet, how was it possible her parents found a way to get her to hire him? If her father had the power to make that happen, then what else in her life had he controlled without her knowing?
Aldara entwined her fingers into Ismarelda’s fur. At the moment, the feel of the downy coat was the onl
y thing keeping her sane. “Okay. Fine. If he’s not my cousin, then…” Aldara’s thoughts twisted first one way, then another. She didn’t like the path her mind was taking, and tried to put the brakes on but the idea train just kept on chugging, stopping at the only logical conclusion.
“Oh. My. Goddess,” she said, trying to keep from squeezing Ismarelda too tight. “He’s my brother. That’s why you don’t want him here. You don’t want him to know. Oh father how could you?”
Keene leapt from the edge of his desk. “Me?”
“Aldara, no,” Magnie cried out.
“What other explanation is there? Why else would he never balk at me doing magic? And why you didn’t want me to touch him when I wanted to do CPR.”
“No, Aldara. You have it all wrong,” Magnie pleaded.
“What mother, what do I have wrong?” she snapped.
“Don’t take that tone with your mother, young lady.”
“I have no tone, father.” Okay, maybe there was a bit of a tone, she conceded, but Snapdragons. She wanted the truth.
“Giles isn’t your cousin, and he is certainly not your brother,” Keene admitted.
“But he is a witch,” Aldara stated.
Magnie sank, exasperated, into the closest seat. “Yes.”
Sitting there, between her parents, Aldara tried not to appear as broken and alone as she felt. Yep, coming home had been worse than expected, and it was time to pack her things and return to her own home, where she felt safe and grounded. But with her magic being wonked out, she knew leaving by herself wasn’t the best option.
Aldara’s gaze fixated on the starburst pattern in the carpet. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her parents. “Who is he?” Aldara asked. Her voice barely a whisper.
“Do you remember Elfed Addington?”
“Yes.”
“Giles is his son.”
“He didn’t have any children.”
“Constance, his wife, was pregnant when he died. You may not remember this, but we took her in. She lived here at Shadowfield until she gave birth to her and Elfed’s son.”
Aldara pulled from the memories of her childhood. She did remember her cousin Constance coming to stay with them when she was a child. She had no memory as to whether or not Constance was pregnant. “Cousin Constance is Giles’s mother?”
“Constance wasn’t actually your cousin. We told you children that as a way of explaining why she was here. But yes, she is Giles’s mother.”
“No. That’s not right.” Aldara half-heartedly protested. “I’ve met Giles’s parents. His mother teaches music in an elementary school and his father’s a dentist.”
Magnie reached for Aldara’s hand, but she pulled away. “She died not long after giving birth to him.” Magnie’s voice broke as she spoke. “Constance believed Elfed’s death was no accident, and she asked that we protect her son.”
“So you what? Cast a spell on him to make him a diamage and placed him with a mortal couple?”
“Something like that.” Her father answered. “I placed the protection spell on him and sent him to the realm of mortals. We figured when the time was right, the call of magic would be powerful enough to bring him back here. What we didn’t expect was for him to find you first.”
Aldara pressed fingertips against her temples, rubbing tiny circles. The pressure inside her head grew greater with each of her parent’s statements. How could she have not known the man she lived and worked with for all these years was a mortal? And to think she had almost let herself fall in love with him. Well, that nonsense ended here.
There was a gentle tapping at the study door. The door crept slightly open, as a single gloved hand slipped an envelope through the door. Keene reached his hand toward the opening, and the envelope floated toward him. With a quick glance, he handed the letter to Aldara.
Aldara hesitated. “For me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Who’s it from?”
“I don’t know, Aldara. Open it and find out.”
Reading the letter, Aldara cried out in frustration. “Ugh. Stupid Tempest and her damnable interview. I just can’t do this now.”
“Aldara?” Magnie asked.
“She wants to change the interview from after the Witches Dance Off to first thing in the morning.”
“That doesn’t seem right.” Concern filled her mother’s voice.
Aldara continued reading. “It’s not that uncommon for reporters to do early morning interviews.”
Keene took a seat beside her. “You can call it off, you know,” he suggested.
“I could, but I won’t.” She rose and moved toward the door. “You know, I was hoping with this interview, you guys would see the good I did in the mortal realm. That I get to make people happy. To give them joy.
A snort of derision escaped her. “Somehow, I thought of myself as an ambassador between the diamage and the witches. I hoped that maybe if I could make enough mortals believe in magic our two worlds could coexist, and witches wouldn’t have to hide who and what we are.
