An Unexpected Truth: A Novella in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  But I also don’t want to be rescued, and I don’t want anybody dropping their plans to come after me. I’m a mage, and a damn good one. I can deal with problems if they come up.

  Still…

  I pull the SUV over at a turnoff and pull out my phone, hoping they actually get cell service out here in the boonies. I wish I’d thought of this an hour ago, but it’s too late to regret it now.

  I stare at the phone for a few seconds, then hit a familiar number and put it on speaker. My heart pounds: what if he actually answers?

  It rings twice and then the familiar British accent fills the cabin. “You’ve reached Alastair Stone. You know what to do.”

  I slump in relief as the beep sounds. “Hey…it’s me. I hope you’re having fun over there in Romania and finding lots of cool occult goodies. Listen—something’s come up, and I’m in a little town called Fairbreeze, off 1 north of Santa Barbara. I don’t want to talk about why I’m here, but I wanted somebody to know where I am, just in case anything goes wrong.”

  I wince. That sounds a lot more dire than I intended it to! “Uh—not that I’m expecting anything to go wrong,” I add hastily. “But I just thought I’d, you know, be smart for once and let somebody know where I am. Anyway, enjoy your trip and I’ll talk to you soon.” I’m about to hang up, and then it slips out before I can catch it: “Love you.”

  I tap the button and quickly stuff the phone back in my pocket, almost like I’ve just said something wrong. It’s not wrong—I’ve said it to him before, just like he has to me, but I don’t think I’ve ever stuck it on the end of a casual phone message. And it’s the first time I’ve said it since the split with Kyla.

  Jeez, V, you’re acting like an idiot. Quit stalling and get on with it.

  Part of me doesn’t want to, but I’m not listening to that part. Not after I’ve come this far. Before I can second-guess myself, I fire up the SUV and pull back onto the narrow road.

  Fairbreeze isn’t nearly as remote and creepy as I was afraid it would be. As I pass the carved-wood Welcome to Fairbreeze sign and continue along a tree-lined street into a nice, perfectly normal little town with gas stations and Starbucks and donut shops, I realize part of me was expecting some kind of weird Stephen-King style place—the kind where lost tourists with car trouble blunder in and are never heard from again. I relax my shoulders and feel stupid when I see a couple of kids on bikes riding down the sidewalk, followed by a Golden Retriever.

  Okay, so maybe this is a little more Mayberry and a little less Twilight Zone. That’s good, at least.

  Even so, it doesn’t look like this place is too tourist-friendly. My phone’s connection is sketchy when I try to look for a motel or B&B, so I finally pull into a gas station and ask there. The guy eyes me oddly, like he’s not used to seeing strangers in town, but points down the street. “Take your first right, then head down about a quarter mile. There’s a little place down there called Mimi’s. Look sharp, though, or you’ll pass it. The sign’s not big.”

  He’s not kidding. I do pass it the first time, and have to turn around. The sign, which says Mimi’s Country Inn, is about the size of a piece of standard paper, and it’s set back from the road. The place itself is set back even further, hidden behind a row of trees screening it from the road. They really don’t encourage tourists here.

  Mimi, as it turns out, is a plump older lady with a no-nonsense attitude and a friendly smile. “Sure, I got a couple rooms,” she says when I knock on the door and inquire. She gives me the same kind of look the gas-station guy did. “What’s a young girl like you doing way out here? You lost? This town’s not easy to find if you’re not looking for it.”

  “Just—visiting some friends,” I say. I almost say “family,” but catch myself—in a town this small, everybody probably knows everybody else, and the first thing she’ll ask me is who they are.

  “Sure, sure. I won’t pry.” She leads me upstairs. “Nobody else staying here now, so I’ll give you your pick of my three rooms. They’re all the same price.”

  I choose the one on the corner facing the street, so I can keep an eye on my SUV, and pay for one night. “I might be staying longer, but I’m not sure yet.”

  She waves me off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll leave you to get settled in. Lunch is at noon if you want it.”

