Two months later on Thanksgiving Day

 

Verika didn’t realize how quiet the tiny, secluded graveyard was until Elijah killed the engine. The silence of the surrounding woods immediately enveloped them. Not even the wind stirred on this chilly November morning.

Verika sat in the passenger seat, watching her breath fog the glass. Her body felt heavy, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. There was the sting of grief, the ache of longing, the stab of loss.

And yet, underneath it all, she felt truly, deeply thankful.

Thankful she now knew what had happened to her parents, where they were. It had taken awhile to track down their graves, but she’d wanted to come to Florida to visit them as soon as she’d found out where they were buried.

Finally, she could lay to rest all the hurt she’d carried all these years over them supposedly abandoning her. They had wanted her, had loved her with all their hearts. Her mother’s journal had proved that much.

So why did she still feel so guilty? Why was it suddenly impossible to get out of the car?

Rough, callused fingers rubbed her arm through her sweater. “You okay?” Elijah murmured, brows stooped in concern.

Verika took a deep breath, let it out. Turned her head to face her mate. “Yeah.” She nodded. “Let’s do this. It’s not going to get any easier just sitting here.”

A gentle squeeze was his response before they both silently got out of the car. Verika never heard the car doors lock as they trekked up the hill. Out here, in the boondocks of the deep South, there wasn’t a soul for miles. The last farmhouse she’d seen had been over five miles back. She was kind of surprised no one else was out here. Holidays tended to pull people to graveyards, to remind them of people loved and lost. People who they weren’t able to enjoy the holidays with anymore. Even the grass looked gray, though a few green patches remained here and there. Stubbornly clinging to life despite winter’s approach.

Some of the heaviness in Verika’s footsteps faded the farther they climbed. She kept her hands clasped in front of her because she didn’t know what else to do with them. They felt sweaty inside her leather gloves, but she didn’t dare pull them off. It was far too cold out for that. She’d have to wait until they got back into the car.

Elijah kept a hand on the small of her back the whole way. Not so much pushing her toward the large headstone beneath the barren, grand oak tree so much as to silently remind her he was there, ready to catch her should her knees give out.

Curiously, the closer they drew to the gravestone, the stronger, surer she felt.

Her eyes read over the names etched into the gunmetal gray marble as soon as she was close enough to read them.

Moira Elizabeth Stone

Loving Mother and Wife

Michael Jason Stone

Doting Husband and Father

She didn’t remember stopping before the grave, only vaguely registered how her heart skipped a beat, how her breath caught.

Her eyes slowly raked over the names again.

Elijah had let go of her, standing but two feet behind her, hands stuffed in his pressed black pants pockets. She could feel his concern, his strength through their bond. But he also knew she needed to do this on her own. Needed space to process the gamut of emotions tumbling through her.

Verika reached out, reverently ran her palm over the crown of the cold headstone. Her parents’ final resting place seemed so plain, so ordinary, considering the life they’d lived. Especially her mother.

Verika’s hero. A woman who’d done everything she could, sacrificed everything she had, so that her daughter might grow up in a normal world.

Or, well, as normal as being a witch could get. If anything, her mother’s binding spell had made life more difficult for Verika in the witching community. Affinity-less witches tended to stick out like sore thumbs. The binding had made her a freak anyway. She’d been shunned regardless of her mother’s good intentions. And they had been good. That much Verika was certain of.

So, despite the flawed logic in her plan, her mother’s heart had been in the right place. And for that, Verika couldn’t fault her.

For that reason alone, Verika could forgive her for not being there. For missing every birthday, every heartache, every triumph. Because, in a way, deep, deep, deep down inside, Verika knew her mother was still with her. That she’d never left, that she’d simply bottled her love in the form of the crystal Verika wore around her neck now.

A symbol of everlasting love that death could never take away.

Verika knelt in the soft, dew-damp grass. The sun had broken the horizon only fifteen minutes ago, its golden rays streaking the lightening indigo sky and cascading over the graves, trees, and rolling grasses of the surrounding meadow.

The grass tickled her stockinged legs as she nestled a bouquet of white roses at the base of the gravestone.

Her voice shook when she spoke; her heart fluttered in her chest. “Hi, Mom, Dad,” she whispered after a pause heavy with unspoken words. Though she’d been saying Mom and Dad to her foster family, she’d always known in the back of her mind that it was a lie. A good one, because it meant she was lucky enough to have found a family to call her own. But a lie all the same.

In a way, even a tiny bit, saying Mom and Dad to people she knew weren’t really her birth parents stung. Because it reminded her she hadn’t been good enough to warrant keeping, hadn’t been worth fighting for.

But she had. Her mother had sacrificed so much to save her. She realized that now, and the peace and joy that brought her lit up her soul. But there were still things to be said, as close to her parents’ faces as she would ever get in this lifetime.

It took her a moment to collect her thoughts, gather her courage. “I don’t know what to say, not really.” Her voice was barely audible, even to her own ears, though she felt her lips moving. An acute sense of shyness nearly rendered her mute. Were it not for Elijah’s warm hand on her shoulder, followed by a comforting squeeze, she might not have found her voice again.

“I’ve always wanted to meet you. Always wondered when I was a child, in my dreams, my nightmares, my hopes, what you were like. Why you aba…why you left.” She wet her lips. “I thought it was because you didn’t love me or want me. You found out what I truly was and were so disgusted you sealed away my powers in the hope of protecting the interests of the Underworld and mankind alike. There are many more reasons than that, but those were the most predominant ones in my mind. A million reasons that, I see now, could not be farther from the truth. You did love me. Loved me so much you died trying to protect me. Not just from myself, but mostly from those who sought to do me harm. And you know what? It worked. I’m safe.” Tears started to fall as her voice broke on a sob. “I’m safe, Momma. Daddy. My mate is safe. The whole damn world is safe because you, Momma, loved me enough to sacrifice your life to help me. I just wanted you to know that, both of you. To know that I am safe, and I am loved, and…and…I want you to know everything is going to be all right now. I’m going to be all right now. So don’t worry about me. You’ve done enough. More than enough. Go rest in peace now. Your baby girl is going to be just fine.”

She paused right as she was about to stand and, almost as an afterthought, placed two fingers to her lips, pressed a kiss there. She then touched those same fingertips first to her mother’s name, and then slid them down over her father’s. Her fingers lingered against the cool stone, not quite ready to release. She didn’t want to walk away but knew she had to.

When at last she stood, Elijah had to help her up because her legs were too wobbly to hold her. He looped an arm around her back, let her stand there as long as she wanted. The sun had fully crested the horizon by the time she was ready to leave. Even then it took Elijah’s gentle prodding to get her going.

“We should hit the road,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her close. His warmth knocked away the early morning chill; his lips nuzzled her ear, her neck. Chills of a different sort skittered through her. “Our flight leaves in two hours. Being a holiday, I bet security will be a bitch.”

“Yeah. Okay.” She nodded, her voice thick. Linking hands and casting one last look over her shoulder, she let Elijah lead her back down the hill.

“You know,” she said after a moment of comfortable silence, “I do actually feel better, but…” It still hurts, to know I’ll never get to know them. She couldn’t say it aloud and didn’t know why. Maybe because she’d be admitting a weakness, and her past had schooled her it was dangerous to show weakness, even to those you loved.

Looks like Elijah isn’t the only one with some emotional baggage to sort through, she thought wryly.

Elijah gave her a sympathetic look. “I know, baby. The hurt will fade over time, but it never truly leaves. You just learn to live with it.”

Live with it. Something so simple, yet so hard to do.

But she was ready to. She was ready, at last, to move on.