Conjure Web

by Yasmine Galenorn

  “Then you have no choice. You have to tell him that you’re not in love with him. You owe it to him to be honest and let him move on with his life. But to do that, you’re going to have to face disappointing your family.” I wanted her to be sure when she made her choice. “Can you face telling them you don’t want to marry him, more than can you face living with Arlo as a husband?”

  She gave me a forlorn look. “I guess I have no choice. I don’t love Arlo and I can’t imagine letting him touch me. I tried, I really did. I tried to get on board with the whole thing, but…”

  “But…your heart isn’t there.”

  “No,” she said, a bitter note in her voice. “And I resent being put in this position. If I follow my truth, I’ll dishonor my family and probably be kicked out of the Pride. If I go along with what they want, I’ll be miserable for the rest of my life. And I know myself. I’m not going to magically fall in love with someone just because he puts a ring on my finger. It’s looking a lot like a lifelong prison sentence.”

  I tried to think of a way to make things easier. “Would you like me there for moral support?”

  She laughed, a sour tinge to her voice. “Oh, January, you’re a good friend, but you have no clue what you’re volunteering for. No, it’s better if you don’t get involved. My mother would blame you for me changing my mind. She just can’t fathom someone not doing their duty by the Pride. I guess I should rent a place in town because the moment I tell my parents, I’ll be out on my ass. I live in one of the dormitories on Pride land—they’re kept for those who are arranged to marry, or for those who are making the transition to living on their own.”

  I took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “If you need someplace to stay, you can always crash at my place. I have a guest room, you know. So don’t let that stop you.”

  “Oh, it’s time I found a place of my own. I have enough money. If I hadn’t been supposed to marry Arlo, I would have moved away already. Thing is, this is going to drive my sisters crazy—I have two and I’m the eldest. This will upset their lives too. Neither of them can marry until I do. It’s different for boys, but for girls—if I walk away, one of two things will happen. One, my sisters will be prevented from marrying until the Alpha proclaims them free from the restriction. Or two, my parents will immediately disown me, which will mean that I don’t exist in the Pride’s eyes and therefore, the next-eldest sister will move into the eldest position.”

  Caitlin’s bobcat shifter pride seemed very restrictive to me.

  “How does that make you feel?” I asked.

  “Sad. But it’s the most likely scenario.” She leaned back in her seat. “Well, I’d better get used to being alone, because I certainly won’t have a family after this. Not unless I marry outside of the Pride.”

  “You’ll have us,” I said. “You’ll have Tad and Hank, Wren and me. We’ll be there for you.”

  Caitlin caught my gaze and gave me a sad little smile. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate that.” As she glanced again toward Tad, I thought that this was the best thing that could happen, given the circumstances. After she told her parents, she would be free to pursue a relationship with a man who was hungry for love, whom she was already interested in. I had a feeling she and Tad would do well together.

  “We’re here,” Tad called back. “I’ll park and then, January, why don’t you lead us in since you already know her.”

  Hank glanced back at us. “Whoa, you two look serious. Who died?”

  I glanced at Caitlin, then shook my head. “Girl talk. Just girl talk.”

  Tad eased into a parking spot. As we headed out of the van, I glanced over at Tabitha’s bungalow. It still looked neat and tidy outside, but the cloud was back, and I dreaded going inside. Resigned to a gloomy afternoon, I led them up the walk, to the door.

  Chapter Seven

  Tabitha looked even more frazzled than she had the day before. She let us in.

  “All right, do you mind if we set up some equipment?” I asked her. “We also have another specialist coming in about an hour. She’s a doctor and she’ll examine Zoey, looking for…well…things other than what a normal doctor looks for. She specializes in Otherkin.” I sat down with Tabitha while the others unpacked our gear.

  She gave me a long look that told me she didn’t fully understand, but she nodded anyway. “Where’s your friend?”

  “Ari? She had to work today. These are my coworkers at Conjure Ink.” I introduced everyone. “You’re in good hands. We do this for a living—investigate things like this.” I paused, and she slowly relaxed. “You have to tell us the truth, though. Have you been feeding Zoey and changing her? Have you been hugging her?”

  Tabitha bit her lip. “I’ve fed her and she’s clean…but spending time with her is starting to be difficult. She’s…”

  “Not your baby, I know. But you have to take care of her, regardless. The police could take her away for good—and if she really is Zoey and something’s just preventing you from seeing that, you could lose your daughter permanently.” Sometimes, it was just better to be blunt.

