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“You’re lying,” I say, suspicious. Is this some sneaky tactic to get past me and put another spell on Ira?
“I’m telling you the truth. My name is Emilia Petrovsky, but my maiden name was Dragu. Only the Dragu women can wield electrical fire from the palms of their hands.”
She raises her hand to me and the same sparks fly out. The name Petrovsky rings in my mind, as I remember Noreen telling me of the magical family, the Petrovskys, and how she thought maybe my mother was the daughter of Filipp, the one who disappeared. I almost feel like being sick as the pieces fall into place. This woman – this witch, is possibly my grandmother. My grandmother cursed Ira. I can’t believe it. It makes so much sense, especially after what Ira said about Emilia’s husband being overly protective of his daughter. My mother.
“What’s your husband’s name?” I ask her quietly.
“Filipp,” she answers, her eyes narrowing as she studies me. “I hadn’t noticed before, but you have my daughter’s eyes. Who are you, child?”
“What was your daughter’s name?”
“Darya.”
“Fuck.”
“That sort of language is very unbecoming,” Emilia scolds. God, she really is my grandmother.
A warm hand touches my shoulder. “What’s wrong, Tegan?” Ira asks, standing close behind me.
I wince as I turn a little and look up at him. Gesturing to Emilia, I say, “I think she might be my grandmother.”
“Your grand-what?” Emilia exclaims, standing up now and dusting herself off.
I glance over at her. “You heard me. Your daughter Darya was my mother.”
“That can’t be. Darya never had a daughter. She was kidnapped and killed before she even turned twenty.”
“She wasn’t kidnapped, she ran away. At least that’s what I think happened. She died when I was little. I never had the chance to learn about her past.”
“Ran away..” says Emilia, shaking her head in disbelief. She takes a slow step toward me and reaches out to grab my hand. I don’t know why I let her, but I do. I’ve run out of steam with all of these revelations.
Emilia’s grip on my hand tightens. Her eyes are closed, but the lid
s are flickering fast like some kind of accelerated REM. Something deep inside tells me she’s using magic right now to read me, to determine if what I’m claiming is the truth. A minute later she opens her eyes and gasps, “It’s true. And you are exactly like my daughter, too. You possess the same power in your blood.”
I pull my hand away from her now.
“You must invite me inside. We have many things to discuss.”
“Hold up a second,” I say, blocking her from coming in. “We might be related, but as far as I’m concerned we have nothing to say to one another. If what Ira’s told me about you is correct, I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”
My granny was a serial cheater. Isn’t that just delightful?
“I was young and impulsive when Ira knew me,” says Emilia. “I am not the same woman I was back then.”
“People don’t change that much, and you weren’t that young. You were what, in your early forties twenty-five years ago?”
Emilia affects a pleading demeanour. “You must believe me, I did not come here to bespell Ira again. I came here to apologise. I had completely forgotten about what I had done to him until recently when I felt that the curse had been broken.”
“You forgot? How many people do you go around cursing that you could just forget? Ira was a young man with his whole life ahead of him, and you stole that from him just because he turned you down.”
She gives me a pleading look. Oh how the tables have turned. When she first showed up here she dismissed me as a minor roadblock to getting to Ira. Now it seems she’s all but forgotten about him and doesn’t want anything else but to do some long lost family bonding with me. Well, she has another thing coming if she thinks that’s going to happen.
“Darya disappeared almost directly after I cursed Ira,” Emilia explains. “Many dark years followed for myself and my husband. Anything that happened previous to that faded into the background, became meaningless.”
At this, my phone begins to ring in my pocket. I pull it out to see it’s Finn who’s calling me. I turn away from Emilia and answer it. “What’s up?”
“I have Pamphrock here,” says Finn. “He wants to speak to you.”
