Happy Birthday to You (Birthday Trilogy, Book 3)

by Brian Rowe

  “Hello?” a female voice said on the other line.

  “Jill?”

  “Yes. Who’s calling?”

  “It’s your mother, Jill. It’s Mom. I was just calling because I have—”

  Mrs. Gordon wasn’t able to finish her sentence. Her daughter had hung up on her. Again. For the hundredth time. Even in this time of worldwide crisis, her own daughter wouldn’t allow for a final five-minute conversation.

  She tried again. This time, after five rings, the call went to voice-mail. Mrs. Gordon tried again. A third time. A fourth time. By the time she started dialing her daughter for the fifth time, Mrs. Gordon had started crying. Two tears fell down her cheeks, and she tried to compose herself, knowing this time, she was going to have to do the unthinkable—tell her daughter good-bye over a goddamn answering machine.

  “You know what to do,” was all Jill’s answering machine said.

  “Hi Jill. It’s Mom. I know you don’t want to talk to me. I know you want to forget I exist. But I just wanted to call you to tell you… good-bye…” She had to stop for a second, unable to speak amid all her sobs. “I know we had our ups and downs over the years, but I just want you to know I love you, have loved you, and will always love you. You’re my one and only. You’re my baby girl…” Mrs. Gordon licked a tear off her upper lip and took a deep breath before continuing. “I can say sorry forever, but forever isn’t very long to me anymore. I’m sorry, for the last time, for all the pain I caused you, for breaking up your first engagement, for sleeping with that hunky fiancée of yours. I guess I was just jealous, honey. But you have to know, he came onto me—”

  Another beeping noise blasted through the phone. Mrs. Gordon sat there quiet and completely still, not knowing whether or not to continue. She decided not to embarrass herself any further. She’d done enough for one lifetime.

  Mrs. Gordon stood up, wiped the tears from her cheeks, and brought her hands to her sides.

  “OK,” she said out loud. “This is it.”

  She looked through her window to see the library, and she nodded, as if all the books could nod back to her.

  Mrs. Gordon moved her desk to the back corner of the room and then stood on her office chair. She fastened the rope around her neck and tilted her head back to make sure it was tight enough to keep her from crashing to the carpet.

  “OK,” she said. “Here goes.”

  It took her close to three minutes to kick the chair out from under her, but when she did, she instantly regretted her decision. She thought the movement would snap her neck and kill her instantly, but that wasn’t really the case. She just hung there, for a minute or more, slowly losing all of her oxygen. The worst way Mrs. Gordon thought it would be to die was to drown, because there was nothing sudden about it. But here she was, gasping for her final breaths, sad that her life hadn’t ended quicker.

  “It’s… taking… so long…”

  But finally, her vision, and all the pain, started fading away.

  Most surprising, she didn’t see her life flash before her eyes.

  Instead, Mrs. Gordon saw only one image—her daughter, age two, dressed all in yellow, laughing and playing in a large, open field, whispering to her mommy, “I love you.”

  7.

  Liesel pulled off the main highway, not even onto pavement, but onto a slim dirt road that traveled behind the giant, eye-popping structures of Red Rock Canyon, a few miles of land that lined the CA-14 freeway north of Los Angeles. Driving through it felt like we were entering the Grand Canyon, or coming close to Batman’s secret, off-the-grid Batcave.

  The drive got more treacherous with each minute. Soon we were climbing a giant hill, then heading nearly straight down another.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “OK. This is pretty wild.”

  “I haven’t been here in four and a half years,” Liesel said. “It better still be here. Hannah better not have blown it up.”

  “Blow what up?”

  Liesel didn’t look at me. She knew there would be lots of explaining to do once she found the cave or structure or landfill or hole to the center of the Earth—whatever this thing we were looking for was supposed to be—so she shut her mouth and let me just admire the surroundings.

  We passed a few more rock formations, and then she departed from the dirt road, taking us behind the largest rock structure of all.

