Typhoon & Tempest

Chapter Seventeen

Lily smiled a little. She remembered her father and her grandmother getting into an argument about her leaving without a word and arriving without an invitation. Her grandmother always turned to him with a smirk and gleam, a promise.

"I don't want to listen to your complaining anyway - why do I need a phone? They're unreliable." Nerida waved a hand in front of her father, who was gripping his dark blonde hair, Rio's hair, in frustration.

"What if something happens Nerida? What if Cordie needs you, or what if the girls want to talk to you? What if we need your advice?" Her father pleaded, trying to reason with the old woman. 

But try as he might, no one could reason with a tempest. Nerida Haven stared him down with narrowed dark eyes. "What advice would you need from me, Douglas?"

Her father clasped his hands together, fidgeting with his fingers. "What about the girls?"

Nerida smiled like she'd finally found the burrow to her injured prey. "Ah. This is about the youngest?"

"She's a lot like you already."

"She's blessed then." Nerida's grin was wide before her eyes flickered past Douglas's shoulder to where Lily was hiding in the hallway, eavesdropping. "Ain't that right, little Lilith?" She called, laughing when Lily scurried off before her father could ground her.

Lily blinked away the memory as Ollie set her tea down in front of her and sat back in her seat, staring at the old picture of Nerida Haven holding baby Cordelia. Nerida nicknamed her 'Lilith' after her hellish temper tantrums as a toddler, even though she was just Lily, but it stuck over the years. Nerida called Rio 'trouble' and Delta 'squirt'.

Ollie wet her lips, looking at Lily carefully. "Nerida always seemed to know where we were, no matter how far we travelled. If she's still out there, abseiling or cliff jumping who knows, then she'll find us." 

Lily kept staring at the old picture. "Andrew read us a passage from his grandfather's log today - it said that they'd ran into a woman with red hair being chased by rogues. She ran over an active mudslide to get away, then blew them a kiss, and ran off."

Ollie cocked her head. "You think that was Nerida?"

Lily nodded and watched her aunt carefully. "What do you think?"

She let out a laugh. "Sounds like your grandmother."

"What would she be doing on wolf territory fifty years ago?"

"Whatever she wanted." Ollie mused. "Your grandmother never believed in rules and borders. She went and did what she wanted and when she wanted - she probably deliberately coaxed the rogues to chase her for the thrill of it."

"She wasn't afraid that she'd be caught?"

"Lily, Nerida feared nothing." Ollie paused. "Only containment, I think."

Lily finally drew up the courage to ask her aunt the question that had been plaguing her mind since the alpha's log that morning. "Do you know what creature she was?" 

Ollie blinked. "No, she never spoke about anything supernatural when I was around helping Cordie. And when she wasn't, Cordie never spoke about Nerida that way - it was always about where she could be and when she'd return. I never saw her eyes shift, I'm sorry."

Lily nodded slowly and stared back at the baby picture of her mother, realisation sinking in her belly. Ollie sipped her cooling tea, cringing at Freida's taste, but smiled softly at her. "If she were here I'm sure she'd be able to answer your questions. We'll just have to wait and see if she returns."