Relish: A Vicious Feast Book 2 (29 page)

Nothing happened.

My eyebrow shot up. Huh. Did I suddenly skip the months into Halloween and this was some kind of elaborate prank? The door had opened on its own for me before, but never when I was still a few feet away from it. I always thought it was because of the latch being loose and coming close to it shifted the frame and released the door.

“Dakota?” my mother called from somewhere in the house. “What are you waiting for?”

Not over thinking things, I stepped inside. A hearty fire danced in the fireplace in the living room, like always. The scent of lemon wax permeated the air. Mom had been cleaning. Not a good sign. A spotless house meant she worried about something.

I stowed my bag by the threshold as the door shut seemingly by itself. A wave of shivers ran down my spine. When did the farmhouse suddenly have a haunted feel to it?

“Mom?” my voice took on a high-pitched quality. I’d grown up in this house. The pipes rattling, the creaking noises, the shadows…fuck, the shadows. How could I have shoved those under the “old house” reason? More and more things began to make sense. Had I been glossing over all the spooky shit? My mother certainly didn’t let on.

“In the kitchen!” she answered back. “I’m making tea.”

My spine went ramrod straight at the mention of tea. My hypnotized self specifically told me not to drink the tea. “Mom, we need to talk.” I backed away from the door, keeping watch as if it was about to leap at me. Only when I was far enough away did I turn on my heel and hurry into the kitchen.

Sure enough, my mother—in her billowy blouse tucked into a ruffled, floor-length skirt—stood facing the stove. Her hands flew in the air, dropping pinches of things into a pot of boiling water. The thought of never once asking what was in the tea scared me. Her long auburn hair swayed as she moved. Her massive amounts of bangles clinked together, an oddly calming sound in my rising panic.

“I’m not thirsty,” I said despite a dry mouth. I swallowed. Not eating or drinking anything until I got answers.

She looked over her shoulder at me. “Surely you have time for tea. You flew all this way and all.”

I’d intended to take a seat at the table, but her comment froze me by the entrance to the kitchen. “How’d you know I flew here?”

“You called me from London, remember?”

My sigh of relief sent me lumbering to the table. I pulled out a chair and sank into it. My paranoia was getting to me. Of course I’d called my mother about the job in London. I shook my head, a low chuckle escaping my throat.

“I think I’m just jetlagged.” I rubbed the heel of my hand over the dull ache pulsing at my temple. “The job at Rebel went well. I actually came from Belfast.”

“Belfast?” she cooed, pouring the clear brown contents of the pot into a mug.

“Yeah.” I eyed the tea suspiciously as she set it in front of me. She took a seat across the table, her pixie face open and beguiling. “I actually took a job with Vicious.” The muscles in my belly thrummed. I could tell her about this. I didn’t sign an NDA this time.

She tilted her head. “Vicious?”

“They’re this really famous indie band. They hired me to take pictures of them while on tour.”

“Well, isn’t that nice.” She clapped her hands once, eliciting more jingles from her bangles.   

“It is.” I bobbed my head in agreement.

“What’s with that smile?”

“What smile?” My hand flew to my lips self-consciously.

“I know that smile. It says ‘I’m in love’ to the world.”

The blush came swift and without mercy. “Mom!”

She slapped the table, rattling the mug. “I knew it! Who’s the lucky guy?”

I dropped my gaze and fiddled with the hem of my jacket. The air in the kitchen wasn’t stifling, so I hadn’t thought to take it off. “He’s the bassist.” God, talking about him turned me into a teenager. “His name is Luka.”

My eye flicked up at her sharp intake of breath. “Do you mean Luka Visraya?”

My mouth opened to confirm, but I slammed my lips shut when her question registered fully. How could she know Luka’s full name and not know about the band? The atmosphere shifted from homey to uncomfortable.

She withdrew into herself like a shrinking flower. Her eyes darted from place to place while she murmured into the hand she used to rub her lips. I was about to ask her what was wrong when she stopped abruptly and said, “Why aren’t you drinking your tea?”