  “Here we go,” she said.

  “Here we… what…”

  Liesel drove the car to the back of the structure, where a small entryway appeared.

  “What the—” It was so mysterious, this black hole to nowhere… right in the middle of nowhere. “Are we going in there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are we walking?”

  Liesel shook her head. “Driving.”

  “What?”

  Before I could ask another question, Liesel drove my car straight into the rock structure, and we started descending down a steep dirt hill, inside the actual rock! I had my eyes closed for the first few seconds as the car started bouncing all around, but I opened them to discover Liesel shining the bright lights. At first this pathway looked to be a descent into Hell, but soon, I realized, there was actually a finish line.

  Still, though, I had to close my eyes again. “Leese? Oh my God, Leese… are we going to die?”

  “Not today,” she said, and I bounced out of my chair as we hit the bottom of the large slide and Liesel swerved the car to the right. When she slammed on the brakes, I slammed my head against the glove compartment.

  “Oww,” I said, softly and sadly.

  “Are you OK?”

  I opened my eyes and sighed. “Perfect.”

  “Come on,” she said. “There’s somebody here I want you to meet.”

  “Huh?”

  I turned to my left to watch Liesel unbuckle her seatbelt and step out of the car. She had a huge, infectious smile on her face, like she was locking eyes with a dear, old friend.

  I heard a girl shout, “Alicia!” from far away.

  This must be the famous sister Yolanda. Oh boy, a reunion. Won’t this be nice and… awkward.

  I swallowed some saliva, unbuckled my seatbelt, and stepped out of the car.

  After slamming the door and taking two steps forward, I started darting my eyes every which way, taking in this majestic underground oasis. If Hannah’s creepy basement had been the bleak version of an underground area, this was the polar opposite. Lights of all colors bounced against the rock walls from small slits in the lining up top, and a thin blue creek split the cavern into two parts. It took me a good thirty seconds to notice Liesel across the way hugging somebody beside a Jeep Wrangler.

  “Cameron!” she shouted at me. “Come over here!”

  I thought Liesel and this mysterious new sister of hers would start getting down to business right away, but as I approached them, all I could hear was giggling and inane banter that two high school girls would partake in at lunchtime.

  “Yolanda,” Liesel said, pointing at me, “this is my husband—”

  “Cameron!” she shouted, finishing her sister’s sentence. “My God, you’re even cuter than I expected!”

  I shook the girl’s hand. She was as tall as Liesel, with long, curly black hair. She looked younger, maybe sixteen or so. She was also African American.

  “So you two are sisters?” I asked.

  “Yup,” they both said in unison.

  I planted my hands on my sides and bit down on my bottom lip. I tried to put my thoughts into words, but I kept opening and closing my mouth.

  “Let me guess,” Yolanda said, taking a step closer to me. “You wanna know how I’m related to your wife, since we don’t exactly share a resemblance.” She smiled and looked at Liesel. “And by the way, calling you someone’s ‘wife’ kind of creeps me out.”

  “It creeps me out too sometimes,” Liesel said with a high-pitched chuckle. I gave her the evil eye
.

  “I was curious,” I said. “Yes.”

  “She’s adopted, Cam,” Liesel said. “Mom got her three years after having me. By the time I was three, and Hannah was six, she knew that we would both develop into witches. She wanted to adopt a little girl and see if she could somehow morph her into a witch as well.”

  “OK…” Boy, this Mom of theirs was weird. “Did it work?”

  “Nope,” Yolanda said. “Thank God! I wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of pressure!”

  “Do you know for sure?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  Liesel stepped forward and gave her sister a hug from behind. “My mom tried everything. Yolanda’s proof that you’re born with it.”

  My eyes were drawn to the stream up ahead. It looked so serene, with the soft light hitting it from up top. “So what is this place? How did you find it?”