  Alone in my room with the door closed and locked, I pull the note back out of my bag and study it. Leave a message at Croney’s, it said. I didn’t see any place called Croney’s on my way in. Seems strange that the note writer didn’t include a name to leave the message for, but maybe this town is so small that any stranger showing up will get noticed.

  Suddenly, I’m reminded of another small town I’ve been in recently, and another tiny inn. I chuckle. At least there aren’t any horrible Lovecraftian monsters trying to be reborn here.

  I hope.

  Now I’m just being silly. This is nothing more than your standard, garden-variety family drama, the kind everybody has whether they’re magical or mundane. More like a soap opera than a supernatural thriller.

  Still, I can’t help wishing somebody was here with me, if for no other reason than to have someone to talk to. Alastair, or Jason, maybe.

  Or Kyla.

  My heart twinges hard. I haven’t had that many serious relationships in my life—the only other one was my old girlfriend Sharra, but we’d ended it mutually and amicably and gone back to being friends with barely a hiccup. With Kyla, it’s different. It feels like grief: the kind that jumps out and pounces on you when you least expect it.

  Frustrated, I jam the note back in my pocket. I don’t have time to dwell on this. I’m here for a reason, and I’ve got a place to find. At least the town isn’t very big, so it shouldn’t take long. With any luck I can get in, find out what I need to know, and get out. Maybe I can even make it home by tonight.

  Mimi greets me as I reach the bottom of the stairs. “All settled in?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t have much with me.”

  “Will you be staying for lunch?”

  “No, thanks—I’ve got some errands to run.” Before I can stop myself, it slips out: “Do you happen to know where a place called Croney’s is?”

  “Oh, sure. It’s a little coffee shop just off Main. Is that where you’re meeting your friend?”

  No wonder I didn’t see it. “Uh…yeah. Can you tell me where it is?”

  She sketches a little map. “They should be open now, I think.”

  “Thanks.” I get out of there before she asks any more questions.

  Croney’s is right where Mimi said it would be, sharing a building with an auto-supply store, a clothing shop, and a liquor store. Before I get out of the SUV, I switch to magical sight and give the outside a quick look. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to see, but whatever it is, it’s not there. The place looks as mundane as everything else around here does.

  A thought occurs to me as I get out: all this time, I’ve been expecting whatever I find to be related to magic. But what if it isn’t? Even if the note’s right and my mom did cheat on my dad, that doesn’t mean she did it with another mage. In fact, given how rare mages are, it’s quite possible both the note writer and my father (assuming my father isn’t the note writer) are mundanes.

  I’ve been spending too much time with Alastair. Everything in life doesn’t turn into a big magical puzzle.

  Feeling a little embarrassed, I push open Croney’s door and walk in, pausing just inside to look around. Embarrassed or no, I use magical sight again, but nothing pops up in here either. It’s a nice little place with a slight hippie vibe: lots of hanging plants, rough wooden walls, and framed prints showing nature scenes. As soon as I open the door, the delicious smell of fresh-brewed coffee hits me like a wall, making my stomach growl.

  “Welcome!” calls a voice. “Please, sit anywhere.”

  The speaker is a smiling, thirtyish woman with red hair. She wears a blue T-shirt under a pale green apron with the shop’s logo embr
oidered on the front.

  Currently the place is empty except for the two of us and an old man by the window reading a newspaper. I order a cup of coffee and a scone and take a seat on the other side of the room.

  As I drink the coffee, which is delicious, I sneak occasional looks at the woman. She’s not paying me any unexpected attention, like she’s waiting for something. She checks on me once, brings the old man another cup, and goes about her business like any barista would.

  Finally, I finish my cup, pop the last bite of scone in my mouth, and glance up at her again.

  “Want another?” she asks.

  Okay, it’s now or never. I’m not here to drink coffee. “Uh—no, thanks.” I get up and go to the counter, with a quick look behind me to make sure nobody else is coming in. “Actually, I have a question for you.”

