this promise,” Selene whispered.
Griffin opened his eyes and stared at her with an intensity that took her breath away.
“I promise,” he slowly murmured.
Chapter 20
“I feel a little funny lying on the couch with all of you watching me,” Selene commented later that night.
“What? You don’t usually sleep with twelve people staring at you? It’s so much fun! Not awkward at all,” Nate joked.
Selene chuckled. At that moment, Lucy entered the room with a tray of steaming white mugs. “Everything’s always better with hot chocolate,” she said, as she offered the tray around. Once everyone had taken some, Lucy retreated to the corner where Hugh was snuggled in a sleeping bag waiting for her.
“How did the two of you find each other?” Selene asked. It was something she’d been wondering for a while.
Lucy glanced back at Hugh, and they exchanged fond smiles.
“It truly was fate,” Hugh answered, giving Lucy a squeeze. “We knew each other as children in England. This is… what now… almost six hundred and fifty some-odd years ago? I was born in 1347 and Lucy is only two years younger. We just barely missed the Black Death, which happened only about two years before I was born.”
Lucy nodded with a grimace.
“Let’s see…. Who was King then?” Hugh rubbed his chin, lost in thought.
“Edward III, I think.” Lucy answered. “But I remember Richard II better.” She turned back to Selene. “We grew up in the same small village close to York. Hugh’s father was the local butcher. My family moved there when I was only five… too young to remember much. We were bakers.”
Lucy took a sip of her hot chocolate. “We didn’t have anything as wonderful as this for decades. Back then, chocolate was an expensive luxury only for the rich. A treat discovered in the Americas.”
Lila and Adelaide exchanged smiles. Their mother’s family’s baker’s roots shone through these many years later.
“I don’t remember meeting Lucy,” Hugh continued. “She was just always there, a part of the village. One of the children we all played with on occasions.” He scratched at the stubble on his chin again. “Actually, it was a bit of an accident that we discovered we both had powers. I was about twelve when my abilities first manifested. My father sometimes acted as a doctor for the village, and one day someone brought him a baby. It was blue… unable to breath. My father asked for my help to hold it, and as soon as I touched it, I felt this warmth pass from my hands, and the baby started breathing.”
“Who did you inherit from? Your father?” Selene leaned her cheek on her hand.
Hugh nodded. “I believe so. Though his ability was very subtle. In fact, I don’t think he ever realized that he was ‘gifted.’ I was old enough to know what they would do to a suspected witch back then, so I kept my secret to myself.”
“So how’d you discover each other?” Selene asked.
“Well, first of all, I knew long before I came into my abilities that it was possible,” Lucy answered, her green eyes clouded. “My mother was burned at the stake for witchcraft. It’s why we moved to Hugh’s village – to get away from that. She claimed she could see people’s souls. According to my father, it was very black and white for her. From his descriptions, I think that she saw evil or good, but nothing more.”
“I’m sorry,” Selene murmured. Having lost her own mother fairly young, she felt a small connection with Lucy.
Lucy smiled, the corners around her eyes crinkling. “It was a very long time ago, sweetie. And my father was kind and supportive. Although I do think that he was relieved that my ability was a subtler version of hers. Less apt to get me into trouble.”
“How did you find out about each other then, if you were both hiding your gifts from those around you?”
Hugh gave Lucy’s shoulders a quick squeeze. “I fell in love with Lucy when we were only twelve years old. I felt drawn to her warmth. She took care of everyone around her. I know now, of course, that it was the te’sorthene bond growing between us. But we were too isolated to be aware of such things back then.”
“He basically stalked me. Everywhere I went, there was Hugh,” Lucy laughed.
“One day, when I was about eighteen and she was around sixteen, I was making sure she got home safely. It was mid-winter and storming. She slipped on some ice and