  Liesel unhooked herself from her sister and backed up against the Jeep. “This was where our mother took us to train when we were younger. We obviously couldn’t perform spells and utilize our telepathy powers in the center of L.A. We had to find a hideout where we could be loud and train for hours, without interruption, without anyone finding us. This is where my mom used to train when she was younger. It’s a real hidden hot spot. Nobody knows about it.”

  “But does your sister know about it?” I asked.

  Liesel looked at me like my IQ had just dropped a hundred points. “Yes, Cam, she’s standing right beside me.”

  I glared at her. “Your other sister. The evil one.”

  Yolanda laughed. “I like how we’re being typecast. The good one. The evil one. The black one.”

  I shook my head. “No, I would never—”

  “No, he’s right,” Liesel said. “She is the evil one.”

  “I don’t think evil is strong enough of a word,” Yolanda added.

  I turned to Yolanda, then to Liesel, then to Yolanda again. “So how come I’ve never heard of you? You two seem to get along OK. How come you weren’t at our wedding?”

  Yolanda and Liesel both stared at me for a moment, neither of them knowing what to say. Finally, Liesel said, “When I left over five years ago for Reno, I didn’t tell my mother or Hannah where I was going, and I didn’t tell Yolanda either. I needed a clean start, and I knew that to make it happen I not only needed to change my name and appearance but also make sure nobody knew where I was. It wasn’t until three weeks ago when I found Yolanda, now living and working in San Diego.”

  “Oh,” I said. “How’d you find her?”

  “Facebook.”

  “Facebook?”

  “It’s lame, I know. But I didn’t know any other way. I told her everything that was happening, and even though she was mad at me, she decided it was in her best interest to meet us here today and discuss how we’re going to take Hannah down. Because Yolanda has friends down in San Diego she cares about. And she doesn’t want them going anywhere.”

  “For the first time in my life, I’m doing well,” Yolanda said. “I’ve got a good Foster home, a good school, friends, a boyfriend. I’m not gonna have Hannah destroy that for me. I’m not gonna let her destroy that for everybody else. I was mad at Alicia, I was. But at the end of the day, we have to do what’s right.”

  Part of me wanted to clap for Yolanda’s little speech, but all I could think about, again, was how odd it was for one of Liesel’s acquaintances to call her Alicia, apparently her real name. She was just Leese to me. Always would be.

  “Cam, I never got along much with Hannah, but Yolanda really didn’t get along with her. Hannah never thought of Yolanda as a sister, but more like a living thing taking up space in the house. Our mother tried her best to love her, but it was never enough. Hannah made life Hell for Yolanda.”

  “That’s why I’m not exactly sad to have to kick some Hannah ass,” Yolanda said.

  In the middle of Yolanda’s sentence, I heard a strange noise from above, like a flock of birds had flown by or a stack of rocks had collapsed. There was something up there, and I had no idea what it could be.

  The nerves hit me instantly. “Liesel, I—”

  “That’s so weird he calls you Liesel!” Yolanda said. “That’s such a dopey name! Why did you decide on choosing th—”

  “Leese, tell me again, why would we meet here, if Hannah knows it exists?”

  “She’s not here, Cam,” Liesel said. “There’s no way Hannah’s anywhere near L.A.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do. Don’t ask me why.”

  “She has to assume we might come here, right?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “If anything, Hannah should be scared of this place. There’s no telling what the three of us together could do to her.”

  I started jumping up and down, my heart racing, my ears picking up more frequency from above. “Leese, what the hell couldn’t she do to us? You said it yourself! Yolanda doesn’t have any powers! What are three non-magical humans going to do to stop Hannah, who has the power of seven witches? Couldn’t she just kill us with a blink of her eye?”

  “It’s not as simple as you’re making this out to be—”

  “I don’t care! All I know is that we could be in serious danger right now! And all you two want to do is catch up and reminisce! Is now really the time for that?”

  I couldn’t help it. I was really starting to lose it. I felt like I was pinned down, like my hands were cuffed behind me and there was nothing I could do to stop the inevitable.

