Alexandra's Riddle (Northwest Magic Book 1)

by Elisa Keyston

  “You do! You have to remember, Cass!”

  Remember? Remember what? How was she supposed to even think with a swarm of magical creatures climbing all over her body, all over Matthew, grasping and clawing and biting, pain shooting through her so intensely that even her crawling skin and churning stomach felt like a distant memory.

  Her vision swam, and out of the corner of her mind’s eye, she saw it—this tree, in the dappled sunlight of morning.

  “That’s it! Remember!”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, grasping for it, and then it came to her, as strong as the vision she’d had this afternoon. But this wasn’t a vision of the future—it was a memory of the past.

  She and Aunt Alexandra were walking down the trail. She was little, so small that her head only went as high as her great-aunt’s hip. Alexandra held her hand tightly, guiding her over roots and rocks and other bumps on the trail. And on Alexandra’s shoulder sat Green, perched like a parrot.

  “Here it is,” Alexandra said as they entered the clearing. “The warren.”

  “This is where faeries are born?” Cass asked, looking at Green hesitantly. Her childish voice was like a memory from a dream.

  “Close enough,” Green replied.

  “Without this tree, Green and all your other friends would die,” Aunt Alexandra told her. “So that’s why we have to keep it safe.”

  “That’s why you have to stay here forever?” Cass asked.

  “Nobody can stay here forever,” Aunt Alexandra said with a laugh. “Someone else will have to protect it someday, when I’m gone.”

  “I’ll do it,” Cass said eagerly, looking from her aunt to Green to the tree. Faeries and gnomes climbed all over its branches like a jungle gym, watching her curiously.

  “Are you sure?” Alexandra asked. “It’s a big responsibility.”

  “I’ll do it!” Cass repeated. “I promise!”

  Cass’s vision swam again, and she was back in the present moment. The fae swarming over her had stilled, their attacks halted. They clung to her silently. Waiting.

  Waiting for her to remember her promise.

  She pushed away from the tree, the fae dropping off her to the ground, watching. Her knees wobbled, but Matthew caught her elbow, steadying her. Green sat on his shoulder, watching Cass.

  Everyone was watching Cass.

  She looked around the clearing, then back at the tree. At Lily’s sleeping face peeking out through the bark. Then she sighed.

  Cass crouched, placing her hands on a large, knobbly root. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I’m sorry for the mistakes I’ve made. I’m sorry I forgot.” A promise made when she was too young to know what she was saying, but still binding nonetheless. A promise forgotten. Years in the human world had worn her down, stripped her of the joy she’d felt in all things magical before all the whispered jeers of her classmates and concerned eyes of adults had hardened her. She’d been so concerned about what others thought about her that she’d isolated herself in a man-made prison of concrete and iron. She’d been so desperate to forget who she really was that her mind had obliged.

  But it was time to remember. To save Lily. To save Riddle.

  To save the woods.

  “I renew my promise,” she said, her voice echoing around the clearing. “I will accept my role as caretaker of these woods. As long as I’m living, the warren and all the other trees here will be safe.”

  Warmth flowed from the roots of the tree into Cass’s hands. The bark glowed softly, as if illuminated by a bright, full moon overhead. The fae retreated back into the branches, watching from above.

  And then the trunk parted down its seam, glowing brightly, and Lily slumped forward as the tree released her. Matthew moved to catch her, lowering her to her knees as the light from the tree dissipated. A moment later, the girl’s eyelashes fluttered, and her eyes slowly opened.

  She looked around from Cass to Matthew to Green in confusion. “Where am I?” she asked at last, her voice thick with sleep.

  “You gave us a scare there, Lily,” Matthew said, grinning in relief.

  “You found the warren,” Cass said. “Good job.”

  “I did?” Lily murmured, still seeming confused. Then she blinked, her eyes focusing on Cass, and sat bolt upright.

  “Ms. Cass! You didn’t leave?” She slumped a little. “But you’re still going to.”

