Page 33

Thirty

HARLOW

I walk through the same forest I ran through last night with much less fear. If another vampire happens upon me, I’m better prepared, my magick just a flick away.

The night is silent while the light between the trees shifts from dusk to dawn, the early morning glow a tease on the horizon. By the time I reach the edge of the forest, the sun’s more visible, making me suspect it’s about five in the morning.

Even if Alec has woken, the sun will keep him away. While I might not have a particular plan in mind, I’ll be far gone by the time the sun sets.

Exactly as he said last night, by the edge of the forest is a cemented road. It stretches far ahead and behind, giving no sign of a location, but it’s a start. By following it, eventually I’ll get somewhere. Unfortunately, it’ll be by foot as I never grasped the concept of magickal transportation methods, like being able to pop myself from one place to another with only the location in my mind’s eye.

So, I walk on, hoping someone drives by and takes pity on me.

* * *

Hours pass without a sign of life. I’m nowhere far enough from Alec’s castle that he wouldn’t catch up with me. Now, the sun is high in the sky, about midday, which means I have maybe another six or so hours until he comes.

I take a bend in the road when a cracking noise echoes behind me and the ground ruffles, the signal that the peace of nature that’s been my only form of entertainment for hours has been disrupted.

And then there’s a voice. More like a breathed whisper carried towards me on the cool afternoon breeze of early fall.

“Harlow Sinclair.”

My palms tingle with the beginning smolders of a fireball ready to form, to defend, while I recall the silent incantation for a protection spell, should I need a shield between me and the intruder.

I slowly turn, coming face to face with a woman. A woman, whom for all accounts I don’t know, but a familiarity has me lowering my hands, the warmth dissipating. Dark hair is bound up in a bun, keeping her face clear, but still she swipes at the few stray hairs hanging, moving them out of the way from wide eyes that fade from brown to purple, the telling sign she’s another witch. She stands tall, confident, but with my spin, breaks into a gasp that has her stumbling forward, reaching for me.

“You’re alive. It’s actually you.”

“How do you know my name?” I prepare to run because there have been enough unfriendly people in my life that I don’t need another, even if there’s still something comforting about her.

Her brows fuse together and she rocks back on her heels, coming to an abrupt stop. “You don’t remember me?”

“Should I?”

“What have they done to you?” she asks in a low whisper. “My name is Morgan Hargrove, and I’m the High Priestess of Highridge Coven…and your guardian.”

Home. It’s a word that catapults into my head. A word that sounds right and familiar. Highridge coven should have been my home, but according to the people I called Mom and Dad, they got rid of us because of the ongoing vampire attacks.

“You kicked us out.” Even as I say it, my chest clenches with the falseness in that argument while something else probes the back of my mind.

A memory…or something.

“Morgan, look over here!”

“I see you, Harlow. Great job!” The woman turns, her smile kind ? —

And her face is the same as the one in front of me.

“Kicked you out?” She—Morgan—practically chokes, rapidly shaking her head. “My girl, no. I’m getting the sense you’ve been lied to, but no more than I have been as well.”

Morgan paces forward another step, lifting her hands, seeking permission, which I give by not backing up. She completes the final step before her palms rest on my cheeks, cupping my face, her touch as cool as the breeze.

The sensation quickly dissipates into something else: a series of visions that slip through my mind.

Morgan hugging me tightly. “Happy birthday.”

Morgan standing in a kitchen between two other people, a man and a woman. She glances over at my entrance and waves.

Morgan standing beside a child, holding her hand as they cross the yard towards me.

“You’re truly alive.” Her voice snaps the images away, and I jerk, trying to chase them. To bring them back. She takes my movement wrong and lowers her arms with a frown. “Sorry.”

“No, it wasn’t…did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“I think I saw…” I reach down for her hand, bringing her palm back to my face, willing the images to return. The feeling I know something—that this woman is telling the truth. “I saw you. You were hugging me. You were walking across a yard.”

Morgan’s lips part, and her face scrunches as though in pain. “Fuck, they really—no matter.” She lowers her hand again. “We’ll get it sorted, I promise. For now, I’m still trying to realize this isn’t a dream. That you’re alive and here.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You shouldn’t be,” she murmurs. “You died. Your magickal signature faded. After you disappeared, I spent months searching for you until the mortal police called with the report of your death. I saw the accident for myself, and yet here you stand.” She scans me, pausing on my neck before nudging hair off my shoulder. “You’ve been attacked.”

The need to hide what happened between me and Alec has me batting her hand away and bringing hair back over my shoulder. “Forget the bites. What do you mean, I died ?”

At first, I assume she’d heard of the house fire, but her mention of an accident suggests there’s more to Violet and Arthur’s deception than the box let on.

Her attention remains on my neck, and it’s obvious she doesn’t want to let the marks go, but with a deep sigh, concedes. “Seems we have a lot of catching up to do. How would it sound to go home after all this time? Your real home.”

What is home anymore? Maybe subconsciously, home—the last one I knew before Alec kidnapped me—was where I was heading to. Back to where my stuff is. Back to what became the grave for my powers, my family, even my self-worth.

