Distorted Affliction

Chapter Thirty One

"What exactly do you mean by 'destroy them all'?" I asked, feeling as if time was standing still. "Are we talking something along the lines of--"

"It is your destiny to kill them." Her words were matter-of-fact and left no room for misinterpretation, though I certainly tried to find some other hidden meaning in what she was saying.

"Listen," I started, holding a hand up in front of me, my other arm wrapped around Silas's waist. "It's no secret how much I dislike them, but the Council of Rowan Tree is one of the oldest patriarchal figureheads of our history. Dismantling them would certainly be hard enough, but killing them? That would cause absolute chaos across all of our culture; our entire community would be absolutely adrift without the Council to uphold the laws. Not to mention the giant target I would be painting on myself."

"The spirits have declared it, August," my mother insisted. "I'm only the messenger."

"You're insane." My voice wasn't loud, but it was sharp. I stood from the sofa with Silas and without a glance in the direction of my companions, I slipped back out of her office and through the nursery. The air outside washed over me, relieving some of the panic that had begun to build in my chest.

I listened to the sound of leaves crunching under my boots as I headed back to the car, hoping to tuck Silas into his car seat before he got too cold. The weather didn't seem to bother him much, but the way he was rubbing his eyes made me think a nap was coming soon.

"Grandma has lost her damn mind," I cooed at him as I pulled the straps around his arms. He giggled at me, a sound that melted my heart and brought tears to my eyes. "I'm so sorry I haven't been there, baby. Momma promises, when all of this is over, no one is ever taking us away from each other again."

His yawn made my heart squeeze, and I wasn't sure I ever wanted to move from his side. As much as I wanted him far away from Bayou La Batre and everything that awaited us there, I wasn't sure I felt comfortable leaving him with my mother. She was nothing more than a stranger to me, and I had a hard time believing her words, let alone trusting her with everything that Silas was.

Beyond my overall protective nature to want my son to be safe, he was still a weapon in the wrong hands. I supposed that I myself could be considered the same, though I was having a hard time processing that news as reality. Part of me thought that I would feel it, that I would somehow know if that was true, but I supposed I had no basis for comparison. I had been in touch with the deeper magic inside of me, though I had never really dove into it to test its true power.

"Don't hold it against her," Sin said, startling me suddenly. I hadn't heard him approach, but he was leaned against the car, watching me carefully. Silas wasn't nearly as startled, and had started falling asleep already. I slid out of the seat, closing the door as softly as I could. He really was an easy baby, and I was grateful that he hadn't been difficult to take care of during the mess that was our lives.

"I don't know how to feel about her," I admitted softly, crossing my arms as I looked up into his eyes. "I don't know her, but that was a pretty intense thing to say, even for me."

"She's just speaking for the spirits," he assured, and though I knew he meant to ease my mind, I couldn't help but feel like he was taking her side.

"Don't stick up for her," I snapped, guilt filling me immediately. "I'm sorry, it's just...well, I don't know how to take anything she's told me. I've been an adult long enough that she could have reached out at any point, and she hasn't. So this whole meeting is just, well, it's weird. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about this."

"August," Sin started slowly, pulling me closer to him by my waist. "Your family has always had a deeper connection to the spirits than other witches, it's what has made the Bishop witches so powerful, given you a deeper connection to magic. I can vouch for her story about Arden, I remember when it happened. We were never close, but when the Council killed him, it shook the Mouri world entirely. No one really understood why they had done it, and they covered it up pretty quickly, but it sent fear through a lot of the dead."