"The almond are amazing, and the chocolate," Gwen told them, winking at Abby.
"One of each," Sebastian declared and returned to the counter to order.
Abby slid into the booth next to Gwen.
"I appreciate you coming all this way," Gwen told her.
Abby and Sebastian had driven to Detroit to meet Gwen, who had been an integral part of the Asemaa and the first person to enlighten Abby about the curse. Gwen and her daughter Ebony had fled to Detroit after several members of the Asemaa vanished. Though Gwen offered to come to them, Abby thought it best if she remain outside of Trager until they had a better grasp of the Vepar's intentions. Oliver had told Abby about seeing Stephen in the Vepar's lair, which meant that Gwen was right about the danger their group was in. She had not told Gwen about Stephen's death and dreaded the prospect.
"We were happy to come," Abby assured her. "And we're actually taking a little trip to Ohio, Sebastian's hometown, so this was on our way."
"Oh good, it gives me hope to see you together. Sydney would have been over the moon."
"How's Ebony?" Abby asked, wanting to avoid a conversation about Sydney. Her pregnancy created too many turbulent emotions, and great sadness might result in the bathroom flooding or a sprinkler system going off.
"She's happy. I've done my best to keep her in the dark—she is only four, after all. Four going on twenty." Gwen shook her head and smiled. "She's home with me so we have a lot of fun."
"How about your other friends? The ones who originally took Ebony?"
"They're okay. Everyone is okay, as far as I know. I reconnected with Lorna. Though I haven't seen her, just a few quick phone calls. She's in Canada, but Stephen, still nothing from him."
Sebastien returned with their croissants and a tray of coffees. He slid next to Abby.
"I have news about Stephen," Abby told her, taking Gwen's hand.
Gwen studied her face and then her eyes began to fill with tears.
"He's dead?"
Abby nodded.
"I'm so sorry, Gwen. I dreaded this moment. Oliver," she dropped her voice, "another of the Ula witches, recognized his body in a Vepar's lair."
Gwen inhaled sharply and clenched her eyes shut.
"A lair?" She said it out loud as if that might make it more true. "But why? Because of the Asemaa?"
"I don't know, but probably, yes. We've been going through the information and, frankly, it's overwhelming. One thing we know is that the Vepars are strongly connected with the curse, and we're pretty sure they know more than us."
"Maybe not," Sebastian interrupted. "They seem to have a direct connection to the creator of the curse, but I get the feeling they're in the dark. I think she's playing them."
"She?" Gwen asked.
"Kanti," Abby told her. "We believe that she created the curse, although even that, we're not sure of."
Gwen pressed her palms into her eyes and shook her head.
"I don't know if I should hear this." She looked up, afraid. "What if they come after my child? Is this information going to sign our death sentences?"
Sebastian glanced at Abby.
"I don't think so, Gwen, but I get it. If you don't want to know, you don't have to."
"If they believe you have information, I don't think claiming ignorance will save you," Sebastian added.
Abby shot him a warning look.
"It's true," he told her unapologetically. "These aren't people to be reasoned with; they're not even people. I don't know how much you're aware of, Gwen, but if you have even a sense of what Vepars are, then you know better than to think they'll leave you alone if they believe you're valuable to them."
Gwen shot a distressed look at the door as if a Vepar might stroll in at any moment.
"I never would have joined the Asemaa had I known. I love Sydney, but I want out of this. I can't put Ebony in danger."
"They followed me to France. They took the woman I was staying with and killed her too. You can run from them, but like I said—" Sebastian continued.
Abby put a hand on Sebastian's arm to stop him from saying more.
"I would be scared too, I am scared, but Sebastian is right. Still, they didn't attack you in Trager, and it may be that they're not as invested in the Asemaa as we think. Maybe Stephen went to them."
"You think he confronted a Vepar?" Gwen asked, incredulous. "He was impulsive, but not stupid."
