by C. M. Murphy
She told herself it didn't matter, but she still felt stupid about being tricked. He was so good-looking. She should have known. Well, if he lied to her, she could lie to him. "I'm going to be busy this week," she said, knowing that if she succeeded in changing the past, she'd never see him again, anyway. "Call me after the weekend's over, and we'll go out then. Okay?"
Haniel gave her a weak smile. If his father succeeded in his plan, she'd die at her aunt's party. And in that minute, he resolved to make sure that wouldn't happen. "Promise?" he said.
Alma nodded, but Haniel needed more than a head nod.
"I know you're going through a lot, and you can tell I'm not being completely forthcoming, but in my defense, neither are you."
Alma's defenses against him weakened. He was right.
"Promise me, if I call you on Monday, you will pick up the phone, and we'll talk. I'll tell you everything."
Alma wondered if he was going to quit his job. She didn't want him to do that on her account. "I can't promise that."
"Why?"
"I may not be around come Monday."
Haniel swallowed hard. She knew! It stood to reason that she'd sensed her life was in danger. His lip trembled as he said, "I promise you, you'll be around."
"You can't know that," Alma said, putting her hand on his forearm to comfort him. Maybe he did like her even though he was her Witness. Charles Taylor seemed to have a thing for Win.
"Then promise me that if you're around on Monday, that you'll see me. You'll meet me."
Alma doubted she wouldn't be around, but there was always a chance. She opened the car door and said, "Don't do anything you wouldn't do if I wasn't around at all, because I might not be."
"I won't. Just promise me."
"If I'm here, I will," she said as she stepped out of the car, closed the door, and waved goodbye.
Haniel didn't push the issue and opted to drive away without saying another word. Breakfast hadn't gone as he'd hoped, but she would come around. He drove without caring where he was headed and plotted how and when he would kill his father.
Chapter Nineteen
Doug sped down Sepulveda Boulevard on his way to Alma's house. He'd called her three times this morning, and she hadn't picked up. He wished he'd thought to get Aunt Win Win's telephone number last night for her to run up and check on Alma. He cursed himself for waiting so long to rush over, but he'd assumed she was either in the shower or sleeping after the first two calls. Breakfast with Tita Win was also a possibility, and that's the one he hoped he'd find when he reached her place.
He turned onto Alma's street and didn't notice Haniel's car as he passed by it. Minutes later he found himself parked behind Alma's car in her driveway. He jumped out of the car and scrambled up her wooden stairs.
Alma heard the car in the driveway and rushed to the front door, worried it was Haniel. She opened the door to find Doug on the top step.
"Hey!" she said, surprised to see her best friend.
Doug, out of breath more from worry than the short run to her door, smiled with relief. "I called, and you didn't pick up. You're really here, right? Not half here half somewhere else?"
Alma pointed to the bracelet. "It's working."
"Maybe we need to go see your aunt just to be safe," Doug said, grabbing her by the wrist.
"We can, but can we wait a minute first?" Alma asked.
"Why didn't you pick up the phone?" Doug said. The concern in his eyes made Alma confess.
"I went on a breakfast date with Haniel, and it was a disaster." Alma's lip quivered. She hadn't thought it was so upsetting until she'd said it out loud.
"Alma, I'm sorry," Doug said, and meant it. No matter what his feelings for Alma were, he hated to see her in pain.
Alma waved Doug inside. She turned back to him, not sure of what to say. Doug swept her into his arms and held her. She cried. "I thought he might actually like me, but he's my Witness," Alma said in between sobs.
Doug's heart went cold. "What makes you think he's your Witness?"
"He started asking about being a paramortal as if he knew it had to be true. Who else would know that?"
Doug's mind jumped to high alert. "Did you ask him if he was your Witness?"
She shook her head. "He said his mother was one of us, an empath, and that's why he was into all the stuff Professor Cassidy and Leo wrote."
"It could be true," Doug said, stalling for time.
