Love-in-Idleness (18 page)

“You have got to teach me to do that!” Puck gasped.

Miles straightened up a little, “I will. When the time is right, I’ll teach you everything I know.”

“You’re afraid I’ll turn Cameron into a newt, aren’t you?”

“Pretty much,” Miles answered. With that, he turned his attention back to his wife, who had slept through everything. He sat on the edge of her bed and looked at her. He was ready to put things right.

As he reached into his pocket for the antidote, he heard Puck behind him say, “I’m confused. I thought you wanted her gone.”

“Let’s just say that I’ve clarified my thinking on the point.” The truth was, he had decided that if Grace could handle the truth, maybe Titania could, as well. She clearly loved him. Titania was the first of his wives to refuse a generous divorce settlement and opt for trying to salvage her marriage instead.  In his mind, the willingness of the others to take the cash and run only reaffirmed his decision to get rid of them in the first place. In some bizarre twist of logic, Titania’s unfaltering love for the monstrous Nick Bottom had taught him something about her character that he should have realized a long time ago. Her only motivation was love. He hadn’t met anyone so true to herself and her feelings since Puck’s mother died.

He leaned forward, pulled one of her eyelids open slightly, and administered a single drop of the antidote. Titania instantly put a hand to her eyes and rubbed them vigorously. Miles turned and gave Puck one last direction. “Get Ryder, Chloe, and Cam back here. I need for all of them to be asleep here in the penthouse by dawn.” With that, he motioned for his son to leave. As Puck slipped out of the room, Titania sat up and looked around.

“Are you all right?” Miles asked.

“I had the strangest dream. I was in love with a donkey, and Ana was scratching his ears.” She looked so confused that Miles felt a little bit sorry for her. “Listen,” he said. “Go back to sleep. In the morning we’ll work everything out.”

“Everything?” Titania looked at him with what he interpreted as hope in her eyes.

“Everything.” He kissed her forehead and left. As he closed the door, he made a mental note to himself to have Puck alter Ana’s memory. Perhaps Puck should pay a visit to Nick Bottom tomorrow, as well.

2
:30 AM

As Grace slowly woke up, it took her a moment to remember where she was. She felt a gentle hand shaking her shoulder, and when she opened her eyes, Miles Oberon came into view. It took no time at all to pull herself from her sleep-induced fog when she recalled the events of the
night thus far.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she said, sitting up. Her stomach grumbled uncomfortably.

Miles shook his head. “It’s my fault. Puck came home and distracted me. I really didn’t mean to leave you for so long, but maybe your little nap will help you stay up through what’s ahead.”

“Did you bring food?” Grace aske
d. She was acutely aware of her hunger and only half-focused on what Miles was saying.

“Why don’t I take you to the kitchen and let you find something to eat. We can talk there.”

Before Grace followed Miles out of the office, she grabbed the photo album he had given her. She had some questions about what she had seen in it.

This wa
lk through the penthouse was her first really good look at it. As they moved from the massive hallway with dark hardwood floors to the common area that the boys used, she was stunned by the grandeur of everything. Her old bedroom could have fit in the hallway, and the common areas had the same square footage as the entire downstairs of their brownstone in Brooklyn.

Keeping a few steps ahead of her, Miles cut through the boys’ room and then through a doorway that led to another hallway, and eventually to the kitchen. Grace had to stop and drink it in before she entered. She had never seen a kitchen like this. Enormous stainless steel appliances lined the
walls. There was a gigantic side-by-side refrigerator with clear doors and two industrial grade ovens, just like she had seen on cooking shows. The floor was tiled with white marble and, in the middle of the room, sat a massive cooking island. This was a space that was planned for small family dinners. This was designed to prepare food for large functions.

In direct contrast to the splendor of the rest of the room, on one corner of the island lay a pile of debris. Bread slices, lettuce and carrots were left torn to bits and uncovered. Miles
must have seen her eyes linger on the mess, because he instantly said, “My wife must have been rummaging for a snack and left a mess. She never cleans up after herself. Like my own children, she grew up with people cleaning up after her.”

Grace nodded and smiled. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a mess before, but she’d never had a staff to clean one up. For her, the idea of walking away from your messes, confident that someone else would take care of it, was a bigger cultural shift than being in an enormous penthouse.

Eager to move on, she plunked the heavy album down on the counter and moved to the fridge as she spoke. “I get that you wanted to show me some evidence of your relationship with my mother, maybe even prove you’re telling the truth,” she began. She opened the fridge and took in the vast assortment of cheeses and fresh produce. Her hands went to a tub of soft goat cheese, which she carried to the island and began to spread on a piece of bread that had been abandoned there. “I’ve looked at the pictures, and I understand that you and my mother were related. That’s clear.” She paused for a moment, lifting one hand to her temple as she sorted it all out. “I just need a quick recap here.”

Miles gave her a calm smile. He looked like he could go over this all night and never lose patience. “I can see why you might need some clarity at this point.”

“So, you’re my uncle, which makes Puck my cousin.”

“Right,” Miles said,
as if he were helping her tick items off a list.

“Cam is not your son, and therefore isn’t any relation to me, but he doesn’t know that.”

            “Yes,” Miles said.

Grace put down her food and reached for the photo album. “I’m on board with everything except for one little detail,” she said, furiously flipping pages as if she were looking for something very specific. When she found it, she spun the book to face Miles and pointed at a picture. “Why is Gianni in the album?” She expected Miles
to be surprised when she asked this, but he just looked at her kindly.

“Are you sure you’re ready to hear this?” he asked. “You’ve had a lot of input tonight.”

“I think I’ve handled things fine so far,” Grace said. The words were teasing, but her tone was serious.

