Chapter 68.1

Heavy porcelain shattered on the floor, setting off a chaotic chain reaction. The two men closest to the disaster jumped in surprise. The young boy next to Evelyn shouted “Fuck!” as he dropped his phone. A young woman, presumably the boy’s mother, gasped and began to scold the boy for his obscenity. From another room, two girls came running: one slightly younger than the boy, and one on the cusp of adulthood. At the head of the table, unmoving and eyes wide with shock, stood the older woman with graying hair.

Evelyn, already nervous about her presence here, froze. For a brief moment, this flash of chaos was undeniable proof that her decision to stay hidden for so many decades had been justified. She wanted nothing more than to flee, to return to the comfort of the life she already knew.

Remembering Amara’s words, she stood her ground.

The two men flanking the older woman—the one the boy had called Grandma—shoved their chairs aside and fell to their knees to clean up the shattered porcelain and clumps of food. Each of them quickly learned that falling to pieces had not displaced the heat. They flinched in surprise before checking their hands for burns.

Seeing their pain snapped Evelyn to her senses. Amidst everything else, the broken casserole represented a way she could help. Instinct took over and she rushed towards the head of the table.

She’d barely made it halfway when the older woman snapped into action as well. She did not move to help her family, however; she instead ditched her oven mitts and grabbed a large wooden spoon from the table, brandishing it like a weapon. “Not one more step! Who put you up to this?!” Her words were quick, laced with unexpected accusatory venom, and entirely in Spanish. Looking down at the floor, she jabbed one of the men with the spoon. “It was you, wasn’t it, Luis? Are you trying to give your poor mother a heart attack?!”

The man batted the spoon away before standing up. “It wasn’t me, Mamá! I’m just as confused as you!”

Evelyn took a step closer, hoping to diffuse the situation, only for the other woman to point the spoon back at her. Evelyn held up her hands as if at gunpoint, then said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset anyone.”

“Who are you? What’s your name?” the woman asked, meeting Evelyn halfway and jabbing her shoulder with the spoon.

“My name is Evelyn Lamour, and I—”

“Bullshit!” the woman spat. “That’s not true, and you know it!”

“I… I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Evelyn said, looking around the room. The rest of the family stayed quiet, alternating between their own looks of surprise and confusion.

“You honestly expect me to believe that you’re Evelyn? THE Evelyn?” The woman pointed her wooden spoon at a nearby fireplace. Atop the mantle was a small collection of photos, most of them family portraits, but one in particular stood out: a simple pencil sketch of Evelyn herself. “I suppose you’re also a demon? That miraculously showed up during the Great Depression to save my mother from a life of poverty?”

Evelyn stared at the picture of herself atop the fireplace. It was a perfect likeness, complete with details that only a loving eye would remember. Evelyn lingered on each and every hand-drawn line, eventually dropping her eyes to the signature in the bottom corner.

Rosalina Calderón.

Oh, Rosie. How much did you tell them?

Tearing her eyes away from the picture, Evelyn looked around the room. The youngest girl had stars in her eyes, as if she’d just met a celebrity. The boy clutched his phone to his chest and stood halfway behind his mother, who held an arm in front of him. The young woman—Evelyn suspected she was roughly Amara’s age—seemed more interested in how the rest of the family was reacting. Both men that had failed to clean up the ruined dinner were entirely fixated on the older woman, more concerned with her well-being than anything.

They know too much. I’m either an actress hired to pull a prank on an unsuspecting woman, or I’m an immortal demon. They’ll never believe that I’m a long-lost relative.

I’ve come this far already. I can’t give up now.

Evelyn turned to face the other woman. “Yes. That’s me on the fireplace.”

The entire family murmured to each other, but the older woman simply laughed. “Impossible. You seriously expect me to believe that? Do you take me for an idiot?”

“Please, I didn’t mean to upset anyone.” Evelyn spoke as calmly as she could, hoping to avoid further conflict. “I’m happy to explain myself, but I was under the impression that Rosie—”

“Don’t you call her that!” the older woman snapped. “You don’t get to waltz in here and pretend you know my mother well enough to call her Rosie. You say you want to explain yourself? Fine! Show us what you really are!”

For Amara.

With no other choice, Evelyn relented. She raised a hand and summoned a small burst of hellfire, letting it dance across her fingers like a playful insect. Sparks of demonic power leapt from this flame to her temples, spawning two more pillars of hellfire. Evelyn’s blackened horns emerged from these flames, flickering red in the soft fire light. Hoping this was proof enough, she extinguished her magic and looked around.

“My name is Evelyn Lamour. Rosie spoke nothing but the truth.”

The wooden spoon dropped to the floor with a hollow clatter as the woman fainted.

— — —

Thankfully, she recovered quickly. She’d been caught by the two men flanking her, who carefully carried her to a couch in the nearby living room. As this happened, the younger women cleaned up the remnants of the shattered casserole dish. Evelyn had offered to help multiple times, but the family was uniform in their insistence that she keep to herself. She instead settled into an armchair in the corner of the living room, unable to stop her foot from restlessly tapping on the floorboards.