"I think he's going to quit."
"What makes you say that?"
"He said he would tell me everything on Monday, but—"
Alma realized she didn't want to talk about changing the past—and therefore the present— with Doug. He would tell Tita Win, and everyone would just try to discourage her.
"But what?"
"It doesn't matter. He's a liar. Let's go downstairs and get started."
A need to confess gripped Doug's heart, but before he gathered his courage Alma had already left the apartment. He rushed to catch up with her.
"Witnesses aren't a bad thing, you know. Taylor seems to truly care for your aunt," Doug said as they crossed the front lawn.
Alma stopped a few feet short of the front door and whispered, "Don't tell Tita Win about my date. I feel stupid going on a date at a time like this."
"I won't."
Alma smiled and put her hand on his arm and said, "You're a true friend."
Doug's gut churned with remorse. He never should have lied to Alma.
Not wanting to argue with Win or let her know she'd had a breakfast date, Alma ate a second breakfast. "But won't this ground me too much?" Alma said as Win put another slice of French toast onto Alma's plate.
"Are you sure you don't want to just stay put?" Win asked.
"I need to find out more, and I get this sense that he's coming for me soon."
"Did you see something last night?" Taylor asked. He was seated at the far end of the table drinking tea.
Alma shook her head no.
The doorbell rang and Tita Win Win went to answer it. Alma gave Doug her French toast. He smothered it in syrup. She'd seen him pour maple syrup right into a spoon and eat it before. "I'm cutting you off," she said and took the syrup from next to his plate to just out of his reach.
Doug smiled at her even though he'd fully planned to eat more syrup later to ease his nerves.
Professor Cassidy and Leo entered the living room and waved to Taylor, Alma, and Doug in the dining room. Nervousness tickled at Alma's stomach. They'd come here to help her. Yesterday's failure loomed in her mind.
Win offered breakfast to Cassidy and Leo. They declined food, but accepted coffee. Leo stared at Alma and smiled. It surprised him how pleased he was that she was his daughter. He'd never thought much about children in any of his lifetimes despite the statistical likelihood that he'd fathered many bastards.
Alma looked at everyone gathered at Tita Win’s house. A surge of self-consciousness swept through her. She searched her mind for a place to start.
"I want to know why my mother walked willingly to her own murder," Alma heard herself say.
"She knew there was no other way to protect you,” Win said.
"I got the vibe that her killer was someone she knew," Alma said even though she had no specific memory to back up her hypothesis.
“I suspected back then it might be a man she’d dated briefly, but your mom insisted it wasn’t him. They’d broken up months before she died. But now that you say the wak-wak was named James, I’m sure it was the man she’d dated,” Win said.
Doug pretended to look surprised as Win told how Alma's mother called home to the Philippines to find out from their mother how to make a forgetting potion. He appreciated that Aunt Win had chosen to keep his secret identity as Alma's witness, but guilt gnawed at him. Alma deserved the truth. He just needed to find the right time. Cassidy and Leo asked some of the same questions that he and Taylor had last night. Win told them she didn't get too many answers from Bernie at the time,
but knowing that memories—and in Bernie's case visions of the future—could be taken by a vampire, Win assumed that was her sister's reason for wanting to forget.
Taylor cleared his throat. "The prime time for him to strike is before you reach the peak of your power so there's enough for him to take, but not too much for you to fight back. Since all of this only started in the last week, it would stand to reason you'd have more time."
"That doesn't account for a few things," Win said.
Alma turned to her. "What things?"
"Let's just say that I think it would be a mistake to assume that we have a great deal of time."
Alma debated letting the details slide, but couldn't. "Tita Win, I'm in danger. This man or whatever he is killed Mom. I need to know everything."
Win Win exhaled and said, "You've been like this since before you were born. So much so, you took your mother with you a few times. At first, we thought Bernie was the one that could travel through time. But then Bernie told me she had visions of a future where a wak-wak tried to acquire your powers. So I did a binding type of healing on your mom and you, and it held until you were seven."
