From Power to Post: an Urban Fantasy adventure (Hallowed Ground Book 2) by Chele Cooke

Author:Chele Cooke [Cooke, Chele]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Five

From the moment I stepped back into the living room, I could feel the crackling tension caused by my argument with Luca. Jeremy shuffled and shifted his weight awkwardly, before leaving me alone. Lettie peered at me with an unblinking force. She uncurled her petite body from the confines of the armchair and glided past me out onto the balcony, disappearing over the edge after Luca.

A few minutes later, Nora appeared from the kitchen and put a mug of steaming hot tea on the low coffee table. Her gaze darted between me and the mug before she pointed at the couch. I wilted under her stern stare, crumpling down into the cushions. She sat down next to me and sipped her own tea. I dutifully collected my own mug and cradled it in my lap.

Nora didn’t talk. She didn’t distract herself with books or TV. She sat, she sipped her tea, and she waited.

I held out ten minutes of the oppressive and expectant silence before I looked out to the balcony.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” I asked.

Nora didn’t look at all surprised by my question. “Would you?”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure. The urge to run and not look back had been growing within me for weeks, ever since I’d received that call from Elijah. But I wanted to stay. I wanted to help.

“I hope so.”

Nora laid her hand on my knee, and gave it a gentle, comforting squeeze. “You know, I’ve helped raise over thirty children, and every one of them has been different. What works for one, fails miserably for another. Jeremy needed to be kept busy, to be put to good use. But when I tried it on my next, Holly, she purposefully did a terrible job in whatever I gave her. But do you know what they all have in common?”

“No,” I replied.

“Every one of them needed to find their own place in our family,” she said. “It couldn’t be handed to them. I couldn’t tell them where they fit. They needed to find it for themselves, or it would never fit them the way it should.”

I sipped my tea and stared down at the rapidly cooling liquid. It was another of the herbal teas; chamomile, this time. I was still getting used to the herbal and fruit teas. They weren’t my favourite, but they were settling a little better each time.

“You’re saying Luca has been given a job that doesn’t fit him?”

“You both have,” she replied. “Luca has never been his family’s saviour, their protector. And you… well, I think you’re still looking for your place. You’re being pushed into a space that is needed of you, but it pinches and is uncomfortable, and you’re fighting against it.”

I shuffled myself further back into the couch cushions.

She continued. “The other thing most people have in common, I’ve learned, is that when in the throes of an argument, what comes out of someone’s mouth is rarely what they want to say. We don’t enjoy exposing our weaknesses and fears, and so we wrap them in anger about something quite different, to disguise them.

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