“She was just a maid, Devan. A housekeeper and a servant. Why would I keep her things?” he whined.
If Devan thought he spoke the truth, she hid it well. Her head cocked to the side and she approached him slowly. She raised a hand and placed it to his forehead. The old man was buried in blankets as if they were a protective device. The doorman warned them that he was very ill, but he’d been unable to keep Devan from coming inside. How could he, she was Eden’s daughter for all the world knew?
“How long have you been sick?” Devan asked.
Jill felt the urge to mutter “pftt” but restrained herself. She watched closely as Devan took the edge of the blanket clutched in her father’s hand and tugged it out of his grasp. Underneath he was fully dressed in pressed slacks and a starched shirt.
That’s when Jill gave in to her first desire, “Pfttt!” she muttered, rolling her eyes at him, “You effin’ faker. Did you think she wouldn’t know?”
“Must you keep such vulgar friends?”
“Get out of bed, father. I want the trunk. I know you and I know you didn’t throw it out. Where is it?”
Eden made a sound that resembled a harrumph as he swung his legs out of the bed. He didn’t move like a sick old man. He was spryer than he originally let on, “The damn thing is in the attic. Where would you think I’d store it, in the parlor? It’s an old piece of junk.”
Devan smiled, shaking her head. “No, it’s not an old piece of junk and that’s why you kept it. C’mon.”
Jill started forward but stopped when she realized Devan wasn’t only talking to her, but was waiting for Eden to follow as well. The blonde cocked her head and watched as her friend grabbed the man’s arm and led him toward the door.
“I’m not going in that dusty attic, Devan Stowe. Let me go young lady!”
“I’m certainly not letting you go until we find that trunk. After that we’re going to go through your office and your files. Besides, I assure you that you’d rather be with me when the others arrive. ”
The old man grumbled, but he gave little fight. Jill wondered if her friend might be using her magical powers to “persuade” him of what she wanted. The three of them walked to the back of the hallway and up a set of stairs hidden inside a closet door at the far end of the house. Devan pulled a string connected to the light hanging from the ceiling and dust particles flitted in the air all around, disturbed by their movement.
“Where?” Devan asked and the tone of her voice made it clear that it was a demand.
“But, Devan, you can’t even open it. I’ve tried and it can’t be done–”
“I,” she told him with a very hard stare, “can open it. Now where is it?”
Jill’s eyes scanned the dark and dusty attic. Finally she pointed to the far corner, “There. I see something there.”
Devan squinted in the direction, but couldn’t make anything out, “Damn, Jill, you’re vampire eyes are a handy asset.”
Indeed they were. She could see as well in the dark as Devan might have during the brightest part of day. In the far corner of the huge attic she could see a large wooden box. The tiny bit of light given off by the bulb above their heads enhanced the shadows cast by the deep inlaid carvings of the wood. She could feel the power and the importance of that box. It was what drew her to look in that direction in the first place. Devan must have felt the power too because she moved, no, almost floated toward it.
“Wow!” Jill gasped when the box began to hum and vibrate the closer they got to it. When Devan’s fingers tentatively reached out and touched the wood a blue light began to emit from under the lid, flashing out on all sides in laser-like fashion.
Eden Stowe shuffled forward as if mesmerized. Devan caressed the top of the trunk with the tips of her fingers, feeling each inch of the ornate lid. When she slid her fingers under the rim of the trunk it easily lifted . The old man gasped when the trunk opened for Devan and tried to shove both women aside to get inside the trunk first. A flash of blue lightening sparked from inside the chest, knocking him back onto his rear end with a thump.
Jill was as shocked as he was but couldn’t help the nervous laugh that welled up in her throat. “Quite a shock, eh Eden?” she chuckled, and placed her hand on Devan’s shoulder.
“What are you?” he demanded of Devan. “They said you were a witch, but– how?”
Devan shook her head and turned away from him to look down at the opened trunk. “The how doesn’t matter now. The Org is finished. And so are you”
“What’re you gonna do to him?” Jill whispered.
