Talking with Ruthie had left me exhausted. Maybe after a good night’s sleep, I could deal with reading between the lines of her stories or interpreting her riddles, but right now, I didn’t have the energy.
Gravel crunched under my feet as I headed toward my car. The other car must’ve been Chief’s, but from the amount of liquor he’d been drinking, he might be sleeping it off in the bar tonight. For all I knew, he lived here.
The tombstones clustered on the hill behind me made me uneasy. Fog curled around the stones, as if caressing them. At least the fog was normal looking, not the black stuff accompanying Drake.
The clear night, and the multitude of stars highlighting the waxing moon provided a spectacular backdrop. A rustling in the woods distracted me from the view. I tensed, scanning the trees. The shadow might’ve been an animal. I squinted, but couldn’t tell. It looked like a dog pushing through the underbrush, like one of the hounds Mrs. Shaw had been babbling about. A light illuminated the animal as it moved my way. It didn’t look like any dog I’d ever seen, but I wasn’t waiting to find out what kind of animal it was.
I picked up my pace, resisting the urge to run, yet fear sparked renewed energy within me. Hunching my shoulders as the feeling of being watched grew, and the hairs rose on the back of my neck, I closed in on my car with my keys extended.
A large arm wrapped around my torso binding my arms, and a hand covered my mouth with a cloth, reducing my scream to a muffled protest. My confusion turned to panic as I struggled. The arm tightened around me, like a snake contained its prey, and my attacker lifted me from the ground. I kicked and tried to bite through the cloth, helplessly watching the scenery speed by while being carried to the back of the building.
My struggling slowed and finally ceased as my mind became fuzzy. My head lolled to the side, providing me with a view of the tombstones.
Perhaps I’m on my way to securing my space amongst them.
****
My nose was painfully itchy. I wiggled it back and forth to try to alleviate the irritation without success. Usually there wasn’t much worse than feeling as if nothing could bring greater relief than scratching an elusive itch.
I’d found worse.
My hands were bound behind me. I tugged, managing to shift the sticky tape pulling on the tiny hairs on my arm like a giant Band-Aid. My captor must’ve run out of tape because my shoelaces were tied together to hobble my feet.
I imagined a potato sack race. If I could only get upright…I could try to escape.
I didn’t have much confidence in that plan, though. The last time I tried was when I was five years old...and I’d lost that race.
I turned my head, trying to wiggle off the soft cloth covering my eyes. My stomach rolled in protest at the overpowering aroma of cinnamon. I swallowed, hoping I didn’t die choking on my own vomit. Judging by the limited space on the cushion, I was lying on my side on what must be a couch. As I gained my awareness, I realized I wasn’t alone.
“What were you thinking? Have you lost your mind?” A female voice carried over from a nearby room.
Female? From the size and strength of my captor, it had to be a male. If a woman had arms that long and hairy, it would be unfortunate for her. But that meant there was more than one involved.
“I had to,” the man with the snake-like arms replied in a hushed tone. “We’re running out of time.”
“You could have hurt her.”
“They know who she is. After Essie…”
The silence was absolute with my hindered vision. I swallowed as my mouth watered with the rising nausea accompanying my headache.
The man continued, “Who knows which one of us is next? Besides, it wasn’t working on her. I tried. She must have an immunity to me.”
“That makes sense, because you never could convince me to do anything I didn’t want to do,” the silky-voiced female replied. “I guess that’s something else to prove she’s…”
I waited, but she didn’t finish her sentence, she just let the words trail off. I couldn’t tell if it was night or day, or how long I’d been out. I’m sure they’d have had ample time to mutilate or kill me if they’d wanted. I hoped that meant I wasn’t in imminent danger, unless they intended to use me in a human sacrificial ritual to rid my body of the devil inside me, as Sister Esther used to whisper while making the sign of the cross. When I shifted on the cushion, my heart rate accelerated. The sudden move awakened the urge in my bladder. Damn me and my overactive imagination.
