Chapter Sixteen
Sophia swept me up in a hug a moment after we left the chapel. She was crying harder than she had last night.
“My love,” she said. “You’re okay. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Sophia,” I said. “Where are Paul and Emma?”
“My house. They were dropped off in the middle of nowhere and got home. They called me, and we found you as fast as we could.”
“And the others?”
“All fine. Thanks to you, I hear,” she said, holding me the tightest she’d ever held me.
I saw the room when she let me go. We must have been in California. The furniture was newer and sleeker. It wasn’t separated into two rooms like Vincent and Cecilia’s. A black loveseat faced away from the rest of the room in front of a flat screen, sectioning off a sitting area. The bedroom was black and white with random hints of color like the yellow lamp, blue pillows, and green rug. I marveled at the careful and interesting design until Lydia groaned as she put Nate down on the bed.
Right, his back had made an awful sound. I ran to them, and she flipped him over. His cries weren’t human, and they brought tears to my eyes.
“Sleep,” she said, touching the back of his head. His breaths slowed and his cute snores followed. “Can you …” She darted her eyes to me then back to him. “Hear him?”
“No. Kamon couldn’t either,” I said. “I guessed his middle name. That’s it.”
“Thomas,” she whispered. “Human given. Theresa.” She shivered. “Strange.” While I would have loved her to solve the mysteries in his past, it felt like his present and future were more pressing at the moment. I pointed at his back, and she pulled his shirt over his head. “His spine. It’s broken.” The scream stuck in my throat. I just wanted this awful day to be over. How many more times would I feel like I was dying? “It’s healing by itself already. I just need to set it right. He’s going to be fine. Do you want Sophia to check you out?”
Sophia didn’t wait for me to answer. I told her about the sedatives as she ran my bathwater. She cleaned the blood from my face and made me drink two glasses of water and one of orange juice before I got in the tub. After, she snapped and brought us to the kitchen. It was similar to the kitchen in New Orleans, just with darker wood and red chairs.
I wasn’t in the mood to eat, but she forced a sandwich down my throat.
“You don’t want to go and be with Emma and Paul?” I asked. She shook her head, but I didn’t believe her. “They’re your family, Sophia, and you’ve been with me for days.” We’d both jumped forward and backward on the clock, and I’d bet she hadn’t slept like I had.
“I love you like my own family, and this could have all been avoided if I didn’t bring Remi into your home. Or if I hadn’t gone through your phone and decided to give you and Nathan some time alone before intruding. Or if I’d let your moth—- … Lydia handle everything and didn’t intrude in the first place. She isn’t speaking to me, and I am the most afraid of her when she’s this silent.”
I knew why she would be. Lydia had nearly killed her for calling me a copy. And even without that, Lydia was pretty terrifying.
For the first time, I initiated a hug with Sophia. She needed it.
“Go home. Go to bed,” I said. “I’ll tell her I’m fine, and if she’s still mad, you and I can team up against her. She can’t take us both.” She laughed, and I pulled back to kiss her on the cheek. “And you’ve taken great care of me. I can’t imagine what I would be doing today if you hadn’t come to get me. I wouldn’t have friends. And I wouldn’t have you.”
She wiped her eyes and kissed me a million times, all over my face. “You’re nothing like her. Not even a little bit,” she said.
When she left, I took a tour so I didn’t have to see Nate all broken and mangled. Outside, I found a pool that Sophia hadn’t filled.
“A pool house,” I said, walking closer to it. I’d seen one in the cheer-off movie. The captain lived in one instead of sleeping in the house with her parents. It was more convenient for her boyfriend. I opened the door and peeked inside. There was a little kitchen and open space where I guessed a bed or a sofa would be. In the movie, it was a bed, with clothes scattered all over the floor.
In the big house, there were six bedrooms, none furnished but mine. I was meant to live here alone.
The living room was amazing. The light blue sofa was long and a semi circle. It could probably seat ten. I walked over to my new movie library that surrounded the TV, impressed and excited. I wondered how Sophia knew that I’d love all of these cheesy, predictable movies when it was a shock to me. Maybe she knew that despite being the product of a seriously tragic love story and growing up depressed and lonely, I was still a teenager.