“Okay, here we go.” Miles reached over and grabbed a slice of bread and picked up the knife Grace had been using. As he spoke, he spread cheese on his bread, just as Grace had done. “So, goat cheese, huh? I had you pegged for a peanut butter girl.”

Grace bridled a bit at the slight. “I’m from Brooklyn, not Indiana. There’s plenty of good food on the other side of the bridge.” Grace quickly turned the conversation back to Gianni. “Don’t change the subject. How does Gianni fit into all of this?”

“Gianni is my cousin, from my mother’s side of the family.”

“There’s a New Jersey Italian faction of the Oberon family?” Grace tried to make that add up in her head, but she was too tired to make it work. “So she was my mother’s cousin, and is my second cousin?”

“Right. My aunt on my mother’s side- well, look, we have the album right here. Let me show you.” Miles began to flip through the album to a different page. Grace was feeling overwhelmed and was happy for the visual aid.

After flipping through his early childhood, Miles landed on a picture of a beautiful, light- haired young woman. Grace recognized her immediately as Gianni’s mother, whom she met on several occasions. It wasn’t surprising that Grace would have missed that photo on the first run-through. There were hundreds of pictures in the album.

             
“This is your Great-Aunt Abby. She married this guy.” Miles pointed to a swarthy man in shirtsleeves and absurdly high-waisted pants. She knew that was the fashion back then, but it was dreadful. “They moved to New Jersey to be close to his family. In 1972, they had Gianni. She was an only child, and showed promise of inheriting the family gift right away. She was an Oberon by birth, but not by name.”

             
“Wait.” Grace stopped him. “Was Gianni’s mother gifted?”

             
“She was.”

             
“Well, if you fought with my mother over marrying Theo and going mainstream, then weren’t you mad at Abby, too?” Grace could feel herself digging for injustice.

             
“No, I wasn’t. But I seeing her become old and prudish before her time as a result of denying her gift probably led to my conflict with Emma. When Gianni was born, she tried to keep Gianni’s powers from developing. She refused to teach the girl what her abilities meant or where they came from, and punished Gianni when she accidentally summoned something to her. Abby employed a good healthy dose of Catholic guilt, too. She dragged Gianni to Mass and sent her to Catholic school, where she knew the girl would receive clear instruction as to what was good and what was evil. Eventually, Gianni learned to keep that part of herself suppressed.” Miles took a bite of his food and took a moment to finish it before he continued. “It was a daily struggle for Abby, but Gianni adapted pretty well. I don’t think it was until she became a teenager, after her father died, that she started to wonder about her abilities. She knew they existed, she had just been told that it was wrong to use them.  However, you know how teenagers are. They begin to care more about experience than about the possibility of going to Hell. Eventually, Gianni began to look for answers. That search led her to me.”

             
“Do you think that what you can do is evil?” Grace asked.

             
“Absolutely not. At least, its existence doesn’t automatically imply evil. It is only wretched when it is used to harm others. Gianni came to understand this and learned to balance her abilities with her upbringing. In the years since Abby’s death, I’ve worked hard to help her with that.”

Grace looked down and realized that she was standing there with a piece of bread in each hand, staring at Miles. Embarrassed
, she dropped her food and said, “So Theo’s marrying my mother’s cousin. Shouldn’t he know that?”

“In time. Let’s just let them be happy for a while. There are bigger emergencies than upsetting people who are better left alone.”

“Such as,” Grace asked. She began to tidy up some of the food from the counter, which caused Miles to raise an eyebrow in her direction.
Oh, yeah,
she reminded herelf.
The staff will clean up.

“
You are wearing a ring that was given to you by your mother. I have one that is a companion to it. Puck is supposed to inherit it, but he’s years away from being ready for that kind of responsibility. There are a lot of magicians looking for these two rings, and the third, which I have yet to locate.”

“I’m not following,” Grace interjected. “What’s so special about the rings?”

“You asked me about good and evil. The capacity for evil is part of the reason that it’s important that the rings stay in our family, where their power won’t be used to do harm.
With yours, we possess two of the three.”

             
“What can they do?” Grace asked.

             
“I guess that depends on who owns them. When united, or so the story goes, they can bring together the elements of nature in whatever manner the possessor chooses. They can cause natural disasters or stop them in their tracks.  The person who holds all three could melt the polar caps with the blink of an eye, or reverse the effects of global warming.”

             
Grace perked up. “Would you do that? Save people, prevent disaster?”

             
Miles shook his head. “No. At least not until I gain more knowledge about the consequences of using the rings. Great power is not for the impulsive or uneducated. However this power is used, however small the spell, it will begin a ripple effect that I might not be able to control. This entire matter needs to stay between us until I’m convinced that my sons have matured enough to have the information without abusing it.”

             
“So, go back to the part where Gianni meets Theo.” Grace was getting tired again. “Is that just a step on the way to getting my ring?”

             
“Maybe a little. I’ve always assumed that you had it. Emma knew what it was and you were the obvious choice to inherit it. I’ve also done some snooping in the years since she died and knew it was in your room. I could have just taken it, but since I’m running low on blood relatives, I preferred to bring you into the family and obtain it from you voluntarily. Anyway, when some time passed after Emma died, introducing Gianni and Theo seemed like a good idea. Our families would be joined again, as they should be.”

             
Nothing about this was clicking for Grace. It seemed to her that someone who wanted to reach out to long-lost family members would be more up front about things. The situation with Miles was more complicated that what she was used to, convoluted even. She just wasn’t buying all this sincerity. “Why haven’t you told Puck and Cam the truth? It seems like you would tell them before me.”