“Do you have a suggestion?” Devan cut her eyes over her shoulder to look at her friend.
“I might have an idea. Yeah, maybe I do. But for now let’s have a look at your trunk.”
The old man began sputtering again, struggling to get up. For effect the blonde bared her fangs at him, then giggled when his lips pursed into a tight, white line. His eyes narrowed and a twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth. Jill thought he was probably trying to formulate some sort of plan to get himself out of the bind in which he found himself. He eyed the door to the attic like a caged animal looking for an exit.
Jill tapped Devan on the shoulder to get her attention, and the brunette gave Eden a quick glance, before she leaned close to whisper, “He’ll regret his decision if Kent arrives before we go downstairs.”
“But what if he gets away?” Jill demanded in a soft voice, looking to her friend in askance.
They both turned when they heard a scuffle. Eden scurried down the stairs and was gone before either of them could say another word.
Devan shrugged. “He can try to get away, but I’m pretty sure the magical locks I put on the house will hold him.”
The two girls laughed and Jill punched Devan in the shoulder affectionately. She wiped the tears from her eyes and giggled a few more times before they both dropped their heads to peer down together. Jill didn’t dare touch anything, but her fingers itched to tear into the goodies inside.
A beautiful, yet delicate looking fabric was folded neatly on top of the rest of the chest’s contents and Devan lifted it out to reveal a beautiful gown of multiple layers of thin, pale cotton. Closing her eyes she lifted it to her nostrils and inhaled deeply. She rubbed the dress against her cheek using the smell and feel to take her back to a good memory of its owner.
“She wore this when we saw her,” Devan revealed, “She wore it to meet him.”
Jill knew the story. Kent’s magic allowed him to bend space and time. He rarely used his powers to alter time because he couldn’t rely on his ability to manage it safely. Devan’s magic, combined with his own, however, gave him the control he needed, so the two of them had traveled back to meet up with a now deceased Meggie. When she was alive she was Eden Stowe’s housekeeper and also recently discovered to be Devan’s natural mother. It was at this meeting that Devan learned the true nature of her origins.
Meggie had fallen in love with a briongold fae, a dream faery, and somehow that love affair had astonishingly produced a child, Devan. Two worlds that were unable to mix had come together in the form of Jill’s best friend, who was a spectacular and powerful faery-witch.
Jill peeked into the trunk again and saw a book tucked inside a leather binder. She gently reached for it because the pages looked old, ragged, and the edges were crumbling away. A charcoal sketch rested beside the book. It was a drawing of a beautiful woman. The artist had captured an exquisite visage of love in the woman's eyes.
“She looks like you,” Jill told her friend, correctly assuming the drawing was of her Devan’s mother, Meggie.
“I saw that drawing in a dream. Meggie said my father was visiting me in dreams and I saw that drawing in a child’s book,” Devan told her as she carefully folded the gown and set it aside.
“You’re mom’s beautiful, Devan. You look a lot like her, especially now that your hair’s long and flowing like that.” Jill casually reached out and brushed her fingers through her fri
end’s long dark tresses.
“That must be her Grimoire. I wonder if it can be combined with the one Langston, Kent and I have.” Devan was referring to the book of spells that was an amalgamation of magical knowledge spanning centuries.
Jill scrunched up her forehead, “I wonder how old she was?”
Under the drawing was a stack of little scraps of paper and when Devan unfolded them she chuckled, “This is sort of a keepsake trunk. These are all receipts for the times she spent at the lodge when she met my father. She went on the same date, each year, almost as if it were their wedding anniversary.”
“Hmm… when you’re in love you’ll do that,” murmured Jill, a melancholy tone to her voice. Devan touched her friend’s hand and looked at her with concern in her eyes. The previous day Jill told her about Doc and Charlie and how she’d come to be a vampire. When Devan demanded to know where Doc and Charlie were, Jill had demurred that day.
