Amaretto Flame (29 page)

Another time we went to a small carnival a
few towns away. I had a particular fondness for the bumper cars. I
took them to a museum, and to an ice cream shop. The younger ones
didn't care if I was being weird as long as they were enjoying
themselves but I could tell that Ivanna and Charlotte wondered why
it was important to go traipsing through the state and doing these
silly things. I couldn't explain correctly that I wanted Sylvia and
Joshua to interact with humans, to have experiences. I didn't want
them to feel deprived or stupid the way I had.

I also resumed my duties in teaching the
younger ones, in addition to attending meetings and working side by
side with Ivanna. Each day for two hours before lunch, I would work
with Joshua and Sylvia. I'd help them practice their magick and
work on building stamina for rituals and spells, I would lecture
them on things I felt were important. I'd ask them questions and
try to make them use their minds and convey the feelings that came
naturally to them.

Sometimes, Everett would join me and he and I
would discuss issues in front of them; throwing topics back and
forth and debating our view points. Occasionally, we'd go off on
different topics or argue to the point that nothing was serious
anymore and we were both doubled over with our own laughter. These
were my favorite times; times when I felt more like my old self.
When things weren't as real, as complicated, and when choices
weren't much more than whether to have pancakes or waffles or wear
sneakers or flip-flops.

For the most part, I tried my best to stay
busy...but there were times when images or memories would catch me
unaware. Times when my mind would drift. This mostly happened when
everyone else was occupied and I was alone. During the hot August
evenings I'd walk out to the lake and get in the boat, paddling
myself to the very center of the dark water. I'd lie back in the
boat and raise my arms, conjuring my own personal, contained storm.
As thick rain drops splashed over my skin and hair, I'd feel
jealous that the clouds had the relief of weeping; the relief I
never allowed myself.

These were the days I let myself remember.
Closing my eyes, I'd see his face as clearly as if he were in the
boat next to me. I'd catch the scent of the pine trees in the
forest behind his house and remember mornings spent walking hand in
hand for hours. I'd hear his voice singing one of his favorite
songs. Sometimes, I was even brave enough to allow myself the
memory of the day I left. The demand in his voice when he asked
what I'd be leaving behind. I'd pull open the ever-sealed envelope
in my mind that contained the most important words he'd ever said
to me.

Tell me you love me in the same way that I
love you.

I did this so often that the conjuring became
involuntary; almost like breathing or blinking. The moment my bare
feet touched the water at the edge of the lake, dark clouds began
rolling in toward the center of the water. Rain drops created
ripples upon ripples before I'd ever even reached my usual spot.
One day, just as I reached the lake, and the rain began pouring, I
felt as if I was being watched. I turned quickly and looked back
toward the house. Stretching out my senses to see better, I spotted
Everett in the library window, gazing out at me with a sadness I'd
never seen on his face before.

I lowered my eyes in shame; embarrassed at
being caught in my pathetic ritual. Had he been standing there, I
might have muttered something about practicing elemental magick,
but he would have known I was lying anyway, so there really wasn't
much point. Knowing that I was worrying him, I stopped going to the
lake for a few days, but I didn't have the strength to stay away
long. Within a week, I was back to my normal evening ritual.

Eventually, I would paddle back and walk into
the house soaking wet, sneaking up to my room to change clothes and
pull myself together. On one particular day, I walked into the
house with my hair hanging in wet ribbons, dripping onto the
hardwood floors. Instead of being greeted by the silence in the
front room as I was usually, I was greeted with shouts of,
“SURPRISE!”

Startled, I jumped and then stared at them
for a few moments. “What is this?” I asked. Black and pink balloons
were tied in bunches around the room, and the side table was filled
with packages wrapped in shiny foil paper.

“Seriously, Livvy?” Everett said. “It's your
birthday.”

I took in his words, silently trying to
remember what day it was, and then realized he was right. “Oh,” I
said. “I guess I forgot.”

“You might want to change before opening your
gifts,” Charlotte said. “What happened to you?”

