The Winstons Book One

PROLOGUE –––––––– “COME ON, MAN, THIS is so not right!” Josh exploded. He threw his fork back onto the plate and made his aunt, Marjorie, frown. She loved that set of dishes and feared that the young man’s frustrations would sooner or later put a c***k in them. “You’re complaining, huh?” Maggie waved her fork at him in mockery and rolled her eyes. “You’re still fairly young compared to some of us, and you have enough time ahead of you, so you shouldn’t be the one complaining,” she replied angrily. “He has the right to complain, Maggie, as well as anyone of us,” Becka replied in support of her cousin. “So what if we are younger? We’re all in the same boat,” she punched the table with her little fist. “Auntie, can’t we do something about this?” “I know you want to, pumpkin, but there’s nothing you can do about it,” Aunt Marjorie stroked her arm in an attempt to soothe her. “What must be done must be done!” “So, we have to pay for something that happened a hundred years before we were even born? How does that make any sense at all?” Alex snapped and joined the others in voicing his outrage, though it didn’t stop him from scarfing down another piece of the pie. “It’s less than a hundred, you nitwit!” Lily replied with disdain and punched his arm. “Who the hell cares?” Alex retorted with his mouth full. He never did learn not to talk with his mouth full, try as his parents might. Anyway, he wouldn’t have given a rat’s a*s on such things, especially at home. “One hundred, two hundred, same s**t, pardon my French. You know what? I don’t feel like paying for some jackass’s mistakes!” he ended his heated speech, his finger still pointed at Lily. “So, what do you propose to do, then?” Matt, who had kept his mouth shut until then, asked with nonchalance. He had been sipping from his glass of whiskey quietly, with a detached expression on his face that suggested that nothing they discussed could affect him. “Don’t tell me you’re okay with this!” Alex answered back in disbelief. “Come on, Matt! You’re the oldest, man, and you’ve only got one year left. You’ve got to be as angry as I am, if not more! Don’t pretend it doesn’t bother you because that’s not possible!” Matt took a few moments of silence, sipped a little more from his glass, then looked at Alex, and shook his head. “Angry? Maybe. Can I do something about it? I don’t think so,” he replied to his cousin with his usual coolness, his eyes gazing steadily at him. “So why should I bother?” No one had anything to say to that. They were all aware they had to fulfill one stipulation. Only then they would get their trust funds and reach their full potential. The worst part was that they had to do so before turning thirty-five. Once one of them had turned thirty-five without satisfying that condition, their share of the trust fund would be divided among the remaining younger ones, who still had time to succeed or fail. “You know what? I don’t really care about unlocking my powers,” Ariel said pensively without addressing anyone in particular. “Although, it would be nice to see what you can do if you use your full potential,” she continued, lost in her thoughts, as always. Her cousins gave her time to get to the point. They knew that she had the bad habit of rambling on and on or getting lost in her own thoughts only to leave everyone hanging. Yet, sometimes, if not most of the time, she would come up with some quite interesting solutions if they had the patience to listen to her. “But I want to do something for myself. I’d like to open a little business,” Ariel finally said with longing in her tone of voice. “Keep dreaming,” Maggie snapped. Ariel's way of talking irritated her, and Maggie wasn’t a patient person, which regularly brought unpleasant consequences in her life. “Until you take care of your part of business, Ariel, you won’t open a shed.” “Why are you always so mean to her?” Alex snapped at Maggie. “If she wants to dream, let her dream. What else can she do? What else is there for any of us?” he asked. His angry eyes scanned each of them to see their reactions. “Beat the curse?” Marjorie asked softly, trying to diffuse a potentially explosive situation. “Not so easy, auntie,” Ariel said with sorrow in her voice. “I’ve tried, you know. Do you remember? I thought that guy, Eric, the one I met two years ago, would be the one. It wasn’t meant to be, you know. It’s not so simple, and you know it very well. You see how things are now. There’s no real romance left in this world, I’m afraid. If there’s no romance left, where can one find true love?” Marjorie nodded. She did know it. Finding true love wasn’t easy-peasy. She had been in the same situation when it was her turn. She had nearly lost everything because of her own stubbornness and family’s meddling. “It’s never easy, my dear, I know,” she answered and stroked the young woman’s arm with love again. “But, Ariel, sweetheart, you have to keep trying. You can’t merely give up. Think about it! You will be able to use your powers and get your money, but only once you find your true love and commit to it. You’ll be genuinely happy then.” Ariel turned her gaze to her plate on the table. She knew that everyone would read in her eyes that she had already resigned herself. She was sick of hearing platitudes and encouragements whenever her family got wind of something like that. Everybody around the table kept silent for a few seconds. No one believed that they could offer a solution. Jay cut another piece of his mother’s incredible pie. Marjorie was the best cook in their family, and that was why they always chose to meet at her house. In Jay’s opinion, they could get to terms with everything when there was a good pie or cake on the table. “I think we should see if there’s