Keeper

by Kim Chance

  “I know,” I said. “The big, bad wolf will come after me. But who—” A knot formed in the pit of my stomach. “Wait.You just said I’m the only one left with DuCarmont blood. Serena said the same thing. But that’s impossible. What about you?”

  All the blood drained from Gareth’s face.

  “Gareth,” I tried again, louder this time. “You’re my uncle. You were her brother. You’re a DuCarmont, too . . . aren’t you?” I searched his face, anxious to see recognition of his mistake, but there was nothing but guilt. That look said everything.

  “I’m gonna throw up.” I pushed out of the chair and crossed the room. A worn bucket sat in the corner, and I snatched it up, gripping its sides while my stomach pitched and rolled.

  Gareth walked up behind me but didn’t say a word. I waited until I was certain I wasn’t going to hurl before I turned to face him. “You’re not my real uncle.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No,” he confirmed, “I’m not.”

  I took a deep breath and turned back toward the trash can just in case. I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to spill the tears of frustration that were forming.

  I gripped the can for a moment before finally shoving it away. It fell to its side with a loud clatter, and I whirled around to face Gareth, my chest heaving. “Was anything real?” I spat. “God, how many more secrets are you keeping from me?”

  “None,” Gareth replied. “I swear.”

  “How can I even trust you anymore?” I demanded, trying not to let the hurt show on my face. “I don’t even know who you are.”

  Gareth grimaced. “Lainey, I will explain everything if you’ll give me the chance.” He took a hesitant step forward. “Please, you have to understand, everything I did, all the secrets, it was to protect you.”

  I stepped backward, away from him. I wasn’t going to forgive as easily this time. “Start talking.”

  With a heavy sigh, Gareth began to speak. “Your mom, Serena, and I were friends; more than that, really. We were family. We grew up together, did everything together.” He swallowed. “So when things got bad and your mom had to go into hiding, Serena and I went with her. We thought it would be safer, that the three of us would be strong enough to protect each other.”

  Gareth broke off, his voice choked. He took a few deep breaths and kept going. “Everything was fine for a few years. Your mom met your dad, and they had you. It was the happiest I’d ever seen her.”

  Gareth walked back over to the table and sank down into one of the chairs, as if the burden of his story weighed heavily upon him. “After your dad was killed, she knew it was only a matter of time. She knew she had to leave, to run, so that you would be safe. She made me promise to take you away, to hide you from everyone.” He looked up at me, his eyes full of grief. “You were calling me Uncle Gareth from the time you learned to talk. It was just easier.”

  He sniffed. “I loved her, Lainey, and I swore to look after you, to keep you safe. And that’s what I’ve tried to do these last sixteen years.”

  My head was swimming. It made sense, and I even understood why he’d kept so many secrets from me, but it still didn’t diminish the betrayal and anger boiling underneath my skin.

  “I was planning to show you this place,” Gareth said, his voice breaking through my thoughts. “I can’t help you with your magic, but I can show you how to protect yourself.” He stood up and walked over to the weapons wall. He retrieved the bronze sword he’d been using earlier, as well as a sheathed dagger the size of my forearm.

  He walked back to me, the smaller sword in his outstretched hand. “I’m good with most weapons, but long swords are my specialty.” He had a sheepish grin on his face; this was a side of Gareth I’d never seen before.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, staring at the sword in Gareth’s hand but refusing to touch it. “Why can’t you train me to use my magic? If the pulses are the problem, I have to learn to control them, to keep my magic in check.”

  Gareth’s face flushed, and he smiled sheepishly again. “Witches are incredibly secretive about their magic.” He motioned for me to take the sword. “My expertise is elsewhere, I’m afraid.”

  I stared at him. Even though I knew the truth, it was still hard to fathom that the man in front of me, the man who had taken care of me my whole life, wasn’t who I thought he was. The ache in my chest nearly crippled me.

