Questions (The Magician – Chapter Seventeen)

This is the seventeenth chapter of the serialization novel I am working on, The Magician – < click here to read the other chapters if you missed them.

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Questions

Vanessa woke up in the old four poster bed in the guest bedroom of her grandmother’s home in the same bed in which she and Thora giggled and gossiped just few days before.  The white sheers of the canopy swayed in the breeze from the fan that blew cool air across the room.  Light streamed in through the windows, indicating it was midday.  She still wore the outfit she had been dressed in for the theater, though she was shoeless.

She blinked a few times as she tried to focus.  She had no idea how she ended up there.  The last thing she remembered was the bright swirling colors of the magic she had cast to free Ignace Godding.

She remembered vaguely that they had ended up in a safehouse in one of the older neighborhoods that belonged to the Tamberlanes.  She had not been to that house since her father had died.  It was a place so ensnared in magic that only those in the family who knew the incantation were able to enter.  Though she wasn’t fully coherent because of the power she had unleashed, she was aware that somehow Ignace Godding had known that magic.  She wondered why.

She also wondered where he was now.

The bedroom door swung open and her mother entered.

“Look who is up!” Evelyn called, smiling widely, though Vanessa could see the worry in her eyes.  “We thought you were going to sleep all day, child.”

“Where’s that magician?” Vanessa asked, as she quickly sat up and tossed the blankets away.  “And how did I end up here?  What happened?”

Evelyn stepped towards the bed and sat down on the mattress to look at her daughter.

“Calm down, my dear.  It’s all right.  You were at the safe house.  Your uncles found you there.  When word got out that the famed magician from Malatesta’s Traveling Show had disappeared, Freddy alerted Reginald and Alistair what you were up to.” There was a scowl. “You shouldn’t have put yourself at risk.  I was worried about you!”

Vanessa started to speak, but a sharp look from her mother made her keep her mouth shut.

“All of your uncles were ready to storm the theater looking for you, by the way,” Evelyn continued.  “But when the magic at the safe house was triggered, they thought you had done it.”

Vanessa shook her head.  “But I didn’t cast the spell.”

“We know you didn’t,” her mother said.  There was a darkness in her eyes that Vanessa could not understand.

She thought back to the magician.  “Where is he?” she asked.

“He’s still at the safehouse,” her mother replied, picking at a piece of lint on the blanket.  “Reginald, Iago and Alistair decided it was the safest place to keep him for now, given that Malatesta is likely looking for him.”

Vanessa swung her feet over the side of the bed, settling them into the plush throw rug that decorated the floor.  She was still a bit dizzy from the events of the previous night.   But she needed to ask her mother a question she thought was most important.  

“Who is he?”

The elder woman just shook her head.  

“He’s no one of importance, dear,” she said without blinking.

Vanessa knew from the look she was given that her mother was lying.

“He has to be, Mom, if he’s able to enter that safehouse. He has Nestor’s gift too.  Who is he?”

Evelyn remained mute on the subject.  The way she pursed her lips told Vanessa her mother would not speak on the matter. She had a feeling it was because of the Tamberlane Decree.  

“This family and their stupid decrees,” Vanessa voiced frustratedly. “Why can’t we be like a normal family and learn to forgive each other?  Why can’t we have some sort of reconciliation?”  

Evelyn chuckled slightly.

“Blame Alexander, dear. While he was loved, he wasn’t exactly the most intuitive of people.  You know as well as I do that the magic behind his decree keeps me from telling you who the magician is.  You’ll have to ask him.”

“Fine then,” Vanessa replied.  “I will ask him.  I should have last night, but you know, I was busy saving him from whatever magic he got caught up in.”

Evelyn sighed.

“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady.  You know as well as I do that once a person is written out of the family, that’s it.  There’s no coming back.”

“Unless Aunt Constance’s tears are invoked,” Vanessa replied knowingly.

Evelyn merely stared at her daughter.

“I’m right, aren’t I?  The magician I freed last night has something to do with Aunt Constance and her powerful magic, doesn’t he?”

Again, her mother merely stared.

Vanessa sighed, feeling the magic pulling at her as well.  She knew it was the reason her mother remained mute on the subject.  But her emotional powers allowed her a little more freedom in fighting against it.

“Fine.  Tell me about this Malatesta then,” Vanessa countered as she began to pace the floor.

“What do you mean?” Evelyn asked, picking a piece of lint from her clothing.  “Sit down, dear.  You are giving me a headache.”

Vanessa sighed but flopped back down on the bed.  She rolled over onto her stomach, grabbing a pillow and stuffing it under her chin in a hug.  She looked at her mother.

“I know that he is somehow connected to this family.  It can’t all be because of this Ignace Godding.”

Evelyn sighed as she brushed some imaginary hair from her blouse.  Vanessa knew she was stalling.

“Lorenzo Malatesta was once a two-bit con magician when your dad was just starting out as a patrolman,” she replied.  “He had a few run-ins with Reg and your dad before he disappeared off the grid for a bit, having gone off to the old world to follow some family fortune or something.  Then he came back to Allium three years later with some sort of show, though it wasn’t as elaborate as it is now.  I was just starting to date your father, but we were in that stage where we weren’t exclusive yet.  Lorenzo was older and seemed more worldly and I….”

She trailed off, appearing to try to find the correct words.

“You dated him,” Vanessa stated, finishing the sentence.  She could see by the look in her mother’s eyes that it was true.

Evelyn nodded.  “It was only once.  No, it was twice.  But then I realized he wasn’t the man for me and started seeing your dad again.  I was only twenty-one then and still figuring out myself.  Of course, Lorenzo was only pursuing me because of my family name.  For some reason, he wanted to marry into the Tamberlane family.  And when that didn’t work, he decided to go after….”

She trailed off again and Vanessa knew it wasn’t because she was at a loss for words this time.  It was because she could not say what was on her mind.

Enrico’s heir.

Vanessa knew for certain that the man she had freed was her mother’s long-lost cousin.  She just knew.

Click here to read the next chapter – Safehouse

 

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Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction written by K. S. Wood, and thus is copyrighted 2024. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.  All rights reserved.

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