mingle.”
I remembered my last experience with the church group and shuddered. “Somehow, I don’t think they’ll let their guard down around me.”
“I’m new in town,” Wesley said. “Maybe I need to find a new church home.”
My surprise must have registered on my face because he quickly added, “It doesn’t mean I believe in magic, but it doesn’t matter what I believe. That man does, and he wears his hatred on his sleeve. That makes him and anyone who believes in him a suspect.”
Maybe Sheriff Adams had finally found his Scully after all. It bothered me that Wesley’s plan left no room for me, but I couldn’t think of a way to join him at the church without ruining his efforts. Finally, I gave him a decisive nod. “Services are Sunday morning at nine and Wednesday evening at seven. We can spend the next couple of days brainstorming. Maybe Cormack will even get off my back for a week or so.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Wesley said.
Neither would I.
5
I HAD A STANDING INVITATION TO EAT dinner with my family any night of the week, but despite the fact that Kaitlin spent most evenings there, learning to tame her unborn baby’s wild magic, I rarely took them up on the offer. I did stop by after work sometimes to visit my brothers and sisters, offering them the assurance they needed that I had neither left nor forgotten them. Of course, Juliana and Isaac were too old to need that sort of thing, or claimed they were. Christina, Adam, and Elana, at least, were openly appreciative.
I even chatted with my mom, who I understood much better since living in her head for an hour or so. She didn’t have active magic any longer either, which meant we were far more similar than she would have had me believe. For nearly two decades, she had channeled magic through her children while pregnant or breastfeeding. But it was all borrowed magic, and she knew time was nearly up. The twins she now carried would be her last, and when they weaned, she would have to learn to live without. If she weren’t living in such staunch denial of that fact, we might have made more progress toward patching our relationship.
Declining dinner invitations wasn’t about her, though. It was about avoiding my father. I told him that living on my own meant cooking my own meals, and that was true enough, but Dad couldn’t string two sentences together without trying to get me to accept his hatred of the Blackwoods. He dredged up old battles and old wounds, none of which had anything to do with Evan, though the look in his eyes implored me to take some kind of hint.
I didn’t. At times it made me feel dense, but I simply couldn’t make sense of any of it. The more I tried, the more tears I shed over a man who had abandoned fifteen years of friendship and a brand new romance without so much as telling me why.
It could have been a spell. In my daydreams, I still found out it was a spell. Perhaps his father didn’t want to see us together after all, despite what he had said to the contrary.
But only the Blairs might know that sort of powerful mind magic, and some of the things Matthew had let slip recently made me think even they couldn’t have done it. At least, not so forcefully and permanently. Inconsistencies, as Matthew had said.
So I spent my evenings at home with Madison, teaching her to cook. She learned quickly, as with just about everything else – everything except self-confidence, perhaps.
Her confidence had taken a severe blow when her father had kicked her out, refusing to pay for her college tuition unless she agreed to teach math instead of music. In the same conversation he had also let slip that he had adopted her, something Madison hadn’t brought up again since.
She hadn’t started dating Nicolas for a few weeks after that, though he had pestered her, intrigued by her gift. She had given in to his pestering the day he had helped Kaitlin and me move into the house, two days after she herself had moved
I remembered my last experience with the church group and shuddered. “Somehow, I don’t think they’ll let their guard down around me.”
“I’m new in town,” Wesley said. “Maybe I need to find a new church home.”
My surprise must have registered on my face because he quickly added, “It doesn’t mean I believe in magic, but it doesn’t matter what I believe. That man does, and he wears his hatred on his sleeve. That makes him and anyone who believes in him a suspect.”
Maybe Sheriff Adams had finally found his Scully after all. It bothered me that Wesley’s plan left no room for me, but I couldn’t think of a way to join him at the church without ruining his efforts. Finally, I gave him a decisive nod. “Services are Sunday morning at nine and Wednesday evening at seven. We can spend the next couple of days brainstorming. Maybe Cormack will even get off my back for a week or so.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Wesley said.
Neither would I.
5
I HAD A STANDING INVITATION TO EAT dinner with my family any night of the week, but despite the fact that Kaitlin spent most evenings there, learning to tame her unborn baby’s wild magic, I rarely took them up on the offer. I did stop by after work sometimes to visit my brothers and sisters, offering them the assurance they needed that I had neither left nor forgotten them. Of course, Juliana and Isaac were too old to need that sort of thing, or claimed they were. Christina, Adam, and Elana, at least, were openly appreciative.
I even chatted with my mom, who I understood much better since living in her head for an hour or so. She didn’t have active magic any longer either, which meant we were far more similar than she would have had me believe. For nearly two decades, she had channeled magic through her children while pregnant or breastfeeding. But it was all borrowed magic, and she knew time was nearly up. The twins she now carried would be her last, and when they weaned, she would have to learn to live without. If she weren’t living in such staunch denial of that fact, we might have made more progress toward patching our relationship.
Declining dinner invitations wasn’t about her, though. It was about avoiding my father. I told him that living on my own meant cooking my own meals, and that was true enough, but Dad couldn’t string two sentences together without trying to get me to accept his hatred of the Blackwoods. He dredged up old battles and old wounds, none of which had anything to do with Evan, though the look in his eyes implored me to take some kind of hint.
I didn’t. At times it made me feel dense, but I simply couldn’t make sense of any of it. The more I tried, the more tears I shed over a man who had abandoned fifteen years of friendship and a brand new romance without so much as telling me why.
It could have been a spell. In my daydreams, I still found out it was a spell. Perhaps his father didn’t want to see us together after all, despite what he had said to the contrary.
But only the Blairs might know that sort of powerful mind magic, and some of the things Matthew had let slip recently made me think even they couldn’t have done it. At least, not so forcefully and permanently. Inconsistencies, as Matthew had said.
So I spent my evenings at home with Madison, teaching her to cook. She learned quickly, as with just about everything else – everything except self-confidence, perhaps.
Her confidence had taken a severe blow when her father had kicked her out, refusing to pay for her college tuition unless she agreed to teach math instead of music. In the same conversation he had also let slip that he had adopted her, something Madison hadn’t brought up again since.
She hadn’t started dating Nicolas for a few weeks after that, though he had pestered her, intrigued by her gift. She had given in to his pestering the day he had helped Kaitlin and me move into the house, two days after she herself had moved
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