Marianna
“I think she likes it,” Mom says over my shoulder as we watch Skye scurry from room to room in the townhouse I found for rent only a mile from the exterior wall of the castle. Cream-colored plaster walls and narrow, but brightly lit, hallways connect three bedrooms upstairs. Sunlight dances across dark wood floors, dust motes hanging in suspension. It smells like flowers. Wisteria and bougainvillea are already trying to bloom in the snug front garden lined with a pale stone wall, where the bright green spring grass has been freshly mowed in time for our arrival.
It’s a quiet street, based on what the realtor told me. Cars aren’t allowed, and there’s a village square just a block away with a grocery store, bakery, and a park. Everything we’d need is within reach, secured by a gate separating us from the rest of Moonrise, which is apparently one of the safest cities in the Allied Kingdoms and great for young families.
Skye peeks her head out of one of the bedrooms and stares at us. “I want this one.”
“It’s yours, honey.” Mom smiles, shrugging her shoulders. She squeezes my arm before turning for the stairs, her salt and pepper curls bouncing around her shoulders.
I follow Skye into the room she just claimed. It’s a corner room with ceiling height windows that open halfway up, letting in a cool, slightly chilly early spring breeze. She’s on her tiptoes, drinking in the sunshine and the view as I lean on the doorframe to watch her for a moment. I love witnessing the way she explores the world. It’s so… innocent. When she was younger, she was adventurous and brave. Nothing scared her. Now, she’s more docile. A bit withdrawn, if I’m being totally honest, like she sees the things she used to love in a new, darker hue.
Maybe that’s just growing up.
Or maybe she’s as different as I knew she’d be.
I had six years with her that were my own. Six years when her eyes were blue, like mine, before they slowly changed into the sharp violet tinged with gray in the center. I had six years when she spoke to me and told me stories, when she sang songs and danced in the sunlight. I had six years before she started folding into herself, into her head, which I know is now full of starlight.
Just like him.
The past year changed everything in so many ways.
“The movers won’t be here until two days from now,” I say, and she whirls, somewhat startled by my presence. “Grammy thinks tonight would be a good night to camp in the living room. We can lay out blankets and pillows and read books until the moon rises,” I continue, smiling, but Skye just stares at me, calculating a response.
“What are we going to eat?”
“Whatever you want. We have to order out because none of our kitchen boxes are here yet. What do you think? Pizza?”
She nods and then flutters past me, chasing rays of sun down the hallway.
I linger near the window for a moment. My eyes roam the front garden before lifting to the wall in the distance, tall enough the trees lining a yard a few houses away don’t reach the top, and then higher, to the gilded, sparkling windows of the massive palace blocking the scattered clouds.
My stomach tightens and then relaxes as I take a single, but restorative, breath.
“So, any word on the new phone?” Mom asks as she unpacks a bag of groceries–snacks, mostly, nothing that has to be cooked. I glance around the kitchen, which is painted a soft robin’s egg blue, with white cabinets, a large refrigerator, and an island of white marble with a stovetop and an oven beneath it.
“I’m going to go pick it up in an hour or so. I’m sure I’ll be there for a while setting up a new number and such.”
Mom nods, popping open a bag of chips, which Skye snatches on her way out of the kitchen to continue sitting on the front steps watching the neighborhood. “You haven’t spoken to him, right?”
“Dean?”
“Who else?”
I lean against the wall, praying my cheeks don’t heat. I didn’t tell her I ran into Blake last week during the concert. She doesn’t need to know, I guess. It wasn’t important. It was a weird coincidence, and… as I played through a solo, I glanced at the royal box, and he wasn’t there, so it didn’t matter, even if my chest still feels like it’s caving in.
I hadn’t seen him in… seven years. That’s a long time. That feels like a lifetime.
“I haven’t.”
She licks her lips. I feel her gaze inspecting my face before she turns to the fridge to unpack milk and juice. “He broke the restraining order by texting you so much–”
“I’m aware. I never responded.”
“I just worry he might know that you left Crescent City,” she says with a bite in her voice. “That’s all.”
“I left my old phone behind. You know that.”
“But–after the concert, the success of it? You being you and blowing everyone out of the water?” She glances at me over her shoulder. “Someone will write about it–some critic doing their due diligence who lets the world know it was your last season with the Crescent Falls Philharmonic.”
“No one other than Michael knew about my offer from Moonrise,” I reply, but she shakes her head, and she’s right.
“You should talk to the courts here and have the restraining order… broadened.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Mom. He’d have to come here first and… threaten me.” My mouth dries out around the words.
She turns back to me, humming under her breath when Skye sprints inside again to fetch a juice box before darting back outside.
“Look, I’m safe. He doesn’t know where I live, and this is a gated community. I already told the warriors at the guard station that he’s not allowed, and they took that seriously. I practically gave them my life story!”
“He nearly killed you,” she says under her breath, her eyes watering.
My stomach sinks. “Mom, he can’t hurt me anymore, okay?”
She glances at the faded bite mark on my neck before turning away again, lifting a bag of grapes from the grocery bag.
