“Oh,” she said. “How’d you find me?” Chyler had changed into clean jeans and a red sweater that made me think of Christmas. She’d tackled the twigs in her hair and it shone blonde and glossy again.
“A good guess,” I lied. “Can we talk for a moment?”
“Sure. Come in.” She stepped aside so I could step past her into a broad hallway then I followed her into the living room. The big pieces of furniture remained but anything personal had gone. I wondered where the people had gone too and why the bank had taken the house back. I didn’t have to wonder what it was like to lose a home; the pain of that was clear to me. “What’s up?” asked Chyler, twirling a loose lock of hair through her fingers.
I decided to jump straight in with it. “You remember I said some friends of mine came all the way out here to see if you had tried to contact me.”
“Uh huh. What did you tell them?” Chyler was doing her best not to look worried but I could see the tell tale sign of her lower lip quivering and her jaw vibrate with the effort of keeping her mouth shut. She might have a roof over her head, but I didn’t get the impression she was dealing with hiding out so well.
“I didn’t tell them anything, but I am worried about you. I don’t think this is just about the book.” The book had barely been mentioned, except in passing when Seren mentioned that it was gone. Mostly they had concentrated on the dark magic Chyler had been suspected of practising; that, and her mother’s death.
“What else could they possibly want from me? I know the other witches want it.” Chyler sat on the big flowered couch, her knees together and ankles splayed in an ungainly way.
“I think they just want to find you, to know that you’re okay. They want to know what happened.”
“I’m okay. I just want them all to leave me alone.”
I sat opposite her on a velvet covered stool so that I wasn’t looming over her. “Why don’t you come back to my house? My friends might be able to help you.”
“No way.” Chyler shook her head emphatically. “Everyone is totally mad at me. And you know that when people are mad at witches they do horrible things.”
“Like what?” I pressed, which was silly because really, I, of all people, did not need to ask that. I’d been ostracized and teased and picked on and that was just by people who didn’t have an ounce of magic in their bones.
“They’ll set me on fire!” Chyler wailed, throwing her hands in the air, her face stricken. “And, like, that totally cannot happen. Do you know how much hairspray I have to use to make my hair look like this? I am totally flammable!”
“Chyler, I don’t think they’d do that.”
“They might. Fire is the best way to kill a witch, everyone knows that, that’s why those crazy Brotherhood dudes do it. I’m not risking it.” Chyler leapt to her feet and paced the small room. She was shivering but it wasn’t particularly cold inside. “How can I trust your friends? They might be tricking you. They might be just using you to get to me.”
“They’re not like that. And they won’t kill you.” At least, I was ninety percent certain they wouldn’t.
Chyler harrumphed. “I’m not letting them take me prisoner. I’m free and I’m staying that way.”
“I’m just asking you to talk to them so they can help you.”
Chyler came to a stop in front of me and stared down, one hand on a hip. “I think you should go. I don’t know if they followed you here.”
“I swear they didn’t.”
Chyler just looked at me for a moment then sank down to the ground where she sat, rocking on her heels. “Why don’t you stay with me?” she said in a little-girl voice. I swear she even fluttered her eyelashes at me. “We could go on adventures and we could go anywhere we liked. There’s no one to stop us.”
“Except an entire nation of witches who are on the lookout for you,” I pointed out tartly. I stood up abruptly, fed up of her near Schizophrenic attitude to all the trouble she was in. Chyler nearly toppled over in my wake as I walked to the hall. “Look, don’t do anything rash. I only came by to see if you’d come with me but I’m not going to force you. Stay here until I figure things out.”
I heard Chyler huff crossly but when I opened the front door she tottered after me, throwing herself at me and just before I could throw up a shield, she surprised me with a tight hug before stepping back. “Thank you, Stella. I know you’re trying to help me.” She sounded so lost that I had half a mind to grab her hand and tug her back to my house and order her to get some help, but I had no right to do that so I didn’t.
I tried to smile reassuringly at her but Chyler just looked at me, then around her, blankly. She sauntered back to the open archway leading to the living room, turning around with a confused expression like she couldn’t quite work out how she’d got from there to me. She paced the few steps back again and shuddered.
“So, you’re not going to tell anyone where I am?” she asked, her eyes boring into me.
I shook my head, puzzled by her odd behaviour. “No, but stay put. Okay?”
“’kay.” And Chyler shut the door in my face.
~
Instead of heading straight inside when I got home, I stopped my car just as it was fully on the driveway and hopped out and went across the street.
“Hello stranger!” Annalise threw the door open with a wide smile and pulled me inside. I followed her into the kitchen past baskets full of materials and yarns of all colours and patterns. “I’m just making coffee and you are just in time to dish the dirt.”
“There’s no dirt.” I laughed when she raised her eyebrows at me. “Okay, there might be some dirt. But I actually came by to see Gage and give him this.” I held up the slim envelope of cash I’d gotten from the bank earlier. “I said I’d pay him back. Can I leave it with you?”
