Chasing Power (38 page)

Kayla gaped at her. So she’d been telling the truth? All along, she really wanted the stones gone? She wondered if she should apologize for misjudging her.

“But not with my other daughter.” Sighing, Moonbeam sank onto the bench. She knocked the broken gnome out of the way with her foot. “I did something very wrong there.”

Sitting beside her, Marguerite patted Moonbeam’s shoulder. “You did nothing wrong. You were faced with an impossible situation, and you did the best you could.”

“I should have found a way to take her with me. Or I should have stayed, fought Jack—”

“At what cost?”

“Who’s to say it wouldn’t have been better than this cost? You didn’t see her, Marguerite. She’s damaged … and it’s my fault.”

“You saved yourself and Kayla.”

“I should have come to you. But I thought more magic …”

“You were afraid. There’s no shame in that. But you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Moonbeam leaned her head against Queen Marguerite’s shoulder. Softly, Marguerite murmured to her as she stroked her hair, as if she were a child who had woken from a nightmare.

While they were preoccupied with each other, Kayla ducked into the house and grabbed her emergency backpack. She emerged and cleared her throat. “Moonbeam? I’m ready to leave whenever you are.”

Moonbeam shook her head. “Not this time. No more hiding.”

“Are you sure, Lorelei?” Marguerite asked.

“Yes, I’m sure.” She smiled at the voodoo queen.

Kayla felt her jaw drop open. She thought about shaking her head to clear her ears, but she didn’t doubt that she’d heard Moonbeam say those words. She just didn’t understand what they meant. They sounded like nonsense syllables. “We aren’t?”

“I abandoned my daughter once; I won’t do it again.”

“You didn’t abandon me … Oh, you mean Amanda. Um, she tried to shoot me. You remember that part, right? And Dad. She fired several times.”

“She needs help,” Moonbeam said.

“Um, I don’t think she wants it. Especially from you. No offense meant.”

Moonbeam sat up straighter, as if good posture would give her courage. “I won’t pretend it will be easy. But it’s time to face my responsibilities.”

“She’s dangerous and unstable,” Kayla pointed out. “You saw
her. It’s not like you can give her a hug and make everything okay.”

Queen Marguerite hugged Moonbeam’s shoulders. “She might just need a little motherly love. Problem is, right now she won’t listen to her mama. And she has the power to keep from having to listen.”

Moonbeam nodded. “That’s what I think. And that’s why I need your help.” She faced Queen Marguerite. “Old friend, will you help me?”

Kayla looked from Moonbeam to the queen and back again. The way they acted, the way they talked, had the weight of years behind it. She wondered what she didn’t know about their past. Queen Marguerite had claimed they were friends, and Moonbeam had been so certain that she could appease the voodoo queen. Maybe they truly had been close.

“You know my help always comes with a price. Even for you, my dear,” Queen Marguerite cautioned. “What do you have that I want?”

“Me,” Moonbeam said simply.

Queen Marguerite seemed to freeze. She didn’t speak. She didn’t breathe.

“You want to pass your legacy on to someone. You haven’t taken on an apprentice. You don’t have an heir. Help me help my daughter Amanda, and I will come with you to New Orleans and be your legacy.”

“Mom?” Kayla’s voice came out as a squeak. She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. “Do you know what you’re saying? You hate magic! Why on earth would you volunteer to be the next voodoo queen?”

Moonbeam put her hand on Marguerite’s hand. “Because I’m
done with hiding. Because magic is what I am meant to do. Look around you. I didn’t give it up. I demanded that you do without it, but then I steeped us in tons of my magic. I couldn’t even cut my ties to Evelyn, even though that endangered you. I’ve been lying to myself. I am what I am, and this is my fate. Isn’t it, Your Majesty?”

There were tears again in Queen Marguerite’s eyes.

“Will you help me heal my daughter?” Moonbeam asked her.

Speechless, Marguerite nodded.

Moonbeam threw her arms around the voodoo queen, and Marguerite hugged her back. They stayed that way for a long while. At last, Marguerite pulled back. She was smiling the most real smile that Kayla had ever seen on her face. She touched Moonbeam’s cheek softly, tenderly. “At my age, I expected to be finishing journeys, not beginning them. Tell me where to find your wayward girl.”

Moonbeam was smiling and crying too. Tears had smeared the makeup under her eyes. “You know that old swimming hole on the Beaumont land?”