“I was caught in a storm,” I said simply,
before running upstairs to change into dry jeans and a t-shirt.
When I was back down in the common room and seated on one of the
sofas, Sylvia handed me a gift.

“This one's from me,” she said, nearly
squealing in her excitement. Smiling indulgently, I ripped the
paper from the box and lifted the lid. Inside was a sparkling
silver bangle bracelet with the word 'sister' engraved on the
front. Sylvia threw her arm out to show me that she had a matching
one, and I chuckled.

“This was just an excuse to buy yourself
jewelry, Sylvia,” I said, giving her a hug. She tried her best to
look innocent as the others laughed, but I added, “I'm kidding. I
love it.” Perry and Ivanna gave me a beautiful cloak brooch that
had belonged to their mother. It was encrusted with emeralds and
featured the eagle that represented our coven.

“That's something that one of us would pass
down to our daughter,” Ivanna said, and then Perry added, “and so
we have.” Touched, I clutched it close to my heart for a moment
before thanking them. Max's package was next, and when I ripped the
paper off, my breath caught in my throat. I was staring at a
beautifully-painted portrait of a woman with hair the color of a
raven's wing and startlingly wise eyes. The blue crescent of the
Goddess was present on her forehead, and I knew immediately who she
was.

“Oh Max,” I breathed. “Morgan le Fay.” I
carefully put the painting down before grasping him in a bear hug,
and kissing him on the cheek enough times to make him blush.
Charlotte's gift was a beautiful leather diary with gold-embossed
pages. She winked at me and said, “Maybe one day you'll feel like
writing the story of your life.” I laughed and told her everyone
would believe it was fiction. She couldn't really argue with
that.

Next, I opened Joshua's gift. It was a black
t-shirt with a cute pink ice cream cone on the front. I smiled, and
was about to thank him, when it hit me and I threw my head back and
laughed at him.

“What's so funny?” Sylvia asked, looking at
the shirt.

“Ice cream,” I replied. When she still looked
at me like she had no clue what in the world I was talking about, I
told her to just think about it for a while. Then, Everett handed
me his gift. It was oddly shaped and I raised an eyebrow as I
opened it. It was a snow-white umbrella. My eyes flicked to his,
remembering the day he'd caught me going to the lake, and wondering
if he was mocking me. However, he was looking at me with such a
tender expression that I felt tears fill my eyes.

I knew he was telling me that he was here for
me; that he'd help me get through the storm I was facing, whether
it was a literal storm or the one going on in my heart. Our eyes
stayed locked for just a few seconds, and then Sylvia started
singing some pop song about standing under an umbrella. Suddenly,
she stopped singing and started laughing.

“Ohhhh,” she said. “I get it. Ice cream. I
scream.”

Unable to keep myself from laughing, I rolled
my eyes at her and brushed the tears away quickly. “Someone loves
me a whole lot this year,” I said, picking up the last package from
the table and tearing the paper off. Inside the square box was a
gleaming necklace with a charm in the shape of a sun. The middle of
the sun was a glittering gemstone, citrine probably, and the sun's
rays flowed out from it in all directions.

“This is beautiful,” I said, examining the
paper again, but finding no tag. “Who is this from?” I looked up
and glanced around at their faces.

“That one came in the mail from Staves,”
Ivanna said quietly.

The knot in my stomach came on immediately
and made it hard to breathe. I wanted to get up, walk directly up
to my room and escape their faces. Instead, my eyes went back to
the necklace. My own words to him in the forest came back to
me.

You're healing and life and sunshine and
summer.

It seemed to be whispering,
Don't
forget.
I tore my eyes away from the necklace and smiled up at
my family. “Thank you all. I love the gifts. They mean a lot to
me.” Everyone seemed to relax at once, and I went about my day with
them, blowing out candles and eating cake. When the celebration was
over and the evening was winding down, I said my goodnights and
went to my room. I stared at the box for several minutes before
taking the necklace out and clasping it around my neck. Then I
crawled into my bed and pulled the quilt up to my chin, asking the
Goddess over and over to bring the darkness quickly.

