by Sara Hanover
My phone stayed dim on the nightstand. I didn’t dare set it to silenced hours, in case one of my odd friends needed help whenever. But it hadn’t sounded either.
Tap TAP.
I struggled to the window, rubbing one stubborn eye awake and then the other, where I saw, like something out of a Stephen King novel, a figure floating outside.
Carter waved at me as soon as he saw the curtains part. I opened the window to remove the screen to swing out on the sill. His hands went to my waist, lifting me up, and I discovered he hadn’t levitated at all, but climbed a ladder up. He carried me down carefully while I held my breath lest I topple us both to the ground.
When my bare feet hit the frosty grass, I shivered. He held his hand up, and I saw a key in his hold. “Don’t want to wake Mary. Let’s go talk here,” and he led the way to my little car, opening it.
“Where’d you get the spare key?”
“You have one of those magnetic key boxes fixed under the passenger fender.”
“I do?”
“Well, the professor did. I don’t think anybody’s used it in years. I’ll put it back when we’re ready.”
I yawned in spite of myself and could feel my cheeks warm in mild embarrassment.
“I’m sorry I woke you.”
“I knew you were coming. I just thought I could read until you got here. Who knew that reading Morty would put me to sleep!” I yawned again and wrinkled my nose in irritation.
“It’s stress,” he said. “Normal reaction.”
“To abnormal events.” I rubbed an eyebrow that seemed to have developed a tic. “Look, I don’t know what you’re investigating, but does it overlap any of my trouble?”
He shook his head. “Doubtful. I mean, it might. Richmond has a rich and varied history, as much of it underground as above, but I’m not seeing any warning signs.”
“I haven’t been turning any rocks over. At least, not on purpose.”
“We don’t know what your dad was about when he disappeared. It could have been pressure from his gambling, or it could have been supernatural.”
“I’m voting for supernatural because of what happened.”
“He might have triggered that himself, trying to get out from under. There’s a strain of witchery that runs through his family.”
I rolled that word around in my thoughts, uncertain if I liked it or not. “Maybe that’s what attracted the stone.”
“Very likely. You had potential, buried, and it sought that out. What I don’t understand is how you found the object hidden here, and why John hadn’t used it to leverage himself out of trouble when he could.”
“Maybe he tried using the Dark Arts book instead.”
Carter tilted his head slightly. For a very brief moment, I could see the other side of him, the side Goldie referred to as a sun lion, shining through. “No,” he said shortly. “He should have known that way would lead to substantial trouble.”
“It seduced me into finding and hiding it.”
He waved a hand. “You hardly knew what you were dealing with. Your father knew; he’d been handling it for years, although they didn’t know what they had, exactly.”
“Not to cast spells.”
“No, he and your Aunt April used it more like a lucky rabbit’s foot. Totally unwise for what it is. It has to have plagued the family for a few generations.”
My eyebrow tic worsened. “There are early deaths in the family tree.”
Carter nodded. “It does take a toll. Luckily, Steptoe and the professor shielded it from you. Near as we can tell, you got the sheer energy but not the evil intent.”
“It made a sorceress out of me,” I reminded him.
He rubbed his hand over my shoulder. “I think you’d have become one, anyway. You’re remarkable.”
I muttered a wow, which I don’t think he heard, as he stared out the windshield which had begun to fog slightly on the inside. Louder, I said, “Where do we go from here?”
“We find out what’s been watching you, and why . . . and who broke in, and why.”
“The cane isn’t reason enough?”
“Whatever it was, the intruder might have found it, entirely by accident, canvasing the house. Didn’t Goldie warn you that the dwarves had a traitorous streak?”
I sat back. I’d forgotten that. “She sure did. Do you think it could have been one of them?”
“The wards in your cellar were placed by the Broadstone crew and they’re not likely to have affected anyone from one of the other clans. They’re not used to thinking of themselves as one of the enemy.” He shifted. “I don’t think they’d have been watching the house, though.”
“No.” The spindly silhouette I’d seen had been anything but a square and blocky Iron Dwarf. Traitor or not, I’d never felt evil incarnate from any of them. “But they could have ransacked the cellar and bedroom, though?”
“Highly likely. I think the cane was taken to negotiate with. Tessa, it’s highly likely that Goldie inherited something additional from Mortimer that she shouldn’t have been given—”
“And they want it back.”
“Precisely. You need to find out what. And I need to find out who and why something is shadowing you. What was it Malender told you again?”
My mouth went dry. I recalled the exact words, words which I had tried to forget, and couldn’t. “You and yours have been marked for both Death and Justice. You must take very close care of those you love.”
The words hung in the air.
Finally, Carter cleared his throat. “Exactly?”
“Word for word.”
“His saying Justice is interesting.”
“Telling me someone wants us dead is interesting?” My voice went up and, I think, even squeaked a little on the last of that. He reached for my hands and grabbed them tightly. He felt warm even as I shook with a sudden chill. I could take care of myself, but my mother was a vulnerable target.
