“You seek revenge?”
My eyelids flutter. That specific word had never fallen from my mouth. But it didn’t need to, did it? It’s always been there, in a way. Revenge, retaliation, justice. But even those words aren’t enough, a small voice whispers. They don’t feel deep enough. Big enough.
What did I say to Nick? Punish them for what they did. “Punish” feels better. Punish feels… right.
“Bree? Is that what you want?”
“I want to find who’s responsible”—the words come fast, from the quiet thoughts I’ve buried deep—“use my root abilities, the title I’ll gain, and the contacts I have to bring to justice anyone who was involved.”
Patricia regards me closely. “You said you can resist their hypnosis?”
“Yes, if I want to.” Patricia and Mariah exchange a worried glance. “What is it?”
Patricia’s frown lines deepen. “What else can you do, Bree?”
I tell her everything. How it’s not just the Sight or the mesmer resistance. How I can smell castings. How I can feel Sel’s gaze on my skin. And last, I tell them about the red mage flames.
Mariah’s jaw has long since dropped, but the mage flames bit must have tipped her over. “Holy shit.”
“Language,” Patricia chastises, but her face looks pretty “holy shit” too. She covers trembling fingers with her burgundy shawl, to hide them from me, I think. “And you’ve never called on an ancestor for any of these abilities?”
“No.”
“If you aren’t asking to borrow these powers, then they’ve been bound to you somehow.”
“Bound to me—” I stutter, shaking my head. “No. I mean, bound by who?” Her warning about the Order and their powers comes back to me all in a rush. “You think I’m a Bloodcrafter? No, I’ve never—”
“I know,” Patricia says. “This is why I’ve asked Mariah here today. To get answers.”
Mariah nods to Patricia. “I definitely get it now,” she says, then points a finger at me. “You need to talk to your ancestors.”
I look between the two of them. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
The corner of Mariah’s mouth twitches. “On the other side, they have access to more knowledge than we do. When Doc Hartwood called me this morning, I set out offerings for my grandma to pass the gift to me today. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I can help other people talk to their ancestors too.”
My throat closes tight, my stomach clenches, and my fingers grip the earth beside my knees. Could I really see my mother? Talk to her like I did Louisa? Ask her what happened that night?
“You… can help me talk to my mom? See her again?”
Mariah’s face folds, and I can tell she expected my question. “I can help you call for your people, but I don’t control who answers.”
I nod and blink stinging tears away. My chest is full of the sharp pang of loss and an unexpected feeling of relief. When I imagine seeing my mother again—something I never thought possible—it feels like there are a thousand words that want to come out of my mouth at once. So very many that I cannot speak at all.
Like she’s read my mind, Patricia leans forward to touch my knee. “Love is a powerful thing, more powerful than blood, although both run through us like a river. She may answer you, but if she does not, she still loves you.”
I nod, but my emotions are swirling inside me like a hurricane. “How does it work?”
Mariah folds her hands in her lap. “I amplify the connection between family members, and then make the request. Sort of like sonar. The ancestor who responds might be your mother, it might be a grandparent or great-grandparent, or even further back. If the signal’s strong enough. I can help you speak to them.”
I nibble on my lower lip and wonder if my mother might not want to answer my call. Would she still be angry with me, like she was the night before she died? Would she be proud of what I’m doing? Would she want me to stop? Would I stop if she asked me to?
“Okay,” I say quietly.
Mariah gestures for me to face her until our crossed legs touch, knee to knee. She takes my hands in hers and closes her eyes. Patricia nods reassuringly, and I close mine, too.
“We’ll start slow, Bree,” Patricia says. “You’ll just focus on your love for your mother.”
I pull an image of my mother up from memory and, right away, there’s pain. I see her in her favorite summer housedress, drifting through our home to open up the windows. She’s humming a melody-less tune. I’m reading a book on our living room couch, and when she reaches over my head to open the window, she looks down with a broad, toothy smile against copper-brown skin. Behind her glasses, love, pride, and affection live in the corners of her eyes. I smile, sending my love back, but it twists and sharpens into something else.
“Steady,” Patricia whispers. “Focus on your love for her. Now, imagine the love stretching back to your grandparents, then back further, like a strong thread connecting the generations. That’s what Mariah will follow.”
Like a Line.
I do my best to follow her instructions, imagine my grandmother as my mother described her, but as soon as I do, grief slices through me.
Patricia must sense my pain, like she always does. “Bree, it’s all right. Take slow breaths. We’re right here; you’re not alone.”
I don’t listen. All I can think of is loss. My loss of my mother, my mother’s loss of hers. And what I didn’t tell Patricia: that my great-grandmother died before my mom was born too. None of us met our grandmothers.
Mariah makes a low, whining sound. “There are wells of life, deep ones, but they’re all separated. Tied off from one another.”
Because death breaks our connection! I want to scream. Death is not a thread. It is the sharp cut that severs us. Death separates us from one another, and yet it holds us close. As deeply as we hate it, it loves us more.
My heart pounds to its rhythm.
One mother, two mothers, three mothers. Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Mariah gasps and releases my hands. My eyes open to find her eyes wide, her chest rising with rapid breaths. “Something terrible happened in your family… didn’t it?”
I scramble to my feet, panting and dizzy. “Bree?” Patricia reaches for me, but I can’t look at her. Or Mariah. Patricia calls my name again and again, but her voice sounds farther and farther away—and no wonder, because I’m running from her. Again.
I feel like a coward, but I don’t stop.
33
AFTER THE MEETING with Patricia and Mariah, several hours ignoring their calls, and a fitful nap that left me more tired than rested, I arrive at the Lodge completely uninterested in sitting at a table and making small talk. Nick is nowhere to be found. Busy, he’d texted. That’s fine; I don’t feel like talking.
The dinner display is massive: shrimp cocktails on the rim of mini wine goblets filled with red cocktail sauce; vegetable crudités on two-tiered silver serving dishes; seasonal flowers in red and white nestling between baskets of warm rolls, crostinis, and olive-oil soaked baguettes. Layers of grilled pineapple sticks sit by chocolate-covered melon on a white serving platter.