Damn the extra soda I drank before the end of my shift.
“I think she’s awake,” the male said.
“Thank God,” the female said. “What if you’d given her too much? It was stupid of you to use a mix you’ve never tried before. You should’ve asked me to help. You know I’m better at potions. You could’ve killed her.”
“You wouldn’t have let me do it if I told you, and I didn’t really plan for this to happen. Besides, who was I going to try it on? It’s not like I have others volunteering to be knocked unconscious.”
“I’d love to knock you unconscious right about now,” the irritated woman replied. “I’m telling you this was the wrong way to go about this.”
“I didn’t hear any suggestions from you on how to get her here without telling her everything. Shit, if I’d told her everything, she’d have taken off the day she got here,” the male said.
“Would bringing her here this way be against the rules?” the female whispered.
“Rules? There are no rules that we know of. Do you think they care about rules?”
“It has to be her choice, remember?”
She’ll choose us,” the male said, with confidence.
“You don’t know that.”
Footsteps approached, and I stilled, playing possum until I determined their next move. Someone hovered over me inhaling and exhaling, the warm breath caressing my cheek while I held my own breath for as long as I could.
“If you promise not to scream, I’ll take the tape off your mouth,” he said. “Nod if you agree.”
Without further ado, the tape was ripped from my lips. Taking stray hairs, skin, and any lingering fear with it, to be replaced with being mighty pissed off.
“Holy crap that hurt. You didn’t even give me time to nod. You couldn’t have been a bit more gentle, could you, asshole?”
“Wow, she’s a feisty one,” the she-monster said. “The potion must’ve successfully worn off. You did better than I thought.”
If I had any feeling left in my numb legs after they released me from their low-budget bondage, they were so dead.
“Hope, I’m sorry. I really am,” he said. “I didn’t want to do this, but I had to, for your own good.”
“My own good? I don’t know how you know my name, but you don’t know what’s good for me, you son of a bitch.” I wiggled around, succeeding in falling onto the floor, landing with a thud on my side.
The floorboards squeaked as someone approached. “Are you okay? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?” the female said.
“Destiny,” the man said. “It’s better if you wait in the other room, Sis. It’d be too much for her all at once.”
Soft footsteps retreated.
Sis? Great, I’d been kidnapped by the Manson family. There was no way I was shaving my head. My ears stick out as it is. If I was bald, they’d look like cabinet doors.
“I’m going to take your blindfold off.”
He tugged at the back of the material and slid it over my face. My headache made the sudden intrusion of light painful so I squeezed my eyes shut.
As the white spots in my vision dissipated, the legs of a coffee table, dust bunnies under another couch in front of me, along with four almond shaped eyes came into view. Tercet? How did she get here? And why were there two of her? When I looked again, she was gone.
A hairy hand held a stretched out sock with a hole in the toe in front of me. “You used your sock? How disgusting. What kind of kidnapper ar
e you?”
“I didn’t have anything else. It’s not as if I planned to do this. I’m not a kidnapper. I panicked.”
I got my first look at my captor.
“You.” I glared at the would-be flasher from the grocery store. “Can’t take no for an answer?”
The woman he’d called Destiny yelled from the other room. “Shut up and listen, for once. If you’d have done that earlier it wouldn’t have come to this.”
I could hear murmurings of other people in the house, whispered fragments of conversation. It seemed like they were coming from everywhere, but no one else was in the room except for him.
I stilled, suddenly feeling weary as the migraine gained ground. I closed my eyes. For the first time, I wondered if I could’ve found a way to stay in my old life with my boring old name. Boring would be welcome about now.
I examined his large foot clad in a tennis shoe in front of my face. “Just who the hell are you people, and what do you want from me?”
He knelt on the floor. “I’m Chance, remember? Now, I’m going to lift you back up on the couch so you’ll be more comfortable.”