The youngest girl seemed completely enraptured by Evelyn’s presence. While her parents wouldn’t let her come closer, she happily settled onto the floor and stared at Evelyn for the entirety of the wait. No one seemed sure what to do with themselves, yet everyone had silently agreed that no conversation would take place without the older woman.

When she woke, she again flinched at Evelyn’s presence. She demanded a glass of water from her son, Luis, before gazing at Evelyn like a hawk tracking its prey. She studied every inch of Evelyn’s face, her eyes lingering on the powerful horns resting atop Evelyn’s head, before breaking the silence.

“How? Why?” she asked.

“I promise I am just as confused as you are, ma’am,” Evelyn said. “Can I at least ask your name before we start? You have me at a disadvantage.”

“My name is Evelyn,” the other woman said. “Mama always said that she named me after… well, you, apparently. Most people call me Evie, however. I suspect that will, if nothing else, make this conversation slightly less confusing.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Evie. I’m terribly sorry for barging in here unannounced. I must admit, I was not expecting anyone to know who I was.”

“How could we not?” Evie muttered. “She used to tell me countless stories of your lives together back during the Great Depression. I adored those stories, I treasured each and every one, but then I grew up. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that they couldn’t be true. How could they? A magical woman from her childhood who single-handedly rescued them from poverty. A fantastical demon who flew through the skies and made movie theaters on rooftops. A person that, coincidentally, vanished from her life when the war started. Any rational person would come to the same conclusion I did: you were a fantasy. An imaginary friend conjured up to make her destitute childhood halfway bearable.”

“I remember you asking Grandma to stop telling us those stories,” the man sitting next to Evie said. “It made them more exciting. They become secrets, and what child doesn’t love keeping secrets?”

“She told them to me too,” the older girl added.

“She still tells them to me!” the small girl said excitedly. “I love them! Max has been trying to tell me they weren’t real, but I never listened!”

A breath caught in Evelyn’s throat. “Still? That means… Rosie, is she…?”

“Alive and well,” Evie said with a smile. “Though she had an appointment with the doctor today. It’s going to be a few hours before she gets back.”

Evelyn’s heart soared, and warmth bloomed inside her. The thought of seeing Rosie again, after nearly two decades since they’d last said farewell, caused tears to well in the corners of her eyes. “I never thought I’d be able to see her again,” she whispered.

The other man, Luis, spoke up next. “Why come back now? After so long?”

“I’m sure you heard that, once upon a time, I’d fallen in love with Vicente,” Evelyn smiled as she remembered her long lost love. “Losing him was the most painful thing I’ve ever faced. I’d never experienced death firsthand, and when I learned that he was gone, it broke me. Rosie wanted me to meet all of you, to be a part of your family, but I wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t stand the thought of living through that pain again and again for the rest of time. I met with Rosie from time to time, made sure she was living a happy life, but that was it.”

“We thought she was joking,” Evie said. “Every so often she’d come home, saying she’d just had lunch with Evelyn, and we simply laughed. We’ve been joking that you might randomly show up for years now.”

Unsure how to respond to that, Evelyn continued her story. “Twenty years ago, we said goodbye. My life was about to change, and she decided it would be too complicated to continue meeting up. That’s when I had Amara.”

“Hold on, you have a daughter?” Luis asked.

Evelyn nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I tried to give her a normal life, but that’s not an option anymore. She’s… she's like me. A demon. But she’s never had a family, and I was hoping… Well, I didn’t know that Rosie shared so many stories about our time together. I’d always asked her to keep me hidden. She mentioned from time to time that she’d told you all about me, but I guess I always assumed that she’d left out the more fantastical parts of the story. I’d hoped that I might be able to pretend I was a friend of the family, perhaps a distant, long-lost relative. More than anything, I want to give my daughter a chance to meet you all.”

“We have a new cousin!” the small girl clapped her hands together. “You said her name is Amara? When can we meet her? Is she nice? Does she have horns like you?!”

Although nervous to be so open about her demonic heritage in front of relative strangers, Evelyn nodded. “She does, along with wings and a big tail. I kept mine hidden because I didn’t want to take up too much space.” She looked back to Evie, the playful lilt leaving her voice. “Amara has been through so much recently, and it would mean the world to her to discover a long-lost family. If it’s alright with you, Evie, and if no one else objects—”

“She’s family!” Gabriel chipped in. “What could be better than learning our family is bigger than we knew?”

Everyone in the room turned to look at Evie. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that, as the eldest member of the family, the choice was ultimately hers.

“Is it safe?” Evie asked.

“I would never dream of bringing harm to this household, and I know Amara would feel the same.”

Evie stared deep into Evelyn’s eyes, reading her intentions as carefully as she could. She then broke away, looking at each of her family in turn. Nearly a minute of tense, silent negotiation passed before she released a heavy sigh. “I could never turn my back on family. When is Amara free?”