"You never know, Gwen. They look like you and me. One of the detectives working Devin's case was a Vepar."
"What?"
"Yes," Abby confirmed. "Alva was his name. He's a major player in their world and yet he's involved in the investigation of a witch they'd killed. It's strange."
"But why? Why do they even bother?"
"We think it has to do with Trager specifically," Sebastian chimed in.
Abby looked at him questioningly.
"I was talking with Oliver about it," he told her. "Oliver couldn't think of another time he'd seen a Vepar place himself within an investigation, but Trager seems to break all the rules."
"What about Claire?"
"He was there," Sebastian admitted. "But on the sidelines. A bystander watching the chaos unfold."
"Do you think you could find out what Stephen discovered in Texas?" Abby asked.
Gwen had told Abby that just before he disappeared, Stephen told her he intended to meet someone in Texas who had information about the curse.
"I doubt it," Gwen sighed. "But Lorna might know. Like I said before, she was a lot more involved than me. She took the whole thing really seriously."
"She fled to Canada?" Sebastian asked.
"Yeah, she has friends there. I think she's been moving from place to place."
"Is she being followed?"
"She doesn't think so, but she's suspicious by nature."
"Can you call her?" Abby asked.
"No, she'll call me. She uses disposable phones and then throws them away."
"Do you know when she'll call?"
"Probably in a few days."
"Can you set up a meeting?"
"Yeah, I think she'd like that. She asks me if I've had contact with you every time she calls."
"Does she say that she has information?"
Gwen shrugged and wrapped her hands around her cup of coffee.
"Not really. She tries to keep the calls neutral. I think she's afraid, but she doesn't admit it."
"Set it up then," Abby told her. "We need to talk to her."
****
Abby scooted across the seat and leaned her head on Sebastian's shoulder. He took a hand from the wheel and squeezed her leg. His knuckles were pale and clenched. As they got closer to his hometown, he seemed to grow more nervous. She saw it in the set of his jaw and his incessant need to thrum or tap on something. When he stopped doing that, he scratched absently at the dark stubble on his chin. He changed the radio station to alternative music and then classic rock. Frustrated with the radio, he asked Abby to hook up his new iPod. He scrolled through ten songs before finally landing on Bob Marley.
"Are you up for this?" she asked, not for the first time.
He glanced at her. His blue eyes glittered. She hoped their baby inherited his eyes.
"Yes," he assured her. "I want to take you. It's time."
He got off the freeway and they drove through the meandering countryside. In January, it was hardly a sight to behold. Only a dusting of snow coated the frozen Ohio ground. The gray sky and barren trees made Abby shiver and snuggle closer to Sebastian.
They passed a small concrete sign perched on the roadside. It welcomed them to Grimville, Ohio.
"So you grew up here?" Abby asked, scanning the buildings as they passed through the little town. "It's pretty charming."
Shop windows still held Christmas displays with fake snow and strings of garland. Red and white striped light poles lined the sidewalk.
"Yep, had my first kiss in that movie theater."
Abby looked at the ma
rquee, unlit in the day.
"They're showing a football game?"
Sebastian laughed.
"It's a unique place. They show sports games, political discussions and obviously movies."
"What movie were you watching during your first kiss?"
"Donnie Darko," he admitted.
"Kind of creepy for a first kiss," Abby teased.
He laughed.
"Yep. Lilly Hanes thought so too, so creepy that she kissed me rather than look at the screen."
"Oh my, sounds very romantic."
"Tell me about your first kiss."
Abby blushed, remembering.
"Jay Stine in my friend Kim's bathroom on her fourteenth birthday. It was a dare."
"A dare? Now that's really romantic!"
She laughed and returned her gaze to the window.
"Interesting shops," she noted. They drove past The Apothecary, Merlin's Metaphysical Wares and a bookstore called The Ember Goddess.
