Page 29 of Starlight Witch

I helped her clear the table. After that, I decided to go out and pick a big batch of mums to take up to my mother’s, and I did my best to keep my mind on the flowers.

Fancypants appeared in the doorway from the living room, sweeping across the kitchen to land on my shoulder. He nuzzled his head against the side of my neck and then let out the odd meow that dragonettes had. They sounded like cats with deep voices.

“Are you ready? I want to warn you, my mother’s not going to be elated to have a dragonette around. Don’t try to tease her into a good mood. It can’t be done.” I had hired Bree’s pet sitter to come play with the cats and feed them while I was gone, but I didn’t trust leaving Fancypants here by himself.

“I’m ready. I’m looking forward to seeing Port Townsend.” Fancypants loved seeing new places. “Will you show me the city?”

“Parts of it, of course. We’ll go to the beach, how about that?” There were parts of Port Townsend that I had no intention of revisiting.

“Sounds good,” he said. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as—” I stopped at the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway. I peeked out the window. It was Bree. “Within half an hour, now that Bree’s here.”

As Bree and Grams loaded the car, I fed the cats, called the pet sitter to confirm she’d be coming over tomorrow—she worked on holidays—and then texted Bran, telling him we were about to take off, and making sure he had the address. He and May would drive up later this evening. Once everything was set, I made sure that the door was locked. We buckled our seat belts, and I pulled out of the driveway.

It normally took forty-five minutes to reach Port Townsend, but today the traffic was heavier with it being the day before Thanksgiving, so it took us an hour. We pulled into town at four-fifteen, and by four twenty-five, we were at my mother’s house. I stared at the two-story house. While not strictly a Victorian, it resembled the style, and a large bay window overlooked the front porch. On the second floor was the window that belonged to my old bedroom.

My mother had recently had the outside of the house painted—it was a bright yellow, but at least it wasn’t neon. It would have been distracting in a more sedate town, but Port Townsend had its own version of San Francisco’s Painted Ladies. I pulled into the driveway. My aunt’s car wasn’t there yet, but Catharine’s was. She had a sporty little Mazda CX-5. I parked next to it, then we all got out and stretched. Fancypants landed on my shoulder.

“I guess we should get the food in,” I said. I dreaded spending more than a few hours with my mother, and I wasn’t looking forward to my aunt’s grief, but at least I’d have Grams, Bree, Bran, and May with me.

As I knocked on the front door, then opened it and peeked in, Catharine came breezing into the foyer. Immediately, the stench of smoke overwhelmed me and I coughed. My mother was a smoker, and the house—and she—reeked of it. She was shorter than me, but had the same red hair that I did. She hadn’t grayed yet, and really, she was a pretty woman. She was more cushioned than I was—Catharine never went to the gym.

She glanced at her watch. “You’re late.”

Yes, my mother was still my mother. I started to say that traffic had been bad, when Grams interrupted.

“We told you we’d be here around four. ‘Around’ isn’t a precise measurement of time. Please move so we can carry the food to the kitchen.” Grams brushed by, jostling my mother out of the way. I stifled a grin and followed her, with Bree in back.

Catharine let out a grumpy sigh, but joined us in the kitchen. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Well, you’re looking good,” she said, finally smiling. “It seems Starlight Hollow agrees with you.” She was actually being sincere—it was obvious in her tone.

“It does,” I said, trying to relax. “That, along with the workout and eating routine Grams has me following. I hate to admit it, but I’m actually beginning to enjoy the gym sessions.” I glanced around. “Is Aunt Ciara here yet?”

“No, but she will be—she said she’d be over for dinner. She’s bringing takeout so don’t worry about cooking tonight.” Catharine peeked in the fridge. “Those look good,” she said, pointing to the pies.

“There’s more. We’ll be back in a moment with the bags,” Bree said. She and Grams headed out of the kitchen.

My mother waited until they were out of the room. She hesitated, then said, “I want you to know…I’m in therapy.”

Startled, I set down the bag with the sweet potatoes in it. “Really?”

She nodded. “Between what you and Grams said when you were up here for the funeral, and with what Ciara said to me after you left, I decided to talk to someone. I’m… This is hard for me to say, Elphyra. But I want to say it. I’m sorry that I’ve been so difficult over the years. I don’t have a lot of coping skills for dealing with the problems of others. I never have,” she added.

I remembered the scene that had flooded back, with my father yelling at my mother. Compassion flooded my heart. “Mom, did you have dreams when you were young? What did you want to do when you grew up?”

She looked startled, but stopped to sit down at the table. “Not many people have ever asked me that. My parents didn’t. Even in the 1980s, they were so focused on me finding a man.”

“So, what did you want to be?”

A smile crept across her lips, like sunlight slowly rising in the autumn. “I wanted to be a graphic artist. But what I wanted to learn took extra schooling. And not only couldn’t my parents afford that, but they never would have agreed to my choice. If anything, they would have pushed me to study to be a teacher, and that’s the last thing I wanted to be.”

“Why were they so adamant about it?”

“I don’t know,” Catharine said. “But they were set on it. I had two choices—I could study to be a teacher, and they’d scrape up the money, or I could get married. They were ready to make an arranged marriage for right after I turned eighteen. But then, I met Malcolm, and I fell in love.”

“Grams mentioned that it was love at first sight, and that you were sixteen.”

“I was. I remember walking into a coffee shop and there he was—so handsome, and with this air of kindness that I never felt from my parents. They couldn’t wait for Ciara and me to leave home so they could do what they wanted. Oh, they loved us, but they just didn’t want to be chained down to children. They still don’t—they’re off in the Caribbean now.” She sighed, then said, “I walked into the coffee shop and I saw Malcolm. He looked at me, and… How do I explain this? I felt like I was the only person in the world when he looked at me.”

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