Sinister Seductions (Book 1 The Flower of Bottesford Series)

Chapter 10: Once Upon A Time

I arrived at the café a little before 1 o’clock. Lark and Ari were tucked away safely in my bag, both promising profusely to behave. I believed it. For the next hour or so at least.

Glancing around, I noticed that Mara wasn’t there yet, so I ordered two scones and a coffee and sat down to my breakfast. The morning excitement had resulted in the coffee I had made before my shower was cold before I had a chance to drink it.

I picked a table at the back of the café, away from prying eyes in case things got heated. Which was certain to happen because the topics of discussion were sensitive at best. I snuck one of the scones to the two in my bag. It was grabbed immediately, and I found myself amused at the excited rustling that took place.

I heard the bell ring at the door indicating someone had entered. I felt more than saw her make her way over to me. Her heightened sense of smell allowing her to pick me out immediately. A rumble of nerves shot through me as I tried to compose my thoughts into what I hoped was something intelligent and understandable.

She was dressed much more casually today, I noted as she sat down. Clearly she was not feeling the need to make some sort of grand statement regarding her wellbeing anymore. She wore a deep purple blouse unbuttoned at the top, tucked into sleek black dress pants, and fixed at the center with a silver chain belt. The stilettos were still there though, a sleek charcoal grey color this time. Her gold jewelry from yesterday was replaced with silver. Overall, she looked fantastic while I looked a mess, which was how it had always been since we were kids.

“Hey,” I greeted awkwardly, not sure what I was supposed to do or say.

“Hey,” was her response in return, giving me nothing, and not relieving the awkward tension at the table.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, before nodding to her. “Okay... we both know there is no small talk here that is going to break the ice, so we might as well jump in.” I took a sip of my coffee in mental preparation. “So start asking.”

She stared at me a moment, clearly as lost as I was but trying not to show it. Her mouth opened then closed again as she tried to decide where she wanted to begin. Then like she was struck by genius she looked at me and said, “I want to know everything. Why you left, the days leading up to it, why you thought you couldn’t say anything to anyone, and why you never came back. The whole story from the beginning.”

I studied her closely, wondering if I really should. Does she know our families heritage? Where we come from? The legacy left behind by relatives long dead? Regarding her now, she wasn’t the scared little girl she was five years ago. Hell, she wasn’t even human anymore.

I would tell her. Hopefully she would understand. Hopefully she wouldn’t lose her mind.

“Okay… but to tell you all of it I have to go back a bit further in time. Or it won’t make any sense.” I took another sip of coffee and she nodded for me to go ahead.

“What do you know about our family history?”

She gaped at me in surprise for a second, probably not expecting this is where we were starting. “Our family? Bigoted? Abusive? Miserable?”

“Yes, but besides that.”

She shrugged. “Mom’s great grandparents moved here from England at the beginning of the 1900’s. Dad’s family came from France originally I think. I am honestly not sure. He never talked about them.”

I nodded. “Yeah, there was a reason for that, but you’re right. Mom’s family did come here from England at the beginning of the 1900’s and Dad’s family did come here from France though they weren’t from France originally. They originally came from England as well and moved to France in the 1600’s.”

“Okay…This is nice and all, but why the genealogy lesson?”

“To understand what happened to me, you have to understand the family. Where we came from and why. I still don’t have all the answers yet, but I am trying.” I shifted my gaze to the wall as I tried to figure out how to proceed.

“Dad’s family name used to be Flowers back in the 1600’s. His great great-something grandmother was a woman by the name of Phillippa Flowers. She lived in the area of Lincolnshire, England with her mother and sister, and worked in the household of the Earl and Countess of Rutland for a time before being fired. The Earl and Countess and their three children fell ill shortly after.”

“Well that is interesting Ria, but what does this have to do with you?”

I held up a hand, asking for patience. “Two of the children, the two male heirs, died from the illness, leaving the Earl and Countess without anyone to continue the family name. After investigation it was discovered that Phillippa and her family were recently let go. They were then accused of causing the illness with witchcraft.” I watched her for a reaction and found nothing.

“Phillippa’s mother died during the transport to the prison. She and her sister Margaret were then put under interrogation to illicit a confession. Eventually, whether due to torture or due to illness and mental instability the sisters confessed to being witches and that they had cursed the two boys to die. They then named a few other women as conspirators. After a mock trial they were deemed guilty and sentenced to death by hanging at Lincoln Castle. While awaiting execution, Phillippa drugged the guards and escaped. No one is quite sure what happened to Margaret.” I could hear Mara’s foot lightly tapping her impatience under the table, wanting me to get to the point.

“Phillippa fled to another part of England, met a man and eventually had three children. Two boys -Thomas and Matthew, and a girl - Marion. Still hunted by the courts and fearing for her children lives, she left the father of her children and fled England to France where she changed their last names. Can you guess to what?”

Mara’s raised brow said she was in no mood to guess anything.

“Belvoir,” I continued, “After Belvoir Castle. The home of the Earl and Countess where she had been fired and lost her family. I am not sure if it was due to nostalgia or it was the only French name she could think of, but her children carried on the Belvoir name. The three children grew up normal and unaware of their mother’s sordid past. That was until something strange happened to Thomas, the eldest. He began to see visions, hear voices that were not there, began communicating with the dead. He was believed to have gone crazy until Matthew and Marion began suffering the same fate. You see Phillippa had not been lying when she confessed to being a witch. The Flowers family had a long lineage in sorcery and paganism dating back to the Viking era. And all three of Phillippa’s children took after their mother. They were witches.”