"What's a wak-wak?" Leo whispered to Cassidy while Alma and Win continued to talk. His whisper was loud enough for Taylor to hear.
"A mystical creatures from Filipino folklore and mythology. It's their word for vampire," Taylor whispered.
Leo tilted his head and nodded to the man, and then they tuned back to Alma and Win. Doug remained silent, too afraid he'd be outed as Alma's Witness at any moment.
"When you came to visit," Alma said, only vaguely remembering, "I don't remember traveling through time."
"Your power was very early stage. Mostly like pretending except you knew things you shouldn't know."
Alma remembered playing pretend, but not much.
"Your mother hadn't foreseen the binding wearing off so soon. So that was unexpected. She knew there would be a time when your power would become detected. She tried to forget as much as she could so when the vampire consumed her, he wouldn't know too much. But her power, like yours, is too great to erase all the way."
"And he consumes by literally blood murder or at least that’s what you guys at the Observatory believe, right?" Alma asked turning to Taylor.
Taylor glanced over to Cassidy and Leo with a pained expression on his face.
Leo laughed. "We have dozen of lives between us. We know you and The Observatory. Most of us do." Doug worried that if Cassidy and Leo knew about The Observatory, they also knew he was Alma's Witness.
Taylor raised his eyebrows with surprise. "Okay then. Most of our records on vampires are sealed, but since—"
"You're the director," Cassidy interrupted.
"Deputy director," Taylor corrected.
"Who is the director then?"
"It would be dishonorable of me to divulge knowledge that was given to me in confidence," Taylor said.
"But you're going to tell us the sealed vampire information. Wasn't that given to you in confidence?" Leo said.
"Actually, I stole it, because I was worried that it might be destroyed soon. So it's in the best interest of all of us that I share it now," Taylor said.
"Why do—" Leo began.
"Can we just get to the information first, and you can interrogate the man later?" Cassidy asked.
Leo smiled and nodded at his friend and then gestured for Taylor to continue.
"Thank you," Taylor said, speaking to Cassidy, but Leo assumed the thanks were for him.
"None of the books gave specifics on how vampires 'acquire' the life force from the people they kill, but it appears that much like other paramortals, the ability has a greater likelihood in certain families."
Doug reached across the table to grab the maple syrup. All of this talk of Alma being in danger along with the prospect of being outed as a Witness put him on edge. He needed the sugar. He swiped the container without drawing too much attention, but as he sat down the syrup bottle knocked over his coffee mug, toppling it and jettisoning the spoon he'd rested inside it onto the floor.
Alma stared at the spinning spoon. The way the light hit it triggered her memory. She'd seen this before, or rather something like it.
"Alma, are you going somewhere?" Tita Win asked.
"No, I'm just remembering something," Alma said.
"That's how it goes sometimes," Win said, stepping closer.
Alma picked up the spoon and stared at it. When she'd become her mother in the bathroom, Alma remembered that she'd put on the headband and went to the kitchen. To make sure she was still Bernadette, she'd ducked down to check her reflection on the side of the toaster on the counter.
"I see you," her mother said to her as they both stared at her mother's reflection. She walked back to the table. "You'll remember this," her mother told her, reaching for a book written by Irene Polk and opened to the foreword. "It's autographed, here," her mother said, pointing to Irene's signature. "Win Win will have it. Tell her hello. But for now, you'll forget, as I drink this coffee. Until you see this," her mother said as she kneeled down and spun a spoon on the floor. She stared at it.
Her mother had foreseen this moment and somehow figured out how to use it as a trigger. "She made me forget with the coffee, and remember with this spoon," Alma said.
"That was my coffee," Tita Win said. "Your mother drank it all the time to keep her memories hidden from the wak-wak."
"Well, Mom says hi, and she says you have a book for me. Irene wrote it and signed it."
