Henrik sighed behind her, but she wasn’t going to pause. She was marching straight to her mother’s house and locking herself inside, where she either found answers, or burned the damn thing down.
“Violet, wait,” Henrik said, once again following her.
“Just stay away from me,” she growled. “Before I hurt you again.”
She could practically taste the fire in the air, ready to flare up from the earth at any second, but she pushed it down. She didn’t really want the distance, and she wasn’t really angry that he wanted to follow. But right now, she needed to go to her mother’s house, alone.
She needed space. She needed to feel this rage. She needed to burn through it.
And if he stayed close, she would burn him too.
Chapter 24
Wakingupinherchildhood bedroom should have felt like a strange experience. She hadn’t been in the bed for a decade and a half, and the room itself matched a teen girl’s idea of paradise, with painted walls and art and magazine spreads on the walls. Everything was exactly as she had left it so many years before. The bedding was the same, the clothing in her drawers and closet, the clutter on her desk...
It should have felt weird. Strange. Maybe even an out-of-body experience.
Instead, she felt more like herself than she had in years. She felt whole. Rejuvenated. Settled.
No longer like she was burning up.
That stated, the art on the walls had to go. The paint charts as well. The magazines were all odd clippings that she barely even remembered. It was all so messy that, after she woke up, she had to climb out of bed and leave the space.
Settled? Yes, she felt settled after sleeping in her old room. But her brain hurt from looking around the cluttered area.
When they first arrived in Garoureve, Violet had assumed that her mother’s home would feel foreign and distant. She thought that everything about the space would feel... off. Not her own. Instead, walking around the house with bare feet and only Henrik’s t-shirt on, she felt... human. Balanced.
Everything in her felt balanced.
Which was crazy, because her world was currently flipped upside down, tossed around, thrown into a shredder, and burning in the fireplace.
What the hell was she going to do? What was she going to do about Henrik? About the town? About her mother? About the coven? About the past?
Too many things, too many questions. She hated having unanswered questions. Hated not knowing what she was doing. It felt wrong.
And she had no idea where to even start.
Well, no. She knew the logical place to start. And that was with a cup of tea. Her mother always started her mornings flipping through her journal and sipping a cup of tea.
Maybe, just maybe, it was time to start thinking like her mother, if she wanted to solve the problems her mother had created.
Fifteen minutes later, Violet stood at the kitchen counter, a cup of tea in one hand, her journal in the other. She was looking at all of her various notes from the past few days, reading over them. There was nothing about them that would actually solve her problems, but that was what her mother would do. Maybe it would spark something in her head? Maybe it would spark extra thoughts?
Setting down the cup, she flipped through the entire book, back to the beginning. The journal started about a week before the fire, the cluster of thoughts on the pages a sure sign that her mother had no idea of what was to come. Notes on what was in the freezer, what she needed when she drove into town, notes on potions, recipes. There was a mention of calling a witch in Oregon for a chat. A recipe for a new syrup. Pages upon pages of brain dumping.
Flipping again, Violet scanned the pages, not sure what to even look for. Was there even anything in these pages that could help her? Was it possible to even find an answer?
A name, a large letter B, practically screamed at her, and she stopped her flipping to instead turn back a few pages, searching for it again. Had that simply been her imagination, or had she truly seen what she thought she saw? Was it even possible that the answer would actually be here?
She found the page in question and scanned it, a list of notes on phone calls. Her mother had called two other witches that morning for a chat, and a third which did not answer. That was strange, according to her mother, that the witch hadn’t picked up the phone for their normal call. She would call again later.
And then, there it was. The name she was looking for.
Broderick.
“Broderick. Stopped by just after noon. Demanded to know the coven’s answer. Call coven tomorrow to ask for an update. Already told him the likely answer. If he continues this insistence, may need to take Violet to the coven. Will wait until after the full moon so H will not follow.”
H. H for Henrik.