  “Oh, sure. What is it? I’ve never seen you around here. Just passing through?”

  “Not…exactly. This would be a hard place to pass through.”

  She laughs. “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but it’s more polite than ‘are you lost?’”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.” I like this woman. Her aura is a clear blue, with no sign she’s hiding anything. “Uh…anyway, I’m supposed to meet someone in town. I got a note saying I should leave a message here. I guess that means they’ll get back to me.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Wait…is your name Verity?”

  I blink, startled. “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  “I know who you’re talking about. Who you’re supposed to meet.”

  “You do? Who?” My heart beats faster. Am I about to get some answers?

  “Can’t say. She made me promise I wouldn’t. I’m just supposed to give her a call when you show up.”

  She. That means it can’t be the man who might be my biological dad. I’m not sure whether I’m disappointed or relieved. “You can’t tell me anything?”

  She shakes her head. “Sorry, but I can’t break a promise. But if you’ll stay here and have another cup of coffee, I’ll pop in the back and give her a call. That okay?”

  It’s not, but I guess it will have to be. “Yeah. Sure.”

  She checks one last time on the old guy, then heads through a beaded curtain. I return to my table and keep a close watch on both where she went and the front door. I can’t shake the feeling that any minute, somebody’s going to bust in and attack me.

  But nobody does, and once again I feel sheepish when the red-haired woman returns five minutes later. “Okay,” she says as I hurry over to the counter. “She says she’ll meet you at the Shadow Glen tonight. Don’t worry—she’ll know who you are. She put the reservation under the name Chloe.”

  “Is that her name?” I ask quickly. I definitely don’t know anybody named Chloe.

  “No. I think it’s supposed to be yours, so you don’t have to spread your real one around. The reservation’s at eight.”

  I check my watch: it’s only twelve-thirty. Damn. “So late? I was hoping to talk to her and head home today. Are you sure she can’t—”

  “Sorry.” She shakes her head. “I wish I could help you, but I’m just the go-between.”

  I sigh. No point in taking it out on her, I guess. “Okay, fine. What’s the Shadow Glen?”

  “Restaurant. Nice place, you’ll like it.” She pauses, then picks up a towel and starts drying a coffee mug. “Oh—one other thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  She leans in a little closer. “I know you’re probably tempted to go poking around, trying to figure out what’s going on—but my advice is not to. The person you’re going to be talking to doesn’t want it getting around that you’re here, or that she’s talking to you.”

  I frown. “Why not?”

  “I can’t tell you that either—mostly because I don’t know. But if I had to guess, I’d say there are people she doesn’t want knowing she’s talking to you. Don’t worry—the Shadow Glen’s a public place, so it’s not like she’s asking you to meet her someplace private. But she wants to be careful.”

  Interesting. Who is she afraid of? My father, maybe? What if he doesn’t want anybody finding out he’s got an illegitimate daughter?

  Come on, V, you’re deep-ending. “Uh…okay. I’ll keep my mouth shut, I guess. But this whole thing is pretty freaky if you ask me.”

  “Yeah, I’m not surprised. I wish I could tell you more, but I know she’s anxious to meet with you.” She glances past me as the cowbell on the door jangles. “Sorry, but I can’t talk anymore now. You sure I can’t get you another cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks.” It looks like I’ve got some time to kill, but suddenly I don’t want to do it here.

  7

  I’d like to say I spend the next few hours poking around Fairbreeze, playing Nancy Drew with my magnifying glass out and my magical sight going, but I don’t. The barista’s words chill me: since I don’t have a clue about what’s going on and I don’t know the names of any of the people involved, I’m afraid if I start asking around in the wrong places, something bad will happen. Even if “something bad” only ends up being that the note-writer bails on the meeting and refuses to talk to me, that will still be a problem since aside from bullying the barista, I have no other way to find her.

  The only things I do are locate the Shadow Glen (it’s a nice, elegant-looking little place on the edge of town) and stop by the library to see if I can hunt up anything interesting about the town’s history.

