I release a heavy sigh.
“That looked like Caleb’s place in the Quarter.”
I nod. “If I had to guess, it’s from the day we moved in.”
“The day we moved away from the protections of the family home,” she adds.
“Wait. What?” Jeanna leans into the table.
“You have wards protecting your grandma’s place?” James practically leaps from his seat. “Sweet.”
“My family could have used something like that,” Luna mumbles.
“Powerful wards put in place by the infamous ancestor everyone seems to hate,” Miri adds and presses her palms to the table, leans into the group. “Around the time we moved out of the house was about the same time I found myself dealing with some difficult control issues.”
“What do you mean?” I shift sideways to better study her response.
“That infamous ancestor of ours…” She swings her gaze around the group and comes to pause on me. “Her energy continues to live on, and it is immensely strong. She attempted to take possession of me and my life. She tried to replace me.”
“No vampin’ way!” I lean away, my mouth dropping open. “How come I never knew this?”
She shakes her head. “It was at a time when there was a lot going on. We had just moved out. Mike was always moping around or gone, and you…” She swings a point in my direction. “You were discovering your own magick.”
“So…” My gaze flickers from her to the mirror and back. “You had to go through that struggle alone?”
“Damn girl!” James leans forward and flattens his spread fingers across the table’s surface.
“Grandma helped, a bit,” Miri says. “But ultimately, it came down to me and my ability to stand up for myself and deny her.” She lowers her head. “What if it’s the same thing for Mom?”
Luna leans forward, turning tighter into the conversation, listening intently.
“What if she is the only one who can abolish Caleb’s control?”
I let out a long breath and fold my hands in front of me. Stare into the blurred space of the table. What if Miri’s speculation is correct and Mom is the only one who can put a stop to Caleb. She let him in, and now she must kick him out. But…
“How do we reach her, the real her, not the Caleb manipulated version of her?” I ask.
“That’s the question we should be asking.” Miri pushes away from the table and crosses her arms. “How do we wake Mom up enough so that she can revoke Caleb’s access?”
The next few days blur together. It’s all study, planning, caretaking, and a lot of my new favorite thing: holding Luna’s hand. There’s schoolwork, yes, but Luna and I spend hours on the phone with James and Jeanna. We make plans to locate and kidnap Luna’s father, remove him from the bokor’s control so that he can detox and return to his normal self. We also make a list of spells that could come in handy against the bokor’s men, the bokor, and the bokor’s magick.
Tuesday brings thunderstorms, and the rain continues into Wednesday, which keeps us mostly cooped up in the house. Still, we manage to brave the weather and the Mardi Gras congestion to pick up clothing and supplies for Luna, plus visit her mom at the hospital. Her mom sleeps a lot. And I mean, a lot. She’s sleeping every time we visit. I’m not sure that much sleep is normal, even for someone as sick as she was, but the nurses insist Mrs. Flores is doing fine. The infection has cleared, and it appears her body has accepted the blood transfusion without issue. Her planned release is set for Friday.
Hope she’s awake for that.
We also spend a fair amount of time with Mom, or Caleb. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who it is we are talking to. Caleb has become a master actor. Bastian is constantly trying to slip through the open door, and thwarting him is a constant effort. A contest of force, and I am always winning.
Sometimes, when Luna and I visit with Mom, Miri joins us. More often than not, she’s busy with school, and Phillip, and wedding plans, but when time allows, she watches over her family. That includes Grandma, Mom, me, and now Luna.
“Is it because of the ancestor who tried to control you that you’ve chosen not to do magick?” I ask. We’re kneeling beside the bed, giving Mom a partial sponge bath. Arms and legs, you know, the exposed and easy to reach areas. Neither of us is comfortable untying Mom at this point.
“You should have given in,” Mom hisses. “You might have been the most powerful witch in all of Louisiana.”
Miri’s demeanor tenses, and she doesn’t answer me, but later, when we are no longer in the room with Mom, she tells me it was partially because of the ancestor. The other reason… she whispers our brother’s name and places her hand to the left side of her face. For the first time since the fire, it’s clear to me Miri blames herself for the scar Michael now carries.
He seems to have adjusted, though. I’ve never witnessed him treat Miri any differently than he did before. He’s still as dedicated to family as he ever was… just with the new added obligation to school and burger flipping, his part-time job.
Despite classes and work, Michael still calls twice a day to check in on Mom’s condition. Once in the morning and again in the evening. He also stops by on Tuesday and again on Thursday to assess her physical and mental state in person.
During his Tuesday visit, I beg him to stand with my little coven against Chuks the bokor. He says he’ll think about it.
Seriously?
