Misty
Ten Years Later
Sunlight fans through the kitchen windows, highlighting the frost coating the glass. I blink, shielding my eyes as the sun drops below the tree line and the light in the room shifts, fading to a deep gold that paints the kitchen table and the mess my children left behind in their haste to get to school this morning.
It’s a quiet late afternoon. It’s my favorite time of day, actually. The house is still and silent–the calm before the storm… which is running up the driveway right now, pushing and shoving toward the front door.
The door swings open, the chilly late afternoon air carrying two small voices through the foyer and hallway.
“Mom! MOM!” Addy’s voice echoes over the sound of heavy winter fabric dropping to the ground, probably in a wet heap. “MOM!”
“I’m in the kitchen!” I call out, smiling to myself as I stick my coffee mug in the microwave. Two sets of footsteps thunder in my direction, and then I’m surrounded by blond hair and overlapping, excited voices.
“Addy pushed me off the bus!” Josie whines, pointing an accusatory finger at Adrian, who scowls down at her.
“I did not! She fell off because she was messing around!”
“You PUSHED me!”
“All right, all right!” I rush out. The microwave beeps, and both kids look up at me, suddenly remembering they’re hungry.
Two plates of chicken nuggets later, I’m dialing for pizza delivery when the garage door rolling up sends a hum through the house. Addy looks up from his homework, his blond curls dancing around his face. He has light gray eyes like Cole. He’s made in Cole’s image, actually, his son through and through.
But where Adrian is quiet, stoic, and serious… Josie is none of those things. She’s boisterous and loud, always chatting and unable to stop moving, even in her sleep. She leaps out of her seat at the kitchen table, her math homework falling to the ground. Her bright, nearly white blonde hair falls out of the braid I spent ages perfecting this morning as she races toward the garage, screaming, “DAD’S HOME!”
Addy rolls his eyes but hops out of his seat, racing after his sister to bombard their dad with attention.
This is our usual routine. The kids come home from school, go a little nuts, settle down to do their homework after an hour of prodding, and sometimes pleading, and then Cole comes home and ruins the quiet vibe. Still, he comes around the corner with both kids hanging off him and presses a kiss to my lips–and today it’s not a quick peck.
I have the sudden urge to slide my hands over the kids eyes when Cole leans into the kiss, deepening it, my cheeks flaring with heat, but then he pulls away and says, “Hey.”
“H-Hi,” I stammer, blushing deeply. “Nice to see you, too.”
He narrows his eyes, giving me a secret, sly smile. “Are the kids ready?”
“Ready for what?”
The kids have already scurried back to the kitchen table to rush through their homework, but Cole sets his briefcase down on the kitchen island, shaking his head as he laughs, “You forgot, didn’t you?”
“Forgot what?” I lean on the counter, crossing my arms over my chest. “It’s not our anniversary for another couple of weeks.”
“Solstice break isn’t until next week,” Josie says pointedly, tucking her hair behind her ears.
Cole arches a brow at her as she playfully narrows her light blue eyes–identical to mine–mimicking his expression. “Kids, go pack an overnight bag. You’re staying at Grandma and Grandpa’s house tonight.”
“Really?!” Josie leaps out of her chair and jumps up and down then runs out of the kitchen with Adrian hot on her heels.
Quiet settles throughout the kitchen. Cole runs his fingers through his hair and fixes me with a look. “You haven’t checked your phone all day, have you?”
“You know I have a deadline next week.” I smirk, rolling my eyes. “Why are you being so secretive?”
“Misty,” he laughs, leaning toward me. He cups my cheek, swiping his thumb over my skin with a sigh. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
My lips pop open in a laugh but promptly snap shut again in confusion. “I forgot my own birthday?”
“You’ve been writing non-stop for weeks,” he says with a tender smile. “I did tell you happy birthday this morning before I left for work–”
“I was barely awake,” I murmur, and he laughs again.
“The flowers I sent to the house?”
I step out of his arms. “I thought those were an apology for getting the kids so riled up they didn’t go to bed until ten last night.”
“You need to start reading the card,” he smiles, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Go get dressed. We’re going out.”
* * *
Two hours later, dressed in a sparkly black dress I’d been saving for a special occasion, I clutch Cole’s arm as we speed toward the penthouse restaurant in the tallest building in Crescent Falls. The elevator jolts to a stop, and we step out, greeted by a hostess almost immediately who offers to take my coat.
The place is washed in dark red and lush gold, creating a luxurious, and expensive, ambiance that's a stark contrast to the brightly colored walls and finger-smudged surfaces at our home, where I’d planned on ordering a pizza tonight… on my own birthday… which I completely forgot about.
I’m normally not this careless. In my defense, I’ve been rather busy.
“I think a celebration is in order,” Sydney says as he pours four glasses of champagne, raising his glass. “To my baby sister’s thirty-second birthday. I honestly didn’t think you’d make it this far.”
