‘No,’ she shook her head adamantly. ‘No, I don’t think that’s wise.’
‘Martha,’ he spoke to her in a voice soft enough to make her chest ache. ‘This may be the last chance you have to see her for a while. You won’t forgive yourself if you don’t take it.’
He was right. Of course he was.
Pushing her emotions down as far as she could make them go, she turned and walked through the kitchen, the ground floor and the hall. Her mother’s bedroom was at the far end of the hallway that her old room was on. Martha resisted the urge to look at her door on the off-chance that Stefan randomly decide to see where she was going to be staying. Those two parts of her life were separate and he did not have permission to enter her bedroom at the residence they shared on The Mount so should not expect to see her personal space here. Not that he would.
Opening the door to her mother’s room, Martha was distraught to discover the woman in the throes of what looked like a very bad dream. Her body was contorting from side to side, her face contorted in fear and pain. The sight made her heart leap into her throat. She knew that she should do something but she froze, unable to move. Thankfully, for the second time that night, her trusted companion did what she wasn’t capable of, crossing the room and going to the suffering woman. Rather than trying to wake her up, however, he simply pressed the pad of his thumb to the tightly crinkled skin between her twisted eyebrows and softly hushed her back into a calm, restful sleep. Seemingly miraculous yet Martha had seen it many times before.
‘Thank-you,’ she gasped in what sounded a lot like relief.
‘She has settled,’ he confirmed. ‘But she should be taken out of here immediately. You were right to come to me with this, Martha. What is happening to your mother is not mystical but the corrupted energy in this house is making her condition worse. She cannot stay here for any longer if you wish for her to recover at all.’
‘That’s what I feared.’
‘I shall do as you asked but I must implore you to reconsider your own position.’
‘You mean return to The Mount?’ She asked, confused. ‘Right now?’
He nodded. ‘Tonight, yes.’
‘No, I’m not leaving here until I have made sure that all of my family are going to be safe. My sister needs answers about what happened to her father and my…’ She hesitated. ‘I need to make amends to every person who I hurt when I decided that I was going to stay with you rather than come home with my mother. I can’t do that from The Mount.’
‘I have to leave now,’ he said. ‘I have been here long enough.’
‘Then go.’
He spoke her name in a tone that was equal parts frustration and concern. While he was clearly capable of understanding her logic, it was becoming apparent how little he liked that she was in Marytown. His earlier lack of control was a testament to that fact alone. Now, he was actively encouraging her to leave with him. She wished she could give him what he wanted.
Seemingly resigning himself to her decision, he stated, ‘Be careful.’
She nodded but did not promise. She would do her best. It was all she could offer.
Crossing the room, she pulled back the covers on her mother’s bed, hating how fragile the woman looked in her long nightgown. Getting her bathrobe, she carefully dressed her so that she wouldn’t get cold and then stepped back. Saying goodbye was tougher than she could ever have imagined. She wanted to say so many things but each and every one of them got caught in her throat and in the end all she could verbalise was, ‘Please look after her, Stefan.’
He nodded and carefully took the woman in his strong arms, lifting her easily out of her bed. Becoming aware that she was being moved, the woman stirred but she did not struggle. In fact her actions tightened Martha’s throat and made moisture form in her eyes, threatening to overspill. Gale’s eyelashes fluttered, opening ever so slightly to gaze up at the male who held her so very tenderly. Her voice was raspy, but so very familiar as she spoke a name, ‘Gadriel?’
Stefan smiled softly down at her. ‘No, Mrs Ford. I am not. But you will see him soon.’
He raised his head. Martha nodded. Then they were gone. She was left all alone.
In silence, she left her mother’s bedroom, sealing the door behind her and returned to the kitchen, where she put the kettle on, wiped the tears from her cheeks and waited for dawn.
Chapter 19
As predicted, Esther was up with the birds. Martha knew she was awake because she heard her moving about upstairs, seemingly going from room to room, looking for Gale. Eventually she came down to in the kitchen, where her niece was still sitting at the small brunch table that sat in the middle of room, arms folded across her chest, staring down an empty, stained coffee mug.
‘Oh, Martha,’ she sounded somewhat relieved. ‘Have you seen you mother today?’
‘Sit down.’
‘Excuse me?’ The woman sounded taken aback, genuinely confused. Martha raised her eyes and fixed her with a hard stare that must have been as cold as she was feeling because the woman seemed to shrink into her fluffy cream bathrobe and slippers.
‘Martha…’ She began to speak but the younger woman did not let her get very far.
‘I’ve been sitting here for the past two hours, thinking about my childhood, what it was like growing up here. How it felt.’ She paused. ‘Something occurred to me that I feel like a fool for not seeing before now. Something that I think we need to talk about.’
‘I don’t…’ The woman looked about nervously. ‘Martha. Your mother isn’t in her room and you appear to have hurt yourself. What on earth is going on?’
‘You don’t need to worry about Gale. She’s no longer any of your concern.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Esther pressed. ‘And what happened to your cheek?’
