Page 50 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

CHAPTER THIRTY

Words guttered out in the back of my throat as I stared at the living embodiment of the Green Goddess, Mother Nature herself.

Her hair fell in soft layered waves all the way to her bare feet.

Tiny white chickweed flowers grew up between her toes.

Her verdant gown did not hide her voluptuous figure; rather, the shimmering threads accented every curve.

I knew the shape of her lips and the arches of her brows and the swells of her cheekbones because they were the same for every Hawthorne female.

Even the contour of her toes as she stood barefoot in the flowers.

Her eyes were a luscious brown, her skin olive and tinged with just enough green to make you question if it were a trick of the light.

Her sculpted eyebrows quirked up at my muteness. “Did you not call for me?” Her voice was soft and languid yet perfectly audible and enunciated. I was reminded of a lazy summer day where time had slowed from the thickness of the humidity.

“I told you not to say that name here,” Flora whispered.

The Green Mother’s gaze flicked to the garden gnome. “You’re an Ironweed, aren’t you? Of the diaspora?”

“Y-yes! My lady.”

“Yes, you can always tell,” the high fae mused. “It’s the bold stare and the?—”

Flora sneezed as if on cue.

“—hay fever.” The Green Mother gave the garden gnome a sympathetic look. “Your ancestors were notoriously susceptible to it. Have you tried butterbur balm?”

“I ran out,” the gnome sulked.

“Pity. Unfortunately your family is particularly susceptible to all pollen-related allergens. As such, your ancestors became exceptional tunnelers. Ingenious root cellar developers. Exceptionally gifted at manipulating every ounce of magic to be had from the earth, including minerals and crystals.” She tapped her chin and looked to the bullfinch like the two of them were puzzling out a conundrum.

“More soil gnomes than garden gnomes, I should think.”

That would explain her sudden interest in all things dirt since coming to Elfame.

“Are you saying my ancestors were mole people?” Flora sputtered.

“Exceptionally gifted mole people, if they were willing to embrace their heritage,” she replied pointedly. “Besides, the mole is an honorable creature.”

“No they’re not! They ruin your flowerbeds and wreck your lawn. That’s how you trip and get your toes chopped off by a lawnmower!”

The high lady cocked an eyebrow. To her credit, she didn’t weaponize her aura to make the garden gnome submit to her opinion or silence her objections.

Or maybe the high lady just wasn’t so superior, despite being a sovereign of a court, that she needed everyone to agree with her.

How… down to earth. How very Aunt Peony.

Flora’s cheeks turned cherry red and she snapped her mouth shut.

In a rare show of deference, she ducked her head.

Her eyes were hidden under her brown curls for only a moment before she lifted her gaze again.

The high lady hadn’t reprimanded her, not really, and she was both awed and fascinated by the sovereign of her ancestors’ court.

The high lady returned her attention to me, and I finally had the chance to circle back to my anger instead of being lost in awe. “You had my cat!”

Sawyer had retreated to the space between my ankles and now leaned against my leg. There was no room for Thistle to join him there, so she leaned against the other side of the same leg, tail entwining around his.

“Ah, is that what you call him?” the Green Mother asked. “I was curious, since he is no faelene.”

“You enthralled him.” I had too many memories of succumbing to that haze and, distant relation or no, I’d make her pay if she harmed Sawyer.

Sawyer pressed his paws down on my boot, making sure the pinch earned my attention. “Not intentionally. We were making friends. And her bullfinch’s name is Bonny.”

The bullfinch with the beautiful mauve feathers puffed out her chest with another chirp.

“You? Making friends so willingly?” The words weren’t harsh, just surprised.

The striped tomcat was reserved in his friendship and affection—it’d taken me weeks to get him to call me “Misty” instead of “human” and almost as long to accept snuggles.

Not that I blamed him; most had only wanted him for his talent and nothing else.

“When I arrived, I sensed an echo of Violet’s spirit in him.” The Green Mother’s vibrant brown eyes held mine. “Tethered to you. I was… overjoyed. My control might’ve slipped. I have not felt my sister since she fled to the mortal world. You have her eyes.”

“Her aura’s just like yours, Meadow,” Sawyer said through the bond. “When I felt it, it was so comforting. I’ve been so scared for you… It was like a hug for my spirit. She didn’t hurt me. And I didn’t betray you. You’re my witch, and nothing will ever change that.”

