Just under an hour, and no message from him.
If an hour goes by and you haven’t heard from me…
His words echoed in her head, and Autumn bit her thumbnail again, watching as the minute slot on her phone’s clock changed. In three minutes, he would have been gone for an hour, so if he didn’t text her in those three minutes, or show back up at the house, then she should call Connelly Security.
That’s what he’d told her to do, and she would, even if she wasn’t sure how to explain the situation or if she should tell them to be worried or not. Surely he hadn’t been gone this long because something was wrong. He was a very introverted man—so he was probably just looking around and forgetting that someone like Autumn would want regular updates, even if he didn’t have anything important to say. Probably in another fifteen minutes or so, he would check his watch and realize he’d lost track of time, text her, and tell her that there was nothing of note. That the woods were normal.
They had always been normal.
The sound of a car pulling into her driveway distracted Autumn from her immediate worries, and she hurried to open the back door and then ran to the car. Rachel looked pale and sweaty as she carefully got out of the car, and Autumn scooped her daughter up in her arms—something she could still do because Rachel was built as slightly as she was—and carried her inside.
“Sweetie, I’m so sorry you’re sick,” Autumn said, kissing Rachel’s damp hair as she walked her back toward her bedroom and lay her on the bed. “How are you feeling?’
Rachel groaned, shaking her head. “I’m sick, Mommy.”
“I know,” Autumn said, pulling off the little girl’s shoes and socks and tossing them aside. She changed Rachel into her comfortable clothes and tucked her into bed, watching carefully as her daughter’s eyes fluttered between open and closed. It was amazing how quickly Rachel had gone from being perfectly fine to being this ill. The damned stomach bug. Autumn was always in danger of bringing it home from the hospital to her kids.
Easing Rachel’s new doll out from under her arm, Autumn placed it beside Rachel on the pillow and kissed the girl’s forehead. “I’m going to bring you some medicine, and then you need to get some sleep, baby girl.
Rachel mumbled her understanding, and Autumn hurried back out to the kitchen to find the fever suppressors and anti-nausea pills she’d left out.
“She’s pretty sick,” Autumn told Tamara, who was sitting at the kitchen table with Anna. “Definitely a stomach bug of some kind. We’re all probably going to get it. Tamara, why don’t you go home and sterilize yourself—take a shower, change your clothes, and take some of that Vitamin C stuff I gave you. That will help, even though you’re probably doomed anyway.” She gave the woman an apologetic look. “I’ll bring you some chicken noodle soup later on.”
Tamara stood up, shaking her head. “No, don’t trouble yourself. But I will go and shower and change. Then I’ll check back in with you later, okay?”
“Okay,” Autumn agreed. “Thank you so much for everything.”
The two women hugged, and then Anna hurried back to Rachel’s room to give her the medications. It was hard for Rachel to swallow them down, but she managed to do so before falling back onto her pillow, closing her eyes, and falling straight to sleep.
Autumn watched over her for a moment in the room that was decorated with purple and blue flowers, a compromise between the two girls, and then slipped away, rejoining her eldest in the kitchen.
Leaning up against the counter, she took a deep breath and ran a hand over her closely cropped hair. “How are you feeling?” she asked Anna, studying the girl closely. “Any sickness at all?”
Anna shook her head. “No, I’m fine. But you know me. I’m resilient.”
Autumn smiled slightly, nodding. “You certainly are. But we’re going to be safe rather than sorry, okay? I’d like you to go take a shower and change your clothes, and I’ll make you up a Vitamin C drink. Deal?”
“Okay,” Anna agreed, standing up from the table. She walked over and gave her mother a hug. “I’m glad you said we don’t have to go back to Papa and Nonna’s. I like visiting them, but it’s a long drive, and I like our house better.”
Kissing Anna’s head, Autumn rubbed her back. “Me too, baby.”
Anna slipped away to the bathroom, and Autumn pulled out her phone, her heart sinking when she realized that another fifteen minutes had passed and she hadn’t heard from Eamon. And he wasn’t back either.
Just to make sure, she went to the front window and peeked through the blinds, checking to see if he was outside anywhere.
He wasn’t, but what she did see made her heart lurch in her chest.
Her mailbox flag was up, as it would be if she had placed a letter there for the mailman to retrieve. Except that she hadn’t put anything in the mailbox at all. She knew, instinctively, that it was a sign from whoever was tormenting her that another letter had been dropped, and she didn’t know if she dared to go out there to retrieve it.
Maybe she should call the security agency first.
Or maybe it was a letter about what had happened to Eamon.
Don’t be ridiculous, Autumn. Nothing’s happened to him. He’s in the woods, investigating, and he’s lost track of time. He can handle himself if he comes up against something anyway. He’s strong. Tough. Like you need to be.
The mental pep talk did little to actually boost her optimism, but it did get her out the front door, which she left cracked open. Hurrying to the mailbox, she carefully opened it and photographed the lone letter lying there, just as she had with the second letter she’d received. Then she reached in, her fingertips making contact with the folded white paper as she slid it slowly toward her.
Holding her breath, she opened the note, but all that she saw were three words.