“We don’t know who or what Malender is, but I think that pronouncement of his is finally revealing.”
“That someone put a death judgment on us, yeah.”
“He didn’t come to carry it out. If he had, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me.”
“Thanks.”
Carter pulled me close. “Listen to me. Did he carry a weapon of any sort?”
His shoulder muffled my answer. “Like a flaming sword? No, but he has a wicked looking whip now. Something from medieval times. I googled it . . . a scourge. Barbed thorns and actual flames.” I felt like I could bury my face against his chest and shoulder forever and be safe, but he pushed me back a little, peering into my eyes.
“You saw it?”
“Of course, I freaking saw it. Do you think I could make anything like that up?”
He studied me for a few seconds longer. “No,” he answered. “I can’t see you making that up. That makes him, if I’m right, an ancient deity. A demigod.”
“Of what? Whips and lace?”
“This is serious. He metes out what he perceives as Justice and Punishment. He’s warning you that you are someone’s target and may become his.”
I tucked my chin in. “I set him free.” My tone made it clear that I thought he owed me.
“Of the shroud?”
“I salted him until it disintegrated.”
Carter winced. “Then he may consider his warning to you nothing more than a discharge of his debt to you.”
“A warning for his freedom?”
“Old gods have very strict viewpoints.”
That tic in my eyebrow gave a mighty twitch; I rubbed it, hard. “So what you’re saying is that the next time I see Malender, I should duck and run?”
“A good idea if you’ll remember it.” He let go of me entirely then, and I immediately missed the wash of warmth and strengt
h. I folded my arms in front of me in a vain attempt to keep it. I had more on my mind but couldn’t decide how to say it. He seemed to sense my tentative silence.
“What else?”
“I never told my mother about the fight I had with my dad.”
“I know it wasn’t part of the police report.”
And he would know that because he’d been part of the follow-up team when my dad was finally reported missing. I hadn’t told him then, either, because I didn’t want to be a Person of Interest, and guilt already festered around me.
Carter added, “None of the neighbors said anything about an argument, and I only have hints from you.”
“We had an early spring thunderstorm that night. Loud and flashy. I doubt they would have heard me screaming at him.” I fought for a breath as my chest went tight. “I threw him out. I was writing checks to go with my college applications, from my own account, and he stopped me. Told me I had no money left. He’d taken it all. Stole it. Not only could I not pay for my applications, but at least two full years of part-time work had disappeared, too. I didn’t know then that he’d also raided the mortgage equity . . . everything. I just know that I felt he’d attacked me. So I attacked back. He was my dad and I loved him, but he’d done this awful thing. He’d ruined what I’d planned for my future. I couldn’t hear one thing he’d said, the excuses, the promises. I just screamed him down and threw him out. He went. And that is the last we saw of him.”
“Mary never knew?”
“No. I couldn’t tell her.” I curled up both hands at my chest, as if to protect myself. “I don’t want her to know what I did. And I couldn’t tell you then, either. I’m a horrible, terrible person.” I turned my face away from him, afraid I’d see agreement in his expression.
“No, you’re not.”
“I have to be! Look what happened.”
“It was his job to be the parent, not yours. He should have protected you with all that he could manage—that’s part of the job title. You can’t carry that burden, Tessa. You were never meant to, and you shouldn’t. You didn’t plan to react the way you did, but we both know he’d already been through a few years of lying and denial. You just ran into it face-first, and hard.” He shifted his hands to rub my shoulders.
He continued. “I’m a cop. I understand perfectly why you couldn’t tell me then. People don’t always lie. More often, they omit. I knew you wanted him back when we were investigating. I also knew that teenagers can say the angriest things. Any parent knows that.” He paused before adding, “I won’t say you didn’t do anything, but I know you’re not responsible for his disappearance. He turned to someone or something he never should have, because he’d put himself in a desperate situation. I think he tried to make it right, and it failed. That’s not on you.” Drawing close, he kissed the top of my head to try and soothe me. “But you should tell your mother. One way or the other. If you bring your dad back, or if you fail and we lose him, she should still know the truth. This is a weight you shouldn’t keep carrying.”
“I’m not despicable?”
“Never.”
I took a quavering breath then. “I should tell her.”
It hadn’t been a question, but Carter answered. “Yes, you should. You may very well find that your mother had some idea. She’s a wise woman. Anything else on your mind?”
I had not yet told him everything, particularly about the Butchery. I couldn’t prove it had happened, and I didn’t want him suspecting my soundness of mind any more than he already did. Which he didn’t, I felt sure, but who wanted to take a chance? I needed him to trust me and felt that I’d already pushed that boundary a bit with Malender and my father. I sat up straight. “What else do you think I should do?”
“You’ve two problems: your dad’s predicament and your break-in.”
“No, three.”
“Three?”
“Evelyn and Hiram.”
Carter did a double take. “What about Evelyn and Hiram?”