  “No,” Cass said. “I’m staying.”

  Lily’s eyes widened. “You are?”

  Cass nodded. “You were right, Lily. I’m sorry about what I said before. I was being selfish. But I want to start over. You had the right idea, kid,” she said, gently stroking Lily’s sleek black hair. “I’m the one who had it all wrong.”

  “Took you long enough to figure that one out,” Green said from Matthew’s shoulder.

  Lily giggled and flung her arms around Cass. Cass blinked in surprise for a moment before returning the hug.

  When Lily withdrew, Cass weakly got to her feet and bent down to help Lily stand. Matthew reached out a hand as well, and Lily took each, her right hand in Matthew’s left and her left in Cass’s right. She let out a little gasp as she straightened her knees, and Cass was about to ask if she’d hurt herself when Lily exclaimed, “Mr. McCarthy, you can see Mr. Green?”

  Cass looked at Matthew in surprise. Green, still sitting on Matthew’s shoulder, grinned. “I let him see me,” the fae said. “I figured he’d earned it after all he’s been through this last month.”

  Matthew nodded, turning his head to look at the creature. “He showed up right after you ran at that tree,” he said to Cass. “Told me to get in there and help you, and he’d keep his friends at bay.”

  Cass quirked an eyebrow. “That was surprisingly forthcoming of you,” Cass said.

  Green shrugged modestly.

  “Well, I’d say we’ve had quite a day.” Matthew reached out a hand to steady Cass as she took a shaky step forward. “We need to check in with your mother and let her know we found you,” he said to Lily, “and I think we’ve earned some pizza after that.”

  Lily let out a squeal of delight and scurried ahead on the trail, Green hopping off Matthew’s shoulder to keep up with her. Cass started after them but paused as her feet kicked something in the dark. Her key necklace, still lying on the ground where it had dropped earlier. She crouched to pick it up, feeling eyes in the tree above her watching.

  “You okay?” Matthew asked, looking over his shoulder at it.

  She nodded, slipping the key into her pocket. “Just remembering something I almost forgot.”

  It was seven-thirty when they got back to the house. As before, the return trip was much shorter than the journey to the warren. A mystery Cass suspected she’d never quite figure out.

  Once inside, she called Lily’s mother on her cell phone and explained that she’d found Lily hiding in the woods on her property.

  “I should have known,” Mrs. Kowalski said, sounding distracted. “She loves those woods too much. She hasn’t been taking her father’s development plans well at all. I think the three of us are going to have to sit down and have a long discussion.”

  Cass rolled her eyes. The time for that was probably long past.

  Mr. Kowalski had regained consciousness around seven o’clock—just at the same time, Cass suspected, that she’d been swearing her fealty to the warren. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him, so the hospital diagnosed him with respiratory distress and indicated that they’d like to keep him overnight for observation. Cass offered to bring Lily to the hospital to see her father, but Mrs. Kowalski had insisted that wouldn’t be necessary, and that if Cass would be good enough to keep an eye on her until she got home, she would pick her up when she got back to Riddle.

  “Big surprise there,” Cass muttered as she hung up the phone and returned it to her pocket.

  Matthew and Lily were sitting in the kitchen reviewing what Lily had missed
at school that day, so Cass decided to go sit on the front porch to await the pizza delivery guy. But more than that—she had someone else she wanted to talk to without Lily or Matthew listening in.

  Green seemed to know her intentions. He was sitting on the porch railing, his leg swinging, as he had on Saturday. They watched each other quietly for a moment.

  “You really did know me,” Cass said at last. “From the time I was little. You were my first friend.”

  “You’re the one who called me Green,” the fae said in agreement. “I thought it was a little on the nose, but Alexandra explained that two-year-old humans have a bit of a limited vocabulary.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Cass asked.

  Green looked at her derisively. “You wouldn’t have listened. You weren’t listening to the things I was saying.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cass said. She sighed, leaning against the balustrade. “I can’t believe I forgot.”