“Hi,” Lydia said. Her voice made my heart twinge. I hadn’t noticed she had on all black like a hunter until then—a black turtleneck, black pants, and long black boots. I waved without speaking, still taking her in. She could pass for my sister, well … half sister. She definitely looked too young to have a seventeen-year-old daughter. “He’s fine. Knocked out, but fine.”
“Thanks.”
I hadn’t noticed the clock on the wall until then. It was quiet enough to hear the seconds pass.
“Can we talk about what happened?” she asked.
“Which part?” I whispered.
She chuckled and sat on the sofa. “Right … you’ve had a rough couple of days.” I sat unnecessarily far away from her. One more inch to the left, and I would’ve been on the floor. “You saved their lives. Do you feel like a hero?”
“No,” I said. It came out dryer than I’d meant it to.
I listened to the clock for a minute as she drummed her fingers on her knees. She stretched her neck to both sides, making the silence even more awkward.
“What was Kamon talking about?” I asked. “What should you be afraid of?”
“Nothing. Kamon doesn’t scare me.”
That sounded like a lie, to keep me calm, it seemed. I felt like she’d lost the right to lie to me, however. “It sounded like he meant you couldn’t kill him.”
She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, a nervous fidget. “I can’t.” The tense silence asked why for me. “To me, he is Kamon, the man who could hurt my child. To the world he is, Dr. Kamon Yates. After Julian, I wanted to kill him, but he disappeared. He used to send letters to my office to taunt and threaten me. He was a ghost for a decade, constantly eluding me. About seven years ago, he emerged at a benefit in his honor. Julian trained me to fight, and he had Kamon in a lab most of the time. He’s very smart. His research has cured quite a few diseases and caused many advances in medicine. Specifically, a form of childhood cancer. So, while I have wanted to kill him and remove that threat to you, it hasn’t been possible. It still isn’t. And if I did, let’s say blow his home up like I did with Dreco, he has people in place waiting to expose me and the agents and the hunters for what we really do.”
I couldn’t do anything but shake my head. Kamon was an evil genius, using science to appear as a good man to the world. Like Julian used politics, I guessed. Of course the Special Defensive Coordinator for the U.N. couldn’t kill someone like that, someone who healed sick children. And Nate and I had met him, possibly gotten on his radar. Wonderful.
“Don’t worry about him,” she whispered. “He’ll never … ever touch you again. No one will hurt you.”
That sounded like a vow. One she’d made long ago. The tremor in her voice darkened the mood. Our past rushed into the room, fast, threatening to drown us both or force us to float together. She leaned into her knees and wrapped her arms around her stomach.
“Christine.” She sniffed, crying already, drowning already. “How about I start with the truth Sophia and I should’ve told you days ago?” She took a loud breath and closed her eyes. “You are my baby who I’ve always wanted to protect but somehow manage to hurt instead.”
Her breath caught, and s
he covered her face.
“First, by leaving you. Second, by giving you powers and making you deal with them on your own. I had my eye out for obvious things. I never saw you do anything, and your grades were average … not like you could know things without studying. I thought it meant you were normal.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way. She would’ve seen what I wanted everyone to see—my performance of a shy, human girl. One who never cried. “I hid it well, I guess.”
“There aren’t many things that can be hidden from me, so it’s not an excuse. I should’ve known more about this … when I was carrying you and hurting you with my powers, when you were transporting all over your dorm on accident. I let myself be clueless.”
“Why?” I asked.
She leaned back on the sofa, wiping her eyes. “I think I’m … delusional. I was, anyway. You were safe from the dozens of horrible futures I’d seen about you, so in my mind, nothing else could be wrong. And I mostly watch you when you’re sleeping. Especially the last few years.” She huffed and paused for a minute, sniffing and whimpering. “I knew Whitney had left, but I didn’t see it. I didn’t see why. I figured you’d had enough of her. I found her to be terribly annoying. I assumed the other girls were annoying too and you preferred to be alone. I assumed … too much.”
