Seventeen

The Disowning

The darkness had always calmed me. Even as a child, nighttime was my favorite. The quiet, the beauty of the stars, the comfort of being alone. Going home didn’t mean to me what it did to others. I preferred the night and earth to being inside that house.

Standing in front of the house, I stared up at it, wishing my life had gone differently. A million times I’d wished my father had lived. I wished I had been old enough to protect him. To keep him safe. The way my mother could have if she’d tried.

Slipping off my shoes I left them on the front steps of the house then sank my feet into the cold damp grass. The connection sent a bolt of energy through my body. I soaked in the recharge. Walking around the house, I inhaled the sweet scents of nature. Closing my eyes, I didn’t need to see to find the path to my circle. It drew me toward it. The soil beneath my feet was my guide.

My steps went without pause until I stood in the spot that was mine alone. Here I didn’t feel lost. I didn’t have the connection Heath and Margo had with each other and their parents. I didn’t have family surrounding me. I would never have a romantic connection with someone. Tonight I’d forgotten that for a moment, but Rathe had reminded me. Reality had hit as it often did and the pang of loneliness had stung from somewhere deep inside me.

I felt stronger here.

I wasn’t alone here. I had a connection to something others didn’t. It was as if ancestors who weren’t cold, hateful bitches were with me. I was positive I didn’t have Kamlock ancestors who weren’t shallow dark creatures, but here, I had someone. Something. I just didn’t know what it was or why I had this when the others didn’t. My sisters had mocked me when we were kids and I’d mentioned it to them.

The idea that what surrounded me out here was my father’s side of the family wasn’t possible because I had only seen one of them- Annabelle. She was my ancestor, but it wasn’t the same as when she was near. This was… powerful. It held something. It had energy that ordinary humans didn’t.

Whatever I had out here, it had kept me sane in this life I had been born into. With my eyes closed, I tilted my head back and the unity I had warmed my skin. My feet lifted from the ground, and I rested suspended under the stars. I called to no power, I asked for nothing, I pulled no energy, I only accepted the harmony. The breeze stilled, and I knew the animals that had been nearby would flee, leaving the area around me completely void of life other than mine. Not even Annabelle came out here or near this area.

Time was of no importance and neither was anything else. It was in this serenity that my pain, heartbreak, sadness didn’t exist. There was no ache in my chest. This was my void. My time of worship when I gave what I was to the earth and allowed it to control me.

When the night began to close, I opened my eyes, and slowly, I was lowered back to the ground beneath me. With a deep breath, I released the pain of yesterday, the rejection of hours ago, and the sadness that came with the life I led. I had lost a dear friend and that was my excuse for my weakness around Rathe. It wouldn’t happen again.

I moved to leave my circle when my gaze lifted to meet my mother’s bright green eyes glowing in the pre-dawn as she watched me. She was several feet away, her long red hair flowing free down her back. With the breeze catching the silky strands and the moonlight on her pale skin, she appeared every bit of the magical being she was. Nothing about her was ordinary.

I said nothing to her as I walked closer, waiting on her to say something. Explain her presence. This was not her time of day. She liked her sleep. She was out here for a reason. She sensed my joining with the earth but that wasn’t unusual. I’d done this since I was a child. If she wanted to taunt me or criticize me for not doing what she wanted then she’d have waited until another time. Her rest wouldn’t have been interrupted for me.

She was nervous, and I wondered why. The glow in her eyes was a show of sorcery. She was on guard and ready to cast at any moment. I didn’t feel any danger around us. I saw no reason for her to be so edgy and alert.

“You need to leave here,” she called out to me.

“What?” I asked, unsure I heard her correctly.

“The force around this house was placed here for you. Zephyr came yesterday to see if the girls were in any danger. I told him about the man you saw at the wedding and the barrier that he couldn’t cross. He brought two more warlocks with him. No one can break it nor do we know what it is.” She inhaled deeply, and her eyes flickered as if there was sunlight in the darkness causing it. “You refused the circle of three. You rejected the power of the charmed that was to be your destiny. Now, you need to go. Leave this house and don’t return.”

I wondered if this was Zephyr’s idea to get me to break and agree to the power of three. Threaten to send me away by claiming the stranger was after me. It sounded conniving enough that my mother had come up with it, but I would bet, she had help with the details.

“So, you’re kicking me out of the family?” I asked in shock. Did they think I would fall for this? When had I ever given them a reason to think I was so gullible?

She said nothing.

“How is this all about me? Did the spell speak to Zephyr? Tell him it was here to protect me?” I asked, wondering how far she was going to take this. I knew my mother would do anything for the power of three but this wasn’t something I ever expected.

The snarl I recognized on Persephone’s otherwise perfect face meant I’d pissed her off. She wanted to scare me into bending to her will. I wasn’t going to give her any ground here. I didn’t back away from her. Instead, I took two steps in her direction, making it clear I was not a child she could control. She didn’t move, but her eyes flashed a warning. As if I was suddenly an enemy instead of her daughter.

“There is sorcery and there is something that passes the darkness. It’s an eclipse, Catalina. A voodoo that black magic isn’t strong enough to contain. Your soul calls out to it. I feared it would one day. My hope was that you’d stop being a selfish brat and accept the gift of three. That your sisters joined forces would cleanse you of the other. Time has run out.” She pointed a single finger at me. “You waited too long. You wouldn’t allow the Kamlock gift to save you. Now he knows. He isn’t searching for you any longer. He found you.”