  “And I’m guessing the reason you don’t know much about magic is because you don’t have any, right?” It seemed a logical enough question.

  “Oh, I have magic,” Gareth replied. “Just not your kind of magic.” He pointed to the ceiling. “I created this room, for example.” He chuckled at little at the confusion on my face. “I’m one of the Fey. Warping dimensions is a specialty of ours.”

  “The Fey?”

  Gareth nodded. “Lainey . . .” He leaned in closer, resting his hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eye. “I’m a Faerie.”

  I blinked. “A Faerie?

  “A Faerie.”

  “What the hell?” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. Everything I knew about Faeries involved clapping, pixie dust, and tiny shimmering wings. As I stared at Gareth, tall and broad with muscular shoulders and a menacing sword in his hand, I was having a hard time reconciling the two images in my brain.

  “Like with wings and stuff?” I finally asked, unable to get the image of Tinkerbell out of my head.

  Gareth laughed loudly. “In a manner of speaking, but with less glitter,” he replied, almost as if he could read my mind. “I’m a bladesmith by trade.” He took a step forward, urging me to take the dagger he was offering.

  Not knowing what else to do, I gripped the thick handle of the dagger. It was heavy in my hand and incredibly foreign.

  “Move around a little,” Gareth encouraged. “Get a feel for the blade. You might like a short sword better, but I thought we should start small.”

  I took a step forward, holding the dagger awkwardly away from my body. My brain was muddled, and the longer I stood with the blade in my hand, the more overwhelmed I felt. With my pulse echoing in my ears, I dropped it onto the ground.

  Gareth started to rush over, but I held out a hand to stop him.

  “I can’t do this.” My voice was shaky, but strong. “I’m trying really hard to process all of this, but every time I think I have a handle on things, something even crazier happens.”

  I clenched my hands into fists. “One minute I find out that everything I know about my family is a lie, then it’s ‘oh, hey, guess what? You’re a witch!’ And now, I find out that my mother was some kind of guardian for a book that got her killed, and my uncle is actually not my uncle at all. He’s friggin’ Tinkerbell!” My voice was high and shrill by the end of my tirade, and Gareth was staring at me, pain and guilt etched across his face.

  “Lainey,” he began.

  “No!” I shouted at him. “Just leave me alone.”

  I turned on my heel and ran across the room to the pathway that led back to the house. Gareth called my name, but I kept running. It felt like the walls were closing in on me; I needed to get out of there, and fast.

  I plowed into Gareth’s office. It was disorienting to return to the modern world, and I shook my head to clear it, slamming the door behind me.

  I grabbed my purse and keys from the table in the hall and walked outside. There was no way I was spending one more minute in that house.

  I threw myself into the car. I didn’t pay attention to where I was going, and I didn’t have a destination in mind. All I knew was that I needed to get away from my life for a while. I needed some kind of distraction.

  So, I kept driving, determined to find one.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  My phone continued to ring.

  I rolled my eyes, not even bothering to glance at the screen. Gareth had been callin
g nonstop ever since I’d fled from the house, but I had nothing to say to him.

  It was getting late. The sun had set hours ago, and I’d already driven to the state line and back. I knew I should probably just go back home or at least stop wasting a perfectly good tank of gas, but the anger coursing through my veins only made my foot press down harder on the accelerator. I didn’t have a specific destination in mind; I was driving on autopilot.

  When I pulled into the familiar gravel parking lot of the cemetery, I wasn’t completely surprised. I didn’t know what had drawn me back, but then I saw her, standing beside the wrought iron entrance gates. Josephine. Unlike earlier when I had hoped to see her, the very sight of her made my blood boil.

  I slammed the car into park. “Seriously?” I glared at the apparition across the blacktop. I shoved the door open and stalked toward her.

  “Now you’re here?” I threw my arms out. “What do you want from me?”

  She just stared at me, her face sad.

