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“So, my father left to save my mother from her own self-hatred,” I said aloud. “Is that what happened?”
It was Hans who replied.
“Yes, that’s what happened. It was a sacrifice. It was the ultimate bargaining tool your grandmother could ever have, and she’d have used it. Plus, your mother would never have left with Thomas while your grandmother was grieving. Rhona would have been too selfish to let her go.”
The ghost of my grandfather spun to face Hans, and he was angry.
“Tell him not to think about my wife that way! He doesn’t know Rhona like I do. He never did!”
I cleared my throat before I spoke to Hans.
“Grandad says you don’t know my grandma. He says she doesn’t mean it.”
“That doesn’t excuse the inexcusable. It doesn’t cleanse thesinsas your grandmother likes to call them.”
“That’s why she goes to church every bloody weekend!” Grandad said. “I see how upset she is under the surface, even if you don’t. She may gripe and moan like she always did, but she’s carrying her own demons, just like we all are. She just can’t stand the thought of facing them.”
“What’s he saying now?” Hans asked, and I repeated Grandad’s words to him.
“Hmm. Maybe he’s right, or maybe she doesn’t want to face them because she’s a nasty bitch who can’t break her own ego. I can’t say I’m all that convinced she’s some little saint under the surface, if I’m honest.”
“He doesn’t need to be convinced,” Grandad said. “She’s my wife, not his, and she’s your grandmother, not just some woman he can moan and whine about.”
There was something so simplistically honourable in the way my grandad spoke. I wished he hadn’t died when I was just a baby, because who knows… who knows how different life could have been for me. For all of us…
“The past is the past,” Hans said. “Understanding it can help us make sense of ourselves and our destinies, yes, but we can only live the future through the present.”
I didn’t try to interpret his phrases through rational thought, just let them sink into me. I also didn’t give a shit about the ins and outs of sinners, and witchcraft, and who’d done what to who. Not right then. Not with my long lost grandfather in front of me. I wanted to sit with him. Talk with him. Get to know him, even just a little.
“Yes, of course,” Hans said, and approached me with open arms. “Take your time, little one. Enjoy some space with your grandfather and then do what you will. I’ll be waiting at Edwin’s. Send me a thought and I’ll come for you.”
“Thanks,” I said and hugged him. “I know this was hard for you to do – to bring me here – and this must be shit, and this whole thing must be a crazy whirlwind, but thank you. For everything. Without you I’d be nothing. Just a girl running away from all this without a clue, trying to live a life I was never supposed to be living.”
“Thisis the life you should be living,” he said and laid a kiss on my forehead. “And you are more than welcome, little one. You always will be. From now on I’m not going to be a figure in the shadows. I’m going to be a part of your world.”
I chanced a bit of humour.
“I can’t wait to introduce you to the family. That’ll be a fun one.”
Hans laughed. “Hopefully nobody will fall off a turret to their death when they kick off next time around. At least I wouldn’t die from a fall. I’m too immortal for that.”
“Neither will I when I’m a vampire. Better hurry up and turn me into one, hadn’t you? And if you even think of sayingpatience.”
Hans grinned and stroked my face.
“Send me a thought when you’re ready.”
“Thank you.”
There was going to be so much to do, and learn, and think about. My mother and grandmother, and how I was going to approach them about this. If at all. Trying to find out how much they knew about our family history, or if they’d even care.
If they could care about me when they knew the truth of it. That I really was a witch, a psychic and asinner.Whether they’d ever accept Hans.
And what about my father? Would I ever get to meet him?
But now wasn’t the time for it. Now was the time for my grandad.
I bid my vampire lover farewell for a short while, looking at him with love and pride as he left us, and then I sat down with the man I’d never had the chance to know.