‘She’s gone,’ Martha said, keeping her voice as steady as she possibly could. ‘Don’t ask me to tell you where because I’m not going to say anything other than that she is being looked after by somebody that I trust has her best interests at heart.’
‘Well, this hardly seems appropriate.’
‘Appropriate,’ she scoffed, shaking her head. ‘Tell me, Esther. Was it appropriate for you to be having an affair with your sister’s husband for all those years?’
For a moment, she looked aghast but then shook her head and met Martha’s eyes with a hard, cold blue stare of her own. ‘You have no idea what you are talking about, young lady.’
‘Oh, but I do. And you know it.’ Kicking the chair opposite her out from underneath the table with her foot, she reiterated her earlier command. ‘Now sit down so we can discuss it like adults or I will drag you across this kitchen by your hair, old woman.’
Apparently realising that she did not have much of a choice, Esther entered the kitchen and took the chair that Martha had kicked. She tried to look as dignified as she could but under such close scrutiny Martha could see the tired, puffiness around her eyes, more from a simple lack of sleep. That she had been crying, probably in the hours before she had fallen asleep should have spiked a sympathetic response from her niece’s heightened natural empathy but the young woman simply did not have it in her. Not after the events of the previous night.
Not wasting time, Martha got right to the tough questions, ‘When did it start?’
Esther took a deep breath. ‘Gosh, you really do get straight to the point, don’t you?’
‘I could have asked how long you were screwing the man that abused me for years but I thought that I’d ease into it. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.’
‘Martha, please. There is no need to be vulgar.’
‘Just answer the question.’
She sighed. ‘There was no affair. It was never physical. When the two of us met, we were of the same age, the same social circle. We were close for a long time before he met your mother and became infatuated with her. When Gale got herself pregnant with you, William only wanted to do right by her. As I’m sure you are awa
re.’
‘Are you blaming me for my mother marrying the man that you wanted?’
‘Good Lord, no,’ she shook her head, looking genuinely offended. ‘Marrying Gale was William’s decision and his decision alone. I was hurt but I accepted it. He loved her and did not want her being ostracised. Neither of us did. It was the right thing for him to do.’
Martha was not at all sure she could agree with that. Her own experiences of the Ford’s marriage did not leave her thinking that decision was for the best but she had always done her best to respect her mother’s choice of husband. The same could not be said for her aunt.
Esther continued, ‘I had no intention of coming between the two of them but it was not simple to just switch off my feelings as if we had never mattered to each other. I loved him, Martha and I genuinely believe that, in his own way, he loved me too. I know that you cannot understand that, given the fractious relationship the two of you had.’
‘Fractious?’ Martha asked, incredulous. ‘He bullied and beat me. He treated me as if I were worth less than the dirt on his shoe. He resented me and made damn sure that I knew it every day I lived in this house. Don’t you dare tell me what I understand!’
Esther took a deep breath and blew it back out of her lips but did not deny the words that had been thrown out in accusation by her niece. She was not that naïve or that deluded but like many others, her own perceptions of who Mr. Ford was meant more to her than the truth.
Very softly, she said, ‘Having you was the best thing that ever happened to Gale. She loved you more than her own happiness and always has. She did what she thought was best but Gale has always been quite self-involved. She couldn’t love William in the way that he wanted her to and it made things difficult. Having Amanda brought them closer for a time but the truth was they wanted different things and it crushed William. I was there for him because I still loved him. Those feelings have never gone away. I would have thought that you of all people would understand that, given who you brought into this house with you last night, Martha. Time is irrelevant when you have somebody that you have never been able to make yourself stop loving.’
A silence fell between them, with Martha thinking about what she had said. The truth was that she could relate to that feeling she described but love was not a justification for the lie that her aunt had chosen to live. There were only two people who should have mattered in the Ford’s marriage and while Martha knew the reason why her mother had never been able to truly love William Ford as much as he claimed to love her, she trusted that they had remained faithful.
‘You must think that I am a horrible person,’ Esther said, in quiet dejection.
‘No,’ Martha shook her head. ‘No, I don’t. But I can’t trust you and neither can my mother. I am very grateful of everything that you have done for her in my absence but now you’re no longer welcome in this house. I suggest that you pack up your things and go.’
For a brief moment, Esther looked as though she was going to argue but instead she hung her head and conceded, ‘If that is what you want.’
‘It is,’ Martha nodded, finding her feet. ‘You can leave your keys on the table.’
‘You know, it’s strange,’ he aunt said, gazing up at her with clear eyes. ‘Even though you have spent so long away from her, you have grown up to be precisely the woman that Gale said you would become. I always had my doubts. You were such a precocious little child.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘You should. Gale may not be able to tell you this herself but she would be so thrilled to know that you are here, looking out for your sister and taking charge of everything like this. It’s where you belong.’ The older woman found her own feet. ‘I shall not interfere. Good luck.’
‘Thank-you Esther,’ Martha replied, having a feeling that very soon, she would need it.