I took another step toward her, and this time, she backed up. “What are you talking about? What voodoo? Who has found me?”

She took several more steps back away from me. I saw the terror in her eyes and I wondered, once again, what could terrify my mother. “Is it the stranger from the wedding? Is that what this is about? He is after me and you know who he is? Or is this a trick to get me to give into the power of three?” I was starting to think this was more than a manipulation. Did she truly believe someone was after me and might harm her?

She shook her head. “No. That’s over. He’s here. There will be no power of three this generation. My choices years ago cursed it, and now, it’s back to haunt us all.”

She was talking too fast for me to make sense of all the stuff she was spewing. She was becoming hysterical. “You want me to take my things and leave here? Not come back? You no longer desire the power of three that your daughters would possess? I find that hard to believe,” then I added, “Where do you expect me to go?” it wasn’t that I hadn’t planned on leaving soon, but not at this moment, without a job. I had money saved but not enough to make me feel secure. I also didn’t plan on leaving with my mother demanding I go, immediately.

Her eyes flared wide, and she pointed at the distance. “Just go. Far away from here. Don’t return. Zephyr has Leanne with him until you are cleared out and gone.”

I stood there, staring at my mother, seeing no emotion other than fear in her expression. There was no sadness, no pain, no concern for me, no love. Nothing. I’d always thought maybe deep down she had some form of motherly affection for me. She’d never told me she loved me, but then she’d never said that to my sisters either. I just thought she had to care for us somewhere under it all. It seemed she did for Leanne and probably for Geneva… but not me. I was being tossed out. I had tried way too hard in this life to get any connection from this family. Nothing but pain came from being here. Hanging onto a hope that I might belong somewhere was a childish dream that I had let go of mentally but not physically. This place held memories of my father. Leaving that behind would hurt, but leaving the emptiness would be easy. She was demanding I leave, and she was right. It was time. We no longer needed each other.

“Mea est enim omnis,” I called out.

I didn’t want to see my bedroom again. I didn’t want to see Annabelle and have to explain things to her. She had lost so many already. There was no need for me to revisit a place that had long since been a home. My things didn’t need me to collect and move. They’d come to me like I had commanded.

I began walking toward my mother, just to watch her back away from me. It was bizarre to see her cower away from me. As a child, she’d treated me in ways that made me feel weak, unwanted, hated. I was savoring the fear in her eyes, and I knew the darkness inside me was roaring through my veins. It wanted me to cause pain; yet, until this moment, I’d never had the urge. Or the temptation.

“It’s done. I’m gone. Thank you mother for nothing in this life.” I expected a sharp pang of guilt when I said those words aloud but I felt nothing. As it should be. I had been her dissapointment and she’d been sure that I knew it.

“You should have never been born,” her voice trembled slightly as she said the words.

I agreed with her. I didn’t wish my life on anyone. “Agreed,” I replied.

“Don’t go to Duely. Leave him alone,” she added to hurt me.

The only blood relative that cared for me, she wanted me to also leave alone. Even now, she was trying to control me. She may be disowning me but I was still a Kamlock. That she couldn’t change. “That’s up to Duely,” I told her.

She raised a hand to me as if to protect herself, but she said nothing. I rolled my eyes. This was the most ridiculous thing that I’d ever experienced with this woman, and I’d been through a lot. I thought the time she locked me in a car in the heat of the summer at the age of ten as a test after the casting lessons she’d given us was bad. My sisters hadn’t been testedlike that. Just me. I’d passed the test with ease. It had seemed cruel but this topped that by far.

“You’ve been trying to get rid of me since I was child,” I said wondering if the tests she’d given me my entire life had been her trying to kill me.

She didn’t argue with me. She didn’t deny it. I was stunned. Duely was right. I was naive. Terribly naive. This was the end of that though. Today would change me more than anything else she’d ever done.

“Goodbye, Mother,” I said not wanting to spend one more moment near her. I had no idea what I was going to do or where I was going to go. All I had was the items that belonged to me. Whatever was in that house that was deemed as mine would be sitting on the front porch waiting on me. I’d been clear when I had spoken the words to conjure them.

She didn’t move. She stayed there, watching me as if I might transform into a demon at any moment and she might need to use magic to protect herself. I didn’t know this woman at all and I knew she didn’t know me either. How a woman could give a child life and live with them for twenty years yet feel nothing for them was its own evil.

The sun was still two hours away from rising as I walked in the moonlight around the house. The darkness continued to give me peace at a time I should have none. I was unsure where I would go or what I would do, but none of it worried me. The three suitcases sitting on the front porch held what the house deemed as mine. It was more than I expected since there was little I had bought for myself. Anything provided by my father’s money was still my mothers since his money had been left to her alone.

The money I’d been saving, so that I could leave here, would be with my things. If I could get a job quickly then I could use that money to find an affordable place to live. I had no desire to go back on that porch or near it’s entrance. I held my hand, and with a flick, the suitcases lifted and moved without my help to the car. The trunk popped open and all three bags fit inside when there should only be room for one. I waited until it closed, then without a backward glance, I climbed inside and drove away.