Read The Blue Woods for Free Online Page B

expression haughty, but I could see something in her eyes, something like regret. “Lidia,” she said, “after so many years, we meet again.”
    She had switched to Italian. She didn’t want the rest of the Clan to hear. But she had to know that I would.
    â€œIs this your fault?” Lidia asked, answering in Italian. “Did you bring my daughter into all this?”
    â€œYou had to have known,” Nerina said. “You knew what she would become the moment she was born. It was destined.”
    â€œDestiny is nothing,” Lidia said. “We choose our own destiny.”
    Nerina stared at my mother so hard that Lidia flinched. “Like you chose yours?” she said, very softly but with an edge that could kill.
    Lidia raised her chin. “Yes. As I chose mine. And I stand by that choice.”
    Nerina’s lips twisted. Before she could speak, I stepped between them. “Enough,” I said, also in Italian to make sure they knew I’d understood what had just been said. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I was going to find out. I grabbed Lidia’s arm and dragged her out of the living room and into the den.
    Barb had gone a little overboard with the manly Daniel Boone theme in the den, which was ironic considering she and Jeff were vegetarians. All four walls were padded with faux leather, including the back of the door. When I closed it, all sound from the living room was shut out. Lidia collapsed onto the plaid couch and buried her face in her hands. I came around and knelt on the braided rug in front of her. “Mom? What was that all about? Do you know Nerina?”
    Lidia raised her head. Although her face was streaked with sorrow, her eyes were clear. She cupped my face, her calloused palms warm on my skin. “I’m so sorry, cara. I never wanted this life for you. I never wanted you to be a Benandante.”
    I jerked away from her. I’d long suspected that Lidia knew about the Benandanti, but to hear the word tumble from her lips with such ease was still startling. I took a few long breaths. “You knew.”
    â€œYes,” she whispered. “I knew.” She tried to touch my face again, but I moved back far enough that she couldn’t reach me.
    â€œYou’ve known about the Benandanti all this time, haven’t you? How?”
    Lidia dropped her hands and turned her head so that I could see only her profile. She stared at the singing bass that hung on the wall that she’d always called tacky but that Jenny and I thought was funny. She was seeing something far beyond that silly little fish—something in her past. “She came to me,” Lidia said. I didn’t need to ask who the she was. “When you were born.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Lidia swung her gaze back to me. Her dark hair, which she had messily put up into a bun when we’d rushed from the farmhouse, tumbled in front of her eyes. “Because she’d come to me once before. When I was sixteen, like you.”
    My breath caught. I couldn’t move.
    â€œNerina came to me,” Lidia said. “Called me, told me I was destined to be a Benandante. Gave me the choice that all Benandanti get.” She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and peered deep into my eyes. “I refused.”
    Breath crept back into my body as my mind curved itself around the truth. “You’re a Refuser.” It all made sense. “I bet Nerina didn’t like being told no.”
    Lidia’s mouth pinched. “No. No, she did not.” Her gaze narrowed and shifted to the door, as though she could see her on the other side of it. “And she had her revenge. Seven years later, when you were a year old, she came back to me. She told me that you would be chosen to fulfill the destiny that I had denied. I fought with her,” Lidia said, her voice raspy and low. “I said I would not allow my child to be put in that kind of danger.