We warned you.
Autumn gasped and pressed a hand to her stomach, the sickness there not at all like whatever was plaguing her daughter. The sickness was a result of the horrible dread that filled her, and she dropped the letter as though it were on fire, taking a step back as it fell to the ground. It wouldn’t have surprised her if the letter disintegrated on contact with the ground, but it lay there, pretending to be innocuous. Pretending like it didn’t contain the confirmation of a threat being carried out.
They had warned her, and now they were going to act. But how? Against who? When?
She whirled, looking back at her house, the door left open, and she ran back inside. “Anna? Anna! Are you all right? Rachel?”
“Mom?” Anna’s voice came from the bathroom, where the shower was running. “What’s wrong?”
Autumn was already to Rachel’s door, looking in on her daughter who was ill but resting relatively peacefully.
“Nothing,” Autumn managed, swallowing the lump in her throat as she willed her panic to pass. Her kids were safe. They were all safe. “Nothing, sweetie. Sorry. I…thought I heard something.”
“Oh. You scared me.”
“I know,” Autumn said, forcing a laugh. “Silly me.”
Walking slowly back out to her living room, Autumn doubled-locked every door in the house and sat down on the couch. She texted Eamon, and then she counted every second of five minutes, forcing herself to wait at least that long for a response. When there was none, she dialed the agency number and listened to it ring twice, three times, then four times.
When a female voice answered the phone, Autumn wasted no time. “I need help.”
Chapter Nine
Eamon
Forests weren’t supposed to be blue.
Eamon was relatively sure of that fact as he stood in the clearing, the force that had tugged on his arm nowhere to be seen or felt. When he’d stumbled through the barrier, it had let go of him, leaving him standing on his own, his eyes free to roam over the strange scene in front of him.
The trees were still there, providing a circular barrier around a large expanse of grass, but everything was covered with a blue ti
nt that made it feel as though they were underwater. But if they were underwater, the animals prowling around the clearing wouldn’t be there. Jet black wolves gathered on the side of the clearing opposite from him, and amongst them, brown and white rabbits hopped, untroubled by the presence of the great predators beside them. Large birds he couldn’t name circled the clearing, sometimes stopping to land on a log or walk along the little pond that was on the eastern side. Deer walked in and out of the clearing as well, but they were small, snow-white creatures, and when they turned to look at him, it was as though their dark eyes could see right through him.
There was an air of mysticism all around him, and while Eamon had no idea where he was now, who had brought him there, or for what purpose, he was confident that there was a supernatural force behind it—and behind what Autumn had seen just days earlier. That meant that the threats she had been receiving were to be taken seriously. They weren’t the work of some group of people trying to scare her out of revealing their strange forest proclivities. They were the result of her inadvertently stumbling into an entirely different world—one no doubt inhabited by very powerful people who didn’t believe that the moral standards that humans lived by applied to them.
Minutes ticked by as Eamon took in the details of his surroundings, not moving a step away from where he had landed. But as he waited, assessing, and nothing happened, he began to grow warier. Whoever had brought him into this version of the clearing clearly had a purpose, and the longer that purpose remained unclear, the more likely he was to fall susceptible to it.
Eamon moved forward, pausing to see if his movement would trigger any reaction, then when it didn’t, he took a few steps further, until he was in the center of the clearing. Still, he felt no reaction to the supernatural power at work skimming along his skin, the way he should, and he reached out with his senses, searching for it. Blankness answered him.
Turning in a slow circle, he tried to see anything that might give him a clue to go off of, but all he saw were the animals going about their peaceful coexistence, predator and prey mingling together. He wanted to see more though, and he wondered what would happen if he flew above the clearing, looking down at it from the sky. No one seemed inclined to interact with him, so there was no one to see or object to his transition, and he made his decision easily.
Eamon stripped off his clothes, leaving them in a pile in the blue-tinted grass, and then, naked, jumped into the air, ready to unfurl his brilliant-white wings and lift himself into the sky.
He was in the air for mere seconds before crashing back down to the grass, landing with a thud on his left shoulder and hip before rolling onto his side and staring up at the sky in astonishment. Ever since he was a boy and first began to transition at five years old, he’d never tried and failed to shift into his dragon form. Shifting was as natural as breathing, and sometimes it was more work to maintain his human form than it was to maintain his dragon form. Transitioning was like a release—an explosion that created the power and beauty contained in his snow-white dragon.
Now, as he lay there, breathing heavily as he stared up at the sky, he had the sickening realization that whatever supernatural barrier encircled this clearing blocked or interfered with other powers, and that was why he couldn’t sense anything…and why he couldn’t transition.
It left him totally vulnerable, and not just because he was lying prone and naked on some other being’s territory. Without his ability to shift, he was without the only weapon he knew. He suspected that even his unusual strength and speed in his human form would be lessened by the impact of whatever spell had been placed over this spot, and if he was attacked or confined, there would be nothing he could do to protect himself.
Eamon heard the crack of a twig under a foot, and he quickly scrambled to his feet, grabbing his clothes and yanking them over his body as he whirled around in a circle, trying to determine where the sound had come from. If he was going to have to defend himself without the aid of any of his powers, he couldn’t afford to be taken by surprise, and he continued making his slow circle, his hands raised in position to take the first blow as soon as he saw who was approaching.