“You can leave it with him.” Annalise pointed behind me and turned away just as I looked over my shoulder to see Gage padding towards us.
“Hey,” he said and leaned down to kiss me on the cheek before ambling past. I blinked back surprise. I hadn’t expected to see him, nor get a friendly kiss. Perhaps the finger crushing incident hadn’t bothered him at all. That said, I had to remind myself I was cross at him about that too, just not enough to say anything.
“Hi. I brought the money. For the paint.”
“Just put it on the shelf there.” Gage waved his hand at the shelf of pans over the range so I slotted the envelope in between pans so it stuck out a little. “Make me a cup, sis’,” he said to Annalise.
“Coming up.” Annalise was already pulling mugs out of the cabinet by her head and testing the pot with the back of her hand. “Still hot,” she announced as she poured then invited us to finish it how we liked. There was no standing on ceremony here.
“I almost forgot, I had something to show you, Stella.” Gage set his mug down and loped out. I heard him take the stairs.
Annalise slipped into a seat and motioned for me to park myself. “And while he’s out of the way, who is your house guest?”
“That would be Evan. You’ve seen a picture of him.”
“Ahh, the boyfriend. You never did say where he’d been.”
“I thought he was dead.” I said, then backtracked a little. “At least, I assumed he might have been, but he wasn’t and he’s been looking for me.” I sighed when Annalise looked at me with her eyebrows raised. Yeah, I wasn’t making any sense. “Long story,” I said.
“You don’t say. And here he is?”
“Here he is.”
“To stay?” pressed Annalise.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s into small town living. He wants to go back to Texas.”
“And you?”
I leant back in my chair. And me? That was a good question and one I’d tried to not focus on. “I was just starting to feel at home here.”
“Then don’t let a man take you away from that.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Always,” agr
eed Annalise, “but take it from one who knows. If you try and change yourself for a man, or just give in to what he wants without thinking about what you want, nothing good will come of it.”
“Sounds like you know what you’re talking about.”
“Better believe it, baby.”
There was a thump upstairs like something heavy had just fallen on the floor and we both looked up.
“I was married once,” Annalise said, surprising me. “And that did not work out well at all. I was miserable.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it was a long time ago, but what I’m trying to tell you is, is that I’m glad I had a home to come too. Don’t think I’m being all noble and poetic though. I like having a neighbour and I like you.” She flashed a smile at me and as if she had caught my thought train, she added, “And whatever might or might not have gone on with you and my brother is nothing but your business to sort out. But I can’t say I don’t have the smallest hope that you might like him back, regardless of hot stuff over there.”
Gage clattered down the stairs before I could answer. He held a thick red book in his hand and thumped it on the table between us triumphantly. “This is one of the family photo albums. You remember when Dad was keen on photography, Annalise? He’d bug us all the time taking pictures. Anyway, I remember him being keen on summer pictures and it occurred to me he might have taken some snaps of your parents.”
“Seriously?” I had a few pictures, but not many. My eyes widened in hope.
Gage was thumbing through the book then he came to a stop. “Here we are.” He spun the book around and pushed it towards me then leaned in to point. “That’s me and Annalise. I’m clearly the cute one. Our mom and dad... and these two are your parents.”
I drew the book towards me and gazed at them. It was a faded colour shot, slightly sepia with age. It had been snapped in front of Gage and Annalise’s house and there was a little splash pool out which the children were in while the adults looked on. My parents were holding hands.
“This is amazing. Our parents knew each other.”
Annalise nodded. “I remember bits but not much about your parents, more an impression of them. That was a hot summer though. I got my new pink tricycle.”
“There’s more.” Gage flipped over the page and I trailed my fingers down the sides of the cream card, careful to not touch the snaps as I drank them in. All in all, there were several pages with photos that featured my parents. One was a big party shot with my parents stood slightly to the centre. They were waving red, white and blue paper streamers. ‘Independence Day, probably,’ said Gage.
“Thank you.” I smiled at him in absolute appreciation.
“I’ll make copies of them, if you like?”
“I’d like that.” I turned the pages again and started from the beginning.
“They came here a lot. I think our family sold them the house. It’s not as old as ours, but I don’t remember them building it so it must have been here before we were born, or when we were really little,” Annalise said and Gage nodded.
“Did they, my dad’s family that is, ever come out here?” I was pretty certain my mother’s people wouldn’t because they were in England and Wilding wasn’t exactly on the tourist map.
“I don’t know. They might be in some of the old pictures but I don’t know what they looked like, so I couldn’t say for sure,” answered Gage.
“Dad didn’t keep the best notes,” added Annalise.
I’d nearly forgotten about my coffee so I swallowed it and stood up. I had only meant to drop by for a few minutes, instead I’d clocked up thirty. “I’d be really grateful if you could make me some copies. I don’t have many pictures and as I don’t really remember them, anything that comes my way is a boon.”