Instead of answering, I fished out my phone and cued the video. Once I’d fast-forwarded to the part where I sat up I showed her the screen. My mother watched in shocked silence, both her hands covering her slack mouth. She didn’t move even after I’d returned my phone into my pocket.

“I’ve been having these dreams,” I began, needing to fill the heavy silence between us. “They were distorted versions of what happened to me.” I touched my patch. “At first, I could live with them, you know. A walk down the block or working all night. But lately the dreams have gotten worse. Now there are women chanting, an old woman holding a knife with these crazy symbols on it, and me fighting against something that possessed me.”

My mother’s rosy complexion disappeared. She got paler with each sentence I completed. “You’re not drinking the tea.”

“No.” I nudged the mug to the center of the table and continued. “The band has this shrink traveling with them. I spoke to her about the dreams and she said hypnotherapy might help me get to the root of things. The video you saw was me under hypnosis. What did I mean when I said not drinking the tea would tell you I’m ready?”

Swift as a snake bite, my mother grabbed my hand. I gasped in surprise, almost knocking my chair back when I tried to jerk away. She held on tight. After a beat, she yanked forward so I was half-sprawled over the table. She looked into my eye, her vivid green irises stormy. The thought of screaming for help hovered at the tip of my tongue. But this was my mother. I had to believe she wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.

“Are you sure about this?” She squeezed my hand until I winced.

“I need to know,” I said. “What are these dreams? And what’s with the tea?”

Her grip loosened, allowing me to take my hand back. I cradled it against my chest. My wrist pulsed, still feeling her fingers around it. My mother covered her face with both hands then shoved her fingers into the mass of her hair afterwards she slammed both her hands on the table, startling me, and pushed up. She took the mug and poured its contents into the drain. Turning around, she leaned against the sink and crossed her arms.

I no longer recognized the woman looking back at me. Her usually smiling face lost all humor. A crease formed on her brow. Frown lines bracketed her lips. Worst of all, she studied me with calculating eyes. Like she weighed the pros and cons of the situation. For the shortest second, my gaze flitted to the knife block.

She’d caught the glance because she rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Well, you’re kinda freaking me out.” My body trembled so hard I feared falling off my chair. “What’s going on, Mom?”

“First,” she raised a finger, “you don’t have to call me ‘mom’ anymore.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “Are you really sure about this?”

“Why can’t I call you ‘mom’?”

“Because I’m not your mother.”

At the back of my mind, something clicked. “You’re not my mother.” My acceptance of the revelation surprised as much as shocked me.

“Good.” She nodded once. “Some of your consciousness is returning. We might have to thank Luka for that.”

“What does Luka have to do with this?” My hackles rose.

“Don’t bark at me.” She massaged the valley that formed between her eyebrows. “You’ll understand more when we start. But,” she cut me off even before I said anything, “I want to be sure. Know that there is no going back after this. Once we start, that’s it.”

I bowed my head until I stared at nothing but my lap. Did I really want to know? Did I really want answers? She mentioned Luka. What did he have to do with my dreams? Then his cryptic words flashed in my mind. Nothing would change between us no matter what happened. This pissed me off. Had he known all along? How the hell could he?

Okay, way too many questions.

I lifted my head to meet the gaze of my not-mother. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

She sighed as if what we were about to do was the stupidest thing in the world. Then she clapped her hands once above her head and chanted the words:

Let what was once hidden be revealed.

Powers that be break down the shield.

Open our eyes to the truth you hide.

Let your light be our guide.

This is my will, so mote it be.

I didn’t know how, but the words seemed familiar to me. Like I was supposed to know the chant. She spoke them twice more. A bright light emanated from between her palms and engulfed the kitchen.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-T
HREE
R
EALITY

When the light receded, I found myself standing in the middle of a dense forest.  Eyeball burning from the earlier sudden flash, I turned in a tight circle, taking in my surroundings. The trunks of trees so large several people would have to be holding hands just to circle it stretched up toward the endless sky. A florescent type of aquamarine moss clung to roots thicker around than the tunnel slides I used to play in as a kid. If I crawled underneath one that arched off the packed earth there would still be room for another person to sit with me.

