"So, I'm guessing you all are going out tomorrow then? Jacob tells me it'll be you, him, Renesme, Seth, Quil, Alice, and Jasper since Leah didn't want to come." Primrose comments as she stirs the pot of soup on the stove. Cecilia makes a noise of approval, laying out the spoons and bowls. "Are you excited?"
"I guess. I wish it had been just a solo trip but, you can't always get what you want."
"That's right. You know I just want you to bond with the pack a little bit more, get to know the boys. They're really nice." Cecilia lays out napkins and grabs glasses. "Besides, you're a part of this."
"Is this why my mom ran away from home?" Primrose pauses in her actions for a second before continuing.
"What do you mean?"
"Is this why my mom ran away? Its not a very hard question Grandma. Did my mom run away because you tried to force her into all of this pack nonsense?"
"It isn't nonsense young lady. It is a time honored tradition. It is true, your mother is a dream walker just like you-"
"If she's even alive." Primrose purses her lips and place the pot in the center of the table.
"Now you listen here. Your mother is a resilient woman. She's still alive."
"How would you know? It's not like you've been involved in her life for the past nineteen years. You don't even know her, the kind of person she's become. Hell, I don't even know you!"
"Young lady, we do not use that kind of language in this house. And I raised her. I know her better than she knows herself. Whether she likes to admit it or not." Cecilia scoffs and rolls her eyes, muttering under her breath. "What has gotten into you tonight?"
"Maybe I'm just sick of this! My mom leaves me on my own for the millionth time in a row and the state interrupts and forces me to move across the country to live with a grandmother I had never even heard from and then I find out I have some sort of weird 'magic' running through my blood and I'm supposed to give the pack prophecies or some crap like that. I'm sorry but its all a bit much!" Storming out of the house, Cecilia slams the door and sits on the back porch steps. She had tried to hold it together and did feel bad for ditching it on her grandmother like she had. It wasn't like all of this was her fault. If anyone was to blame it was her mom.
After taking a few minutes to collect herself, Primrose joins her granddaughter outside and sits next to her silently. "I'm sorry." She says, breaking the silence. Primrose holds a hand up to stop her granddaughter from interrupting. "Let me finish. I'm sorry for trying to force this on you, for making you feel like that. Your mother and I… We had a complicated relationship. She was fine growing up, she loved the pack and loved her gifts but, as she got older, she began to resent her place. It isn't easy, being a Dream Walker. Not all of the dreams are happy, as I'm sure you've probably guessed by now. Some of them can be harsh and scary. Well, your mother tried to force herself to accelerate the training when she was about fourteen. After that, after what she saw, she changed. She tried to ignore her gift, tried to get rid of it. She turned to drugs and sex at fifteen. Naturally your grandfather and I weren't happy with her. We tried to force her to stop. We were wrong
"She then began to resent us. Refused to go anywhere with us and, at sixteen, she left the house for the first time. It wasn't until she became pregnant with you that we even knew were she was. And what she had done to herself. We brought her back here for the final four months of her pregnancy, turned her life around for the sake of you. Until your father showed up… He was an expack member, a man who had been banished. Naturally, your mother thought he was her savior but he was just using her as an in with the pack. When you turned eighteen months old, your mother left with you in the middle of the night. We hadn't heard from her until her father died five years later. She returned home for two nights with you and then left once again in the middle of the night."
"What happened with my dad?" Cecilia interjects, not having heard that before.
"The pack chased him all the way up to the Canadian border and he was rebanished for using your mom, getting her pregnant, and trying to fight the alpha of the time." Primrose answers her granddaughter, fiddling with a bracelet. "I promise that I will stop pushing about you getting close with the pack but I also promise that they are good people. I'm not only trying to get you close to them because of your gifts. They're a large part of our life. You must understand where you come from to know where you're going. I want you to know about all aspects of who you are, including the gifts your mother tried to shut out of you as a child."
"I'm sorry for snapping. I just…"
"You don't have to explain yourself to me, child. I understand." The two women share a smile and Primrose touches her hand, gently grasping it and laying a kiss on it. "Now come on before the soup gets cold." Cecilia stands up and helps her grandmother up, walking inside the house with her. For now, all was fixed.