“Their love at first sight, Romeo and Juliet worthy, is sticking and she wants me to run interference with her family.”
“Good gods. And you agreed to this?”
I shrugged a little, saying, “She’s awfully hard to refuse.”
“Does she know anything at all about Hiram? Really know?”
“He hasn’t told her, and I haven’t.”
Carter gave a faint growl. “Well, somebody needs to. The Statlers are going to be very powerful politically, and the Iron Dwarves already are. We don’t want heads butting. Can’t you talk her out of it?”
“I don’t think so.” I thought it over more. “And Hiram is just as crazy about her, so it’s not entirely her fault.”
“Fault is not what’s important here. Reality is. You’re talking about two worlds colliding and disastrously so. Hiram is an outstanding young man, but there are those in his clans who may well kill to keep their secrets. You have to talk her into being sensible.”
“But you and I—”
“Are entirely two different beings, Tessa. Promise me you’ll talk to her?”
I didn’t want to. I couldn’t see myself breaking Evelyn’s heart—or Hiram doing that to her, either. My eyebrow gave one last final twitch as I mumbled a half-hearted vow to do something.
I just didn’t promise what.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A LONG FALL
HE RETURNED ME to my window as quietly as we’d exited. Leaning in, he gave me a long and simmering kiss, and I didn’t want to let go of him. The warmth inside of me flared a bit. He pulled back reluctantly with a soft smile. “Someday—but today is not that day—I won’t have to say goodbye to you.”
“Promise?”
“Always.”
And then he was gone, and the ladder quietly disappeared from the side of the house as well. I sat on the corner of my bed, feeling a bit unbalanced. Scout still hadn’t turned a paw in my absence, so I padded down to the kitchen to get some juice and noticed in relief that my mother had come home. The soup pot stood in part of the sink, soaking for cleaning in the morning, and she’d made a few extra grilled cheese sandwiches beside the leftover I’d fixed for her because bread had disappeared and the skillet was dirtied, too. Oddly enough, there were two soup bowls also soaking. I’d loaded mine and Steptoe’s, and stood looking at her dirty dishes in slight surprise before deciding that Simon had probably had a second dinner. He didn’t have a digestive system like we did, and I think he burned every last molecule for energy every time he ate. Like my Scout, his appetite qualified as voracious. Hiram’s wasn’t skimpy either. Luckily, they wouldn’t eat us out of house and home; they brought groceries as often as they shared meals with us, and right now our bank account had a comfortable pad. May it stay that way.
I found the glass juice pitcher, poured myself three fingers, drank it, and headed back upstairs. Somewhere close to my bedroom door I found myself wondering if my mom had entertained a different guest.
That kept me wide awake for about three minutes, but I gave up thinking to dive back into my bed, nicely warmed by one sprawled golden dog body.
* * *
• • •
The morning breakfast came accompanied with a nice thick stack of paper, bound in a card stock wrapper. I stared at it. “Wow. Is that it?”
Mom bustled around the kitchen as if she had energy to spare. “It is, indeed.”
“Where does it go now?”
“To the university printers if Faith delivers the disk as she should. It will be ready when I walk in early May.” She stopped at my elbow. “It’s been a long time coming.”
“But worth it, right?” I hefted the manuscript. “Copies?”
“They made about twelve. Six to the committee members, two to me, and four for . . . well, I don’t know who those are meant for, but they’re only photocopies. It’s th
e bound ones that will take my breath away.” She looked down at me. I could see some silvery hairs among her natural blonde, and a few fine lines at the corners of her brilliant blue eyes, and something else. Satisfaction? A job finished and done well? We didn’t have a lot of successes in our lives that we could enthusiastically point to; like most people, we just kept surviving with our heads above water. But this was a real achievement.
“Congratulations doesn’t say enough.”
“We should celebrate, right?”
“We should!” I dug my phone out of my pants pocket. She reached over my shoulder and pushed my wrist to the tabletop.
“Phone later, breakfast now. And I’ve already put kibble down for Scout. Simon’s nowhere to be seen, so it’s just the two of us.”
The animal in question wiggled his butt as he sat next to the now very empty bowl and looked at me as if he’d been neglected. I pointed at him. “You get my toast corners. That’s it.”
He licked his lips in anticipation.
I dug into my breakfast as Mom sat down opposite and, every once in a while, one of us would look at the binder and let out this crazy, crooked grin. Mine faded as I considered what Carter and I had discussed. I put my fork down.
She noticed the change in my mood immediately. “What is it?”
“How can you tell it’s anything?”
“You get a shadow in your eyes. And a few bags underneath. I can always tell when you haven’t slept well. I usually chalk it up to our varied group of friends, many of whom seem to be primarily nocturnal. But mainly, now, you look worried.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” I traced my finger over a pattern in my paper napkin. “Dad’s not doing well.”
She stopped with her hand in midair. “Are we losing him?”
Words jammed together in my throat. I nodded instead.
She put her cup down. “What can we do?”