I refused the tears building in my eyes. I thought if I closed them, the tears would be trapped there, and I wouldn’t have to cry for the millionth time.
“You didn’t think I was lonely? You didn’t think I was hurting from being picked on?”
I wanted to say, you didn’t think I needed you?
“I didn’t see it. It’s not an excuse. I know. But I saw … my baby. I saw what I wanted to see. You sleeping every night. Growing. Alive.”
“You ignored me,” I countered. “And you would have ignored me forever. Let me be alone forever.” I was winning the battle with the tears, but the rest of me was crumbling under the weight of this. I heard her move right next to me on the sofa. I felt safe, like she wouldn’t let me drown, so I jumped into what we were really talking about. “You gave up after you killed Julian. You sat in that forest and you let them take you. You let them take my mother from me.”
In the moments it took for me to catch my breath, the obvious truth nipped at me, impossible to ignore. I imagined her sitting in that forest, covered in blood, and I knew why she’d sat there. How do you put one foot in front of the other when you dismember someone without the help of a weapon? She didn’t move because she couldn’t move.
“Well … after … after you should’ve come to get me,” I said, clinging to my point. “No matter what. You should have fought whoever could have hurt me, tried harder to find Kamon. You put so much energy into making the world safe and you left enough threats behind that I still needed to stay buried. That’s stupid. It’s ridiculous. It’s like you let the Lydia who was my mother die.”
It became eerily quiet again as I stumbled on another truth. That Lydia Gavin, the girl she became in the diary, had died. Whether it was from leaving us or dismembering the man who beheaded her parents, she was gone.
“I know. I’m sorry, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I’m not even asking for it. I just can’t live with you thinking you were in any way unwanted. I love you more than anything in this world. Nothing has come close from the moment I knew you were living inside of me.”
The tears seeped under my closed lids, begging me to see her side. However rash and delusional her decision was, she’d done it out of fear and love.
Like I was speaking for the baby who’d woken up without her mother, and the lonely little girl who’d missed her so much she formed a habit of sniffing oranges, I whispered, “How could you think I would get over you leaving? I missed you so much.”
Just as I broke, she pulled me to her lap. I folded instantly. Surrendering to that scent. To her. It was a strange feeling, getting my strongest need met without ever knowing I needed it. To be held by my mother. The woman who smelled like oranges and left me with nuns who didn’t smell like this. I didn’t want to cry anymore. My brain was wired to feel calm here. And satisfied. And safe.
“I don’t regret hiding you, baby, because I know you would’ve been hurt because of me. Either by Kamon or being stuck in solitude with me. I wanted you to have a normal life. That’s why I brought you there. That’s why I kept you there. But I do regret how you’ve felt about yourself. The magic. The devil. I could die knowing you had to deal with that.”
She lifted my face up and kissed my nose. God, this felt so natural, so right. Tears fell from her eyes onto my cheek. She was shaking and I was calm. Maybe too calm.
“Wednesday,” she whispered. “Your future shifted away from what it had been for years—leaving St. Catalina at graduation. I got worried, and I left work to check on you through the mirror. You were eating in the courtyard by yourself. Normally, I’d see that you were alive and go back to work. But I waited to see what could possibly be changing your life so drastically that I’d felt it in Paris. Then I saw them picking on you. I saw everything I should have seen. Everything I missed. I’m so sorry.”
I sighed, adjusting in her lap, finding an even more comfortable spot. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I went with nothing. She was right, she should’ve known. She should’ve made sure I wasn’t dying there. But in her arms, as calm as I was, I didn’t want her to feel worse about it.
“I thought I could fix things and Sophia thought she could, too. And tonight … God … you ended up exactly where I never wanted you to be. Again, because I wasn’t watching.” She squeezed me, shaking and crying, unraveling more.
“But you came. I’m safe now,” I whispered, breathing in her scent. Absently, I ran my fingers through her hair. I dropped it because she was Lydia Shaw, and that was weird. And I was pretty sure I was supposed to be yelling at her right now. She kissed my cheek. I smiled and played with her hair again. With my eyes closed, I could feel myself floating to a different time. Where I was completely content. Where I loved and felt loved. “I remember you so vividly. How weird is that?” I asked.