Except it doesn’t feel like home anymore. It’s the source of pain, of losing the people I loved. It’s the place where they spent years forming me into a being for their own gains, isolating me from a coven. It’s a reminder of the shadows that once weighed me down, and of the night Alec came for me. It’s my past.

If I go with Morgan, if I trust her, then I get to see where I came from. Get answers for everything the box didn’t give. Unlock the secrets of my past and determine what exactly happened with Violet and Arthur Hartman, and why Morgan thinks I died.

And hide from Alec.

I take her hand in mine, and it’s like I’m home. Magick swirls from my palm to hers, our powers recognizing one another. She smiles before the ground disappears from under my feet.

* * *

The air is different. Lighter, if that’s possible. The sun feels brighter, like we’re closer to it. And behind me aren't trees anymore—except there are certainly a lot of those in the distance, covering the incline of stone that consumes my entire vision. It’s magnificent and beautiful. Nature at its purest, its finest.

I spin, taking in the mountains, the cloudy sky blanketing much of the blue, and the crispness in the air. It’s a place without smoke and exhaust. Without the bustle of a town, or even the openness of the countryside.

It’s Banff. The place Highridge Coven calls home.

The houses Morgan and I are standing nearest are cabin-style, their sidings covered with a varnished wood that’s obviously for decoration only, covering the thick building materials needed for houses this far north to survive a winter that’s always one nip away. They have a sense of modernity too, with large windows both in the upper and lower floors, overlooking the cobblestone street we’re on.

“Banff,” I breathe.

Morgan nods, tugging me into a walk. “Very good. It’s where we’ve lived for centuries. The Sinclairs created Highridge, did you know that?” Her eyes cut towards me, as sharp as her frown before she mumbles the presumed answer to her own question. “No, I suppose you didn’t. But it’s true. This is your legacy, Harlow.”

My throat is thick as I’m tugged along, mind repeating what she’s said. Banff was more than only home then. More than just a coven. Violet and Arthur took me from the place my family lived for centuries. Anger flushes through me, but I quickly tamp it down with another glance towards the unearthly mountains all around us while forcing air into my lungs.

“Still in Canada then.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve been living in a small town in Ontario for as long as I can remember.”

Morgan abruptly yanks me to a stop, her nostrils flaring with her sharp inhale. “Days. You were only days away from us this entire time? Nearly seventeen years and you—” She stops, her grip tight around my fingers. “I’m sorry,” she says after a moment, loosening her hold. “It’s difficult to learn you were so close this entire time. Had I known, I would have come for you.”

“I believe you.” And I do. I feel it. My magick recognizes Morgan. Though the memories are vague and blurry, my heart does too.

“There is nothing I can ever do to make up for how I failed you. Other than returning you home.”

I want to tell her it’s fine, that there was nothing she could have done, but is it fine? At this point, I don’t even know what’s up anymore.

“Where did you find me?” I ask instead, wondering precisely where Alec has been hiding me.

“Just over the U.S. border, in Montana. Come.” She turns up the street, her knitted cardigan swirling around the backs of her thighs.

Montana. Close enough Alec will find me, if he’s able to track me here. He didn’t exactly give details on how the supposed mate bond between us works.

Morgan gestures to some of the houses we pass. “This is the area of the town inhabited by the coven. We prefer to stick close to one another.” She continues, turning down a skinnier road, and I fall back, inspecting the homes and realizing with a punch to the gut that the people residing in them could have been family. They should have been witches and warlocks I grew up alongside.

The churning in my stomach travels up, prickling my eyes with the beginning formations of tears. For years, I hated how the coven abandoned us, never giving me the connection every witch desires. As much as I loved my parents, two witches aren’t enough. Not when knowledge is passed from coven member to coven member, each learning from one another’s experiences, getting to practice other elemental magick, reciting a variety of incantations. My coven consisted of only two, and I now understand why I know nothing beyond fire, or why I used to obsessively pour over Gram’s grimoires—which I now realize were probably stolen from my real family.

The prickle behind my eyes travels back down, this time in my veins, igniting the very flames they spent years teaching me. Anger stirs. Arthur and Violet Hartman, whoever they were and whyever their reasoning, kept me from my true potential.

“Harlow,” Morgan calls softly, doubling back when I’ve made it no farther than the street’s corner. “We’re almost to my house where we’ll talk, but I’d like to show you something first. I understand it must be confusing.”

You don’t, though. You have no idea what it feels like to learn you had an entire other life at one point. That the life you had was a well-orchestrated performance.

I force my mouth into a smile, because it’s not her fault I’m mentally spiralling.

It is her fault, that slithery voice returns, making me shiver uncomfortably. She’s High Priestess. She is to blame for everything.

“Harlow?” she calls again, and I shake off the sensation while ignoring the unwelcome voice and follow her up the road, this time staying beside her until she brings us to a stop in front of a house.

Similar style as the others. Two storeys done with polished wood, a wraparound porch that covers two-thirds of the house, and a large bay window overlooking the polished yard. A stone path connects the sidewalk to the red front door and is decorated with various kinds of flowers.

