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She stood up, retrieved the photo album she’d shown me last night, and opened it up to the same photo of Elizabeth holding a fifty balloon, surrounded by other women. This time, instead of my eyes tracking straight to Mary, I looked intently at the other faces.
“They told us they’d found diaries written by Fafnir and knew what he planned. Knowing how much power he had, they felt they were wasting their time watching portals when they could be out showing the world what the witches of extremely powerful lines could do. Then they left and took all his notes and diaries with them. They abandoned their posts as the guards of portals and never contacted us again.”
“Which ones are they?” I asked, looking down at the photo.
“My aunt, Doris.” She pointed at an old gray lady who had her arms around a similar looking older lady. “My cousin, June, and her daughter, Maeve.” She tapped two ginger ladies. “My sister, Amalie, and my nieces, Mary, who you know, and Alice.”
Her fingers hovered over the blond woman with her arms around a brunette girl and Mary, who had her arms around them both as she stood on a plastic white chair behind them.
“They abandoned their portals? Who guards them now?” I asked.
“We had to split up. My daughters used to be here with me, but now they guard the portals left by my cousin and sister.”
“I have sisters,” I breathed. The “World’s Best Mum” mug on the cabinet had given me a clue, but it still felt like a shock to know I had sisters. Younger sisters.
She pointed at the two blond girls sitting on the grass in front of her. “Yes. Gemma and Kayleigh. They are now twenty-five and twenty-three.”
I felt a pang of sadness at the thought I hadn’t got to be the annoying protective older brother I would have loved to be.But maybe when it’s all over, I can meet them and have some kind of relationship with them.
“That’s crazy.” I wanted to ask more about them, but it wasn’t the time.
Getting back on track, I asked, “So, they didn’t explicitly say they were going to bring him back, and you didn’t know he could be brought back?” She hesitated. “What?”
“We have an old document the witches who raised Sigurd and Fafnir in 1915 had seen. It stated they would need to return to the very same resting place in order to rise again. It cautioned against raising Sigurd because in doing so, Fafnir would also rise. They ignored that, of course.”
“So, you did know he could rise again.”
“We knew it was a possibility, but we didn’t know where he went when he disappeared after his sons were killed. We didn’t know if he knew he needed to go back to Sweden to rise again. We certainly didn’t think our family would help bring him back.”
“You didn’t hear anything about the plans to raise Sigurd and think to tell anyone that they might be raising a dragon too?”
“No, I knew nothing of it.”
“Because you’ve isolated yourself from society.” I sat back. “I agree with them to a certain extent.”
“Agree with what?” Elizabeth asked as she closed the album and eyed me suspiciously.
“You shouldn’t be hiding away guarding a portal no one uses. You should be out in the witching world. You could be helping to stop him, especially because your family is involved.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve known about this all of a few minutes and think you have all the answers.”
“You’re right. I don’t know fucking anything. You’ve got all the knowledge that could be helpful in defeating him. You know the history. This wouldn’t have happened if you were the head of the witches. Even if you didn’t want to lead, you could have advised from afar and under another name.”
“Bad things happen when we leave our portals unguarded. Look at what happened to my great-grandmother.”
I scoffed. “Sounds a lot like cowardice to me.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her voice dropped to a threatening whisper. “You don’t get to speak to me like that.”
“Why not? You gave me up rather than fight with your family. You tried to kill me before hearing me out, so afraid of me even though I didn’t fight or threaten you. You’re a coward,” I hissed, really driving the dagger in deep.
“You don’t know him. The dangers.”
I barked a laugh. “Don’t know him? I fucking walked up to him and offered him Zaide as a snack to distract him from Clawdia. I’ve seen him. His ex-wife is my familiar. I know what he did to her, how afraid she is of him, but she still went to face him and attacked him to save another witch. She’s far braver than you.”
“She’s made herself a target for him now. He’ll hunt her as he hunts the portals. And if he finds her, all will be lost.” She looked genuinely fearful.
I gentled my voice. “Maybe. We are scared about that too, but she’s going to help the council take him down. She wants to help. We are all helping. We know nothing is going to get better without us. We are too wrapped up in the mess to bury our heads in the sand. You are involved, whether you like it or not, and you should be helping.”
