It took about ten minutes for Emma’s father to gather his thoughts and speak again.
Emma couldn’t help the feeling that whatever he said would change her life forever, would shake her orbit more than her orbit already has.
She kept her resolve to stay and listen as steel, no matter how hard whatever her father had to say would hit her.
“The woman’s name is Tempest. She had been an ex-girlfriend. My first love actually.”
The fact that her father could speak of another woman so lovingly in front of his wife was quite disturbing, but seeing the resigned look on her mother’s face, Emma knew that the latter had accepted her place in the man’s life.
Tempest.
The woman who still had the larger portion of her father’s heart.
Tempest.
The name sounded familiar for some reason. Where had she heard it from?
Emma tried to remember, but nothing was coming up, or rather her mind chose not to stress itself. It was rather full, and then concentrated on whatever her father was saying.
“She disappeared from me after a few years of a relationship that had been best; to describe it. After waiting around for her for another couple of years I had moved on the best way I could. So, when she turned up eighteen years ago with a story that was quite unbelievable, still unbelievable, I had no choice but to carry out her instructions to the latter. I had done her the favor, not because I had believed her but because I still had a soft spot for her. Well, you wouldn’t believe it if you had been in my position. She had claimed to be a royal witch, from some part of England…”
That was it! Tempest was Lily’s mother! Leonarya’s sister!
“Emma, you seem to know who Tempest is. Have you met her?”
Her father had stopped talking now, having noticed the light in her eyes.
Emma shook her head, remembering that Lily had mentioned that the latter had died, that Leonarya had killed the successor to Zipfarah’s throne. She didn’t think to tell her father that, not ready for a diversion from talking about her roots to grief.
“I haven’t met her. But she had been telling you the truth. She is a royal witch. I met her children in England.”
There was silence, in which her parents perused her countenance.
“What really happened in England, Emma? Why are you back?”
Emma ignored her mother’s question.
“If I had heard you both right, you should be done explaining things to me before the clock strikes twelve am; for reasons best known to you. I suggest you start explaining things before that time. If there’s still time, I will tell my own side of the story.”
Seems it will be a family affair and exposure. Emma thought, knowing that Amelia was still eavesdropping. Better actually. That way she wouldn’t have to work up another explanation to give her sister. Best Amelia heard the whole thing here and now.
“Well, if what you say is true, then the other things she said are also true. Then it would also be true that you aren’t … human.”
Emma kept her fingers clasped on each other, maintaining a steely resolve even under the confirmation that her parents weren’t really her parents. She heard the shock in her father’s voice as if he was finally realizing something.
“Tempest had brought you here as a newborn. She had asked me for a favor, that I keep you until your mother was safe. And that if your mother didn’t come for you when you turn seventeen, then I should send you to England. She had given me the coordinates. She had told me that once you turned eighteen, you would become like your mother, who wasn’t a human. Riddles, I had thought then. But, I’m not sure now.”
Tempest knew her mother.
“Did she tell you the name of my mother?”
Mr Jason nodded. “Sheila. That’s her name. As a matter of fact, apart from handing you over to us, she had handed your mother too, or rather she had asked that I keep checking in on her. Your mother had been in a coma, and so we had moved her from the hospital to one of my houses, or rather the cabin that is close to the rainforest. For her safety. Tempest had actually chosen the place..”
Sheila.
Emma closed her eyes, feeling the rightness of the name, knowing the familiarity of the name. Sheila was Melvina’s best friend. She remembered the first time she had met the woman, the day she had moved into a pack without knowing. The woman had mentioned that she resembled her best friend that had been missing for seven years.
This would explain why she had a house in the pack. Emma thought.
The house had belonged to her mother, the house that Tempest had tasked her father to send her too.
However, it didn’t add up.
Melvina had mentioned that Sheila had been missing for seven years, and her father was saying that the latter had been in a coma since her birth. How come?
“Is she still there?”
Mr Jason nodded.
“The last time I checked, she was there. She was still breathing, but barely.”
Emma stood up then. “I want to see her.”
“You will, but there is something else you have to know.”
Emma furrowed her eyebrows and returned to her seat. What now?
There was a beat of silence before Mr Jason spoke again. “You have to leave, Emma. Never to return here again. For your safety, and for our own safety. Tempest mentioned that once you turned eighteen, you will be sought for, highly sought for, and that’s why we had sent you back to the England location. She had mentioned that you will be protected there. She never said what was there exactly, but I’m sure it’s some of those species I see only in comics. And I don’t want to know the specifics either. I will choose ignorance.”
Good choice. Emma thought, even though she wished she could tell Tempest that she had made a wrong gamble. The pack hadn’t protected her, they had thrown her away, exiled her. She needed to speak with Freya.
“Was I the only child of my mother?”
“Tempest didn’t say. But if I should take a guess, I would say no. The nurse we had hired to take care of her, mentioned that she must have given birth to more than one child at that time.”