Sweetness hung in the air and when I searched for its source, a thatch of wild flowers of every vibrant shade greeted my hungry gaze. In the distance, magnificent orange mushrooms the size of umbrellas congregated, like the rains of a previous night forced them to pop out of the ground all together. Above me, melodic bird song trilled. When I looked up the foliage was so thick all I couldn’t make out was a flash of yellow feathers tipped with red.

My fingers twitched for my camera. This was too much. There were too many things to take in at once. A total brain overload. This must be what being in the middle of the Amazon felt like. To be surrounded and yet feel so alone in the vastness of the wonder surrounding you. The feeling was almost similar to being in the city. Everything was too big, too bright, too excessively wondrous.  The place seemed so alien yet familiar at the same time, like the place in my dreams. The energy here was the same too—a tingling that tickled my skin. Instinct told me if I reached out to the power weaving itself in the air it would respond to my wishes. The realization both scared and excited me. I was having a profound We’re Not In Kansas Anymore moment and my Toto just happened to be someone who had become a complete stranger in a matter of minutes.

“You’re feeling this way because it’s the same forest in your dreams,” the woman I had called mom for years said as if having read my mind.

Unfazed, I stopped and faced her. “Where are we?”

“The Wik Woods at the edge of the Strega Compound.”

The words rang true to my ears. In the back of my mind, a mental map pinged to life. To the east of where we stood there was a lake I used to swim in during the summer months where a gentle sea creature with scales of gold lived. Sometimes, when the sun hit the clear water just right the lake turned a golden mercury color. In the west stretched a wall of mountains always snow-capped and majestic. And in the south there was a meadow where a field of heavenly smelling lavender grew. There were dangerous pockets in between where all manner of creatures lived, some monstrous while others looked harmless enough if you left them alone. My breathing hitched and my heart stuttered, but the rest of my panic never came as I expected it too. Shouldn’t I be freaking out more over all this?

“Why?” She shook her head. “You’re back where you belong. You know this place more than the one we came from. The one you created.”

“What?” I blurted out, not thinking.

“Not all your memories have returned then.”

“My memories?” I turned in a circle again. “Where’s the farmhouse? Eli?” His name came out shrill. My worry finally caught up with me. When she didn’t answer fast enough, I said, “Moira!”

She smirked. “I was wondering when you’d start calling me by my name.”

“If you’re not my mother then who are you?”

“I think the more time we spend here the more your memories will return. The fact that you’re taking this calmer than you think you should speaks volumes. I told you there’s no turning back once we’ve started down this path. Everything in that world you created is gone.”

My heart didn’t just skip a beat then. It stopped working entirely. I grabbed at my chest. “Luka?”

“That world,” she pinned me with a green gaze that matched the lushness around us, “was all make believe. You were never a photographer. You were never attacked in high school. Everything you think happened didn’t.”

A spark of temper pushed me toward her. I grabbed the front of her blouse in tight fists and bared my teeth. At the back of my mind I knew she was telling the truth. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t be pissed about it.

“You should have warned me,” came my guttural reply.

“But I did.” Her face softened back to the one I recognized more than this woman I wanted to strangle. “I asked you several times if you were sure. If you wanted to know the truth.”

“Then you should have told me that I would lose…”
Everything
.

The enormity of the idea hit me hard. I dropped to my knees, letting go of Moira. The undergrowth pillowed my fall as if the forest didn’t want me getting hurt. Despite my distress, I felt its immense life-force enveloping me. I covered my face with both hands in time to catch the first wave of tears. My sobs reverberated in the stillness of the woods. Luka. The man I loved. The guy who could annoy me one minute then make me melt the next. Gone.

“Why are you crying?”

The stupidity of the question cut through my anguish. I jerked my head up and glared at her. “Because Luka is gone. Eli, Deidra, Yana, Dray, Demitri, Phoenix, Calixta, Silvia, Larry…” I listed all the names I knew. Even Eddy from the frame store. “They’re all gone.”