I cringed back.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’d never hurt you.” He stared at me with his sea green eyes. “I know you’re confused, but we can help you understand. You’re one of us, now.” He bit his lower lip. “That is, if you choose us. But…I know you will.”
“You don’t know me. No one in this God-forsaken town knows me. In fact, no one’s given a rat’s ass about me for the last twenty-one years of my life except…”
I’d been about to say Tessa, and then remembered, she was dead. I didn’t have anyone.
“Because we weren’t permitted to know about you. They used an unknowing spell. The spell was supposed to be for our protection, but when Aunt Essie died—” His voice caught and he turned away. “Well, the spell must’ve been broken early, and it put us all in danger,” he said, as if I had any idea who Aunt Essie was, let alone babble about a spell.
True to his word, he picked me up gently and set me on the couch where I remained immobile like one of Ruthie’s creepy dolls. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, all this talk about witches and spells the last few days.” I sighed. “Can you at least untie me?”
“In a minute. I need to tell you a few things first, and I don’t want you to take off or attack me again.”
I noticed the scratches on his arms and face, satisfied I’d went down with a fight. He reached for the fly on his jeans, again. Apparently, the kidnapping provided a radical method to finish what he started at the grocery store.
He held up his free hand when he noticed me glaring. “I want to show you my hip, nothing more,” he added. “It will help you believe what I’m going to tell you.” He unbuckled his jeans, and I squeezed my eyes together tighter. I heard his zipper going down. Cracking an eye, I was relieved to note one-eyed Willie remained in the barn. Chance’s jeans and boxers were pulled down on his right hip a few inches where he had a large birthmark shaped like an arrow with three distinct points.
It looked exactly like the one on my right hip.
Chapter Nine
“What does that mean?” Though disheveled, my jeans and top were intact. “How did you know? What did you do when you had me unconscious, you pervert?”
“Nothing, for goodness’ sake. I’m your brother.”
“My brother?” The foreign word stuck to my tongue. All these years I’d spent wondering about my mother. Who she was, the life she lived, why she’d abandoned me? Never once had I considered siblings or that my mother might’ve had other children. Children she wanted…unlike me.
“I don’t believe you.” I tugged at my bound wrists and feet. “Besides, this is a hell of a way to have a family reunion.”
“You wouldn’t give me time to explain. Waiting any longer was too dangerous. Couldn’t you sense her there? I’m sure she would’ve sent one of them to stop me. I had to act.” Chance ran his hand through his shaggy locks, causing more disarray. “They know we’re together, now. The stakes are raised because we’ve made it this far, and they might think you’ve already chosen. They’ll want to tempt you, but I know you’re stronger than that.”
“Them?” I raised my voice, increasing the pain in my head. “I’ve never met more paranoid people in my life, and that’s saying a lot, considering I’ve worked in mental health.”
He plopped down onto the end of the couch, his weight tilting me to one side as the cushions adjusted. “Ruthie warned us you didn’t know much.”
“Ruthie? She’s involved in kidnapping me as well?” The pain of another betrayal burned through me. “Know what? I have a ready-made family who’ve decided, after twenty-one years, it’s imperative we get to know each other?”
“If only that was all I had to make you believe…” He laughed without mirth. “It would’ve been better if Aunt Essie were alive. She would’ve known how to explain a world you didn’t know existed.” He stood and began to pace. “Heck, I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen things with my own eyes. But I guess first things first. I’d like for you to meet our sister.”
“Destiny,” Chance called.
“I don’t give a crap about—”
She stopped in the doorway, resting her hip against the jam. Thick waves of shocking red hair cascaded over thin toned arms to a narrow waist. She stared at me, not looking any happier than I probably did at the moment. Her eyes were green, flecked with gold. Her lips were tight with her chin held high in defiance. I’d seen that expression before. Every time I’ve looked in the mirror.