“Not weird for you. Your memory is advanced. I knew that was a characteristic of copies, but I don’t think of you like that, so I’ve never considered it. I never thought about you missing me because … you remembered me. I didn’t think about a lot.” I didn’t bother trying to fill the silence. I was busy twirling her hair around my fingers, loving the feel of it, remembering the feel of it. “And once and for all, let me just say, you are not evil.”
She shook me a little for emphasis. I chuckled. “Okay. Somehow, you saying it makes it real,” I said.
“Good. You have powers, but you were not bred. You have your own personality. You don’t act like me at all. You’re actually nice.”
I chuckled again. “You let magical kind live. That was nice.”
“That was Sophia’s doing. I couldn’t care less. They actually give me more work to do. Life would be easier if they were extinct.” She laughed. “See? You would never say that. Totally not my copy.”
“But … the anger. I flash out so easily. My nose bleeds, too.”
“Everyone gets angry. It doesn’t mean you’re a copy.”
I pulled my knees in tighter, feeling two days old. “But what about the nosebleeds? And I think I had a seizure in the shower the other day.”
“Seizure! Doing what?” She lifted my head, inspecting my eyes. I smiled. I loved how rattled she got over me.
“Trying to find out something about Remi. She wasn’t in the house, but I found her and I could hear and—”
“See her?” I nodded. “Being in someone’s mind that way is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. Please don’t do that anymore.” Her reprimand burned even though her tone was sweet. I frowned and tucked my head under her chin, and she sighed. “I’m sorry, baby. I just want you to be careful. People with natural powers often hurt themselves because they push themselves too fa
r. They don’t know when to stop because they feel too confident and capable. That’s where the nosebleeds come from. Straining. Just be careful. You just have to concentrate and take your time and listen to your body when it says to stop.”
She rocked me a little, and I nuzzled my forehead against her neck like I’d done it a thousand times.
“Okay. Oh, I remember your song. I sing it all the time.”
“I know,” she said, crying harder. “I hadn’t watched you take a bath since the nuns stopped bathing you. Sophia tried to pull me away from a memory because you were in the shower, but you were singing that. I think my heart stopped.”
I smiled, wishing I could have seen her and Sophia jumping around in my head now. Their weird relationship would have been funny to watch.
“You must use the same shampoo,” I said.
“I do. It’s something my mom used to make for me.”
I let her cry for a while without interrupting while I played with her fingers. They were slender and long like mine.
“Do I really own this house? And the one in New Orleans?”
“You own this one as of last week when Sophia mentioned it when you made her scramble for a better lie. You’ve always owned the one in New Orleans. Once I learned Kamon hadn’t been there when Julian killed my parents and didn’t know about that house, I put it in your name. The school promised to give you your bank account information at eighteen. The keys to the house and other things like my mother’s jewelry were waiting for you at the bank in New Haven.”
Wow. If I hadn’t lost it after the fire alarm, I would have gotten a wonderful surprise next year. But I would’ve lived there alone. I was glad things happened this way.
I concentrated on how her chest moved when she breathed. I remembered the rhythm, how I used to move with it. I’d missed that when she disappeared. I waited another minute before I continued with my questions.
“Why do you still work for the government if you never wanted to?” I asked.
“I don’t have much of a choice. I am technically a murderer. On multiple counts. If I didn’t want to be found, I could make it that way, but I don’t. I wouldn’t have a life either way.”
I suppressed a sigh, hoping she wasn’t reading my mind. I didn’t want to fight with her, but I didn’t agree with any of this. She certainly hadn’t made me as irrational as she was. I could clearly see that she should’ve killed Julian without leaving my dad and me.
I didn’t think like her. I wasn’t her copy, which meant my emotions and my sanity were my own. I didn’t flash out because of her. I wouldn’t be suicidal because of anyone. I’d had a hard life. I’d been picked on every day. It wasn’t magic. It wasn’t my mother. It was me, and I could control me.
