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That wouldn’t be fair to Finn and there was no way to repay him for his blind loyalty to me.
I cleared my throat and my voice still came out sounding strained. “I haven’t been back home since the Council murdered my family and kidnapped me. I’m in the mood to face down my demons so I can conquer them. And this is the only one I’ve got left that can haunt me. It’s time I laid it to rest like all the others so I can just focus on my future. I’ve come too far to back down and hide now.”
My palms started to sweat and I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white.
Finn sighed as he relaxed back into his seat. “So it’s time to go home.”
Yeah, that was it exactly.
It was time to go home.
The drive took another hour and I was grateful Finn didn’t ask me anymore questions. Instead he synced his phone up with the stereo and quietly played his music while he left me to drown in my memories and thoughts.
He always knew just how to handle and treat me. I didn’t know if it was just a Finn thing or if he simply got me in a way that no one else did. Either way, it was much appreciated.
The gate at the end of the long driveway was closed. Finn got out without asking and approached the seven foot tall wrought iron gate that blocked off the remainder of the driveway. He raised his hands and pressed his palms flat against it. A few seconds later the gate slowly swung open and Finn walked back to the SUV.
The gate ran the whole way around the property and the majority of it had been covered in vines for years so you couldn’t actually see past it and onto the property. Growing up I never thought about what life was like outside of the fence. Inside of the fence was too magical and enchanting with all of its flower gardens and sweet charm to ever be able to forget about.
I could see right away that the land, after so many years of being neglected, had long since lost its splendor and charm.
All the flowers were long since dead and gone. The trees looked unhealthy, half dead, and were barren of leaves.
The pond was empty, completely dried up, and was now simply an empty space in the ground. It used to be full of lily pads, frogs, fish, and a floating dock you could fish from or jump off the end of if you wanted to go swimming. At the right time of the year there’d be a mated pair of swans floating around with their little babies following around behind them.
All of that was gone now and I had to swallow past the lump of emotion that overwhelmed me at the sense of loss I felt at seeing how dead and empty my home had become.
The house itself looked exactly the same as it always had. I sighed in relief at seeing not everything here had changed.
Finn whistled under his breath. “Damn, girl. You grew up in a place full of magic and wonder. I can only imagine what it once looked like. With a little bit of hard work this place could truly be something special.”
He wasn’t wrong. It had been everything a girl could ask for growing up. I’d forgotten that. Or maybe it wasn’t so much as I’d forgotten it as I had blocked it out because it hurt too much to think about.
I drove around the fountain in the center of the circular driveway and parked in front of the front door. I powered the SUV down but I didn’t immediately get out. I needed a minute to just sit there and take it all in.
The house was two stories tall and looked like an olden day mansion. It was built in the late 1800’s. It had been in my mother’s family and eventually was passed down to her. A long line of female witches in my family had grown up in this house, my mother and myself included.
Now the house, all the land around it, and everything inside belonged solely to me.
I thought about everything I’d been through since the last time I had been here. I thought about my life now and all the beautiful people I had in it.
Somehow I’d come out of everything blessed and that was the only way I was willing to look at it.
Yes, there was sadness and a heaviness to my heart at being back here. That was to be expected but there was also a sense of rightness that being back brought me.
It felt like coming back home and I knew there was a part of me that would always belong here. Here where the ancestors, the previous witches of my family, were buried and their spirits roamed freely.
One day I wanted to be buried in the small cemetery outback.
I hoped my mother had been buried back there with her mother. Or, at the very least, her ashes had been spread across the land.
I had a feeling I would never know and my heart broke for not only her but the rest of my deceased family. But mostly for my beloved mother.
No, I absolutely could not ever let this place go and I was almost ashamed of myself that I waited so long to come back here.
I could never fully leave this place ever again.
And that kind of terrified me because I already had a home. It wasn’t so much a place as it was the people in my life. My home was with them and wherever they were.
