Page 116 of Blood and Trouble

“None that I know of,” Orion answered.

Revelation hit me like a train, bursting my heart and reframing everything I thought I knew about myself. I bordered on something massive, standing at the edge of a chasm that, once named, would destroy every narrative we’d heard about our family.

“I think it was our mother.” Once it was out, the rightness of my conclusion settled in my bones, as if the magic that had presented these visions were suddenly appeased by being spoken aloud.

“What?” Maeve took a step toward me. “Our mother?”

“Could you see yourself?” Bridge asked.

“No, but…I remembered wearing a long white nightgown.” I closed my eyes, trying to recall the details. “There was a scar on my forearm, an old injury that still hurt when it rained. I knew the witch from my childhood. She was a friend.”

“There are a lot of witches in the Sierra Nevada,” Leander said. “Old magic runs rampant there.”

“What makes you think it was our mother?” Sol asked.

“I didn’t until Bridge mentioned something happening to a previous Kennedy…until I had a new dream last night,” I explained. “I watched you crash onto Bastard territory. I watched you mate Orion. I stood in the treeline at your wedding and saw Maeve vow herself to Mill.” My sisters blinked at me like I’d suddenly started speaking a new language. “Whoever this is has been watching us for years. It would have to be a close relative. Otherwise, why would Marx bother with us when he could go terrorize the Sierra Nevada pack? I know it sounds unbelievable, but I just…I know it. I feel it in my gut.”

I did. I couldn’t explain my certainty other than to say some supernatural instinct told me it was true. It was the same way I’d somehow known Poe was my mate the first time I met him. How I’d known Lycan would be a safe place to put my trust and attention.

“Our mother’s dead,” Guin said, jaw hardened, eyes turned to stone, a warrior drawing up her armor for battle. “She’s been dead for twenty years. Forgive me if I can’t reframe my entire childhood around some fucked-up dreams you had.”

“But what if she isn’t?” I said. “We never found a body. Only a bloody patch in the snow.”

“Mill?” Orion cut in. “Where are we?”

“Getting closer,” he answered.

“Our father would have known,” Guin argued. “He would have told me.”

“Our father was a power-hungry narcissist,” Maeve said. “He would have told us the sky was green if it made him more money.”

That much was true. Father never had the time of day for his children, too reliant on our mother and the staff to ensure our survival. My poor mother. What she must have gone through. Hiding her shifter side from her family. Sleeping with a man she potentially didn’t love. Giving birth to seven children who would one day have to reckon with the consequences of her decisions.

“Is it possible?” I asked Bridge. “Could I be seeing her memories? Could our mother have found a way to plant them inside me until I transitioned?”

Bridge shrugged. “I don’t know. There are theories that blood can hold imprints, be passed down generation to generation.”

“Then why aren’t the rest of us having these dreams?” Guin asked. “Why only Ava?”

“Magic can be genetic,” Leander said. “Maybe she inherited something you didn’t.”

“What did you shift into? In the dream?” Sol asked.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see myself. Something with little paws and a fluffy white tail.”

“A fox,” Sol murmured. “A fox darted out into the road, and I crashed trying to avoid hitting it.”

“In the dream, I had to protect my family,” I continued, “like I knew something was coming for us, and I made the deal with the witch to save them. The loss broke my heart, and when I saw you all again, happy and mated, it brought me back to myself.”

“How else could Ava have known all this?” Sol argued. “Seen all this?”

“Maybe it’s a trick,” Guin said, putting her hands on the table. “Maybe it’s Evelyn’s witch in her head, making us confused, forcing us to waste time debating two decades of family lore.”

“It would make sense,” Bridge argued. “If Marx was trying to work a suppression curse on your family and your mother intercepted it, that magic would blow back onto him. Onto the anchor. Curse him instead. Marx would go mad trying to fix it. And if Evelyn was involved, she’d now be the only one carrying the weight of it.”

“Just one small wrinkle,” Guin said. “Our mother already shifted by the time these so-called memories happened. She’d already given birth to us. She’d already lived thirty-six years on this earth.” She crossed her arms. “How would a siphon or suppression curse even work on her?”

“Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way,” Bridge said. “You said you felt like you had to protect your family? Maybe the curse wasn’t aimed at her. Maybe it was aimed at you. All of you.”