Awakened

been right. Zoey had been right, too.
    Thinking of Zoey was what finally tipped the tears over to spill down her cheeks. Linda missed Zoey. Of her three children, she’d been closest to Zoey. She smiled through her tears, remembering how she and Zoey used to have geekends where they’d curl up on the couch together, eat lots of junk food, and watch either the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter movies, or even sometimes Star Wars. How long had it been since they’d done that? Years. Would they ever again? Linda hiccupped a little sob. Could they now that Zoey was at the House of Night?
    Would Zoey even want to see her again?
    She’d never forgive herself if she’d let John irreparably mess up her relationship with Zoey.
    That was one reason she’d gotten in the car, in the middle of the night, and headed to her mother’s house. Linda wanted to talk to her mother about Zoey—about mending her relationship with Zoey.
    Linda also wanted to lean on her mother’s strength. She wanted help to stand firm and not let John talk her into a reconciliation.
    But mostly, Linda just wanted her mother.
    It didn’t matter that she was a grown woman with children of her own. She still needed her mother’s arms to hold her, and her mother’s voice to reassure her that everything really would be all right—that she’d made the right decision.
    Linda was so deep in thought that she almost missed the turnoff to her mother’s house. She braked hard and just made the right turn. Then she slowed the car so that it wouldn’t spin out on the dirt road that led between lavender fields to her mother’s house. It’d been more than a year since she’d been here, but it hadn’t changed—and Linda was thankful for that. It made her feel safe and normal again.
    Her mother’s porch light was on, and so was one lamp light inside. Linda smiled as she parked and got out of the car. It was probably that 1920s brass mermaid lamp her mother liked to read by late at night—only it wouldn’t be late to Sylvia Redbird. Four in the morning would be early for her, and just about getting up time.
    Linda was just going to tap on the windowpane of the door before opening it when she saw the note written on lavender-scented paper and taped on the door. Her mother’s distinctive handwriting said:

    Linda darling, I felt you might be coming, but I couldn’t be sure when you would actually arrive, so I went ahead and took some soaps and sachets and things to the powwow in Tahlequah. I’ll be back tomorrow. As always, please make yourself at home. I hope you’re here when I return. I love you.
    Linda sighed. Trying not to feel disappointed and annoyed at her mother, she went inside. “It’s really not her fault. She’d be here if I hadn’t stopped coming by.” She was used to her mother’s weird way of knowing whenever she was going to have a visitor. “Looks like her radar still works.”
    For a moment she stood in the middle of the living room, trying to decide what to do. Maybe she should go back to Broken Arrow. Maybe John would leave her alone for a while—or at least long enough for her to get an attorney and get him served with papers.
    But she’d broken her rule about no overnights during the week, and the kids were at friends’ houses. She didn’t have to go back. Linda sighed again, and this time with her inhaled breath she took in the scents of her mother’s home: lavender, vanilla, and sage—real scents from real herbs and hand-poured soy candles, so unlike the PlugIns John insisted she use instead of “those sooty candles and those dirty old plants.” And that decided her. Linda marched into her mother’s kitchen and went straight to the little, but well stocked wine rack and pulled out a nice red. She was going to drink an entire bottle of wine and read one of her mother’s romance novels, and then stagger up to the guest loft, and she was going to enjoy every minute of it. Tomorrow her mother would give her an herbal tea concoction to get rid of her hangover, and she’d also help her figure out how to get her life back on the right track—a track that didn’t include John Heffer and did include her Zoey.
    “Heffer, what a stupid name,” Linda said, pouring herself a glass of wine and taking a long, slow drink. “That name is one of the first things I’m going to get rid of!” She was looking through her mother’s bookshelf, trying to decide between reading something sexy by Kresley Cole, Gena Showalter,