Part 6

The rest of the evening was pretty much a blur. Nothing really spectacular. A couple of rowdy middle aged guys got kicked out; they obviously were conventioneers and not used to partying like they’re kids anymore.

When the overnight Show Manager showed up, I left and went home.

It was a warm night and I rolled down the windows to let my hair blow and to get the smell of hair spray and sweat out of my nose.

Once home, I pulled up and went into my tiny apartment. My grandmother had left me some meatloaf and cornbread and butter beans on the counter. The smell of lavender filled the air. I know a lot of old ladies smell like lavender but my grandmother grows the stuff and always smells like she’s just gotten out of the garden, which isn’t too far from the truth.

I live in the carriage house of my grandmother’s property. She and my grandfather bought this property and the house on it a million years ago when it was still almost completely pasture land. Now, there were McMansions everywhere and my grandmother’s modest little home on 8 acres of in-town property. They used to have 20 acres but bits and pieces had been sold over the years. A big chunk was sold to pay for my mother’s defense.

When I was 9 years old, I came home from school to a burning house. I was told that my father was killed and that my mother was going away for a while. Later, I found out that my mother had set the house on fire while my father slept. She had supposedly found out that he had been cheating on her and had accidentally knocked over a kerosene heater on her way out of the house. The fire was so intense that there was nothing left of his body which family members had talked about - when I was out of earshot they thought - and come to the conclusion that the fire was magical in nature instead of mundane. Only a magical fire could do that kind of damage and my mother was a gifted witch. I guessed she still was but I didn’t know how much of the Craft she could do while incarcerated for 40 years to life.

I was a little girl and loved my daddy more than anyone or anything else in the World and I was angry at mother for taking him away from me and for leaving me too. I haven’t visited my mother since I found out she killed daddy.

My grandmother took me in, healed my heart, and treated me like her own child. Some thought she was too old but I wouldn’t have changed a thing. She did what she could for her daughter in prison and, in loving me like her own flesh, helped heal her own heart.

I ate the cold dinner and then snuggled into bed and was plagued by dreams of school girls with bloody hands all night.

It was a bad night.