"Part of the reason my mom agreed to live here," Sebastian told her, smiling. "I was born in Detroit. My dad brokered mortgages and my mom was a social worker. After I came along, they stayed a couple more years. They wanted me to have a real life, not the rose-colored glasses of middle-class suburbia, but then a kid got shot down the street. So they packed up and moved to Grimville, Ohio."
"Detroit? I didn't know that."
"I barely remember. I was two when we moved here. All of my memories are here."
"Why Grimville?"
"My mom hated the name, but my dad found a great deal on a really unique house. It had an artist's studio. My mom loved to paint. If they moved here, she could work as an artist. They could live on his income. They wanted another baby so it made sense."
"How do you know all this?" Abby had little insider information on her parents' lives before she came along.
He looked at her curiously.
"Really? Didn't your parents ever tell you how they met? All the details of life before Abby?"
She shook her head.
"You met my mom—not exactly forthcoming."
"My parents loved to talk about their memories. My mom had stacks of scrapbooks. They took road trips, they backpacked around Europe, they lived a lifetime before Claire and I showed up. Honestly, I loved the stories. Instead of tucking me in with tales of the three bears, I heard about my dad proposing on the subway, in New York City, in a car so packed that when he tried to get on one knee, he ended up sitting on some old guy's lap."
"That's amazing," Abby laughed, "and terrible. Couldn't he wait until they got off?"
"That's what my mom always said, but my dad insisted that he just knew it had to be that moment and if he let it pass they were destined for tragedy. Seems ironic now."
Abby's smile fell and she reached her arms awkwardly around Sebastian for a hug.
"I'm sorry you lost them."
"Me too. I wish you could have met them."
They drove in silence and then Sebastian turned down a wooded driveway. They came upon a large brick house. A glass-walled building sat off to the right.
"Does anyone live here?"
"No. A friend of mine from high school is a real estate agent, and I asked him to let me know if it ever came back on the market. About a year after Claire died, the people who bought it moved to Florida. So here it sits."
They got out of the car and walked to the door. Turquoise pots holding browned flowers squatted on the front stoop. Sebastian punched a code into the lockbox and a key dropped out.
"My friend gave me the code. I told him that I was thinking about buying it again."
"Are you?" she asked, surprised.
He shook his head.
"There's nothing left for me here. My life is with you now." He wrapped his arms around her and she pressed closer to the warmth of his breath.
She felt him gathering courage to step across the threshold.
They walked into a bright foyer. Blond wood floors and white walls greeted them.
"It's different. My mom hated white walls. Too boring. The entryway used to be orange—creamsicle, she called it."
They moved through the house. Sebastian pointed out rooms and their previous colors. He showed her the jagged scratches on the bathroom wall where his dad marked his and Claire's growing height. He took her to his old room, empty of furniture and also painted white. Abby tried to imagine the New York skyline his mother had painted on the wall and the hammock that he had strung from the corners of the ceiling.
"One of my friends called our house the Twilight Zone. It was pretty eccentric."
"Why did you sell it?"
Sebastian stepped into the master bedroom and sighed, as though disappointed that no evidence of his parents remained.
"Because they were gone. We didn't need the money. They both had life insurance, but living here, we couldn't seem to move on. I really felt it with Claire. She'd walk in the door after school, all bubbly and excited, and the minute she stepped foot in the house, she lost something. It was like she deflated. Sometimes I would wake up at night and she would be wandering around touching the walls and the furniture. My mom created this place. You can't see it now, but before, she was everywhere."
Abby walked to the window that looked out over the backyard. She saw evidence of a garden. She pressed her hand on the window frame and felt the energy left behind. Love stolen at its peak.
They ended their tour in Claire's room.
"My mom called the paint color Lemon and my dad said it was Unmellow Yellow."
Abby laughed.
"You're inspiring me to paint when we get home."
"Claire added her own touches. She painted flowers on that wall over there. She loved comic books and pasted pictures of the X-Men all over her ceiling. Her room was like something out of Willa Wonka's Chocolate Factory meets Alice in Wonderland."