“Instead, I lose my magic, and find out the person I most trust isn’t who or what he thinks he is. That my parents have lied to me pretty much my entire adult life, and that no matter what I do, I will never make you happy or proud of me.”
“Aldara…” Magnie pleaded.
Aldara held out her hands, stopping her mother from coming nearer. “No mother. I’m done. I will do the interview in the morning, then I want to go home. Back to the mortal realm,” she added for clarification.
“What about the Gathering and your powers?”
Dropping her head, Aldara counted to eleven. Of course it would be about the Gathering. “The Gathering will go on with or without me. I can’t work magic anymore anyway. Honestly, at this point, if I lose my powers, I lose them. What good are they if I can’t use them the way I want to?” She opened the door and motioned for Ismarelda to join her.
“And not that you asked, but your secret about Giles is safe with me. That is something you need to tell him.”
With little sound, Aldara shut the door behind her. A part of her wanted to cry, but what was the use? It wouldn’t change anything. Tomorrow she would meet with Tempest, and give her final interview both as an event planner and a witch.
18
Aldara sat on a bench toward the back of the solarium. Pots ranging from the tiny to the size of Volkswagens filled the enclosed room with dozens of herbs and flowering plants. A light rain fell against the glass.
So much of her energy had been spent between brain leeches and Giles, pushing her into a state of emotional and physical exhaustion. Closing her eyes, she let the pitter-pat of the rain and occasional thunder wash through her.
The energy of the room shifted the moment he walked through the door. To ignore him would be rude, but entertaining people wasn’t something she wanted to do either. With any luck, he would realize she wanted to be alone and go away. The sound of foot falls came ever nearer. Maybe if she didn’t open her eyes, he would go away, but that wish ended when she felt the bench shift beneath his weight as he sat down.
“Dr. Bluegill gave me a clean bill of health,” Giles said.
“Mm hmm,” she nodded. Okay, I communicate without speaking. This might work, she thought. If she did speak, what would she say?
They sat in awkward silence for the longest time. Aldara did her best to concentrate as much as possible on the rain, and as little as possible to the solid warmth of Giles’s leg pressed against hers. Until that moment, she was unaware of how cold she had become. She remembered their hug after her father left. Would it be wrong of her to ask for that again?
Everything was so up in the air. Would he stay with her once her powers were gone, and Enchanted Events were no more? When he learns he’s a full witch, will he choose to stay in Hexestadt and study?
She cut a sidelong glance in his direction. With his rumpled clothes and mussed up hair, he was too delicious. What was she thinking? Delici
ous indeed. She sounded like something from a Love Potion Number Eleven novel. Because eleven is hotter than ten, the series tagline went through her mind.
She stilled her thoughts. Now was not the time or the place to think of Giles, and romance novels, and how much she loved him. Goddess help her. She had to admit that somewhere through the years, she had grown to love him. Too bad those feeling weren’t reciprocated.
“Your father told me where to find you,” he said, slicing through the silence.
“How did he? Oh, never mind.” She let the question go. Her father was Keene Hastings the omniscient, he knew everything. Just ask him, he would tell you so.
“He also told me about my parents, and how I’m a witch.” He looked at the underside of his wrist at the sigil. “I’ve always thought my parents were a dentist and an insurance salesman. Definitely not witches.”
“Giles, I’m so sorry. I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah. Thanks. Me either.”
“Are you okay?”
With hands clasped, Giles rested his elbows on his knees. “I’m not sure. I don’t know how to be a witch or if I even want to.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his thumb over his tattoo.
Aldara turned her attention to the windows over head. She watched the rain run in rivulets down the panes. Her emotions too mixed to pick only one. Aldara tried to understand how Giles must feel. Well, maybe she could a bit. After all, her world was upturned as well, however, not to the extent of Giles. Sure she and her father butted heads, but to learn Magnie and Keene were not her parents, that would be total devastation.
Taking his hand in hers, Aldara turned his wrist toward her. She took the opportunity to study the sigil more closely. She recognized the Celtic shield knot used for warding and protection. The other entwined layers she didn’t understand, and until this moment, never had the desire to.
Aldara traced the design with the tip of her index finger.
“You know what it means?” Giles asked.
“Not all of it,” she answered. I do know it is to keep you from harm. The pattern has been in my family for generations.”