"What do you need that for?" Win said.
"I think it's so I can go back and find out what Irene knows about Eternidad Paagiha."
Chapter Twenty
Winifred rummaged through the books in a box in the back of her bedroom closet with Taylor. "Why didn't she tell me? I could have accidentally thrown this away."
"Maybe the forgetting spells were timed to keep the information secret," Taylor said.
"Make sure to tell that to Alma if I forget where I put it," Winifred said as she furrowed her eyebrows and tore through another box of books.
Winifred had always appeared calm and in control to Taylor. At the moment, she appeared flustered. He found it distressing. He attempted to ease her worry. "Well, if it's—
"I found it!" Win Win said, standing up in the walk-in closet with a smile and heading for the door. Taylor headed for the door of the closet at the same time, and they bumped into each other.
"Terribly sorry," Taylor said.
Win laughed. "So polite."
Taylor smiled as he looked down at her. He towered over her—his six-foot-two-inch frame to her five feet. She nudged him playfully in the ribs with her arm. His smile grew even bigger at the contact.
"I missed you," Win declared.
Her honesty caught Taylor off guard and made a lump in his throat. "I've thought about you every day for over twenty years."
"You moved without saying a word, but I knew why."
The futility of his rash decision hit home. "Did you know who I was then?"
She nodded.
"Would you have forgiven me?"
"Nothing to forgive," she said, and hugged him.
Taylor pulled Winifred close and wrapped both arms around her. Her small body felt good against his. He'd longed to hold her for years. "So much time wasted."
Win pulled away just enough so she could look up at him and shook her head no. "There's a season for everything. Ours is coming."
Taylor nodded his head in agreement. He'd been successful with his fight against his tears, but if he spoke now, he worried his victory would be erased.
"Okay," Win said, pushing away after a moment. "Alma needs this," she said as she tucked the book under her arm and headed out of the closet and back to the dining room.
Leo sat across from Alma at the table and continued to steal looks at her. Her determination and good looks reminded him of himself.
"I found it!" Tita Win Win said as she entered the dinin
g room and rushed to Alma to hand her the book. "It's signed by the author."
"Why does that matter?" Leo asked.
"I think it makes it easier for me to find someone," Alma said.
Win Win nodded.
"That energy, like the energy that radiates from the antiques," Cassidy said. "Home in on that."
"I can do that," Alma said, "but I can't get back."
"We need to ground her here," Win Win said, signaling to Leo.
"Why him?" Alma asked.
Win paused and opted not to lie, but not reveal the whole truth. "Because he knew your mother."
Leo and Win exchanged a quick look, and Leo realized Win knew his secret.
"Didn't Cassidy know her more?" Alma asked.
"Yes. We'll all ground you. We need to sit in a circle," Win said. "Let's go into the living room. We can move the coffee table."
"Is this like a witch thing?" Doug asked.
"Yes," Win answered in her usual upbeat manner, heading for the coffee table. "Now grab the other end for me."
"I'll get that for you," Taylor said, and rushed over to her side to take the end of the table Tita Win was reaching for.
Alma noticed how much Win beamed at the sight of Taylor lending a helping hand.
Win Win urged everyone to sit crosslegged. She maneuvered Leo to the left of Alma and put herself to Alma's right. "Okay everyone, Alma is going to take off the bracelet, and focus our energy on the book. You all hold hands, and you," she said, pointing to Leo, "do what I do." Win put one hand around Alma's wrist and put the other hand on her shoulder. "If it gets really bad, I'll cover her third eye."
Alma thought it was weird that everyone other than Leo and Tita Win just sort of sat there holding hands, but she figured it couldn't hurt. She held the book in her hands, and Leo and her aunt essentially held her down. Alma worried that she’d go nowhere like what happened at Cassidy's house. But then, a powerful zap of electricity surged from the book. Wind whipped by Alma's face, and she could see that even the other people in the room could feel it.
