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So much for good manners. I stepped in front of Jason, my hands on my hips. “What do you think we’re going to do to you?”
He glanced from Nora to me and back again. “I overheard many conversations between my father and Aunt Charlotte about how they thought it best to keep all of us away from her,” he nodded at Nora, “unless we,” with air quotes, “exhibited signs.”
I’d had enough of my long-lost cousin. “Signs of what? Extreme dysfunction?” I shouted. “Oh, no problem there. Your parents taught me all I needed to know. Isn’t that why you don’t go home?”
Nora touched my arm. “Watch your temper.”
Things didn’t rattle when I got riled up now that I’d learned to control the telekinesis. I considered rattling something on purpose to screw with Jason, or sending something flying at his head.
He took a step back. “My sister might think we can be one big happy family again, but I’m not interested. And you’re going to be the ones to make her understand. Do I make myself clear?”
“I’m afraid you’re not clear at all,” Nora said. “If you’re not interested, that seems like something you should tell her.”
Jason’s lips narrowed into a thin line. “My parents refused to talk to me about you,” he told Nora. “But Aunt Charlotte...” His throat undulated and his expression softened. “I’m sorry about your mother, Brynn, but that doesn’t change anything.”
“What did Charlotte tell you?” Nora’s voice was surprisingly gentle. How could she be so calm while he stood there condemning us?
“She said I had nothing to worry about, that certain genetic traits were only passed to the women of the family.” His face screwed up in a semblance of pain. “I don’t want my children brainwashed into believing they have a genetic malfunction.”
Not even the townspeople treated us with such disrespect. I pointed to the door. “Your parents put a roof over my head for ten years, which might have given them an excuse to treat me like the poor orphan I was, but this is my house. You don’t get to barge in here and talk to me like this. You can leave. Now.”
“No need to be inhospitable,” Nora said. “He’s only trying to protect his family.”
I turned to Nora. “I’m his family. You’re his family. We haven’t done anything to invite this attack. He doesn’t even know us.”
“That’s how prejudice works,” she said. “You know that as well as I do.”
“I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body,” Jason argued.
“Then what are you afraid of?” Nora turned to me. “Didn’t you tell me he lived near Madison?” And then to him. “You drove an hour and a half just to disown the family you never see?”
“Or maybe you came to see if we wear pointed hats and shoes with curled toes,” I added.
Jason recoiled. “My job transferred me to Meadow Hill. My wife has it in mind to bring the family together even after I told her I’m not interested. She’s been to your little gift shop.”
Jeannine had told me Jason’s wife was pregnant. I ran a mental movie of customers who’d been to the shop, trying to recall which of them were expecting. “Well, if that’s true, you may be assured she didn’t introduce herself.”
A little gray ball of fur came racing down the staircase, leapt to the back of the sofa and onto my shoulder. Ash, my six-month-old kitten, nuzzled my head and purred in my ear. I took her off my shoulder and held her in my arms, allowing her to calm my nerves.
Jason shook a finger at me. “My parents took you in.”
“A fact they never let me forget, right up until I was eighteen and your mother kicked me out,” I shot back. “Then your mother tried to steal my inheritance.”
He narrowed his eyes. “She wouldn’t.”
“Ask your sister,” I said. “She was there.”
“I don’t want you talking to my sister, either,” he added.
“Your sister’s a grown woman. She can make her own decisions. Unlike you, she at least made an effort to be civil.”
“Jason, would you like to sit down and discuss this? Have a cup of coffee?” Nora asked.
I stifled a growl. “He doesn’t deserve good manners.”
Ash wriggled out of my arms, trotted over to Jason and wove around his legs.
I folded my arms. “Traitor.”
She chirped in response, somewhere between a meow and a purr.
I raised an eyebrow and Nora laughed.
“You know, your father grew up in this house,” Nora said. “As did I and your aunt Charlotte. It’s Brynn’s house now. I’m recently married, you see, so I sold it to her. Would you like to see pictures of your father when he was younger? There are several family portraits in the stairwell.” She turned toward me. “Unless, of course, you’ve taken them down.”
I shook my head.
Nora walked to the staircase behind the living room wall, but Jason didn’t follow. Instead, he glowered at me. She reappeared moments later carrying a couple of the photos.
“Your grandparents,” she pointed out. “And this is your father, standing with me and Charlotte.”