I measured my thumb against hers, then the rest of my fingers. Her nails were filed to severe points, almost claws. I wondered how’d they look polished, probably a lot less scary.
“Why would I be able to read your mind? You asked me not to in Paris,” I said.
“You could if you tried. The more you practice anything, the better you get, and you were born with my powers. That makes you stronger, even though you haven’t been trained or explored nearly half of what you can do.”
Stronger than Lydia Shaw? And I had more powers? “Whoa,” was all I could say to that.
“And you’re smarter than me. I would have never thought to offer my blood to them. I would’ve blasted and fought my way out without thinking about it first. And I’d been in New Orleans for days getting your house ready, and I didn’t sense my parents. I only messed with the spirit world once while I carried you, and you can do it well, without trying.” Weird. I didn’t think I was doing anything special with the ghosts. “I plan to ask Sophia to free their spirits from the house so they can move on … when I’m speaking to her again.”
I laughed, happy for my grandparents and amused by her tone. Poor Sophia.
“I love her,” I said.
She groaned. “Of course you do. She acts like a sweet old lady with you. With me she’s a … never mind.” We laughed hard for a minute. “Did you like those kids she brought to the house?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Especially … um … Nathan?”
I sighed. I was about to have to talk to the woman who saved the world from magic who happened to be my mother, about a boy who happened to be a shifter. Creepy.
“We were together, but we broke up because I lied to him about being a witch.”
“I know. I was with Sophia when Emma called. I made her bring you to Paris because you were so heartbroken. I was going to lie and tell you I knew Catherine so you’d stop worrying about me finding you. But I couldn’t lie when you mentioned the diary.”
I knew why she would think being heartbroken merited a trip to see my long lost mother. She was dramatic when it came to love. Fall on her knees and beg, dramatic. Erase memories to save lives, dramatic.
“Wait!” I sat up. She wiped her eyes, and I closed mine. “Do you still watch me sleep?”
“Um …” I opened one eye. She was smiling. I fell back to her chest, mortified.
“What did you see?” I whispered.
She paused for an excruciatingly long moment. “The last time I checked in to see if you were sleeping, you and Nathan were watching, or not watching, a movie.” I groaned, but at least she hadn’t seen us in bed the night of my birthday. “I didn’t tell Sophia because I didn’t want her to be upset with your boyfriend, but I got the message that my baby had gotten too old for me to watch her sleep.” She rubbed my back and chuckled. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’m the obscene one, remember?”
“I was just upset. I know how much you loved…” I couldn’t say his name, but I didn’t have to. The mood changed instantly, like Christopher Gavin was sitting on the sofa with us now. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. He’s your father. I’d say you’re a little more than entitled to bring him up.”
Talking about this was so much easier in her arms. I couldn’t imagine how much I would’ve cried by now if I’d stayed in my seat. Since I was so comfortable, floating in her arms in our sea of problems, I decided to tackle the most uncomfortable part of the Lydia and Christopher conversation.
“You guys were so … um … into each other,” I said and snickered.
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “If my mother wasn’t already dead, I’d strangle her for giving you the diary. I wanted to clear that room, I felt it. I felt like I needed to go through all the things I’d stashed in there. I was going to leave the paintings so you’d think they were Catherine’s and have something from your past, but Sophia popped up with you before I could go through the boxes. And now my baby knows how insane I was. I can’t believe you read all that stuff about us.”
“I didn’t. If it seemed like it was headed there, I skipped it. Which meant I skipped most of the diary.” She laughed and thanked God a thousand times. “Do you miss him?”
“Every day.”
“Is he married now?” I asked. “Does he have kids?”
She held her hand out in front of us, and the charmed mirror appeared in it. “No, to both. I don’t watch him, but I did today since I figured you’d want to know. He’s living in Chicago. He hangs out with the friends he had when we met. That means he’s remembered the part of his life before me like I intended.”
She whispered his name into the mirror, and it showed him. I smiled, bringing my nails to my teeth, tremendously happy to see him like I’d known him my whole life. He looked the same, low cut curly hair and handsome.
