I stared at her. A hundred dodges flitted through me, but nothing came out of my mouth. And as I sat there, it suddenly occurred to me that I had been spending so much time with my mother these last three months not because of her, but because of me, fragile after Kisten's death. I lost it then, dropping my head onto my folded arms on the table and choking the tears back. This was why I'd come running to my mother, not some stupid charm I knew she didn't have. I had thought with the right spell I could help Ivy. I had thought I could help myself. But now, I couldn't help either of us. We had gotten what we wanted, and it set us back further than if we had let it alone.
I couldn't look at my mom, but there was the scrape of her chair on the linoleum, and an ugly bark of a sob escaped me when her hand landed on my shoulder. Damn it, I had to grow up and be safe, stop reacting when I should be acting. I had to live with a vampire without even the cushion of pretending there would ever be a bite between us, which just might send Ivy away. I wouldn't blame her. But I didn't want her to leave. I liked her. Hell, I probably loved her. And now it was done. We couldn't go back and pretend that there was anything ahead of us.
"Rachel, honey," my mother whispered, close and gentle, with the scent of lilac soothing me as much as her voice. "It's okay. I'm sorry you're confused, but sometimes souls are meant to be together, and the gears just miss. Ivy's a vampire, but she's been your best friend for over a year. You'll find a way to make this work."
"You know?" I warbled, lifting my head to find a shared sorrow in her expression.
"It would be hard to miss those bites," she said. "And if anyone other than Ivy put them there, you'd be in the morgue identifying a body, not sitting in my kitchen pretending nothing is wrong." I blinked up at her as she shifted my hair and made a worried face at my neck. "Jenks called this morning and told me what happened. He worries about you, you know."
My lips parted and I drew out of her reach. Great, who knew what he told her? "Mom."
But she only pulled out a chair to sit beside me, her hand still on my shoulder. "I loved your father with all my being. Don't take potions to forget. It leaves gaps, and then you don't remember why you feel the way you do. It makes things worse."
I hadn't administered it to myself, but that my mother had taken a memory potion was news to me. "You used one?" I asked, wondering if this was why my mom was so nuts, and she turned her lips in, biting them, clearly trying to decide what to say.
"Oh, hell, who hasn't?" she said, then grew sad. "Once," she added softly. "When it got really bad. They never last forever, and there is no charm to bring it all back. The spell to reverse it was lost before we migrated to this side of the lines. Trent might have it, but getting an elf to share spells is like getting a troll out from under a bridge."
I wiped my face, the tears gone. "You know he's..."
She smiled, proud of me, as she patted my hand. "Tell me if you get that stingy boy to let you into his library. Honestly, you think he'd have some respect for our family, but he acts like you're the enemy, not his saving grace."
"Whoa, hold up." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, then shifted it back forward to hide my neck. All thoughts of Kisten, and Ivy, and everything, were shoved to the back of my mind. "I'm not Trent's saving grace. He's a murdering SOB. I put him in jail once, and I'd do it again if I thought it would stick."
My mother grimaced, her fingers sliding from mine when she drew back. "Small wonder he doesn't like you. You have to stop that. He's going to have something you want someday."
Like a Pandora charm? I exhaled, slumping back into my chair. "Mom...," I complained, and she lifted one eyebrow.
"Life is too short to not be with the people you love," she said. "Even if it scares you."
She was back to Ivy. "Mom, I'm not going to let Ivy bite me again, even if we did okay." She took a breath to speak some words of wisdom, and I interrupted. "Really. She lost it for a minute, and then I made things worse when I remembered Kisten's killer attacking me. I thought - " I ran my tongue along the inside of my lip. "I thought his murderer had bound me, but he didn't." Thank you, God. I promise I will be good. "It ended okay, but I can't do it again," I finished, my throat tight. "I can't risk it...anymore."
A smile of relief creased my mother's face. Her eyes went bright with unshed tears, and she gave my hand a squeeze. "Good," she said. "I'm glad you feel that way. But just because you can't share blood with Ivy doesn't mean you have to end everything with her. She's been too good for you. Made you grow up a little. I like her. She needs you, and you're better with her than without."
I stared as I tried to figure out what she was saying.
"I know I haven't been the best mom," she said as she let go of my hand and looked out the window. "But I'd like to believe I raised you to think for yourself, though you do precious little of it sometimes. I trust you to make good decisions when it comes to the people around you." She smiled. "And what you do with them."
Just where has she been the last ten years? My decisions suck dishwater. "Mom."