Now, in the distraction of her thoughts Jill reached in the trunk, then snatched her fingers back. She wondered if the magic of the trunk would have the same reaction to her touch as it had when Eden attempted to get to it. “What’s that?”
“Looks like a jewelry box,” Devan replied when she peered back into the trunk. She lifted the little mother-of-pearl inlaid box from the trunk and opened it.
“Ooooo!” Jill sighed, her hands itching to touch the pretty baubles inside.
Although she too felt in awe, Devan smiled and rolled her eyes at her friend, “Here,” she said, handing the box over to her. Although there were an assortment of bracelets, necklaces and rings inside, Jill was drawn to one item in particular. Her fingers looped around a long necklace of glittering stones and she lifted it slowly, the beads knocking one by one along the rim of the box. She held the necklace up toward the dim attic light and admired the effusion of colors produced inside each stone.
Devan reached for the necklace, taking it from her friend’s hands and then lovingly slid it over Jill’s head and onto her neck. The stones glimmered in assorted colors and each seemed to sparkle with an inner glow.
“But it was hers,” Jill breathed, even as she touched the bauble affectionately. She knew it must just be her imagination, but she almost felt a warmth from the beads, as if the stones were communing with her on some level.
“I don’t remember her ever wearing that. I don’t recognize it at all actually.” Devan began pulling another chain from the box, this one shorter and with a single red cabochon pendant. “But this one I remember very well. I remember this was her favorite. I wonder if he gave it to her?”
There were other numerous small knick-knack items of little overall importance, but still treasures to Devan. Finally at the floor of the chest, taped to the bottom, was a letter.
“Look! Your mom wrote you a note!” Jill exclaimed.
Devan shook her head as she carefully slid her fingernail along the taped edges to release the paper. “I know her handwriting and this isn’t it. But it has my name on it.”
My darling bairn, Devvie–If you’ve gotten this note then I presume you’ve gotten your powers now and you understand that you’re a very special witch. I wished your mother could have seen you get your magic, but I knew long ago that she would be destined to leave the earth long before that. She loved you very much, Devvie.
“So now what?”, you’re probably asking yourself. Well I wish I could tell you, but I’m only told so much myself. I do know that the Women want to meet you and after you’ve taken care of things there it will be time for you to cross over to the faery realm. Yes, the Women tell me that the rumors are true and you will be able to cross over and still retain all of the magic within you.
I cannot wait to meet you and to wrap my arms around you, my bairn. I love you and I hope that I will see you soon.
Love–Your father, Daeglan
“Who are these women?” Jill breathed, having read the letter over Devan’s shoulder. She suddenly felt sheepish, presumptuous to have invaded her friend’s privacy.
Devan smiled up at her, showing no sign that she minded in the least. Jill felt her friend studying her with an intense gaze. Those gold-brown eyes peered down at the beads around her neck before she spoke again, “I guess we’ll find out together because I think you should come with me.”
The Past – Strange Happenings
Doc’s body pressed decadently against hers. She moaned, arching her hips to his touch. Fingers explored her inner folds, touching her wet place and massaging the most sensitive part of her.
“Oh, please…” she panted, her breath catching in the back of her throat, “I need you, Doc. I don’t care if it’s wrong.”
How did he know just how to touch her? How could his fingers be that good? He knew the rhythm, he knew the spot, he knew just the right amount of pressure to use. She writhed, reached out to him. Her fingers found only empty space; his body was always just out of grasp…
A child’s cry pierced the silent night and Jill shot up in bed. Confused and hazy, she scanned the room but saw no one. When she looked down she was appalled to realize her hand was clutching her own breast. She felt her cheeks start to flame as she realized she’d been touching herself in her sleep. The heat of embarrassment nearly consumed her when she remembered she’d been having a sexy dream of Doc.
Another sound, this one a whimper, echoed along the walls outside her door and Jill was reminded of why she’d awakened in the first place. Tossing her legs over the side of the bed she hurried into the hallway and glanced left then right then left again, searching for the best direction to go in. Shadows moved from inside a lit room down the hall and she headed that direction, padding along the cold tile floor with bare feet.