“I know, kitty.” While my expression remained cautious, I gave my familiar the equivalent of a thorough cuddle through the bond. He minced in place, rubbing his cheek against my leg.

Though her arms had dropped to her sides, the high fae was still regarding me with anticipation. They were so good at mastering their emotions, but from the quirk of her mouth and the brightness of her eyes, she was anxious for affirmation. To know the truth of what she had sensed in Sawyer. In me.

In a quiet, tense voice, I admitted, “I am Violet’s descendant. Her heir.”

It was risky to say it aloud, to own it. But I so desperately wanted to believe she was different than the other high fae I’d met, that the warning my mother had given me didn’t ring true. ‘Theirs is the magic of deception and illusion, designed to lull and distract, then strike.’

“I know. I know it.” The Green Mother’s full lips spread into the smile of a woman who had waited an eternity for a single moment that had finally come.

“I felt your return and immediately left my court to find you. My sister’s magic is yours now, but it should still remember me. Put the sword away.”

I did, sheathing Faebane and removing it from my back entirely.

It was safe in the scabbard, the trefoil flowers bending under its weight as I laid it on the grass.

Remembering my cuffs, I tore long strips from the overlong hem of my skirts and wrapped them thickly around my wrists.

The Green Mother watched me patiently the entire time, that small smile on her face.

When I was ready, she held out her hands to me, palms up. Entreating.

I wanted this. Badly. So much of my life a secret, yet here was the one who had been there when it had all began.

One halting step after another, I closed the distance between us and reached for her hands. When our fingers met, my oak tree burned brighter than it ever had before.

The Green Mother sobbed once and yanked me into her arms.

She was impossibly strong, her arms banded around me and cradling me to her bosom like a treasured child.

My hair dampened under her tears. For a fragment of a second, I thought I was five again and swept up in my grandmother’s arms. Before she’d learned what I was when I’d started manifesting my power at six.

Just a beloved grandchild, not a weapon.

“I thought I’d never see my sister again,” she whispered down to me. “I know I never will, but you?—”

She pulled away, cupping my cheeks with her hands and smearing the dampness away with gentle strokes of her thumbs. “How incredible you are. You became more.”

You are becoming. Hadn’t Violet told me that over and over again? Had she known all this time how her magic would change through generations of offspring? To create me, a primal witch?

“Y-you don’t mind that I’m not fae?” I asked. It was no secret the high fae were highly prejudiced. A caste system still existed here, with humans and supes ranking the lowest of the low.

“The lowly dandelion and the mighty oak tree serve my court differently, yet they are equal in respect.”

Aunt Hyacinth used to say something similar whenever we’d go out foraging in the woods.

It was easy to praise jewelweed for its beautiful flowers, bright green leaves, and antidotal properties against the Toxicodendron genus and much harder to appreciate stinging nettle because greater diligence was needed to bypass its defensive sting to gain access to its anti-inflammatory properties.

It seemed this high fae did not ascribe to the hierarchy prevalent everywhere else.

I smiled up at her in wonder, and the high lady smiled back. Bonny twittered.

The Green Mother’s hands slid from my cheeks to my upper arms and squeezed. “You must tell me everything, Niece. Including how you’ve entered the Twilight Court and returned alive. I will call Rhydian and we will go back to the Green Court and you and your friends will be my guests and?—”

“I can’t.” The words hurt with the same fierceness as that time in the Cedar Haven parking lot when I’d told Arthur I couldn’t pursue a relationship with him. I’d been wrong then, but not now. “I have to go home.”

“But I just found y?—”

The Green Mother’s grip tightened as she whisked me behind her. At first I thought she meant to kidnap me and spirit me away, but no. She had become my shield in response to a flash of green light.

During our reunion, the sun had finally set, and the Erusians had returned.

In the seconds that followed, the Manann mares by the carriage trumpeted their rage but didn’t approach.

Thistle bared her elongated fangs and stood over Sawyer with her wings flared out to each side.

Kian shielded his head to fend off another unconscious-rendering blow, and Flora grew the bird’s-eye trefoil into a tall hedge around her.

The flowers resembled falcon heads and screamed their rage at the high fae who had almost drowned her yesterday.

On his shoulder, Fiachna quietly slipped a quill into Kian’s hand.