a legal way to get out of this situation, guys. We need the money now, don’t we? It’s not like we can wait around forever,” Alex broke the silence when the idea came to him suddenly. His eyes analyzed his siblings and cousins carefully, and the people nodded their approval. “Look,” he continued. “I’m already thirty-two. I don’t have time for stupid things, games, and idiotic attempts at love. I want to do something for myself, as Ariel said. Now, while I still can.” Almost everybody found themselves in agreement with him, but they still looked at Matt. He was the smartest guy in the family, and they knew that any solution should come from him. Matt’s eyes shifted around the table, feeling their expecting gazes on him, and in the end, he shook his head. “There’s no way out, buddy,” Matt put his glass on the wooden table, and at the same time, he rose off the bench. “If you called us here just for this discussion, then I’m out of here. I’ve got real things to do, places to see...” “You don’t even want to try,” Becka cried out, jumping out of her seat. “You’ve just given up because you have so little time left, and you don’t care anymore.” “I tried, sweetie,” Matt told her with a sad smile on his lips. Becka was his favorite cousin. Maybe, because she was the youngest, wholesome, and playful, and had a big heart. His fingers stroked her cheek in a loving, yet sad caress, and he kissed her forehead. “Becka, I tried hard to find a loophole in the wording of the trust fund papers. Believe me. There’s none. If I couldn’t find one, sweetie, then no one can. And you know it. There’s a reason I’m one of the best attorneys in the country, and all of you know that this isn’t merely my vanity talking. Anyway, honey, these days, I content myself with making my own money the hard way and enjoying as much as possible the little spare time I have left. I’ve stopped chasing such dreams. It’s not in the cards for me, and that’s it.” His cousins looked at him in shock. Only his sister, Maggie, understood Matt very well. She didn’t have any patience, especially with fools, but Matt was something special. Maggie had always looked up to him, and she knew that he wasn’t the guy to give up on anything without a fight. Hearing him say that he had resigned himself made her understand the depth of his anger, even though he hid it from all of them. She felt like taking Matt into her arms and never letting go. However, she knew that he wouldn’t like that. Her brother didn’t like very big on displays of affection, so she merely petted his hand and left it at that. “Matt, you should try to use that time you have left to find a girl,” his mother said reproachfully, and everyone’s attention turned to Marjorie. She continued, “You still have a chance, son, and I’m not talking about the money here, you know it. I know that sad affair with Velma’s left you afraid to commit again, and I don’t like that in the least. That’s not the Matty I know. That wasn’t love, son, and you know it. If it had been true love, you’d have had your full powers by now even if you hadn’t gotten the money.” “Mother, Velma’s been out of the picture for a decade already. She’s in the past. What’s the point in bringing her into the conversation?” Matt retorted curtly, shaking his head. He couldn’t understand his mother’s reasons for bringing up bitter memories. “Because she was the reason you stopped looking at women with hope,” Marjorie pointed out, shaking a scolding finger at her firstborn. “You think that all women are like her, and that’s why you only take everything you can from them and move on. Another woman on the list! It’s like you’re keeping a score. How many women can Matt score?” she reproached acidly. The young people had never witnessed something similar before, and wide-eyed, they stared at her. “It’s not good for you, Matt. Even if you’ve already given up on the trust fund, which is stupid, by the way, you’re still alive, and you still need a reliable woman in your life, as I’ve already said over and over again. You’ll grow old, and alone, and bitter,” Marjorie ended her unusual tirade by punching her son’s chest with her finger. “Thanks for the heads up, mom. It’s always good to know what your future will look like,” Matt replied sarcastically and removed himself from the path of her pointy finger. Yet, he didn’t leave. He seemed undecided and glanced back at his cousins. Marjorie shook her head bitterly but chose not to continue that line of discussion. She knew her son quite well, and she knew she couldn’t make him change his mind when he was like that. It was like talking to a rock. The silence stretched for a few minutes. Everyone seemed busy eating their pie or playing with their drinks, pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had happened between Marjorie and her eldest son. They avoided each other’s eyes, worried that someone would say something hurtful again. In the end, Alex, the most outspoken of all, couldn’t stand the heavy silence anymore. He glanced around the table, gauging everyone’s mood. He wasn’t sure that it was even worth it but shrugged and decided to try a new line of conversation. “You are the old lady’s favorite great-grandson, Matt. Can’t you convince her to stop this nonsense? She can change the papers if she wants to. The words aren't carved in stone, after all,” Alex said and waited anxiously for his cousin’s answer. “I tried that too, Alex.” Matt sighed and shook his head. “She said that she did it for our own good whatever she means by that. So I can say I’ve tried everything, and it’s time to limit my losses.” Again, no one said anything for a few moments. They couldn’t bring themselves to look at each other in the eye. So, the silence stretched on. The cousins' get-togethers