to get here."
"Gwendolyn," her mother, Ellie's granny, snapped. "How many times have I told you to slow the hell down."
“Doesn’t do any good, Mother,” Grandad chuckled. “Girl inherited my lead foot.”
Ignoring the conversation going on all around her, Gwen tiptoed across the room. Leaning her head forward as far as her neck would allow, she whispered, "I didn't wake her up, did I?"
“Oh, no,” Gretchen giggled lovingly. “This one’s got a mind of her own. She sleeps, eats, does everything in her own good time.”
“And she always will,” Granddad announced, hands in his pockets as he rocked back on the heels of his boots. “Can’t you feel the power in that little body? Sense the magic and the intelligence packed in every fiber of her being?”
“Oh, Dad,” Ellie’s mom snickered. “She’s only three days old. The only thing she’s worried about is getting what she wants when she wants it and being held all the time.”
"Doesn't matter." Nodding to his daughter, his eyes never leaving the baby, the MacLeish patriarch reverently avowed, "She will be the one who lifts the Curse. Mark my words, Ellie is the Heart of the MacLeish Family."
Pulled out of the memories, the medicinal scent that wasn't entirely covered by the lavender flowers sitting on damned near every surface smacked Ellie in the face. "Well, shit, we're not on the farm, anymore are we? I'm back in the present? They're still gone, aren't they?" She sadly sighed while forcing her eyes open.
“No, we’re not. Yes, you are. And, sadly, yes, they are,” Gwen sighed. “And I’ll probably never be back out there, but you…” Pointing at Ellie. “You will be, and you have what it takes to make things right.”
“You really believe there’s a family curse.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Gwen scoffed, slapping her hand at the air between them. “That’s just something the older folks made up when one of us couldn’t handle our magic. It made things easier. It was simpler than saying, “Well, Gwenny here, she’s just not quite strong enough. Not enough of a MacLeish to wield all that power.”
“Oh, Aunt Gwen, don’t…”
"Don't what?" Her aunt matter-of-factly asked. "Don't tell the truth? Don't accept reality for what it is? Don't try to move on and have as normal a life as somebody who's been committed can have?" With a sarcastic and quite sad forced bark of laughter, Ellie's mother's younger sister shook her head. "Nope, not gonna do that anymore. Things are the way they are for a reason. Can't change facts. And I wish all of those who came before me would have just been straight with us." Running the nail of her index finger along a deep gouge in the table, she went on, "Then mom and daddy could've bound my magic before the Awakening. Sure, I would've been pretty much human." Looking up at Ellie with a sad smile and more than a few unshed tears in her eyes, Gwen scoffed, "Might have saved all of us a lot of trouble."
There was nothing she could say, no words to make her aunt feel better. Just like Gwen had said, things were the way they were, and everybody had to deal with it.
Needing to change the subject, to see her aunt smile again, Ellie laid her hand over Gwen’s and earnestly asked, “So, what did all that mean? What was I supposed to learn?”
"You were supposed to see who you really are, who you are meant to be." Scooting her chair so close that their knees touched, Gwen leaned forward until mere inches separated the tips of their noses. "You are supposed to get up from here, march yourself home, and do everything in your power to find the person responsible for killing your parents, she whispered. "That's where all the answers lie. That is the key to everything."
Chapter Three
“Yeah, I hear ya’, but…”
"But you'd rather sit over there in that hot ass desert feeling sorry for yourself than come to my beautiful resort with redwoods all around and the Pacific Coast just a hop, skip, and a jump away? If so, then you're even more of a sourpuss than I ever realized." Laughing at herself, his old friend hurried on, "You can even bring that motorcycle of yours through the portal and haul ass up and down the Pacific Coast Highway to your heart's content."
"What are you really up to, Jianna?" Ranger asked, trying but failing to keep the growl out of his voice. She'd been known to play Matchmaker more