“I’ll ask around, in case anyone else’s family where friendly with them. They would have stood out so people should remember them if they were known.”
I saw Annalise throw Gage a sharp look. “What do you mean?’ I asked.
“Oh, just that they were out of towners,” Gage replied almost too casually. He left the book open on the table and followed me towards the door. “I’ll stop by with them in the next few days.”
“Thanks.”
“Maybe we could go out again soon?”
“Sure.” I said, not entirely sure what he was asking me but he seemed to brighten a bit. Uh-oh. Maybe he meant a date.
“Are your friends staying long?” he asked, almost hesitantly, and quietly so Annalise couldn’t hear him.
“I don’t know. They have an open invitation.”
“And Evan?”
“I don’t know that either.” I opened the door and for a moment I stood there in the threshold of the light against the grey. I knew Gage was fishing for more information and I wanted to turn and jog away, escaping so I wouldn’t have to hurt his feelings. But I couldn’t avoid him forever, and he didn’t deserve to be ignored.
“He doesn’t like Wilding much, huh?” Gage continued and I wasn’t sure if he meant it as a statement or a question.
I frowned. “Why would you think that?”
“Seems like a city guy,” Gage replied after a pause. I wasn’t sure if that was an insult.
“Oh, well, I don’t know. We’ll have to see,” I blustered.
“See you later, Stella.” Gage bent down to kiss my cheek again and I stumbled back, waving a hand like an idiot. It was only when I got across the street and passed my car, which I left where I had parked it, seeing as it seemed silly to roll it only a few feet forwards, that I noticed Evan standing on the porch, bent slightly at the waist so he could rest his hands on the freshly painted railings, watching me as I walked towards him. From there he’d have had a great view across to Gage and Annalise’s porch. I stopped by my car for a moment to scoop up the bags, steeling myself against any comments.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” I smiled. Seren’s car was back which probably meant all three were waiting inside. Evan came down the steps, kissed me long and slow, resting both hands on my hips. Drawing back, I could see the purple flash of his eyes that made my spine tingle. With one hand he took the bags, the other he slipped around me and steered me towards the house. “What took you so long?” he asked.
I didn’t look back but I was fairly certain the gesture was as proprietary as it was affectionate, and a warning to Gage who I couldn’t be sure wasn’t watching. I held back from rolling my eyes. I’d never had two men stake a claim over me before, and I wasn’t much sure that I liked it.
“Errands to run. Took longer than I thought, then I had to drop something off across the road and I stayed to have coffee.” Which was largely true even if a little bit of me was uncomfortable about missing out a large chunk. A Chyler shaped chunk. Speaking of Chyler, something had been puzzling me.
“While you were gone, we came up with a plan,” Evan was saying and I pulled my attention to him.
“I’m all ears,” I said as I shut the door behind us. “But can I use your laptop while you tell me?”
“Sure. It’s in the kitchen.”
“Thanks.” I waved to the others who were hunched over a sheaf of print outs and they paused briefly to greet me before turning back to whatever they were looking at. Étoile blew me a kiss. “Part of the plan?” I asked Evan and he nodded.
The laptop was open and I sat down in front of it. “What’s up?” Evan asked, leaning over me to watch what I was doing.
“I wanted to check something out about Chyler,” I said, bringing up Google so I could do a search. Then it occurred to me there was a better way. “You know those sites you showed me, with lots of pictures of her as a cheerleader and stuff like that? Can you bring them up?”
“Sure.” Evan put both arms around me to use the keyboard and I had to resist the urge to lay my head against his chest and snuggle into him. A few taps later and he’d brought up Chyler’s high school website and opened another tab for a family page. I scrolled through
the photos and just as I was about to brush off the niggling feeling, I worked out was worrying me. Chyler had such poise, an almost uncharacteristic elegance for a teenager. There was no way she was the type to sit, with her legs splayed, her back slightly hunched. It was upright, knees together, heels to slightly one side, and that was it. I sat back and frowned at the screen.
“What is it?” Evan asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know exactly.” The more I thought about it, the more fantastical it seemed but the idea was fully formed now. I wasn’t totally sure the Chyler I had been talking to was Chyler Anderson at all, but the very thought of that was completely preposterous. Wasn’t it?
“Do you have any candles?” David stepped into the room just as I saw the reflection on the screen of Evan’s mouth as he started to ask me another question.
“Oh sure. Under the sink.” I waved in its general direction. I’d picked up a cheap bunch of candles a few months ago on Annalise’s advice as she said the power sometimes went out this far out of town.
David opened the doors and rummaged around for a moment and finally came up with a little bag of tea lights. “Hmm. I think I might need something more substantial. Can I use these anyway?”
“Sure.” I clicked the red box in the corner of the browser to close the web pages and then I shut Evan’s laptop, letting my fingers rest lightly on top of it for a moment. I swivelled in my chair to look up at him curiously. “What are they doing?” I asked.
Unruly Magic (#2 Stella Mayweather Paranormal Series) Page 14
