14. Fifteen Rowan

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN: ROWAN

A line's eyes burned into my back as I moved around the kitchen, filling the kettle and setting it on the element to boil. Every inch of my skin crawled with the sensation something terrible would happen if I didn't make the tea perfectly and count the Great Hall windows. Aline was watching me and I needed to do this on my own and why was she watching me?

My hand trembled as I reached for the cups. I dropped one on the flagstones. Ceramic sherds skidded in all directions.

"Oh, dear. Let me help." Aline hurried to my side.

"I've got it." I tried to grab the broom, but it fell through my fingers and clattered on the floor. Aline grabbed it up and swept the broken cup into a pile beside the counter.

"Do I make you uncomfortable, Rowan?"

"Yes." I stared at the mess on the ground. "Don't take it personally. Everything makes me uncomfortable."

"Did you want to ask me something?"

I nodded.

"About your parents?"

I nodded again.

"They died in the ritual." Aline closed her eyes. "I didn't know that before. So many died that night. So many children grew up without their parents. I'm sorry if I upset you earlier."

"Please…I really want to know."

"It's funny." Aline picked up two blueberries from the container on the counter and popped them in her mouth. "All those years I was trapped, I thought so much about Maeve but I never once considered what had happened to everyone else and what a mess we might've left behind for all of you. They were witches, of course. Dana was a water user, and Charles was earth. I'm not surprised you inherited his power along with his good looks."

"I don't even know what they looked like. There aren't any pictures."

"That doesn't make sense. Dana was always snapping away with a camera. She had hundreds of photographs of the coven in an album – our rituals, our parties, everything."

"Corbin's parents threw out a lot of stuff, after—" I caught myself. It wasn't right to tell Aline about Keegan. That wasn't my story.

Aline frowned. ‘That's not right! They shouldn't be erasing our history like that! I can't believe Andrew would do that– he was always going on about how we'd know so much more about the mistakes of the past if we didn't burn so many books."

"He changed his mind."

"I don't believe it!" Aline glanced out the window into the garden. "Where does he live now? I'll ask him."

"No!" After Corbin's dad made such an effort to reach out to his son through Maeve, I didn't want Aline showing up at their house and scaring them away again. "I mean, he's not involved in Briarwood anymore."

"Now I really don't believe you. Andrew promised me he'd watch over Maeve. He'd never back down from a promise like that."

"He has his reasons. That's why we're all here. We watch over Maeve now." The blueberries dripped juice trails down her fingers. I counted the trails as they twisted around her arm. "Can you please just tell me about my parents?"

Aline grinned, her own questions forgotten as she swept her hand in a dramatic flourish. She relished her role as the sage oracle from the past. "Let's see… I grew up here at Briarwood, as you know. Your mother Dana lived in Pembroke Hall just over the hills – on the other side of Holly Avenue, near Raynard Hall. We played together while our mothers did magical things. I didn't like Dana's mother much – she was always scolding me for having rumpled clothes and unruly hair. Sometimes Dana snuck over to Briarwood at night – I'd leave the kitchen gate unlatched and she'd sneak up the secret staircase and we'd stay up all night wishing on the stars." Aline popped five more blueberries into her mouth. "Sometimes when Dana came in the night, I could tell she'd been crying. She always had bruises on her arms and legs. She said she bruised easily. I believed her at the time."

My hands gripped the edge of the table so hard the knuckles turned white. I hated to think the violence that had been a daily part of my life had been my mother's reality, too. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

"Dana's parents sent her away to a fancy boarding school. I stayed here at Briarwood. I didn't want to do anything except practice magic every day and build the new coven. My parents had a few friends they trusted – but it wasn't the coven I imagined; a true melding of kindred souls. My mother couldn't wait to hand it over to me so they could retire to the Maldives. When I was 21 my parents moved out and I moved all my friends in." She threw up her hands. "It was free love – any witch or weirdo was welcome. People in the village called us a commune. Rumours flew around about the orgies and naked dancing going on at the castle. I loved every moment of it."

I bet you did.

"By this time, Dana had started her law degree at Cambridge. She came back for the uni holidays, but her mother forbid her to see me. Imagine her precious daughter friends with the local witch? The scandal! But I guess Dana had enough. She appeared on the kitchen doorstep one night, her face bruised, a battered suitcase in her arms and a fierce look in her eyes. She moved in to my bedroom and we stayed up all night wishing on the stars and she told me she wanted to leave her law degree and Cambridge and join the Briarwood coven.