“Can’t you get her to stop crying? Hypnotize her for devil’s sake,” said a woman with a shrill voice. Jill peeked into the room and she saw a tall, wiry lady of at least seventy looking sternly down at a wriggling child.
The child was sobbing softly now, her eyes clinched closed and tears streaming in huge drops along her face. The sweet child's round baby face was tinged pink as if burned. Jill could have sworn that as the tears streaked down her cheeks the skin glowed a yellow trail for the briefest of seconds.
“She can’t see, Trudy. If she can’t look in my eyes then the reverie won’t work.” Doc suddenly sat upright. “Jill!” he cried, startled by her appearance in the room. His vampire senses were extra sensitive so he could hear her footsteps even with above the child’s loud crying.
Ignoring him, Jill approached and took the child’s hands into hers, crooning in a whisper near the girl’s ear. It took a moment, but when she began combing the girl’s black hair away from her face, the child calmed and eased her crying.
“Go wait outside, Trudy,” Doc muttered, turning to a cabinet and retrieving a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a bottle of saline water with an eye-flushing nozzle.
The woman gave Jill a cold look before leaving the room, her heels clicking against the floor. Still caressing the child, she looked expectantly to Doc and waited for him to give her some instruction, “What happened to her? Was there a fire?”
“Nah, no fire. But she is burned. Acid.”
“Acid! Who would throw acid on a child?”
“It’s used as a heavy duty cleaner sometimes. This was an accident.” he turned hard, cold blue eyes to Jill then continued. “We need to flush her eyes first. You’ll have to hold her down, keep her eyes opened.”
Jill swallowed, but nodded. She rotated to stand above the girl’s head and placed her hands on either side. Doc in turn placed his upper torso and one arm partially atop the child to hold her hands, then signaled for Jill to open her eyes. She was no more than five and Jill’s maternal instincts kicked into full-gear. She wanted to clutch the little body to her breast forever.
The dark-haired child fussed and sobbed the entire time, thankfully though not with the same terror as earlier. He flushed each eye for several minutes before stopping. When he released the girl
she scrambled amidst the wet table and slipped trying to get into Jill’s arms. Once there, she curled against her breast and cried.
Doc tossed a towel onto the wet spots, then retrieved the bottle of isopropyl alcohol and some cotton balls, “We need to clean up the burns on her face too. And Trudy thinks she may have broken her leg.”
Running her hands up and down the girl’s legs, Jill searched for any sign of fracture, but found none. She wasn’t an expert or a doctor, but she’d broken plenty of bones and knew what they felt like. The child’s bones felt to be intact. Bringing her face close, she spoke softly, “I don’t feel any breaks. Hey cutie, what’s your name?”
“B…Belle…” came the whispered response.
“Wow, now that’s a name. A perfect name for a perfect girl!” Jill gushed, squeezing the child.
Doc said not a word as he swabbed the burns and then smeared some salve onto them, all the while keeping a close eye on Jill’s ministrations. After quick examination, he agreed with her original assessment that Belle didn’t have any broken bones.
“Belle,” he said, pulling her away from the sanctuary in Jill’s arms. “I need you to look at me and tell me what you can see.”
When her eyes fluttered open they took a moment to focus, then she smiled like a little angel. “Your eyes are pretty.”
Jill leaned in. “I couldn’t agree more. How many fingers, though?”
The girl looked at the hand Doc held up as if only just realizing it was there, “Three.”
“Bravo, Belle. Bravo. I think you can go home now.”
The lovely little girl seemed reluctant to release her hold on Jill. Turning toward her she smiled when she saw the Looney Tunes characters on Jill’s jammies and she stuck out a pudgy finger.
“Like ‘em?” Jill asked, taking the fabric in hand at her shoulders and holding it up, “I’m all about the right pajamas. Bed time is the time when a girl can truly show all of her colors. You remember that, Belle. The rest of the time we have to live up to other’s expectations, but nighttime we can be us. Got it?”
The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set Page 21