  “Time does funny things to the human mind. I’ve seen it, over the years. Old Mrs. Porter, she could remember the history of the woods to recite to anyone who would listen, but she couldn’t remember her own name near the end. And when you want to forget—something that’s painful, for example—your aunt said she thought you might have put up a block. Because of what happened to your other human.”

  “Jeremy?”

  Green nodded. “Your Matthew is better.”

  Cass sighed again. “I know.”

  “I like him.”

  “I know that, too.”

  Green harrumphed. “If you know all this, then why aren’t you doing something about it?”

  “I will.”

  The fae grinned pointedly at her. “Is that a promise?”

  Cass rolled her eyes. “I should know better than to make a promise in front of a fae now,” she said. “But yes. That’s a promise.”

  Green nodded, seeming satisfied. With a glimmer of light, he disappeared into the trees.

  * * *

  About an hour later, Mrs. Kowalski arrived to collect Lily. She’d already finished her pizza, but she still grumbled when her mother arrived.

  “It’s getting late anyway, kiddo,” Matthew reminded her as they walked her to the door. “You still have school tomorrow.”

  “Seriously?” Lily groaned.

  “Seriously. If I have to be there, you do too.”

  “Hey, you slept most of the day,” Cass pointed out. “You should be plenty well-rested.”

  Lily stuck her tongue out at Cass but obliged. Cass’s heart went out to the girl, though, at the sound of her mother’s scolds on the way to the car. “You practically worried your father to death,” she heard her say just before the car door slammed. She flinched, hoping Lily wouldn’t take too much of the blame for her father’s “respiratory distress.” She might have to give Mr. Kowalski a word about that—after she informed him that she would not be selling her property to him after all. Maybe she could ask Green to give her some backup, since he could apparently show himself to humans at will.

  “I should probably get going, too,” Matthew said when they’d gone.

  “Wait,” Cass said. “First I need to talk to you.”

  Matthew winced. “About Saturday?”

  Cass nodded. “About Saturday.”

  They went out to the porch, sitting on the wooden bench.

  “Matthew, I want to apologize for the way I acted,” Cass said, her stomach twisting in knots that were all nerves. For once, her premonitory jitters seemed to have settled. “I was out of line. I was… scared.”

  “Scared?” Matthew said. “Why should you be scared?”

  Cass sighed. “Because of my… ability.”

  “Your faery blessing?”

  She swallowed and nodded. “Maybe it’s not as bad as Laney’s. But to me it is.” She explained to him about her premonitions; how sometimes they were stronger than others. And she explained to him about Jeremy.

  “Cass,” Matthew said quietly when she was finished. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. But you have to know, I’m not like him.”

  “I know you’re not,” Cass said, looking down at the peeling paint on the floor of the porch. “I was just afraid. Afraid of hurting you. But… more afraid of hurting myself. And I know that was selfish of me. I know there’s probably nothing I can say to make up for that. I understand if you don’t want to see me again. I just… I just wanted to be honest with you. For once.”

  Matthew was quiet for a moment. Then, to her surprise, he shifted to face her, taking her hand in his.

  “Remember what I told you before? About the feelings I get?”

  Cass nodded. “Your faery blessing.”

  Matthew smiled. “Right. Well, whatever it is… I’ve never felt more strongly than I do right now. Where I belong is right here next to you.”

  Cass’s heart caught in her throat.

  He ran his thumb over the back of her hand, making her skin tingle. “But if we’re going to do this, we have to be honest.”

  Cass nodded. “I know. No more running. No more secrets.”

  Matthew grinned. “Promise? And I know now that you can’t break promises when there are fae watching.”

  Cass laughed. “Promise.”

  He leaned over and kissed her, and she kissed him back. And this time she didn’t run away. There’d be no more running.

  * * *

  An eternity later, Matthew finally said he needed to leave—he had school in the morning, Cass had to be at the library, and Tucker was probably driving the neighbors insane. It was close to midnight as she watched him drive away, but she didn’t feel like sleeping. She felt like floating on a cloud.