"The very next day she went down to Cambridge to submit her withdrawal paperwork, and returned a week later with a towering man with bright eyes and a kind smile. She introduced him as George, her husband. They'd married in secret that weekend. Your mother was so timid, I never expected it of her, especially not without consulting her parents first. Especially because…" Aline's face had that apologetic look people get when they know they're about to say something you won't want to hear.

Because my grandparents wouldn't approve, I filled in for her inside my head. My legs trembled. Because my father was black.

Because no one in your family is ever good enough.

My shoulders tightened as the anxiety clawed its way up my spine, lodging itself in my windpipe. My breathing slowed. I scrabbled at the edge of the counter for something to hold me upright.

No, not now. I need to hear this. I need to know.

If you dig into the past, you'll kill everyone you care about. Maeve will suffer if you don't stop asking about your parents. Corbin will die if you keep pushing. You think everyone accepts your relationship with Corbin, but you're wrong. You'll be ostracised from Briarwood. You'll have to go back to the streets...

I whipped my head up, fixing my gaze behind Aline's ear at my jars of herbs and spell mixtures lined up on the shelf. One…two…three…

The counting brought some relief. The tension in my shoulders loosened. The room no longer spun. But it wasn't enough, wasn't nearly enough.

If Aline noticed anything unusual about my behaviour, she didn't say anything. "Dana may have been quiet, but she was stubborn," she continued. "She and George moved into the room Corbin has now. She flaunted their marriage in the village, holding his hand and flashing her ring around so word got back to their mother. They had a screaming fight at the farmer's market one day. Dana made a pipe burst in the public bathroom, so a huge spray of filthy water hit her mother right in the face." She hooted at the memory. "I'd never seen Dana use her magic like that before, never out of anger. But her parents were cruel. They deserved it!"

...ten, eleven, twelve…

My nails dragged against the granite countertop. I strained to hear Aline's words over the screaming voice in my head.

"Your father was the chef here at Briarwood. More than that, he was the life of every single party. He was always joking and telling ludicrious stories at the top of his lungs. Anyone living in the castle spent most of their day in here, throwing whatever they could find into his pots when his back was turned and gorging themselves on all his amazing baking."

...sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… I gasped for air. My chest ached, a heavy weight squeezing my lungs.

"Dana had tremendous skill as a healer. She trained as a midwife and delivered every one of the babies at Briarwood, including Maeve. She acted as a midwife for any woman who needed her around the shire, even if they couldn't pay. I often woke in the night to the sounds of her collecting her things and driving off into the night. She used to sell soaps she made and infused with herbs from the garden at the castle gift shop. A cosmetic company in London wanted to give her forty grand for her soap recipe, but she refused because they couldn't assure her they wouldn't test on animals. I can't believe you didn't know any of this already."

"How would I know?" I choked out. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four...

"Surely your grandparents looked after you after your parents died? They knew all about your mother's powers, even though they never appreciated her."

"They told me I had no family left," I whispered. "That's why I went into the foster system."

Aline clamped her hands over her mouth. "That doesn't make any sense. I don't know about George's parents – I think they live on a Caribbean island somewhere, but Melanie and Richard definitely still lived at Pembroke Hall and they had so much money." Her face lit up. "I know. We could visit them. I bet they're still up at that hall, or another relative is. Melanie would've returned as a zombie before she let anyone else get their hands on their estate."

Visit them?

My legs jerked beneath me. My whole life I'd dealt with the crushing pain of being completely alone in the world. The care workers had never been able to locate my family. All this time, they had been right around the corner, living it up in a huge mansion while I drowned in my own private hell.

Did they even care when my mother died? Did they even know? They had to know. Why didn't they want to help her son? Why didn't they want me?

Because no one wants you. Your grandparents let you live in hell rather than take you in.

My vision blurred. The jars on the shelf melded together, impossible to count. I wrenched my neck around, searching for the comfort of something else to count.

Another thought occurred to me. Corbin must know . He'd worked his way back through the coven history and done extensive research to find me. The first place he'd have looked was my grandparents.

He knew they lived nearby – practically next door – and he never told me.

Because he doesn't care about you. He doesn't want you to have family. He wants you to be his broken boy, the brother he could save.

I swivelled my head back to the shelves, but the jars and bottles blurred into one. I grabbed for the counter, but my fingers slid off. Aline leaned toward me, her mouth moving.

"Help," I whispered, but it was pointless. No one could help me. No one wanted me.

My legs gave out from underneath me. My head hit something hard. Bright lights spun in front of my eyes, and a dark shadow loomed over me, before it consumed the light entirely, and the world turned black.