She looked exactly like me. That is, if I started wearing big, flowing skirts and frilly tops. She was like me, but better. It was like one of those before and after pictures, except I represented the before picture. Making me acutely aware of my new shaggy hair-do and the couple of extra pounds carried. “Twins?”
“No.” Destiny’s gaze never wavered, a small smile played on her lips.
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud. “What? Another spell then? Or wait…don’t tell me, there’s a full moon?”
Destiny cringed at my tone. “Actually, the moon―”
“It’s not the time, Destiny,” Chance said. “Hope.” He rested his hand on my shoulder and I stiffened. “It’s true. You and Destiny are identical, but you’re not twins. We’re triplets.”
Destiny pulled down the elastic on the right side of her peasant skirt and exposed her matching birthmark. She smiled at me, as if this information would make me happy.
Chance squatted in front of me. “I’m going to untie you.” He fumbled with my shoelaces. “You’re not going to do anything crazy, are you?”
“Crazy?” My laugh came out a little on the hysterical side. I stared numbly ahead. He was right. It was too much. I didn’t know what to believe. My whole world had gone crazy over the past month. To think of the taunts I’d endured all my life. “Jane, Jane, she’s insane, touch her and she’ll give you pain.” Those kids knew nothing about crazy…or pain.
I clenched my teeth as he knelt to remove the duct tape from my wrists, using more care, so it wasn’t nearly as painful. I rubbed my wrists, covered with sticky reside from the tape, and stretched my arms to loosen some of the stiffness from having them in the awkward position for so long.
The murmurs from the other room grew louder. I pinched the bridge of my nose to try to stem the increasing pain in my head. They must have the whole damn family waiting. As if on cue, the smell of cinnamon increased, filling the room and my senses. “Perfect,” I said. “Could you ask those people to shut up? I’m not up to meeting anyone else today. I mean anyone, claimed family or not.”
My so-called sister and brother gaped at me, alike in their easy smiles.
“Tell who to shut up?” Chance peered around the vacant living room, trying to conceal his unease.
I hesitated, focusing on my tennis shoes, noting the wary look my so-called siblings gave me—one all too fa
miliar from the years I spent in the orphanage.
“Oh, nothing.” I stood and they both took a tentative step away from me. Good. They should be nervous.
I rolled my lips together, trying to pull any moisture out of them. Reaching into my pocket for my lip moisturizer, I brushed against the magazine picture crumpled in there. My newfound siblings huddled together watching me. Chance took Destiny’s hand in his. I noted their clasped hands and how Destiny leaned into her brother for support. How he drew her closer to protect her, from me. Rage welled in my gut.
“So when do I meet Mom? Do I need to wait for an invite to Sunday dinner?” I crossed my arms over my chest to control my shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or the impending migraine, but my body quaked as if I might explode.
Destiny and Chance exchanged a look I couldn’t read. The murmuring in my head waxed and waned. I resisted the urge to place my hand there to stop the sound, which came less from the other room and more from inside my head.
“Well?” Perhaps my journey would end here. Discovering the children Mom wanted, unlike me, made the pain of abandonment all the more acute.
“Hope.” Chance took a step toward me with his arm outstretched. When I backed away, he looked to Destiny who nodded her encouragement. “Our mother died giving birth to us.”
“Died? She’s dead?” The pain and noise in my head reached its maximum, and the smell of cinnamon gagged my throat.
I really was an orphan.
I’d always been one, but didn’t want to believe it, thinking my mother was out there waiting to tell me I wasn’t a freak, and explain her reason for leaving me at the orphanage. Something other than the story whispered among the nuns, that she’d left me there for them to absolve the evil harbored within me. Now that would never happen.
“No.” I shook my head, clasping my hands over my ears. “No.”
“Are you okay?” Chance said.
I couldn’t stand the pity reflected in their faces. “I’ll be better once I’m out of here.” I shoved him aside and ran for the door.
“Hope, wait.” He regained his balance and pursued me.
Destiny Calling Page 9