Another crack echoed through the clearing, and Eamon’s nerves set on edge. “Show yourself!” he shouted, speaking for the first time since he’d fallen into this other world. His words echoed all around him, as though they were bouncing off the invisible barriers over and over again. “Show yourself!” he repeated, anger in his voice. “You brought me here—come face me!”
“I didn’t bring you here.”
The voice came from behind Eamon, and he whirled, one fist thrust outward to make contact with the person, who had sounded as though she was directly behind him. But his fist cut through the air, falling harmlessly at his side, and for as far as he could see, there was no evidence of any person in the clearing aside from himself.
“You forced yourself on us.”
The voice was behind him again, and Eamon spun around, faced with nothing once again.
“Just like your friend. Autumn.”
Eamon didn’t turn this time, knowing that wherever he looked, there would be no person to look back at him. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“She’s seen too much. And so have you.”
“I’m only seeing this because you brought me here!” Eamon argued. “We don’t want anything to do with you. Leave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone.”
It wasn’t true. Eamon knew that, whatever this power was, it couldn’t go unchecked. He couldn’t walk away, even if he was allowed to, and just forget what he had found in the suburban forests of Boston. But he had to get out of here first, if he was going to do anything about it, and he was willing to say whatever he had to for that to happen.
“Oh, it’s too late for that,” the voice told him, this time sounding as though she was above him. Her voice was light, breathy, and daintily feminine. Eamon knew better than to rely on that information to get a sense of her. He had no doubt that her power was immense and that, when she chose, she was anything but dainty—at least in impact.
“It’s not too late,” he said. “Live and let live. We’ll go our way and you go yours.”
There was a soft chuckle all around him. “No. She should never have seen us that night. She was given instructions as to how to fix her error, and she refused. The sequence has been initiated, and no one can stop it now. You’ve been brought here as a demonstration of what we can do. Don’t underestimate us, Eamon. That would be very unwise.”
As the last words faded, so did the blue tint that made the forest appear to be underwater. Eamon found himself standing in a normal-looking clearing, empty of animal activity, and utterly uninteresting in every way. The only remnant of his experience was his pounding heart and sweating palms.
It took a lot to unsettle Eamon. He was confident in his powers and his ability to combat whatever he came up against. But what had just happened more than unsettled him. Whatever Autumn had stumbled into was much bigger than her.
He could only hope that it wasn’t much bigger than both of them.
Chapter Ten
Autumn
It had been five hours since Eamon had disappeared into the woods, and Autumn was at her wits’ end, trying to keep Rachel comfortable as the girl grew sicker and sicker and also trying to coordinate with the Connolly Security agents who had come out to try to find their absent colleague and friend. Wracked with guilt over what she might have sent Eamon into, and consumed with fear over what might happen to her and her girls if Eamon had been attacked by whatever was in that forest, Autumn could hardly focus on either task. Rachel was throwing up every hour, shaking and shivering in between bouts of nausea; Anna was quarantined to her room to avoid the germs that were no doubt crawling around in their house; and strangers were in and out of Autumn’s front door as they tried to coordinate a search of the woods.
Autumn knew she needed to get her daughter to the hospital so that she could stay hydrate
d through an IV, but she couldn’t leave Anna or the search, and she didn’t know how to be everywhere at once.
“Here.” Tamara handed Autumn a plate of food and a glass of water as she met her in the hall. “You have to eat something. It’s eight o’clock at night and you haven’t eaten since lunch. You can’t afford to get sick too.”
Shaking her head, Autumn pushed the plate away. “No. Thank you, Tamara, but I really couldn’t eat. She just threw up again. I’ve got to get her to the hospital—I can’t keep her here. I just need to check in with the people looking for Eamon first.” She pushed the hair off her forehead, trying to stay steady. “God, I hope he’s okay. He’s in there because of me.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Tamara assured her. “I’ll check on Anna, then start to get Rachel’s things together. Go check with the search, and then we can get Rachel loaded into the car. I’ll stay here with Anna and oversee whatever they’re doing out there.”
Autumn was so grateful for Tamara that she could have cried. But there was no time for that. “Thank you,” she said instead, squeezing the woman’s arm.
“Eat, if you want to thank me.”
Reluctantly, Autumn took one half of the sandwich Tamara had prepared and nodded her thanks as she hurried outside to see what was happening with the people from Connolly Security.
There were three of them milling about her front yard, talking in hushed tones, and she approached them. “Hi,” she said, clearing her throat. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Has there been any news? Do you know anything? My daughter is very sick, and I have to take her to the hospital for liquids and monitoring, but I hate to leave without knowing what happened to Eamon. It’s my fault that he’s in there. I know it is. You all probably hate me, and I’ll hate myself too if anything happens to him. I just didn’t know what else to do—I was getting these threats. And what I saw in there…it was so strange. I didn’t know what else to do but to go to someone, but I would never have told him to go in there if I thought that he would be hurt. I—”
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