"Marshal, for instance," she said, and I stared, shocked. She knows about Marshal?
"He's nice," she continued, gazing out the window at nothing. "Too nice to be anything but a rebound guy, but he'd be good for you. Bless Kisten's undead soul, but I was never too keen on him. Two vampires in one room with a witch is asking for trouble. Now, two witches and one vampire..." Her eyes danced. "Does Ivy like him?"
God, just kill me now.
"Ivy knows she can't give you everything, you know," my mother continued as if I wasn't blushing so hard I could set hell on fire. "She's wise beyond her years for being able to put aside her jealousy like that. It's so much easier when everyone understands you can love two people at the same time." She flushed. "For different reasons and in different ways."
For a moment, I couldn't speak, trying to process that. There were too many potential problems lying in wait for me to ask. "You know about Marshal?" I finally got out.
Touching her hair as if flustered, she rose and went to the fridge. "He came over about noon to see if you were all right."
Swell. He was here?
My mother pulled a butterscotch pie from the fridge. "We had a nice talk about you and Ivy," she said as she set the pie on the counter and got out two plates. "We talked about a lot of things. I think he understands now. I sure as hell do. He is coming off a bitch of a bad girlfriend. That's why he likes you."
"Mom!" I exclaimed.
"No, you're not a bitch," she cajoled. "I meant that you're excitable and fun. He thinks you're safe because you're not looking for a boyfriend." She laughed with a knife in her hand. "Men are idiots about women sometimes. When a woman says she's not looking, that's when she is."
"Mom!" They talked about Ivy and me? She asked him about his girlfriends?
"I'm just saying that he's like you, in that he gets bored if a relationship is all roses and hearts. It doesn't help that he likes to rescue pretty women. That's probably why he looked you up. He doesn't want a real girlfriend yet any more than you do, but he's not going to sit at home and watch TV. He's taking you out today. You both need a break."
"Mom, stop!" I exclaimed again. "I told you not to set up dates for me, and especially not with Marshal!"
"You're welcome, sweetheart," she said, patting my shoulder. "Get this little fling over with so you can move on with your life. Try not to hurt him, okay?"
I stared at my hands circling my coffee mug, speechless. This was not good. "How did he know where I was?" I asked, depressed. Little fling? I so did not need a date right now.
"Jenks was with him."
I exhaled long and slow as I pulled my fingers from worrying at my new bites. That would explain it, I thought. The soft scrape of the serving knife on the glass pie dish was obvious and she silently put two slices on plates and licked the serving fork. Still silent, she set the largest piece before me. "Jenks said he knocked Ivy unconscious by accident. It didn't sound like a sleep charm," she said, her voice sharp with accusation.
Embarrassed by my failed attempt at tweaking charms, I shifted my plate until the pie was pointing at me. This wasn't a topic I really wanted to explore, but it was better than Marshal. "I was trying to modify a sleep charm to give Ivy some control over her blood lust, but she lied to me about trying them out, so the last batch was too strong. Jenks overreacted by hitting her with it in the first place. We were fine. We had everything under control." By the time he showed back up, that is, I finished silently.
My eyes came up to see only interest in my mother's gaze. She set a fork in front of me. Her plate in her hand, she leaned against the counter, looking years younger. "You're starting with a sleep charm as your base?" She smiled after seeing my nod and pointed her fork at me. "Well, there's your problem. If you're trying to break the hold her instincts have on her actions, you need to make her hyperalert, not sleepy."
I wedged a forkful of pie into my mouth and chewed in thought. The rich tang of butterscotch was sharp, and I ate another bite. Pie for breakfast was one of the perks of a crazy mom. "A stimulant would work better?" I mumbled.
"Guaranteed."
Confidence emanated from her, but I wasn't convinced, and I cringed at the thought of what would happen if it didn't have the desired effect. Besides, it didn't matter anymore. I was going to be the model roommate and never trigger Ivy's blood lust again. That is, if she didn't get mad and leave, ticked at all the time she had wasted on me. But if she stayed, she might someday want a little something to take the edge off....
My mother came to sit across from me, her eyes on her pie. "Throw in a lot of crushed lime. Citrus sends everything deep, and you want to stimulate the complex thought processes, not the surface ones."
"Okay," I said, my gaze flicking to my disguise charms. She was the expert. "Thanks."
Her smile widened, and she became almost teary. "I want to help, honey. I'm sorry if I've been so odd in the past that you felt you couldn't come to me."
I smiled back, feeling warm inside. "I'm sorry, too."