They left Sebastian's childhood home and drove to a little cemetery on the edge of town. A frozen stream cut through the hillside. He parked in front of three gravestones.
"They didn't leave instructions," he told her, as if apologizing. "My grandmother on my dad's side made the arrangements. Looking back, I wish I hadn't let her. My parents wouldn't want this." He gestured to the blocky stone structures. Jared Hull, Julia Hull and Claire Hull—all in a sad little row. No flowers adorned the frozen ground in front of their gravestones.
"Where is your grandmother?"
"Florida. We were never close. My dad's parents were pretty distant. They moved south when I was young and our contact included Christmas and birthday cards. I loved my mom's mom. She was friends with your Grandma Arlene, but she died when I was ten."
"My grandparents died when I was young too."
"Death seems to be the only thing we know for sure," Sebastian murmured. He opened the car door and stepped out.
He walked to the headstones and squatted in front of Claire's grave, pressing his hands against the stone face. Abby walked behind him, but gave him space. After several minutes he stood up.
"One more stop on this depressing tour," he told her.
"Hey." She put her hands on his shoulders. "I want to be here. There's nothing depressing about seeing where you come from."
He sighed and nodded.
"Maybe it's just depressing for me."
They drove to a storage unit. Abby waited in the car while Sebastian ran in and grabbed a plastic tote.
"What did you get?" Abby asked, when he returned.
"Mostly photo albums."
"And women's clothes?" Abby could see a red dress speckled with little yellow moons.
"I used it to wrap some frames so that the glass didn't break."
It was a logical explanation, but Abby studied Sebastian as he drove away. His tone implied another motive for taking the clothing. She didn't have a clue what that could be and didn't want to press the subject. When it came to Claire, Sebastian was touchy.
Chapter 17
"Anything related to the map?"
Faustine asked. He used the mouse to click the file marked Important. He pulled up each document.
"Finally a way to read that doesn't cause an instant migraine," Helena said, scanning the enlarged script.
"Nothing in the box," Julian said. "But it's still scanning."
Faustine opened the map on the screen.
"That looks like Abby and Sebastian's property," Oliver said suddenly, walking closer. "I recognize the shape of the shoreline."
"I admit that was my first thought when Julian showed us the map," Faustine confessed.
"So a body was buried on their property?" Helena asked to no one in particular.
"It seems so," Faustine said. "Though perhaps we're looking at a planned dump site for a body."
"And it's possible that it was an animal's body," Julian cut in. "How do we know this isn't a hunter's map?"
"Why did it get sorted into the Important file?" Elda asked. "It doesn't have any of the keywords that Victor specified."
"That is strange," Julian agreed. "How do we contact him?"
"We have cell phones, but they never work here at Ula. I gave him a shell. We may be able to reach him through that."
"I'll try," Helena said. She left the library to retrieve a shell.
"I should go there," Oliver said. "Right now."
"Abby and Sebastian are gone, love," Helena told him kindly. "Remember they took a trip to Sebastian's hometown."
Oliver frowned, but didn't say more.
"He used magic," Julian continued. "So his intention must have been made known and the program is sorting according to that intention, beyond simply the words he specified."
"Which is even more valuable to us," Elda concluded. "Did you and Helena find anything else notable?"
"We hadn't made much progress when I found the map."
"It pertains," Faustine remarked. "There's no other explanation. This map is related to the curse and if it depicts Abby and Sebastian's house, then they found that location for a reason."
"Perhaps they were led there."
"Exactly."
****
Lydie sat in the floating garden. Despite the blistery cold of the day, the garden remained warm year-round . The temperature ranged between seventy-two and seventy-five degrees. Centuries ago, the witches of Ula had created the flower sanctuary, shielding it from the elements. The only caveat was walking to the garden from the castle. Fighting through drifts of snow that she couldn't melt fast enough with bursts of fire left her sodden and chilled when she finally reached the garden.
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