“Oh,” he says, trying to catch the waitress’ attention. “I used the hand dryer.”
“In two minutes?” Dex questions.
Atlas gives him a tight smile that does not meet his eyes. I swear the color in them is different than earlier, not so much a cedar but the blue gray of a spruce on a cold day. “I suppose you want to get down to business.”
We do. But I mean, I’m also intrigued by how he dried off so fast, like there’s no way that’s possible.
But the waitress comes by with our coffees, which look thicker than motor oil, and Atlas puts in an order for green tea.
“What do you want to know?” he finally asks, folding his hands in front of himself. He has a lot of silver rings on his fingers, something I never noticed before. Maybe because I’ve never been this close to him in the daylight, inside a public building.
I look at Dex, trying to figure out who should go first. He gives me a nod to take the lead. I guess it’s mainly my story now.
“Atlas…” I begin. “I’m not really sure how to say this, but I think your mother is haunting me.”
Of course the waitress picks this moment to drop off his green tea, giving the three of us quite the look before she quickly leaves. I don’t think she’ll be by to offer us a refill.
He picks up the string on the tea and moves the bag back and forth in the hot water, not saying anything for a minute. Then, “How do you know it’s my mother?”
“What really happened to her?” Dex asks, plowing on through. So much for me taking the lead. “You lied to us.”
“I never lied to you,” he says simply in that vacant tone he does so well, staring down at the mug.
“You fucking did. You said she drowned. You left out the part about her drowning in a pool of her own blood. Did she kill herself? Did someone kill her? What happened in that house?”
Dex’s leg is starting to bounce, the adrenaline running through him, and I put my hand on his thigh to remind him to calm down. He’s already in a mood.
Atlas finally looks up, meeting Dex’s eyes. “Harry said she drowned because he couldn’t face the truth of what she did and what she was. He never could. That’s why he killed himself.”
“You think he killed himself?” I whisper.
His eyes go to mine but they give me nothing. “What is the alternative? That he went for a swim?”
“That he was compelled to do so,” I offer.
The tiniest smile creeps up on his lips. “So then you know about her.”
“I have theories,” I tell him. “But we need to hear the truth from you, about all of this. Both of you were lying to us from the start and we need to know why.”
His eyes flutter closed, his lashes dark, and he inhales and exhales deeply, like he’s suddenly meditating.
“I will tell you everything,” he says in a low voice, enough so that Dex has to lean in to hear him. “And when I am done, I won’t say anymore. I can’t. You have to trust me on that.”
I automatically push my hand into Dex’s thigh, silencing him, knowing he has a rebuttal to that.
“Okay, we will,” I assure him.
“And no matter what I say,” he says, his eyes still closed, “you should choose to believe me, for your own sake.”
His eyes open and now they’re not green at all but grey. The dull, desaturated gray of the Veil. My hand on Dex’s thigh turns into a fist.
“Dude,” Dex says in a whisper, “do you know that your eyes just changed color?”
“Did they now?” he asks, not looking amused. He looks to me. “I come from a long line of witches. This is one of the traits passed down.”
Witches. So Maximus was right.
“Your mother was a witch,” Dex says.
“She still is,” he says. “Just because she’s dead, that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Are…you a witch?” I ask. “Can a guy be a witch?”
Again, not amused. His eyes go dull. “I’m not your focus here. This is about the women. It’s about the line. I wasn’t lying when I said I was related to Edgar Allan Poe. He had a child out of wedlock, two years before he died. The woman, Jacinda, a witch, took his name regardless of the fact he wanted nothing to do with her. She then had a son and that son married a witch. And then they had a son and that son married a witch. And so on, and so on. Blood passed down through the generations, mixing with power.”
“So you really are a son of a witch,” Dex comments, running his hand over his jaw.
“Yes,” he says dryly. “Can’t say I haven’t heard that one before.”
“So your mother, a witch, then married a descendent of Poe. Obviously not Harry,” I say.
“No. She married my father, Victor.”
Both Dex and I stiffen in unison.
Atlas eyes us uneasily. “I take it you’ve seen him in the house?”
Dex clears his throat. “Uh, part of him.”
Atlas nods. “I see. So that was Victor. He was an awful person. Just awful. Abusive to me, to my mother, overly cruel. Hated animals, people, hated me especially. Hated everything and delighted in hurting others. He was a psychopath and there wasn’t a moment growing up where I didn’t feel like my mother and I could die any day at his hands.”
“Oh my god,” I say softly, while Dex loudly slurps his coffee, his attention glued to Atlas.
“He wanted to control her, he wanted the power she had. She wasn’t an especially powerful or prophetic witch, but she could work with the elements well. Water, fire, wind. Water especially. Birds were her familiar. But he hated that, hated that she could do things he couldn’t.” He takes a sip of his tea, looking ever so casual. “They were destined, you see. A witch is always destined to marry the sons of Poe. That’s the way it is. And after so many generations, you were bound to get a man with bad blood. At least she had me, so that was her reasoning. And she took the abuse over and over again until one day she couldn’t.”
He looks around the restaurant absently, as if reminding himself of where he is. Then he visibly relaxes in his seat and gives us a tepid look.
“She killed him.”
Fuck.
Samantha Poe killed her first husband. Somehow I’m not surprised at all.
“It was self defense,” Atlas continues with a shrug. “Except that it was done in a ritualistic way. The worst kind. Black magic. The stuff she wasn’t supposed to touch. Not to mention that killing him ruined any future chances of the line carrying on, in the event that I don’t…succumb to destiny, as they say.”
“What kind of ritualistic way?” Dex asks.
“I came home from school one day and found my father spread out on the kitchen table, set up like an altar, cut up into different pieces.”
I nearly choke on my coffee, my hand shaking as I lower the mug.
Holy shit.
No wonder Atlas is so fucked up.
“I thought I had it bad,” Dex says, whistling under his breath.
“You still had it bad, Dex,” Atlas tells him, and I don’t bother asking how he knows that about Dex. I’m assuming he knows everything about us going forward. “Don’t let someone else’s horror story diminish that. Besides, I still had my mother.”