  “Oh that’s right, you’re here to warn me. Well, message received,” I yelled across the parking lot. “You can go now!”

  Lainey. The whispered word came from behind me. I whirled around, but there was nothing but my car. I looked back toward the gate. Josephine was gone.

  “What game are you playing?” I yelled into the wind. I wanted to punch something, just beat the crap out of it until the ache in my chest stopped hurting, until all the anger and frustration flowing through me evaporated.

  I sagged against my car. This isn’t my life. The truth about my parents, my own supernatural lineage, the sightings of Josephine, Gareth—it was all hitting me like a slap in the face. “This isn’t me,” I whispered, but the words tasted like ash on my tongue. Don’t lie to yourself, Lainey. This is you. Who you are, and who you’ve always been. The voice in my head was my own. I thought how good it had felt in the graveyard with Maggie, how those three little words had felt: I’m a witch. But now everything was muddled, and I wasn’t sure how to wrap my head around it all.

  I got back in my car and kept driving. Still reeling from the emotional cyclone swirling inside me, I drove slowly down the darkened streets, not really paying much attention to where I was going.

  Before long, I ended up near the railroad tracks on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t the nicest or safest area, but it was fairly secluded, and a lot of the local teenagers used it as a place to hang out away from the watchful eye of adult supervision. From the looks of things—a slew of parked cars, loud music, and a large bonfire—there was some sort of party going on.

  It wasn’t a smart idea to stop—the tracks were known as a place where bad decisions were made—but I couldn’t go home. Not yet.

  Besides, this looks exactly like the type of distraction I need. I pulled off the main road and parked next to an old, rust-colored Bronco.

  My phone started ringing again. This time it was Maggie. I almost didn’t answer it, but on the very last ring, I slid my finger quickly over the screen. “Hey, Mags.”

  “Where the hell are you?” she breathed into the phone. “Your uncle just called me. He’s freaking out. He said ya’ll had some kind of fight and you ran out, said you’d been gone for hours.”

  I snorted. “A fight? Yeah, I guess you could count me calling him out for lying to me my entire life as a fight. Oh, and by the way, he’s not really my uncle.”

  Maggie sucked in a quick breath of air. “Wait, what?”

  Sighing, I quickly recapped the afternoon, from finding the hidden passageway and room to Gareth being a Faerie.

  “Holy cra—holy shitkittens, Styles!” Maggie said, when I was finished. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said. “I just feel kind of blindsided. I don’t know really how to process all of this. I’m a facts girl. And these are the facts, but I cannot seem to reconcile them in my mind. I’m trying, but . . .” I trailed off.

  “God, Styles, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now.”

  I could only respond with a choked sigh.

  “Oh, Lainey.” Maggie’s voice was soft and full of sympathy. “Where are you? Why don’t you come over? We’ll stuff ourselves with mint chocolate chip ice cream and watch movies until you feel less crappy, okay?”

  I sighed again. Maggie’s offer was incredibly tempting, but what I needed was a distraction, a way to completely shut off my brain. As much as I loved her, spending hours talking and analyzing the situation wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

  “Thanks, Mags. But I just need to clear my head for a little bit. I’ll come over tomorrow, okay? I gotta go for now.” I opened the car door. The loud music from the party echoed across the trees that surrounded the clearing.

  “Okay,” Maggie replied hesitantly. “Wait, what’s that noise? Lainey, where are you?”

  “I’m . . .” I figured I might as well tell someone just in case. “I’m at the tracks.”

  “What!” Maggie demanded. “What are you doing there?”

  “I drove by and saw a party, so I stopped.”

  “And you’re just gonna go? All kinds of crazy stuff happen at those parties.”

  “I’ll be fine, Maggie.”

  “I’m serious, Styles. This is not a good idea!”

  “I’ll be fine,” I repeated, already stepping out of the car. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Maggie continued to yell, but I’d already made up my mind. “I’ll call you later!” I yelled over her tirade and ended the call. I knew I’d have to deal with her wrath later, but I figured I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

  Shoving my phone in my back pocket, I shut and locked the car door and headed toward the party.

