Antebellum Awakening (The Network Series #2)(32)

“Can you toss me my clothes? I didn’t mean to. It just . . . it just happened. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Camille pitched the gray dress back to me, a dreamy gaze in her eyes. The comfortable smell of lavender washed over me when I put my own bland dress back on, but I couldn’t deny missing the soft, flowing feeling of linea on my skin.

Despite the heaviness in my heart, and the agitation left over from my burst of power, I felt the tension dissipate once Henrietta left with the broken mirror. There were no mirrors in the Witchery to remind me of whom I looked like.

Leda turned a page in her book.

“I think next time we should have a magnet ready,” she said without looking up. “Then we can suck all the pins away before they poke you to death with them. That’s probably why you broke the mirror.”

Camille and I looked at each other, then all of us burst into laughter, making me forget Mama’s quiet gray eyes.





Mildred’s Resistance

“Do me a favor?” Papa asked the next afternoon as I walked out of my bedroom, still bleary-eyed from a nap. He gathered a couple scrolls from the table near the bay window. I shrugged, then grimaced. My neck and back muscles were sore from an intense hour of climbing up and down trees. Merrick had remained ahead of me, as usual, and dropped pinecones on my head. For every pinecone I didn’t catch, I had to do ten push-ups. He claimed it helped with my hand-eye reaction time and strength, but I suspected he just liked torture. Sap still clung to the bottom of my feet and my palms with sticky persistence.

“Sure,” I said, yawning.

“Will you take this to Council Member Stella?” he asked, waving a scroll at me from the other side of the table. “I want to make sure no else reads it.”

I grabbed it from the air. “Yes, Papa.”

“Thanks,” he called over his shoulder, rushing off to a meeting with the Protectors. “Love you, girl.”

I rubbed my face, pulled my hair from its ponytail, and headed out of the apartment.

It took a brave soul to lead the southern covens that flirted with the border of the Southern Network. Winter brushed that part of the world for much of the year, leaving them with a short growing season in the summer and fall. Ice, wind, and frost were the way of life down there, from what Michelle described.

Fortunately, Stella was just such a brave and bold soul, ready to lead and eager to work.

Her close friendship with the High Priestess and love of outlandish scarves set her apart from the other Council Members. Her warm personality always drew people to her; it was rare to see Stella alone or unhappy, despite those around her. I envied her ability to do and feel whatever she wanted without restraint. Sometimes when I watched her I felt like a caged bird.

A dark purple door came into sight halfway down Council Hall. Sparkling jewels dotted the front of the door, accompanied by a golden pattern of swirls and whirls across the edges to give the impression of a snow shower of diamonds. Singular, just like Stella. The handle shimmered with purple gems and swung to admit me before I could knock.

“Come in, Bianca,” she called in a friendly voice. “I’ll be with you in just a second.”

Stella stood at her desk, while an assistant with limp blonde hair and red-rimmed eyes hovered nearby. I stepped just inside the door, running my eyes over the comfortable room. The cherry wood desk and bookshelves gave a warmth to the stone, even though snowy paintings of the south decorated the walls. Blue-green plants crawled along the windows in little fountains of color, and an expansive purple rug lined with white and blue thread covered most of the floor.

“Send a message to the villages on the Southern Network border,” Stella instructed her faded, hunched assistant. “They must wear those bracelet charms I sent. The Southern Network has assembled their army and those charms will help protect our witches if there are skirmishes”

Stella’s graying auburn hair tapered back in an elegant, coiffed bun at her neck. An outlandish pink and yellow scarf draped her shoulders and chest in plumes of gauzy chiffon.

“Come in, Bianca,” she said again, looking over the top of her glasses with a warm smile. “Dyana and I just finished.”

Her assistant slinked by me without making eye contact. If she could get a job as an assistant, surely Leda could find some kind of place in the political realm.

“What can I help you with today?” Stella asked.

“I came with a scroll from my father,” I said, extending it to her. “He asked me to bring it over.”

Stella smiled and took the scroll.

“That’s very kind. Thank you.”

I smiled, curtsied, and turned to leave.

“You look like your mother in that gray dress,” she added. “It matches your eyes.”

I stopped. I wanted to walk away, to pretend like I hadn’t heard, but my heart wouldn’t let me. Against my better judgment, I circled back around.

“You knew her?” I asked. She smiled, the wrinkles around her eyes creasing.

“Yes. I knew Marie and your grandmother Hazel. Hazel was quite young when I first met her in one of the Resistance meetings. Her father, William, was the local leader and a very good man. You’re a lot like him, but you look like Lily, his wife. She had rich, beautiful hair just like yours.”

“Really?”

“Indeed. Both you and your grandfather have shown great amounts of courage in frightening situations.”