“Of course. Used to skinny-dip there myself back in the day.”

“That’s where we did the spell.”

Queen Marguerite laughed. “Two miles from my home. Right under my nose. Very well. I’ll be back, with company. Be ready.” And then she vanished, leaving Kayla and Moonbeam alone.

Kayla moved toward her. “Moonbeam …”

“Don’t try to talk me out of this, Kayla.”

“Actually, I was going to ask if you can use that sleeping spell on Amanda. It might be a nicer solution than just bashing her on the head, albeit less satisfying.”

Moonbeam looked relieved. “I want to talk to her first, without her father’s influence. I might be able to reach her, at least enough to convince her to try …”

“And if you can’t? Sleeping spell, yes?”

“The spell will need to be stronger. If I only use words, it lasts a few minutes at best. But with herbs …” Jumping to her feet, Moonbeam scurried inside the house. Kayla trailed after her. Moonbeam beelined to her shelves and pulled out several kinds of herbs. She began to mix them, crushing them with a pestle. She then poured them into a shallow bowl and added oil. “The smoke from this will make her sleep until we’re ready to wake her.” She set a wick in it as if it were ordinary incense oil. Moonbeam lit a nearby candle. Her hands were shaking. She murmured words over it. “The wick will need to be lit. I don’t know if—”

“I can do it,” Kayla said.

“She has to inhale the smoke.”

“I can make her do that,” Kayla said.

Her mother studied her for a long moment. “Kayla … I don’t know how to apologize for failing you so very badly.”

“You didn’t fail me,” Kayla said automatically. Once the words were out of her mouth, she wasn’t sure they were true. Moonbeam had lied for years.

Moonbeam blew out the match. The candle wreathed her face in a soft light. It made her look fragile. “I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to save your sister.”

“That’s okay. Really. She’s kind of a psychopath.”

Moonbeam positioned the candle on the counter near the oil. “But she’s
my
psychopath. I owe it to Amanda to try. She blames me for leaving.”

“She said she locked herself in the bathroom and screamed for Dad.”

Moonbeam’s eyes widened. “She told you that? It’s true. It was either leave with you then, or lose the chance to leave at all. Still, I’ve replayed that day in my mind so many times. If I could have prevented her, or explained better … She was young. She didn’t understand the consequences, not truly.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t blame you.” That much was true. She was able to say the words easily.

“You don’t? But I lied to you.” Moonbeam’s eyes were wide and so full of hope.

Kayla wanted to put her arms around her mother. But she didn’t. Instead, she wet a paper towel and dabbed the smeared makeup under Moonbeam’s eyes, cleaning her up. “You should have told me the truth sooner, but you weren’t wrong to leave. I had a much better childhood with you than I would have had with Daddy Dearest. I would’ve turned out just like Amanda. You saved me from that. I know that’s why you left. For me.”

Moonbeam smiled, albeit sadly. “Kayla—”

“Your little psychopath is here.” Kayla pointed out the window. Queen Marguerite stood between the bench and the gate. She was gripping Amanda by the arm. Shrugging her off, Amanda strode toward the house. Kayla felt her heart beat faster.

“Let me try to talk to her before you burn the oil,” Moonbeam commanded.

“Fine. Talk fast.”

Leaving the oil and candle, Moonbeam ran for the door. Kayla stepped onto the kitchen counter and out the window. She jumped off the window box. As she did, she grabbed with
her mind for the stray leaves and twigs that littered the lawn. She aimed them at Amanda.

“Kayla, no, we talk
first
!” Moonbeam cried, bursting outside.

Kayla let the leaves and twigs drop.

Amanda picked up the bench with her mind and threw it at Kayla. It pinned her against the house. “Happy to talk. Tell me where the stones are.”

“Gone,” Kayla said. Glaring at her mother, she didn’t move a muscle. “Daniel jumped me to multiple locations without telling me where he was. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t know where I dropped the stones. So no one knows where they are.”

“You’re lying,” Amanda said. “No one would throw away that much power.”

Moonbeam came toward her. Her hands were open, palms out, a soothing gesture, as if Amanda were a wild deer that Moonbeam wanted to feed. “
I
did. At great cost. At the cost of you.”

“Don’t talk to me,” Amanda said. “You don’t deserve to talk to me.”

Hands still out, Moonbeam halted. “I’m your mother.” Her voice was gentle, soothing, as if she wanted to break out in a lullaby. Kayla felt calmer hearing it. She reached with her mind toward the candle, ready to light the oil.