  There were about twenty or so people sitting near the bonfire, drinking beer and laughing loudly. There was another group a few feet away dancing next to an iPhone that had been rigged to play through a large set of speakers.

  I recognized some of the people from school, but the rest were strangers. A few gave me curious looks as I walked by, but didn’t bother to stop and make conversation.

  Plopping myself down next to the bonfire, I stared into the flames and tried to think about nothing except the way the colors moved and danced together. Beside me, a boy with stringy blond hair and pasty skin popped the top of a beer can and alternated between swigs of beer and taking drags from the lit cigarette in his hand. I shook my head when he offered me the can. He shrugged and turned his attention back to his cigarette.

  A few minutes later, an excited squeal rose over the music playing from the iPhone. “It’s almost time!” a voice called out.

  All at once, the partygoers around the fire and those dancing began to move toward the tracks.

  I looked around. “What’s going on?” I asked the blond boy. He took a quick drag of his cigarette before responding.

  “It’s almost eleven,” he said, blowing smoke in my face.

  Wrinkling my nose, I fanned the smoke from my eyes. “Yeah, so?”

  The boy shakily got to his feet, squeezing the beer can tightly in his hand. “The freighters,” he said, stumbling toward the tracks. “They’re always right on time.”

  I watched him walk away, feeling more than a little confused. In the distance, a shrill whistle cut through the darkness, eliciting cheers from the group by the tracks. What’s the big deal? It’s just a couple of trains.

  I was trying to decide whether to go down to the tracks and see what all the fuss was about or just go home when a familiar voice whispered in my ear.

  Lainey.

  Josephine was standing a few feet away, underneath the canopy of the tree line, the orange glow from the bonfire lighting her face.

  I leapt to my feet. “Go away,” I said, glaring at Josephine. I clenched my fists at my sides as hot anger ignited inside me.

 
Huffing, I stalked toward the group gathered by the tracks. A small orb of light was bouncing along the darkness—the headlight of the freight train coming closer.

  “So what’s the big deal with the train?” I asked a girl with long braids and a nose ring.

  The girl rolled her eyes as if I’d just asked her to analyze War and Peace. “It’s the eleven o’clock freighter,” she answered matter-of-factly.

  “Yeah, I got that.” I narrowed my eyes. “But who cares?”

  “You’re new here,” the girl spat out, glaring at me like I was an interloper in some secret society. She rolled her eyes again. “It starts at eleven, and then they run every eight minutes. Last man standing wins.”

  “Wins what? What are you—” I stopped as two boys stepped over the metal railing and stood side by side in the middle of the track facing the train. Almost in response, the train gave a loud whistle. It was still several hundred feet away, but it was moving fast.

  The boys were laughing as they stared down the train, daring each other to move while the rest of the group cheered and placed bets on who would wuss out first. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be appalled, but I stayed where I was, watching the boys with wide eyes.

  Lainey.

  The voice came from behind me. I didn’t have to look to know who it was. “I told you to go away,” I grumbled beneath my breath, refusing to turn around. The train was getting closer, and there was a tangible energy churning through the air. The boys on the tracks were no longer laughing, but focused on the train itself, both posed in a stance that would allow them to jump from either side at the last second.

  I stood half horrified, half amazed as the boys played chicken with the train. One of them was swearing loudly and his whole body was shaking from exertion. The train was getting closer, its harsh whistle echoing across the trees. The boy who had been swearing turned and jumped off the tracks shaking his head. The other boy, the one still on the tracks, raised a fist triumphantly in the air but continued to stare at the train—now dangerously close. At the very last second, he threw himself from the tracks and landed on his stomach in the grass while the train roared over the very spot on which he’d been standing. The crowd cheered as he got to his feet and dusted himself off, grinning like a madman.