The tapping under the table stopped, and Mara sat so still I thought she would disappear if I didn’t keep a close eye on her. “This power was handed down through the children of Thomas, Matthew, and Marion. And to their children’s children and so on and so forth. Sometimes skipping a generation or two due to the mixing of the bloodline with non-witches. This continued for generations until we arrive at Grandpa Victor, who was the first one to decide to leave France and start a new life. He married Grandma Agnes and they eventually had a little boy they named Adam. Our father.”

I wasn’t even sure if she was breathing at this point. She had not spoken a single word in minutes.

“Now we get to the beginning of my story… and how I discovered that I was a witch.”

I watched her closely as she sat speechless, everything I had told her slowly sinking in. I had finished my s********e time ago now, and she hadn’t said a word since. Well, she wanted to know the truth and here it was.

“Why didn’t you just come to me and tell me?” She whispered.

“Because I didn’t want you involved. You had shown no signs of developing the power, I was certain it had skipped you. But the Circle had lost its god damn mind at that point and I didn’t want them getting any ideas. They would have come for you, for mom and dad, and anyone else they thought might be better suited for the task they had in mind than me.”

“But why did you have to go?” She seemed so lost. I hated this.

“You know why, Mara. I was too dangerous, too unstable. I woke up that night and found myself in the bottom of a crater the size of a baseball diamond, lying in a pool of blood that wasn’t mine. I barely had enough mental strength to get my things and get out. If I had to deal with anything else at that moment…well Tamaran would probably look a whole hell of a lot worse than it does right now.”

She shook her head with disbelief still covering her pretty face, unable or unwilling to fully accept everything I had just dropped on her. It was a bomb, I knew, but one I hoped she could handle.

She swallowed tightly. “But you are all right now?”

I sighed, unsure how to answer that. “More or less I suppose. When the Council found me, I was hiding out in an abandoned mining town trying to avoid all contact with civilization. I was half crazy from isolation and the uncontrolled power. It took months of intense training to bring me back to myself, and months more before I was able to operate like a human being again. Shortly after that, the war broke out and I made the decision to stay.”

“Why?” Her voice was so sad, “why couldn’t you just come home?”

Guilt pierced through me at that look. She used to do that to me as kids to. This sad puppy like face that would drive me to rearrange the stars to make go away. “I owed them, Mar. They saved me. Not just my body, but my mind and soul as well. I couldn’t just leave when I knew I could make a difference, “I gave her a rueful smile and paused.

“I did check in on you guys you know.”

Her head shot up at that. “You did? When?”

“A few months after the Council found me, right after I came back to myself, and was in the right mental space. I found out that you had left home already and were with Gideon and the coven, and that Hennessey had become alpha of the Helios Pack and disappeared somewhere to train for the duties of leading a pack of wolves. Your lives had moved on without me, and I didn’t think it fair to pop back in to rip them apart again. It wasn’t the right time. I knew I had to wait until we were all stable enough to handle it. And hopefully that time would be when you all hated me a little bit less for what I’ve done.”

She looked even more hurt if that were possible. “I never hated you sis. I was mad, hurt, betrayed even. But I never hated you.”

For the first time in a long time, I felt like I could breathe properly again. Tears started forming, and I tried my hardest to hold them back, but knew I was going to fail miserably.

“I’m glad,” was all I could choke out. And just like that I began bawling like an i***t. She took my hand and just held it until I got myself under control.

“Well,” I said with a short laugh, trying to wipe my face into something halfway presentable, “I don’t know what else to say…would you like to meet Ari?”

Mara’s face brightened and she looked like I just offered her the sun. I looked down at my bag and said, “Okay, you can come out now.” And in a flash two balls of light came whirling about and settled on the table in front of us.

Ari went over a studied Mara closely, while Lark attempted to steal the last bit of scone from my plate.

“The green one is Ari. And this one here,” I gestured to the little sneak, “is a recent addition by accident.”

For the first time since I had returned, Mara threw back her head and laughed. “Only you could accidentally gain a collection of fairies.” She chortled. I gave her an exasperated smile back, and returned my gaze to Ari who was seemed to be suddenly feeling a lot braver. I didn’t often introduce her to strangers since people had strange feelings about the fairy folk in general.

Ari fluttered up, hovering in mid-air for a moment, before settling herself on Mara’s shoulder. She leaned in, appearing to whisper something in Mara’s ear. Mara looked thrilled.

“What?” I said suspiciously, brow raised.

“Nothing!” Mara snickered and they continued on amongst themselves glancing at me occasionally. In any other situation I would have found myself annoyed at being the topic of conversation. But at the moment I was confident that nothing could ruin my good mood.

My phone rang in my bag and I leaned over to grab it, keeping my eyes on both my sister and my familiar as they seemed to be scheming something that entertained them both.

My attention diverted to Lark who was currently attempting to stick his face in my coffee cup.

“Hey! Get out of there!” I half yelled at him, while hitting the answer button and raising the phone to my ear.

“I see time away has not improved your manners any,” the male voice on the other end rumbled, stunning me into complete silence, “Anyway, be here by five o’clock. We have a lot to talk about.” Then before I had a change to utter a single word he hung up.

I stared at my phone in disbelief and horror, listening to the dial tone. How could he know I was here? Who would have told him?

Mara turned her attention from Ari for a moment and instantly became concerned at my distress. “What’s wrong? Who was it?”

I turned my pale face and horrified eyes to her, barely choking out the one word.

“Dad.”