Amanda snorted. “You gave up that right when you left me behind.”

“You chose to stay.”

“I was a kid! You were trying to take me from my father, to destroy my family! You should have stayed.” Amanda pointed at her, and wind bashed into Moonbeam, knocking her off her feet.

Pushing herself up, Moonbeam stood. “I couldn’t stay, and you wouldn’t leave. And then suddenly, it was done, and it was too late. Believe me, leaving you behind was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Pretty words.”

“He’d already won with you. I realized it when you screamed for him. You and he were a team. But when Katie began to show signs of her power …”

“I know. You had to ‘save’ Katie. It’s always about the precious baby Katie.”

Moonbeam stepped toward her again. “I missed you.”

“Don’t lie to me. How could you miss me? You had her.”

Not moving from behind the bench, Kayla said, “
I
missed you. I missed my big sister. Remember how we used to play tea party with all my stuffed animals? Remember how you tried to teach me to read? We’d play school, and you taught me how to write a poem with lots of rhymes. You were the one who stood under me when I first started to climb trees. You were the one who taught me how to climb onto the roof. We used to sneak out and look at the stars at night. Do you remember that?”

“Of course I do,” Amanda said. “But that was a long time ago, and it doesn’t matter now. I’m not Dad. I’m not weak-minded or weak-willed. You are going to tell me where the stones are, whether you want to or not.”

Queen Marguerite laughed lightly. “Oh, bless her heart, she still thinks she can win. Honey, you were outsmarted fair and square. Cut your losses and seek another way.”

Spinning to face her, Amanda shot her a glare that was nearly as powerful as the wind. “You wanted those stones too. Are you telling me you’re giving up? There’s a limited number of
places they could have jumped in the time they had. You and I, we can search them all. After all, it’s still only two.” She drew the third stone out of her pocket and held it up.

Queen Marguerite frowned at it. “That’s a fake.”

“What?” Amanda shrieked. She dropped the bench. It landed with a crash in front of Kayla, and the back of it cracked, a split right between the symbols for peace and tranquility. Amanda carried the stone into a patch of direct sun and twisted it in the air. Colors sparkled from deep within the black.

“I’m sorry, my girl, but you’ve been tricked. It’s a fake.”

Staying pressed against the house, Kayla eyed the bench. It could rise again at any time. Especially since Amanda was growing more and more angry. She kept a portion of her mind touching the flame and glanced at Moonbeam. Moonbeam shook her head.

“Do you mean to tell me the spell—” Amanda raged.

“Oh, the stone
was
real, and the spell would have worked. Someone would have died,” Queen Marguerite said. “But this … is not real. It must have been switched.”

Amanda lifted up the bench again, and this time the bench rotated as if she was planning to hit Kayla with it. “
You
did this! Where is it?”

Kayla held her hands up in front of her, knowing that wouldn’t be enough to stop the bench if Amanda decided to throw it. “Not me. You’ve seen my power. I can’t levitate much more than a pencil. Rocks are out of my league.”

With a cry, Amanda threw the stone. It hit the house and fell on the grass. Rolling, it landed at Queen Marguerite’s feet. The voodoo queen met Kayla’s eyes. Slowly, she winked. Kayla looked at the stone.
It’s real
, she thought.
She lied
.

Before Amanda could act again, Moonbeam stepped in front of her, between her and Kayla. “Amanda, look at me. Put down the bench.”

Amanda glared at her and didn’t lower the bench.

“Look at me, Amanda.”

Crossing her arms, Amanda said, “I
am
looking at you.”

“You know what I see when I look at you?” Moonbeam asked. “Me. I see me. You are exactly like I was when I was your age. All fire and no sense. I wanted to soar free. I wanted to be different and special and
safe
. I wanted to be so powerful that no one could ever hurt me or, more importantly, hurt the people I love.” Reaching out, she stroked Amanda’s hair. Amanda flinched back but didn’t move away. “And in the end, I lost nearly everything that mattered to me. My husband. My home. You. My job. Myself. Even my own name.”

“You didn’t lose anything; you left.”

“I lost,” Moonbeam insisted, “in every way that mattered. Your father and his ambition would have destroyed us all. You were young. You didn’t know what he was like. He was relentless, and I was weak. If I hadn’t left … I had to become someone else to find out who I was.”