I glance at my watch. “I’m going to go into town. I’ll bring Skye with me to explore, giving you some time to rest.”
“Just leave her here. She’ll keep me company. She’s taking stock of all the neighbors right now.”
I purse my lips then relent and gather my purse from a hook near the front door. Skye has already disappeared into the backyard when I leave, walking casually through the exclusive village of Wisteria Way, past the guarded security gate, and into the city center, which is sprawling and packed but beautiful. The sun beats down on the top of my head as I walk along winding streets and pass unfamiliar shops. New scents tinkle my senses. Shifters, I know. Witches are different and smell new and strange. Like… herbs and spices, not rain and deep, endless wilderness. A festival is being set up, it seems. Banners and streamers of red, pink, and silver hover over the street.
The phone store doesn’t give me a hard time, thankfully. Before I know it, I have a new number for the first time since I got my first phone as a teenager, and I park myself on a bench in the center of some little park with a pond and fountain and spend an hour signing into my email, my bank account, my… his bank account.
I stare at the money in that account for several minutes before clicking out. I’ve never really touched it. It’s not my money, regardless of what Blake said when he gave me all the information, all the cards, all the pin numbers and data. It’ll be for Skye one day. I’ve been doing fine on my own… lately. Not always. But my new salary as first chair and the sign-on bonus allowed me to put my mom and daughter into a beautiful new home in a safe, absolutely lovely neighborhood in a city that shines like gold.
My new job doesn’t begin until this fall, a few weeks before the start of the symphony season, so I have… time. Time to settle, to put down roots.
Time to figure out what to do with Skye.
I slump onto the bench, trying to become one with the etched stone. When I finally peel myself from its surface and find my way home, picking up a few pizzas and cream soda, Skye’s favorite, it’s nearing sunset. Wisteria Way is bathed in sunlight the color of ripe tangerines when I push through the wrought-iron gate and step onto the path leading up to my new front door, which is painted blue, the same color as the shutters and the tiles on the roof. An envelope sticks in the door jamb. I pluck it free on my way inside.
Skye rushes me, bouncing on her toes to peer at the pizza boxes. She gasps excitedly when she sees the ice cold, frosted bottles of cream soda, and I give her one, smiling as real, unfiltered joy lights behind her eyes.
Sweet girl.
My girl.
Mine.
Mom and I are busy arranging pizza on paper plates when I finally remember the envelope. “I didn’t think we’d start getting mail yet,” I murmur around a bite of pepperoni and cheese on a thin, delectable crust. I shove past the memory raging to existence of me at seventeen, laughing in the passenger seat of Blake’s car while we ate pizza in a darkened parking lot. He leaned over the center console to swipe a smudge of grease from the side of my mouth, and… didn’t stop leaning. Didn’t stop until his lips brushed mine for the first time, and… I…
“Did you see who left this?” I ask, my voice trembling just a touch as I slide my finger through the adhesive and pull out a note. Just a note. I scan the words, and the pizza feels like a lead weight at the bottom of my stomach all of a sudden.
“What is it?”
“Just–it’s nothing. A welcome card.” It’s a bold lie.
It’s a fucking summons. A summons I knew was coming because those creepy women in their white and silver robes haven’t left me alone for the past year…
There are very few things my mom doesn’t know about me. It would be hard to keep secrets given that it’s only been us since I was just a little bit older than Skye. My dad wasn’t like Dean or Blake. He didn’t leave us–not willingly. He died. It’s that uncomplicated. One day, he was here, and then he was gone, and it was just me and Mom left to navigate a world that wasn’t very kind to us.
We were protected, of course, by our Alpha in the pack my father belonged to, but it only went as far as that. Crescent City is a huge place. Crescent Falls is even more enormous, with dozens of Alphas. Mom moved us out of his territory to be closer to her job, a waitress gig. We moved from a house in the wooded suburbs of the city center to an apartment in the neutral zone, and she saved every last penny to ensure I could still go to school for music one day. She never let me give up on that dream.
Even after Skye came into our lives.
She knows about me and Blake. She knows I was desperately, painfully in love with him. I like to tell myself she assumes it was that untouchable, fiery teenage lust and not something deeper. She knows I loved Dean at one point, too, before I came to my senses and saw him for what he truly was, and still is. Dangerous. A monster.
But the one thing she doesn’t know is why Blake and I didn’t stay together, even when we found out about Skye’s existence. She doesn’t know why he left or that I made him do it.
She doesn’t know the depth of what Skye is going through right now.
To her, Skye is just our little girl. Our precious, quiet, socially troubled angel.
She has no idea Skye is a Mystic and has powers beyond belief, and I see it developing in real time, and it scares the hell out of me.
“Are you okay? You’re looking a little pale.” Mom lays a hand over my forehead. “Jeez, Anna. You’re all clammy and flushed! What’s wrong?”
“It’s just the sugar,” I lie, motioning to the empty bottle of cream soda on the counter. “It’s homemade, I guess.”
Mom doesn’t look convinced, but the note is now crumpled in my fist, and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, this is the moment I’ve been dreading.
But I waste it again, telling her I’m going to go shower instead.