  The library’s a bust. For one thing, it’s microscopic—barely more than one room in a strip mall—and for another, their single computer is in use by a homeless guy surreptitiously surfing porn and their microfiche machine’s broken, so I can’t check back issues of the local paper. What little I do find doesn’t raise any red flags: no weird crimes, unexplained disappearances, odd phenomena, or anything else that a mage reading between the lines might find suspicious. I last less than an hour before the elderly librarian’s curious scrutiny drives me out. I spend the rest of the afternoon watching a movie at Fairbreeze’s two-screen theater and then head back to my room to read a magazine and grab a nap.

  I’m just a regular dynamo of energy and detective skills, aren’t I?

  I return to the Shadow Glen about seven-thirty. It only has two doors, one for customers and one in the back, so unless my mysterious contact plans to sneak in through the kitchen or she’s already there, I’ll see her go in. I park the SUV in the back part of the lot and put a disregarding spell on it. If she’s not magically talented and specifically looking, I hope she’ll pay it no attention.

  At five to eight, I’ve only seen six people go in: one couple who look like they’re on a date and another with two young kids. Two more come out, but both are men.

  Great. So much for that plan. Either she’s already in there, she gave me the slip, or she’s going to be late. Since I don’t want to be late, I get out, take one last look around the parking lot with magical sight, and head inside.

  I didn’t go in when I did my check earlier today, so this is my first view of it. The place looks like a fairly standard date-destination restaurant, though—probably upscale by Fairbreeze standards, but definitely not compared to what I’m used to in the Bay Area. I’m glad for that, since I didn’t bring nice clothes. The hostess doesn’t even give my leather jacket, jeans, and T-shirt a second glance as she looks at me over her podium.

  “Uh, hi,” I say. “My name’s—uh—Chloe. There should be a reservation in my name?” I hate the question at the end—I try hard not to do that because it makes me sound uncertain, but this time I am uncertain.

  “Oh. Yes, it’s right here. The other member of your party is already here.”

  “Really?” I tense. I know I didn’t take my eyes off the front door for the whole time I was on my stakeout. “How long has she been here? I thought I was early.”

  “I’m not sure,” she says apologetically. “We’re busy tonight. This way, please.” She grabs a menu and strides briskl
y toward the back room.

  I quickly catch up, looking around with both magical and mundane sight. I hadn’t thought they’d be busy based on the few people I’d seen going in and out, but apparently people in Fairbreeze eat dinner earlier than eight o’clock. Couples and families occupy most of the tables in the front section.

  We pass through a doorway into the rear section, which is only half full. The hostess stops in front of a booth on the left wall. “Here we are. Your server will be with you shortly.” She puts the menu on the table and departs.

  I half-expect whoever I’m supposed to meet not to be there, but I’m wrong. A woman sits on the other side of the booth. She’s examining her menu, which hides her face. All I can see is her hand, with its red-painted, manicured nails. I wonder if it’s on purpose; is she scared to face me, or does she just like making an entrance?

  “Uh…hi,” I say without sitting down.

  She lowers the menu and smiles, looking me over with interest. “You must be Verity. It’s so good to meet you. Please, sit down.”

  I do, but slowly. I figure if she’s giving me the once-over, she can’t be offended if I do the same.

  She’s maybe in her fifties, but looks like she takes care of herself. Her hair is ash-blonde and cut stylishly short, her eyes dark green, her makeup tasteful but not fussy, and her figure slim. She’s wearing a soft, light-green sweater and a silver necklace with an emerald pendant. Her expression is half-curious, half-concerned, and as I sit down, I catch her looking over my shoulder, maybe to see if anybody followed me in.

  “Listen,” I say, trying hard not to sound annoyed, “I have to say, I’m a little sick of all this secrecy. Obviously you know who I am, but I haven’t got a clue who you are. You did send the note, right?” I pull it from my jacket pocket and toss it on the table.