No, she kept expecting to see her mother in the home... and given that the town line was now open... a part of her almost feared it.
She almost stopped in the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, but pushed herself forward instead. Tea was a reward for good witches who finished all of their responsibilities. She couldn’t use it as a form of procrastination.
And she was a good witch, or at least, she was trying to be.
Not that she was any closer to fixing her own problems.
Henrik had returned to her after his run, had come so close to her she had nearly fainted, and when he brushed a piece of hair back from her face...
Her temple still ached a little from the burn, much like his fingertip, which was not supernaturally healing. Strange. Odd. Concerning.
Tomorrow’s problem.
Dialing the coven as she sank into her mother’s chair, Violet flipped open the notebook she had taken to using to keep notes, like phone numbers and the like. She understood why her mother had kept so many journals, and had half an urge to invest in some herself. Maybe some with sketching pages so she could draw art while sitting in long meetings. Or she could take them with her when she returned to the city to do a little tattooing.
Because she could do both. She would do both. She was a modern witch in a modern town with a wolf shifter soulmate and a town that was currently gaining access to all that 2018 had to offer.
“Hello, Violet,” Harriet said as she answered the phone. No longer were they playing phone games, which Violet liked... although she was certainly not sending Harriet a birthday gift. “How are things working out with Luka?”
“I don’t want to comment because then I might get an answer to my question that I won’t like.”
Silence filled the call for a moment before Harriet cleared her throat, the obvious insinuation shared between them.
“Anyway, I was wondering if you had the list of therapists? Now that we’re getting internet access, and I know how Northeastern witches seem to hibernate like bears come January, I wanted to make sure I had the information now.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I would offer to email that over, but—“
“Let’s not assume my phone has good enough service to actually download a file,” Violet said, cutting her off. It was strange, but her cell phone wasn’t exactly the most reliable. Others were having no issues, but her...
“Right. Of course.”
“Oh, and my mother as well. I have a few questions for her...”
A thousand notes written later, and Violet was finally waiting for her mother to pick up the phone. It was so strange, to be calling her mother for essentially a status update, given how long she used to go without speaking to the old witch. She had blamed Mabel for so long...
And maybe a part of her still did, in some ways, but now that she was in Garoureve, trying to figure things out...
Intentions and secret desires could change anything. At the end of the day, her mother had only ever wanted one thing, and that was to keep her safe. All of the garbage that had come after...
Until she had a full picture, she just couldn’t blame her mother any longer. It was too exhausting to harbor such a grudge. For the new year, she was going to give forgiveness a try.
“Violet! My goodness, I wasn’t expecting to hear so much had changed.”
“Well, the old crone did give me an order to fix the town line, so I did it.”
Her mother didn’t respond for a moment, before finally, slowly, saying... “So you did it.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean, repeating back Violet’s own words?
“Well, you didn’t exactly leave me a guidebook for how to fix things, Mom, and you didn’t give me any clue as to how you screwed things up.”
“Violet, please, it’s a very confusing situation.”
“The only thing that is confusing is all of your cryptic words. Things happened with Mr. Reeve, and the town line, and the spell on my powers, and—“
“And, Violet, the answer is, things are confusing. Being a witch is confusing. Our powers and our abilities, they’re confusing.”
Violet sat up straight in the chair, her brow furrowing slightly. That was the exact opposite of how she had been raised and how she had been taught. In her mother’s words, a witch’s abilities were clear, her control precise, her abilities direct. She told the nature around her to obey, and it did so. Sure, sometimes it needed a bit more coaxing, or in Violet’s case, begging, but...