A few weeks passed in much the same way;
training, work, the lake, weekend trips. I went through the motions
like a pro, but everything felt disconnected, almost like I was
looking at the world through a foggy window. One evening as we were
sitting around the table for dinner, Sylvia exhaled loudly, drawing
our eyes toward her.

“Livvy, you know how we were talking about
balance today?” She asked. I nodded. I'd given them a lecture on
how the Universe would always see to it that things were balanced.
We'd even discussed how individuals were balanced; that a wonderful
person wasn't without darkness and that somewhere inside of an evil
person, good could be found. I'd asked Joshua and Sylvia to give me
an example of how they'd experienced balance in their own lives. I
couldn't help but smirk when they'd both given me identical blank
expressions.

“Well, I have an example now,” she said.

I perked up, proud of the fact that she'd
initiated a conversation like this and had been actually thinking
about the lesson. “Okay, shoot,” I said.

“I feel like the bad things that have
happened to me in my life have had a purpose; to make me appreciate
the wonderful things more easily. If there were all great things
happening all the time, I wouldn't cherish them as much,” she
said.

Stunned, I looked at her for a long moment
and said, “That's a great example, Sylvia.”

“Yeah,” she continued. “I thought so too. In
fact, I see exactly what you mean about balance and how good and
bad co-exist. It's almost like the winter and summer. One doesn't
exist without the other, and without one of them, we wouldn't be
able to appreciate the other.”

“That's very true,” I said. “Actually, I was
thinking that if we --” I stopped talking, because I felt like I'd
been punched in the stomach. “What did you say?”

Sylvia looked at me like I was crazy, but I
didn't really need her to answer.
It's almost like winter and
summer. One doesn't exist without the other.

It was as if the fog from the past months
suddenly cleared; like the numbness was gone and feeling had
returned to me with a force and a vengeance. I glanced back and
forth between Sylvia and Joshua. He'd fit into our family like the
Goddess had hand-picked him for us, but he'd had reservations. He'd
been terrified of what he'd done to his family by accident, of the
power he held. It must have taken great courage, such a leap of
faith for him to dial that number that I gave him and ask us for
help. But he'd done it.

And I was thrilled. Why? Because I believed
fully that he deserved the chance to have a family; to experience
love. I believed that it was his Goddess-given right. If I felt so
strongly about that for others, why didn't I feel that way for
myself? Why didn't I deserve a chance for happiness, for love? I
carefully put my milk glass on the table, aware of the fact that
everyone was looking at me like I might have a seizure at any
moment.

Then, I let myself see Jackson Vance's face
in my mind. I let him ask the question over again; the same
question he had asked me every single day in my mind since I'd come
home.
What did you leave behind?

“I left everything,” I said out loud.

“Pardon?” Charlotte asked, but I waved my
hand at her.

“I'm having a...a thing here,” I said,
distracted. A revelation. I was having a revelation. I had had no
control over what my mother did to me that day when she took her
knife from the kitchen drawer and plunged it into my tiny body. She
did not want me. She had wanted to kill me. She'd shown me that I
was unworthy of her love. And I had lived my life truly believing
that I
was
unworthy. I had fit into Eagleton well too, as if
the Goddess had hand-picked me, but as far as getting close to
Jackson, I hadn't felt like I deserved it. I had been terrified of
the pain I might feel if he decided he didn't want me. Why wouldn't
he want me? Didn't I deserve him? Wasn't that why the Goddess put
me directly in his path?

“I have to go,” I said, standing up from my
seat. “I'll be back,” I called over my shoulder. As I rushed from
the room, I heard Sylvia mumble that it was about damn time. I
pulled my car keys from my pocket and jumped into the driver's
seat. The stifling August heat that was trapped inside the car only
lasted until I rolled down all of the windows.

I glanced at the clock as I started the car
and pulled down the long, winding driveway. It was five-thirty in
the evening, on a Thursday. I flipped open my phone, dialing
Claire’s number.

“It’s about time you called,” she
answered.