I playfully glare, and Cole hums with laughter beside me, but Sydney remains standing, his glass still raised.
“In all seriousness, happy birthday, Misty.”
Sarah beams across from me, “Happy birthday! And congratulations, by the way.”
Cole presses a kiss to my temple. I squirm, blushing harder than I ever have before. “Don’t congratulate me yet,” I grumble into my champagne.
“Why not?” Sydney drains his champagne and sinks into his seat, throwing a lazy arm over his mate’s shoulder. “Your book is already the talk of the kingdom. I’m sure people will be lining the streets to get their hands on it next month.”
For the thousandth time in the last… five years since I decided to do this, to write the story of our grandparents, I’m wondering if I made the right decision.
“Grandma Isla would be the first in line to buy it,” Sarah smiles, her violet eyes holding my gaze.
“I know she would,” I reply, my lips tightening into a smile.
Dinner moves on, the conversation flowing through my upcoming publishing date, the family’s plans to meet in Maatua this year for Solstice, and what our brother, sister-in-law, and cousins are doing in Eastonia.
A chocolate cake is brought out with thirty-two candles, of course. I make a wish, the same wish I make every year.
That my family remains safe, and at peace, and that our grandparents didn’t die for nothing.
When we reach our house again, it’s very late. The kids are tucked up and hopefully asleep at the castle with their grandparents and their cousins–Sydney and Sarah’s children–and we’re… alone.
But even after another birthday celebration with Cole that left us tangled and breathless in our sheets, I can’t sleep, not with the full moon creeping through the windows casting moonlight across my face.
I wrap myself in a robe, slipping my feet into slippers, and head downstairs. On instinct, I peek into the kids’ rooms. I know they’re spending the night with my parents, but this is my usual routine when I feel like this–when I feel this tug. When I feel her call–and answer.
The heated covered porch off the kitchen beckons to me as I step outside and shake out one of the blankets I left out here earlier today. I sink onto the wicker couch and cover my legs with the blanket, closing my eyes for a moment as the crisp air mixes with the electric heater near my feet.
‘Did you have a nice time?’
‘I did,’ I answer, rolling my neck. ‘I forgot it was my birthday today.’ I smile at the memory. ‘We’ve all been so busy lately and… it just slipped my mind.’
She laughs softly–a sound I desperately miss. ‘Time moves quickly when you have young children. I blinked, and Ella and Isaac were teenagers, and I was closing in on my forties.’
‘How’s Grandpa?’
‘The same,’ she says with a knowing smile in her voice. ‘He’s wondering when things are going to get interesting again. He believes the new road system your aunt and uncle are completing in Eastonia will bring them some… interesting situations.’
I hum a laugh, shaking my head, not daring to open my eyes. ‘We haven’t been to Eastonia in a few years, honestly.’
‘Are you still afraid?’
‘Yes,’ I answer. I could have written a book about everything we know, and don’t know, about Eastonia, the supposed birthplace of our kind and the ancient magic still lurking untouched beneath its forests, lakes, and sand. I could have written my story–told the truths that have weighed heavy on my heart for the last decade.
But her story needed to come first.
I swallow hard, my powers prickling over my skin. ‘Grandma,’ I say into the ether tugging us together for this single moment in time, ‘Can you tell me if everything will be okay? That the kids–all of them–will have it… easier than we did?’
Grandma sighs. ‘No, honey. I don’t know. All I know, all that’s written in the stars, is that change is coming.’
I open my eyes and turn to her but find nothing but an empty wicker chair coated in moonlight and a whisper of her blue light fading back into the stars.
I return to the house shortly thereafter and slip into bed beside Cole. He curls his body around mine, slipping back into sleep with a comforting sigh.
All is right in the world tonight. The stars are out to play against a cold, winter sky. Downstairs, our Solstice tree is still half decorated. I need to go grocery shopping. I’m supposed to volunteer at their school for the Solstice market….
I open my eyes to waves brushing against the shore. For a moment, I think I’m in Maatua… but it’s all wrong. It’s too quiet here. No luxury beach houses line the coast. No surfers speed across the waves ahead of me and behind me, nothing but… destruction lines the base of the rolling, scorched hills.
I turn back to the water, confused, in time to see a young woman with light brown hair pull herself out of the surf, cursing in fury.
She angrily shoves her hair out of her face, panting and spitting water before screaming in what I can only describe as rage and anguish.
“LOGAN?! MAEVE?!”
She falls to her knees, sinking her hands into the wet sand and hangs her head.
Familiarity rushes through my system. I know those soft curls starting to spring loose from her salty hair. I know the brown eyes and rosy cheeks as she lifts her face to the sun and screams.
My heart hammers. This is a vision. I’m seeing a glimpse of a future I don’t understand.
In my current reality, this woman is only fourteen.
“Brie?” I rasp, but then I’m pulled out of the vision, dropping back into my body, my bed, with my mate’s arms wrapped around my waist in a loving embrace.