He, a guy on a keyboard, and a woman at a microphone were performing in a smoky club. The music was slow and smooth. The people there weren’t paying much attention to them. Maybe they played there all the time.
“He’s in a band?” I asked.
She nodded against my head.
We watched the whole set, she cried silently through the whole thing. I still didn’t want to cry. I was in t
he most soothing place there was.
He leaned his guitar in the corner when the woman announced a five-minute break. He walked towards her, and I flipped the mirror over just in case they were together. I knew that would kill her.
He laughed, and she went deadly stiff. She sent the mirror away, maybe back to Paris.
“I can go to him and try to explain everything and help him recover his memories of me so you could meet him,” she said, in the same tone someone would volunteer to drink poison in. “Whatever you want, I will do.”
I took some time to think about that, listening to her cry, so comfortable I could sleep. What did I want?
Before any of this, I wanted to be invisible and good. Then I wanted Nathan to love me forever. Then to not feel shattered by Lydia. Now I’d wish for her to never let me go. I wanted to laugh about Sophia and meet my dad and be a family. But I wasn’t delusional enough to believe that was possible.
Lydia loved me, and if she could be my mother and his wife, she would’ve been all along. She wouldn’t have let me scream for her in that nursery if she didn’t have to. This night would be nothing like this if she had a choice. I’d be a normal teenager, up in my room or in the pool house, avoiding her and Christopher. However wonderful that would be, this is how she had to love me – at a distance, but probably stronger than anyone had ever loved another person. I felt very sure that whatever danger that made her give me up seventeen years ago still loomed. If there was no threat, I would have met her the second after it was safe for me to.
The tears won then because I knew I had to say goodbye to my mother again.
I’d derailed her plan in the first floor bathroom when I decided to be a monster. Sophia tried to salvage it, but my secret and Remi, who I was still very much worried about, ruined that.
I wrapped my arms around her.
“I’d love to have you two as parents, but you know that can’t work,” I said, holding her tight. She broke and clutched me like I was about to disappear. “Have you thought about making me forget?” She nodded. “I think we should do that. I’d be in the way.”
“You wouldn’t be, baby, but it’s the best thing. I thought you’d hurt less if you could believe in Catherine again. If you could go back to thinking your mother would never leave you if she was alive.” She pulled my face up to look at her. “I know I hurt you—abandoning you, lying to you. You’re taking it easy on me, but I know how devastating this must be.”
I didn’t say it, but I was more devastated that I hadn’t gotten to sit in her lap like this over the years and that I wouldn’t again. That upset me way more than the decisions she’d made.
Over the next ten minutes, she kissed me and told me she loved me too many times to count. I imagined this felt like being in front of the St. Catalina gates all those years ago. Or maybe the other times she’d lost me in her head.
“You’ll fall asleep as I do it,” she said. “I’ll make this better. You’ll feel so much better when you wake up.”
I tightened my arms around her and inhaled. I kissed her cheek, something I couldn’t do the last time we’d said goodbye. “I love you, Mom,” I said. Her response was incoherent. “You’ll be watching me, right?”
“Of course.”
“Keeping me safe?”
“Of course.”
“Be nice to Sophia.”
“I’ll try.” Our chuckles were lost in the sobs. “Be happy, baby. With Nathan. With everything.” I felt myself drifting to sleep. I wanted to change my mind and keep her, but I knew I shouldn’t. I wanted to ask her to sing to me too, but I knew I wouldn’t make it through the question without falling apart. “Bye, baby,” she said.
“Bye, Mom.”
She rocked me and started the song without me asking for it. She struggled through it, but I loved every second. As she sang that I was her love, her everything, I fell deep into darkness.
I couldn’t believe my mother was someone famous, someone people bowed to, and she loved me. I wasn’t someone’s evil copy.
I came from a wonderful family who would’ve adored me every day of my life. A simple family with a normal life except for Julian. Catherine did everything she could to keep me safe. Raymond, too. They’d give anything to be here with me. But sometimes life is unfair and the people who love you are taken away. But I knew their love for me was strong and eternal, and that I should never wonder or worry about it again.