Jason looked, but he didn’t take the pictures.
“We were all close once. A family. Then people started getting married and moving away. Funny how that can change relationships, don’t you think?” She tilted her head. “You moved away when you got married, didn’t you?”
Jason’s eyes grew narrow. “I moved for work.”
“So did Brynn’s mother. So did your father.”
Jason looked away.
With another knock on the door, Ash went skittering to the sofa, where she kneaded a woven rug in the corner that was “her spot.”
I opened the door to Kyle in his police uniform. “Your neighbor called.” He glanced over my shoulder at Jason. “She said she heard yelling over here. Thought I’d stop over and see if everything was okay.”
I took his hand and drew him inside. “I was saving the news for dinner,” I told Nora, “but since he’s here now I might as well tell you Kyle and I are back together.”
Nora’s dark blue eyes sparkled.
I turned to Jason. “Kyle Jakes, this is my cousin, Jason Hanson.”
Kyle shook Jason’s hand.
Jason shifted his attention between me and Kyle. “It doesn’t bother you that she’s a witch?”
Kyle straightened and adjusted his utility belt. “Ah, your aunt Theresa’s son.” He turned to me. “There’s an old saying about apples and trees that has me guessing he’s responsible for the shouting. Is there a problem?”
I shook my head.
He turned to Jason. “Brynn and Nora are respected members of this community. Is there a reason for your visit other than to harass these fine ladies?”
“Stay away from my family,” Jason said one more time before he shouldered his way out the door.
“Is there anything I can do?” Kyle asked, holding onto my hand.
“Not sure what that would be. I guess he needed to get something off his chest,” I added with a touch of sarcasm.
Kyle kissed me, then smiled. “I’ll see you for dinner.” He nodded to Nora and left.
“Well, well, well.” Nora resumed her seat at the table. “Kyle bought the house? You’d think someone might have mentioned it to you sooner.”
“I do my best to distance myself from the town gossip. They probably thought it would be funny when I found out,” I replied.
“But why wouldn’t he say something?”
I dropped into my seat. “We weren’t speaking, remember? And then he thought I’d be moving away after everything that happened over the summer. As he put it, it was time he grew up and bought a house of his own. Now that we’ve patched things up, he’s talking about flipping the house and moving in with me.”
“Well, well, well,” she said again. “I imagine if he had any doubts about you before, Jason painted him a clear enough picture. I suppose you both know what you’re in for.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Kyle’s father always guessed about me, although we never talked about it when we were dating. I don’t doubt he mentioned something to Kyle, too, by way of a warning.”
Kyle knew. While we hadn’t discussed my extra talents openly, we’d touched on the topic in our conversations and he’d reassured me he wasn’t frightened that I was ‘different.’ “Well, if Kyle wasn’t sure before, he’ll probably have questions at dinner tonight.”
“You’re happy?” Nora asked.
My heart bloomed with the way I loved Kyle. “I am.”
“Then I suppose you know what you’re doing.” She finished her slice of bread and dusted her hands off over her plate. “I’m impressed with the control you’ve learned. I didn’t see anything flying across the room directed at Jason’s head.”
I chuckled. “Not that I wasn’t tempted.”
“And speaking of knowing what you’re doing, it’s time to show you the book.” She shot a glance over her shoulder, toward the kitchen. “Do you remember me telling you how Jerome used to tease us about ghosts in the coal chute when your mother and I were little?”
“Yes?”
“He wanted your mother and me to think he was much too intelligent for such fairytales.” She ducked her head and lowered her voice. “But I suspect his stories came as a result of witnessing a thing or two on his own.”
Like the time a couple of months ago when, with no one in the house, the lid to my music box had been opened? “The house is haunted?”
“Not exactly.” Nora crooked a finger for me to follow her through the kitchen to the utility room. The steel coal chute door, built into the brick exterior wall, had been sealed shut. Now, a washing machine and dryer occupied the place the coal bin would have been years ago.
Nora lowered her voice to a whisper. “Jerome told me he’d seen a ghost waving a finger at him when he was playing in here one day. Scared him, but not so much that he didn’t try to scare me and Charlotte, too, by luring us here, hoping we’d see something.” She squeezed between the machines and moved her hands over the bricks, tugged one, and a false front pulled from the wall. “The ghost was protecting this.” She reached into the cache in the wall and pulled out a book.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A book of spells.”