Chapter 19 Solution
POV: Carly
The fog was already thick by the time she got outside.
Black River Falls did this in the early evening. Pulled the mist in from the tree line until the whole campus felt like it was floating inside something grey and quiet. She had grown up with it and it still caught her off guard sometimes.
She pulled her bag strap higher and walked toward the dormitories.
She was not thinking about the doorway.
She was not thinking about the one second she had stood there before she made herself leave.
She had a coven meeting tomorrow. A cheerleader with a sprained ankle throwing off her entire formation. A homecoming theme that still did not exist. A grimoire spell she needed to practice before the end of the week.
She had a very full list.
She had made it past the east wing and was cutting across the courtyard when she heard her name.
She turned around.
Her mother was standing by the iron gate at the edge of the courtyard in a charcoal grey suit with her bag over one arm and her phone in her hand. Short blonde hair brushed back perfectly. Posture the same as it always was. Like she had never once stood in a room and not owned it.
"Mom." Carly stopped. "I thought you left hours ago."
"I had a call that ran long." Leona slid her phone into her bag. "I was going to text you but then I saw you coming out of the east wing." Her eyes moved briefly past Carly toward the building behind her. "Working late."
"Project session." Carly said. "Professor Swanson's assignment. I told you about it."
"You did." Her mother nodded. "With your partner."
The way she said partner had a shape to it.
"Yes." Carly said.
Leona looked at her for a moment with that expression. The one that meant she had already decided something and was choosing how to present it.
"Walk with me." She said.
They fell into step together along the courtyard path. The fog moved around them slowly and the lights along the walkway had come on, casting everything in amber.
Carly waited.
Her mother had a way of getting to things on her own timeline. Trying to rush it only made the timeline longer.
"So your partner is a vampire." Leona said. "A Monroeson. You'll be spending a lot of time together I'm sure."
"I didn't exactly have a choice in the matter." Carly said. "Professor Swanson is insistent on wanting everyone to get along and sing Kumbaya together in a circle." She rolled her eyes.
Her mother smiled slightly.
"We're not friends or anything." Carly added. "Just two partners who were forced to work together."
"You're my daughter." Leona said. "You never have to remind me where your loyalties lie."
She stopped walking and turned to face Carly. In the amber light her expression was precise and measured. She reached forward and tucked a curl behind Carly's ear. Straightened her collar. Dusted something invisible off her shoulder.
Carly stood still and let her.
"He asked to hang out today actually." Carly said. "Obviously I said no. It was probably just some kind of ploy anyway."
Her mother said nothing to that.
"I told him we weren't friends." Carly added.
Leona looked at her for a long moment. Then her expression shifted into something darker and more deliberate. Something that made the amber light feel colder somehow.
She smiled.
Not warmly.
"Hate, huh." She said softly.
Carly gulped. "I mean we don't exactly get along but for the sake of the project we called a truce. That's all it is."
Her mother stepped forward and tilted her head, studying her daughter's face the way she studied a case file. Looking for the thing that wasn't being said.
A black car pulled up quietly to the gate behind her.
Leona glanced back at it then returned to Carly. She reached out one more time and smoothed down her daughter's collar with both hands.
"I'm actually glad I ran into you before I left." She said.
"What's wrong." Carly asked.
"Nothing is wrong." Her mother said. "Actually everything couldn't be more right." That smile again. Slow and certain. "I just thought of an idea." She paused. "A solution to a problem we've had for a long time."
The car waited at the gate.
The fog pressed in from every direction.
Carly opened her mouth but her mother was already turning away, walking toward the car with that unhurried step that meant the conversation was over on her terms and not anyone else's.
The door closed.
The car disappeared into the fog.
Carly stood alone in the courtyard with the amber lights humming above her and the tree line completely swallowed up in grey.
She stood there for a long moment.
Then she pulled her bag strap up and walked back to the dormitory.
Author's Note:
Leona McPherson just smiled like that and said solution and I need everyone to take a breath because something is coming and it has been planned for longer than any of us knew. Drop a like and tell me in the comments what you think she's planning because I am not okay. Add us to your library because everything shifts from here and you do not want to miss what comes next!