“Maybe it does, but in this case, magic killed my mother, and eventually my father.”
She sat up, placing a palm over his heart. “Oh, Rick. I’m so sorry.”
“My parents were good people. When they immigrated here to the states, it was on the promise my father’s best friend would help get him a job at the paper mill he worked for.”
Hackles rose on the back of her neck. “Was this friend a warlock?”
“He was, as was his boss, who took a shine to my mother. The long and short of it is, the bastard cast a spell on her, a cleaving spell. A spell you’re helpless to fight against, even though you’re aware of everything happening to you. You can’t speak in protest. You can’t do anything but ride the tide.”
Poppy gripped his hand, fascinated by the contrast of their skin. “He didn’t. Oh, God, he…”
Rick nodded, his slick black hair gleaming in streaks under the lights. “He did. She left my father and me for this guy. She had no will to stop it, but I saw it in her eyes, I saw how he’d turned her into a helpless puppet on the outside. But inside? She was dying.”
“And your father’s magic wasn’t strong enough to remove the spell, was it?” she asked, her voice low and hushed.
“No. And every day, he’d see Mama at work while his friend’s boss dragged her around like his toy, and it broke him, brought him to his knees until he couldn’t even get out of bed some mornings. But he eventually found someone he thought could break the spell.”
“Who?”
His head hung low, his chin at his chest. “Me.”
Oh God. No. Please don’t tell me Rick was responsible for his mother’s death.
Gulping, she was afraid to push any more. “Don’t. Don’t tell me if it’s too painful. Please. I don’t want to make this any harder.”
But Rick shook his head, his lips in a firm line of determination. “Nope. You’re right. You have to know what happened. I don’t know why my father thought I could break the spell. I was just a kid with typical, very minimal warlock powers. But Papa swore he’d prayed to the Goddess, and she’d told him I was the savior to this problem. Looking back now, from an adult perspective, I truly believe he was delusional at that point. With his grief, with his fear. He wasn’t sleeping or eating…but I didn’t have anyone to turn to. I didn’t know who to turn to anyway.”
Poppy closed her eyes and absorbed the information, but she didn’t speak.
“Anyway, convinced I was the one who’d be able to break the spell, Papa taught me the incantation. I read it over and over again. I practiced doing all the right things, using all the right sacrificial objects.”
“And you did it because you were a good kid and you were just doing what your father told you to do. You know that, right?” He had to know that.
Rick’s fingers flexed in his lap, the veins beneath his olive-colored skin pulsing. “Rationally, I absolutely do. But it doesn’t change the fact that when I read this incantation, when I summoned this dark force that was supposed to break the spell and release my mother, it didn’t break the spell. It didn’t break the spell because my magic was weak, and no matter how much I practiced, I’d have never been able to pull it off without help from someone with stronger magic.”
Biting the inside of her cheek, Poppy tucked her chin beneath the neck of her sweater. “What did it do?”
“It stole my mother’s heart. Ripped it right from her chest,” he rasped.
As though a sonic boom of information had fallen into the room, Poppy fought a gasp. She gripped his hand and squeezed with everything she had in her. “I’m sorry, Rick. I…” Words failed her.
“And then my father’s boss killed him for taking my mother away. A woman who had no defense against him.”
Now she did gasp, instantly stuffing her knuckles into her mouth to quell the abrasive sound. “What happened to his boss? Surely you people have some kind of punishment for this? You guys can’t just go around murdering people and getting away with it, can you?” She was outraged by the notion.
“Oh, he was punished, but the damage was already done. Both my parents were gone, and that’s when Yash came into the picture. He was sent by Familiar Central to take care of me—and he was probably more a foster parent than a familiar until I got older.”
Her eyes opened in surprise. Just as she was catching her breath from his last admission, he said, “But in the end, Yash stole millions of dollars from Avis and me and took off. Haven’t heard from his since.”