“Do you recognize it?”

“Should I?” I ask, even knowing I should and why she’s wondering. The house might seem unfamiliar, but an energy pulls my feet from the sidewalk to the pathway, an invisible wall of power urging me forward. Parts of me know it, even if I don’t.

Morgan’s hand wraps around my wrist. “We’ve taken care of it, never allowing another to reside in it. Perhaps deep down, I hoped for this outcome, that you’d come back to us one day.”

My throat and heart swell with a newfound ache, only this time it’s welcoming too. Pressing my lips together, I nod and duck my head to follow her, unable to formulate a reply. To return to the place I once called home is…unlike anything I could have ever dreamed, but it’s also nothing I’ve had to dream of. Something that I didn’t know was possible until recently.

Morgan leads me to a similar-looking house and through the grey front door. The modest foyer immediately opens to a sitting room, a fireplace along one wall and a couch facing away from the window overlooking the front yard. She passes by and down the hallway lined with pictures—my attention unable to land on any one long enough to make out the people in them—and into the kitchen filled with modern appliances and a granite U-shaped countertop.

This is nothing compared to the mortal-looking home I grew up in. Mom and Dad seemed determined to hide anything cultural, while Morgan’s home seeps nature and magick— life .

Candles cover many of the surfaces, and there are various kinds of plants hanging from doorways and walls, wrapped around posts. A wooden pentacle hangs on the kitchen wall, and beside it, an ankh—the symbol of love, life, and reincarnation. Paintings depicting the numerous versions of Hecate are scattered around the downstairs. Herbal scents emit from every room, welcoming, delicious, and easing to the mind, body, and spirit.

My magick sings. This is more than before the accident, before I lost my powers, before their return hours ago. My eyes flutter shut as I take it all in. The life that pours from its walls. The soul awakening mine.

This may not be my house, but I’m home regardless. Whatever Violet and Arthur did, they raised half a witch—and Alec got the outcome of that. The scared, powerless, and weak version of me. The witch never truly connected with nature how I should have been. No wonder Hecate abandoned me. I wasn’t me , not really.

Inside the kitchen, a woman turns from where she’s pouring hot water from a kettle into a mug. At our entrance, her mouth slips lax, as does her hand. The kettle crashes onto the counter, sending hot water surging from it. She would have been burned if not for the spell Morgan casts its way to suspend it midair—and the speed the woman darts away from it and towards me.

“There’s no fucking way.” Her purple eyes flick between Morgan and me, pausing on Morgan. “Mom, this isn’t real, right? This can’t be real. She isn’t…you’re—” Her hands come up to cover her mouth, one layered over the other while her talking continues, now an unidentifiable mumble.

Morgan slides by my shoulder before heading towards the counter. “Harlow, meet my daughter, Carina. Re-meet, I suppose.”

I study the woman in front of me, seeking some recognition in her. In the shine of her brown waves, in the flicker of her eyes, in the softness of her face. But she—Carina—remains a mystery to my wiped memory.

Carina drops her hands, her mouth still doing this gaping fish movement. “There’s no way. You—you died . We were supposed to play outside the day you—oh fuck.” She spins on her mother. “This isn’t fake?”

“No.” Morgan retrieves two new mugs and begins filling them. “I know you have a lot of questions, but I’m going to ask that you make yourself busy elsewhere until Harlow gets settled.”

Carina pouts, obviously not enjoying being kicked out, but truth is, I’m thankful she is. I don’t know how I can get the entire story out to one person, let alone one who’d likely react dramatically to the details.

“Of course,” she agrees after a moment. “Goddess, you have no idea…” She reaches for me but drops her hands at the last second. “Welcome home, Harlow. I’ve missed you.”

And then she heads down the hall. The door clicks shut behind her, and I take a breath.

“You two were best friends as kids,” Morgan comments, carrying over two steaming mugs towards the round table in the corner of the room. “Come, please sit.”

The table’s beneath a window that overlooks the side of the house and down the road to the home she said was mine. If Carina and I lived this close to one another, I imagine we’d still be close. Like sisters, perhaps. A friend through everything. A witch going through all the same changes I did. I faced puberty alone, but understanding my ever-changing body and my powers with a friend would have been nice.

I choke down the grief with a tentative sip of the herbal tea, singeing the edge of my tongue as I do. It’s a welcome sting, distracting me from everything else.

Morgan wraps her palms around her mug and shifts in her chair, leaning as close to the table as she can. “I’ve dreamed of being able to speak with you again so many times, and now that you’re in front of me, I don’t know where to begin.”

“Maybe I should go first. I, uh…I’m aware the people I called Mom and Dad weren’t my birth parents, although I only learned that this morning. Long story, but I found journal entries written and apparently, they were wiping my memory. That’s why I don’t really remember anything.”

With her mouth in a flat line, she says, “Alright. Tell me everything you know, and I’ll fill in the gaps.” Her attention goes to my neck, where evidence of Alec’s bites makes me bring my hair over my shoulder.

I wonder what he’s doing right now.

I wonder if he’s coming for me.

I wonder what I’ll do when he does.