  Everyone’s going to die, and it’s all going to be our fault, because we didn’t act quickly enough, because we didn’t know what to do.

  Both sisters crossed their arms at the same time and stared at me, as if they had yet another big secret they were itching to reveal to me.

  “What?” I asked. “What is it?”

  “You haven’t told him yet?” Yolanda asked.

  Liesel shook her head. Now I could see that she was nervous, too, biting her lip and looking like she was going to start crying. “I don’t know if there’s ever been a good time. But I guess now’s better late than never.”

  “Better late than never for what?” I asked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Yolanda waited for Liesel to say something. When she didn’t, she took a step forward and grasped my shoulder. “You see, Cam, what Alicia—I mean, Liesel—is trying to say, is that—”

  “No,” Liesel said, whisking me away from her adopted sister. “No, I need to do this.”

  She pulled me to the side. I wanted to start crying, even though I didn’t know what for. I had no idea what this secret could be, but I knew it was going to be huge. “Leese, you’re scaring me.”

  “It’s not bad, Cam.”

  She wouldn’t look me in the eye. I knew it was bad; it had to be. “Then just tell me. What is it? I can handle it! You told me a few days ago that the world was coming to an end, and that you were pregnant, and—”

  “You’re pregnant?” Yolanda shouted from behind us. Before I could move away, she was hugging the both of us. “Oh my God, you didn’t tell me that! That’s so exciting!”

  “Shut it!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “Tell me what the secret is! Please!”

  The sisters looked at me again. Yolanda giggled, and Liesel returned to her look of nerves and fright.

  “Cam… there’s a reason I came to Reno… there’s a reason I fell in love with you freshman year… from the moment I first saw you…”

  “You mean—”

  “It wasn’t random,” Liesel said. “The city. The high school. We were always… meant to be.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. I had no idea what she was talking about.

  Yolanda smiled. “That’s so sweet!”

  But I had by now tuned Yolanda out. I needed to hear the truth. “Liesel, look me in the eye and tell me…”

  She stared at me, but wouldn’t open her mouth.

  “Tell me
the truth, now, once and for all. Why did you come to Reno? Why did you fall for me? What is it about me?”

  Liesel looked at Yolanda, then back at me. She took a deep breath, and shrugged her shoulders.

  “You’re a witch, Cameron. The only male witch in the western United States.”

  I didn’t hear her second sentence.

  I had already fainted.

  YOLANDA

  Yolanda Foxwell hadn’t exactly been excited to see her sister before meeting her at Red Rock Canyon, but she was intrigued, to say the least. It had been over five years since they’d talked, of course, and she wondered what she’d look like these days. Would she have the long, flowing red hair? Would the freckles still be there? Would her boobs be bigger, or smaller, maybe? She was curious. And as she lay in bed with her boyfriend Shaun, a tall gangster white boy with three tattoos, a broken ankle, and an overbite, she started to wonder what the next few days would have in store.

  “I’m gonna be leaving soon,” she said to Shaun.

  “Where are you going?”

  “It might be for a few days. I don’t know for sure yet.”

  He lay on the bed next to her, wearing only a tank top and boxers, slowly caressing her shoulders. He had been aware of her odd behavior and wanted to know what was bothering her.

  “Can I go with you?” he asked.

  “No. This is a lone mission.”

  “A mission? What is it you’re actually gonna do?”

  She sat up in the bed and brushed the hair out of her face. She looked down the empty hallway and realized she probably would never step foot in this crummy house again. She had much bigger plans in her future than this guy and this town.

  “Somebody from my past has done a really terrible thing,” Yolanda said. “I can’t just sit by and let her go on.”

  Shaun shook his head, clearly taken aback by her vague little speech. “So when are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “What about your job?”

  She laughed and turned to him. “You don’t really listen to me much anymore, do you? I quit my job. Last week.”