  Onyx strolled up to her, rubbing himself around her ankles as she closed the front door. “What are you angling for? Second dinner?” Cass asked, crouching to scratch him behind the ears. But to her surprise, when she straightened, the cat didn’t head for the kitchen. Instead, he trotted to the stairs, stopping halfway up to look at her over his shoulder.

  As she climbed the stairs after him, she heard a noise. A creaking, like a door swinging open after years of disuse. Her skin prickled.

  She crept down the hallway, following the sound. At the end of the hall opposite the servants’ staircase, the second-floor door to the observatory tower stood open, a square of light from within reflecting off the polished wood floor. Onyx sat in the square for a moment, watching Cass, before disappearing inside.

  “Hello?” Cass called out. The only answer was a rustling sound, like the swish of skirts, or maybe the shuffling of papers.

  She stepped inside, peeking around. The room was cluttered. On a table in the center of the bay window of the turret, a table lamp with a Tiffany glass shade glowed. She approached the table cautiously.

  Beside the lamp was a small box, old and worn with a decorative lock on its front. Spread out face-down like a fan in front of this was a deck of tarot cards, crisp and new-looking. The pattern on their back matched the pattern on the cards Cass had been finding around the house ever since she arrived in Riddle. Only one card was face-up, placed in the center with the fanned cards around it. Cass picked it up, looking at it more closely. The illustration showed a wheel like a sundial floating in the clouds. A sphinx sat atop it, and four winged creatures flew around it. The caption read Wheel of Fortune.

  She set the card down and turned her attention to the box. It was heavy when she lifted it, but wouldn’t open when she tried the lid. It was locked. She turned it this way and that, but there was no sign of a key.

  “Your necklace,” a voice whispered in her ear. Cass gasped, whirling around, but there was no one there but Onyx, batting at a spiderweb in the corner with one paw. And she knew the voice hadn’t come from the cat. She recognized that voice.

  “Aunt Alexandra?” she asked aloud. No answer came.

  She set the box down and reached into her pocket, withdrawing the iron key. It slipped into the lock, and when she turned it, with a soft click the
lid popped open.

  Inside was a stack of papers, and on top of the stack was a note. Cass recognized the handwriting as Alexandra’s. It read:

  My darling Cassie,

  I’m sorry to have left you with this burden on your own. I wish I could have helped you more, but if there’s one thing I Saw clearly, it’s that you could only arrive at this place on your own two feet. It was a riddle you had to solve on your own.

  I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become, and I know that you will continue to grow throughout your life. May this be a blessing to you now on your journey.

  Alexandra

  Cass set the letter aside and began to rummage through the rest of the papers in the box. Stock certificates, certificates of deposit, and information on how to access them. There was enough in here to leave Cass financially secure for the rest of her life. She could fix up the house and maintain it in perpetuity.

  Cass’s eyes burned and she squeezed them closed. She understood why Alexandra had kept this away from her. If she’d known about this before—even just this morning—she would have taken the money and run. Alexandra had known that Cass needed to accept her role as caretaker on her own terms, and then she’d be provided for.

  It was a riddle you had to solve on your own.

  Cass put her necklace back around her neck and wrapped her fingers around the key. “Thank you, Aunt Alexandra,” Cass whispered.

  A gentle breeze ruffled the papers in the box and the cards on the table. Then it was gone.

  One year later…

  Cass stirred in her sleep, her eyes fluttering open as she felt Matthew’s lips brush against hers. She looked around. The room was dark, and Matthew lay beside her atop the eyelet coverlet of their bed. He was re-reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe for probably about the tenth time in the last year. Onyx was sitting on the windowsill, his tail flicking as he gazed out into the shadows. From the floor near the fireplace, she could hear the sound of Tucker chewing on something in his crate—maybe a rawhide, or maybe his own foot, knowing that dog.