Beyond the Broken Angel

CHAPTER NINETEEN

— after twenty-seven years —

March 11th, 2018

THE TREETOPS SWAYED in the gentle breeze as Giselle peered through the birches, trying to catch a glimpse of her tree.

"She's in a mood," Ajay warned as he exited Hester's house and joined Giselle at the patio table, a deck of cards in hand.

"Who?" Giselle asked, tearing her eyes away from the forest. "Hester? She's always in a mood."

Ajay laughed under his breath, dumping the deck of cards out of its box. "She and Selene are fighting again."

"What are they fighting about this time?"

Ajay shrugged, shuffling the cards. "I don't know, my nana shooed me away before I could hear anymore."

Giselle sighed, watching as Ajay began dealing out the cards. She had thought Hester would be ecstatic to have her daughter back after twenty-seven years apart, but when Giselle showed up in the present three days after Selene had arrived back in December, she found that that was not the case.

Hester was still very angry at Selene, and let that be known by every comment she threw her daughter's way.

The house had become a toxic environment for Giselle, and she had spent the better half of the last three months staying in her room or working extra hours at the florist shop in order to hide away from the fighting.

So far, the new year of 2018 had been brutal. She missed her parents and Mississippi like crazy, but somehow missed Will even more.

That had been a startling realization for her, and had led her to the conclusion that she was falling for him a bit harder than she had had originally thought.

Or had she already fallen?

Under her conflicting circumstances, she didn't like to dwell on that topic too much.

"Ladies first," Ajay said, motioning to the cards fanned out in her hand.

Before Giselle could do anything, Selene burst through the back door, red-faced and frowning. She wore a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, an outfit Giselle had seen her wear many times since being in the present. Her normally pin-curled hair was straight and pulled back in a ponytail and not a scrap of makeup was on her face.

Selene had adjusted to the present well, and had been enjoying the leisure that came with it.

"Mrs. Jo needs you to move your car out from behind hers," Selene told Ajay as she settled down in the seat beside Giselle. "She and Mrs. Sophie are leaving."

Ajay frowned in confusion. "They're leaving now? But it's so early. Normally their game nights don't end until dark."

Selene crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. "Well when my mum decides to unleash her anger out on them, it ends earlier apparently."

Ajay's brows shot up in surprise. His eyes oscillated between Selene and Giselle before he stood and left.

Selene rested her head on the back of the wrought-iron patio chair, looking up at the cloudy sky. "I'm scared, Giselle," she said suddenly.

"What, why?"

"I'm scared I might get stuck here for another twenty-seven years. With her." She shook her head to herself. "It's like my own personal hell, having my mother nitpick and gripe about everything I do, get mad at me for the sake of being mad at me, start fights—I just can't do this. I need to get back." She let out a groan, straightening in her seat and looking out to the forest. "I need to see my babies again. Dorothy has probably forgotten my face already . . ."