Looking down, I shake my head. “I don’t think you’ll have a heart attack.” Then I look up to catch her eye. “Who are you?”
Moving to the other side of the kitchen, she turns the heat off under a large pot on the stove. “I’m your landlady Doris White. Are you doing those weed drugs all the kids are into these days?”
Reaching for her arm, I stop her movements. “Cut the crap. Who are you really, Doris White? I know there’s a lot more going on here than little old lady bullshit.”
Stepping back against the cabinet, she crosses her arms hard over her chest as if she’s pissed. For a moment or two she only looks at me, considering my question, turning it over in her mind like she’s weighing all sides of the matter.
“It’s like I said before. I’m your great aunt. You’re my adopted sister’s kid.”
“My great aunt?” Straightening, I try to think of any relatives I remember being adopted. “Why don’t I know about you?”
“Your mother, my adopted sister’s kid, wanted a ‘normal life.’” She makes little curly cues with her fingers as she says normal life. “She didn’t like all this paranormal activity. Witches and such.”
“My dad was a shifter.”
“Exactly, and I blame his sorry ass for turning her away from her gifts.” She resumes banging around her kitchen. “Your mother was a beautiful witch. Her aura…” She straightens, pushing lavender hair out of her face, “was the most gorgeous shade of blue-violet. And her powers… Well, they were truly immense.”
I feel like my head is spinning. “Are you trying to say—”
“Your mother was a great witch? Why is that so hard for you to accept?”
Thinking back, I can only shake my head, remembering. My mother was a professor. She made me come right home after school and do my homework. She cooked me mac and cheese and complained when I got into boxing. She disapproved of just about everything I did from the moment I hit puberty until I was kicked out of the pack.
“She was always so… normal.”
“Welp,” Doris sighs, holding up a hand and shaking her head. “That’s what she wanted. Your mother was perfect at anything she set her mind to doing.”
“Well, she was perfectly fucking normal.”
“Language, you brute!” She opens another drawer and lets out a little squeal. “Well, fuck me, I found it!”
That makes me laugh. “So you drew me here?”
She ducks her head and tilts her hand side to side. “With the help of the ley line. I needed you to save Mercy.”
“How did you know I’d be able to save her?”
Pausing mid-brew, Doris leans against the counter, and a dreamy look fills her eyes. “I knew from the moment I saw that beautiful baby lynx she was perfect for you.” She gives me a little smile and pats my arm. “Sounds like I was right, yes?”
Shaking my head, I laugh. “How the hell did you know Mercy as a baby?”
“Oh, her great aunt was my best friend. Persephone wasn’t very smart, but she was smart enough to get her ass out of the underworld.”
Catching her narrow shoulders, I make her stop and face me. “What was in that vial?”
She sighs. “I knew from your grades in school you never were one to apply yourself…”
“You sound like my mom.”
“I worried as soon as you got there, you’d drink from that River Lethe—”
“Which I did.”
She nods, pressing her thin lips together. “I concocted that little potion from the Narcissus flower. Loads of galantamine.”
“Galantamine?”
“It’s actually not such a mysterious ingredient. Scientists are testing it as a treatment for dementia.”