were fairly chatty and loud affairs, and the odd silence prompted Matt to take his leave. He waved to them and started down the path to the kitchen door, whistling softly. Dreamy, as always, Ariel gazed after Matt until he was out of earshot. Then she said, “It’s sad. He’s the oldest, and he’s already given up.” For a few moments, everyone stared at her speechless. It was as if she grew a second head during the last hour. “Well, we’re close to that too, Ariel,” her brother, Alex, retorted after a moment of disbelief. “We don't have much time left. Only about three years, you, dimwit! Once we turn thirty-five, everything will be gone: the money, the powers, everything. And we can’t do anything to stop this.” “We can’t even cheat,” Jay intervened bitterly for the first time, and the others burst into laughter. “Oh, yeah, I remember,” Lily said. “You tried to pose as a fool in love and came with that simpleton. Camilla, I think her name was.” Jay nodded, smiling. He had already forgotten the ridicule he had suffered at the time. His easy-going nature didn’t allow him to keep a grudge for long. “Yeah, but it didn’t work, did it?” Josh said matter-of-factly. “Those two fossils sniffed you out.” “Well, they can read minds, so it was a piece of cake to sniff him out,” Aunt Marjorie pointed out with an enigmatic smile on her lips. “That’s why they’ve been appointed trustees, you know. No one can fool them. You shouldn’t have tried to cheat, Jay. The old lady hasn’t forgiven you for that yet.” Jay shrugged. He knew very well where he stood with his grandma those days, and he didn’t think that she would ever forgive him. Resentful and bitter, the old bat was a real piece of work. Only a few of them could steal a smile from her. Lately, Jay hadn’t been part of that group. After the stunt with Camilla, she didn’t notice Jay at the family dinners anymore. She pretended that he didn’t exist. Jay looked around and noticed that all the others had gone quiet. They seemed to be thinking about the implications of what had happened to him. He hoped that he wouldn’t go through a new period of veiled jokes or innocent teasing. Becka was a master at that, so he flinched when she started talking. He expected the worst. “So, we only have to wait for them to die...” Becka began to say tentatively, her gaze passing from one to the other. “Not so fast,” Marjorie interrupted her hastily. “The rule says that if they pass away, two others will take their place. The same type of power, pumpkin, so there’s no way to fool them either. You have to understand that you can’t go around this. You have to play by the rules.” “Damn it,” Alex swore. “All this drama only because great-grandpa had the nerve to abandon great-grandma for another woman, and then another i***t left aunt Evelyn at the altar, and she killed herself,” he shook his head. He still couldn’t understand why he had to pay for someone else. “So, now, generation after generation has to pay for those two idiots. Where the hell is the justice in that?” “Well, I also think that grandmother had reached a radical conclusion,” Marjorie replied in a mollifying tone of voice. “Nevertheless, there’s never been a way to change grandma’s mind, unfortunately. I know that my father tried hard at the time, but she wouldn’t listen to him. He tried again when my happiness was at stake, and still nothing. He didn’t have any success. She wouldn’t give in. Not even a bit. Since the money was still hers, she had the right to decide what she wanted to do with it.” “But why the curse on our powers? I really don’t understand it,” Becka wondered. “Same reason. Grandpa was a witch himself, so he used those powers to entice a very young woman, leaving grandma afterward. And another witch seduced the man who left Evelyn at the altar. So, grandma didn’t want any other witch to misuse their powers.” “I wouldn’t,” Becka cried out. “I know you wouldn’t, pumpkin,” Marjorie patted her hand tenderly. “Not all apples are rotten. I know that much. But grandma didn’t want to hear a thing, so here we are. Now everyone in my generation paid for that, and yours must pay, as well. However, if you succeed in finding your true love and get your trust funds, then at least the money problem will end. The next generations will have only the curse to defeat,” Marjorie looked around the table and tried to lift the young people’s mood, but with little success. “Oh, only that,” Lily sighed and put her chin in her hand, fixing her dreamy gaze somewhere in the distance. “I did want to open that nursery,” Ariel whispered inconsolably, and her brother stroked her fingers, his eyes shining with a deep concern for his sister’s dreams. “Nothing is lost, sweetheart,” Marjorie said and caressed Ariel’s hand at her turn. “You’ll see. You’ll find your soul mate, Ariel. Everything will be fine.” “Where? Where could I find my soul mate, auntie? The people I deal with every day are not even lover material, believe me. I wouldn’t let them touch me with a ten-foot pole. So, finding a soul mate is quite out of the question. There’s no chance for me out there. I’ve looked around for years and nothing,” she said, and this time tears welled in her eyes. “Wait and see, Ariel. These things have a way of working out,” Marjorie whispered to her and then started picking up the plates on the table to show that the conversation ended. There was no point in debating something they couldn’t fix. There wasn’t anything more to add, and whining wouldn’t help. The older woman knew it well. Whining never helped. You had to roll up your sleeves and do something. Although the others jumped out of their seats to help her, they were still thinking about the discussion and a none-too-rosy future. It looked pretty hopeless for them at that moment.