Chapter 20
The discovery of a terrifyingly over-protected magic circle in the room where a man had died in mysterious circumstance meant that by morning, Michael Parker was still in the office. Working through the night was challenging enough but the events of the previous night had been rough and he felt exhausted, physically and mentally. But there was no time to rest.
One thing that had become apparent was that Mr. Ford’s death was not accidental. Either the old bastard had bitten off more than he could magically chew or he had been murdered, likely both. Neither were a pleasant thought. As professional as he would remain during the course of the investigation, there was no getting away from the fact that Parker knew the young woman who had come to them, seeking answers for her father’s untimely death, personally and cared deeply about getting her the closure that she sought. It changed things. It was bound to.
Less than an hour earlier he had gotten a text message from Walsh, informing him that Amanda was going to stay with him at his house and that her sister was going to be handling the MPIA stuff from that point forward. Parker wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Especially when another message came through, causally warning him that Martha could allegedly be rather scary when she wanted to be. Something had happened during the hours since he departed the Ford home and it had changed things. Dramatically.
It did not really surprise him that Martha was stepping up and taking charge. She had always been headstrong and tenacious but there was a detachment that Parker couldn’t help but find jarring. The girl that she was before she was taken was indeed gone and it was hard not to still mourn the loss even though she was here and he could see her again.
Speaking of heartbreak and loss, like a tall, blonde whirlwind, Olivia swept into his office without knocking or announcing her presence in a way that was less abrupt than her slamming the pictures he had sent down on his desk and emphatically stating, ‘I hate you so much.’
‘Good morning to you too, Liv.’
‘What the hell have you gone and gotten me into?’
He raised an eyebrow, a rush of fresh interest perking him up. ‘You know something?’
‘Of course I know something,’ she retorted. ‘Do you really think I’d be standing here, looking like such a hot mess, if I hadn’t been up all night researching this damn thing for you?’
Parker had the good sense not to answer that question, even though he thought that she looked absolutely fine with her hair loose and tousled as if she’d run her hands through it often over the course of the night and no make-up. He knew better than to tell her that he believed it to be physically impossible for her to be anything other than utterly stunning, whatever she did or did not wear; her mother was an Australian beauty queen, her father a man who looked like he was still in his forties despite being fifty-nine. The genetic odds were stacked in her favour.
Parker also knew that she hadn’t stayed up all night for him at all but because the magic that had been used was so powerful it intrigued her and that she got cranky when she was tired.
Instead of mentioning all that, he asked, ‘What did you find out?’
‘It was a summoning circle.’
‘The victim summoned something?’ He couldn’t decide whether he should be shocked or disgusted. Clearly Amanda’s father was not magically adept nor had he ever expressed interest in the occult. He had no place drawing magical circles on the ground and summoning things.
She nodded. ‘He did.’
‘Do you have any idea what?’
‘Now, that’s the kicker,’ she admitted discontentedly, her shoulders slumping. ‘I have an idea of what he perhaps intended to summon but I can’t be sure. The circle is so obscure, I have never seen anything like it. I only reached the conclusion that I did by breaking it down piece by piece and trying to understand the logic behind it. The method.’
‘Okay.’ Parker nodded. ‘You want to try to walk me through it?’
‘Do you have a spare nine hours?’ Olivia retorted.
Okay. Point taken. ‘How about you break it down for me instead?’
With her trademark smirk, she
started, ‘Well, we already suspected that the circle was created, or at least manipulated by, two people; the one who created it and the person or thing that warded it. My theory fits that.’ Sifting through the pictures, she pulled out one that showed the whole summoning circle and placed it in the middle of the desk, between them. ‘The circle was originally drawn much more simply. The pentagram in the middle is standard fare; you can find the lore for it in almost any textbook but the three circles get progressively more complex. I doubt the person drawing it knew what all of those layers meant. They merely identified what they believed the symbols in the middle represented and then ignored the rest.’
‘Amanda recognised the circle. She dreamed about it about six years ago and shared the information with her father. My belief is that he researched it and then tried to use it.’
A quick tilt of her head indicated that she agreed but she said, ‘His research sucked.’
‘How so?’
‘Because he didn’t know what he was doing,’ she offered, somewhat sardonically. ‘That much is clear by the incantations. They’re reversed in places, incomplete in others. I assume that your pre-cognitive friend only had a vague image that she shared with him because it’s sloppy at best or he amended her picture and got what he thought he wanted.’
‘Walsh didn’t give me more information than that she saw and shared it.’
Olivia made a noise of disgust, muttering, ‘Amateurs.’ Parker was not sure if she was referring to himself and Walsh’s lack of communication or the dead man’s magical ineptitude and he didn’t ask. She set her own standards and only she knew when someone annoyed her.
‘So,’ he said, getting back on track, ‘William Ford almost definitely drew the circle, either copying exactly or taking inspiration from an image his daughter gave to him a few years ago. Why did it take him so long to use it? If his research was that sloppy, it wouldn’t have taken almost six years, surely? Why now?’
Sins of the Father (Bloody Marytown Book 1) Page 13