  Tabitha let out a long breath. “All right. I understand what you’re saying.”

  “Good. Now I’m going to go help them examine the nursery and surrounding area. Why don’t you go in your kitchen and have a cup of tea?”

  As I gave her a little push toward the kitchen, Caitlin said something behind me. I waited until Tabitha was out of sight to turn around.

  “That was difficult,” I said, lowering my voice. “We’d better find something soon, or she’s going to lose that baby and eventually, she’ll regret it.” I made my way over to Caitlin’s side. She was standing in the hall. “What did you find?”

  “Look at this,” she said, holding out the EMF. The needle was off the charts. “There’s so much electromagnetic energy here, it’s crazy. This alone could be driving her to think Zoey’s not hers.”

  “But where’s it coming from? Something has to be causing it. Maybe the microwave or her computer are producing too many electromagnetic waves somehow?”

  “I thought that at first, but look. Follow me.” She walked into the kitchen toward the microwave and the levels began to fall to normal range. Caitlin led me back to the living room and over to the computer. The computer also showed a moderate level, but it wasn’t spiking up either. So the high readings weren’t due to either appliance, but something else.

  “Which way is the kid’s room?” she asked.

  “Near where you were standing in the first place.” I pointed to the hall. “The nursery is the first room there, on the right.” As I led her over toward Zoey’s room, I watched the PK reader, and as we approached Zoey’s room, the spikes returned, higher than before.

  “Cripes,” I whispered, staring at the meter. “This is…”

  “Off the charts. Hank, come over here, please.” Caitlin held out the reader and he scrutinized it.

  “Shit, that’s…”

  “I know,” Caitlin said. “All right, what should we do first?”

  “Try the iron trick,” I said. “Though we’re going to want to hook up the camera in the nursery so we can see if it will catch anything. What about the FLIR?”

  “We can’t use it until it’s dark,” Hank said. “Can Zoey get out of her crib and potentially hurt herself by knocking over any of the equipment?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. She didn’t look capable of it yesterday.”

  “I’ll go ask,” Caitlin said, heading for the kitchen.

  I watched her go, then turned back to Hank. “Shall we go ahead and set everything up?” I didn’t want to go back in the baby’s room. I didn’t want to see Zoey again, but this was my job and sometimes you had to do things you didn’t want to. Hank gathered up the bags of equipment and I followed him into the nursery.

  Immediately, I felt like I was being watched as I stood in the door, staring at the baby. Zoey was asleep, and in her slumber she looked angelic, but there was still somet
hing behind the surface, something that felt wary and shrewd. I tried to harness my fear and slowly stepped into the room, approaching the crib.

  Hank started to set up a security camera where she couldn’t reach it, even if she somehow managed to get out of the crib. When he finished, I leaned over the railings. Zoey shifted in her sleep and then, very slowly and deliberately, she opened her eyes and fastened her gaze on me. Without a word, she smiled—and not in that goofy baby smile way, but a crafty, sly smile.

  “Crap, did you see that?” I asked.

  “I got it on tape, yes. Here, let’s try the chain.”

  I walked over to him and he handed me a small iron chain. I turned back, steeling myself. As I neared the crib, Zoey pulled herself into a sitting position and stared at me, her eyes wary now rather than sneaky. I reached down into the crib, not touching her, but with the chain in hand, and as I came within a few inches of her, she suddenly let out a long hiss and screamed at the top of her lungs. Her eyes flashed, turning a brilliant green before settling back down to baby blue.

  I quickly pulled the chain away from her. “Well…”

  “That went better than I expected,” Hank said.

  Zoey began to cry, tears running down her cheeks. I bit my lip, feeling horrible. Tossing the chain to Hank, I leaned in and lifted her out of the crib, cuddling her close.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry—” I paused as she quieted down, sniffling. There was an odd smell to her—it wasn’t bad, but it reminded me of green apples and moss. “Who are you?” I asked, holding her out to get a good look at her. “Whose child are you?”

  Hank was standing beside me. “We’d better put her down again. But at least we know she can’t stand the presence of iron.”

  “Yeah,” I murmured. “I wish we hadn’t needed to do that.” Pausing, I thought it better to discuss the matter out of her earshot. “I’ll meet you in the living room.”

  As we exited the bedroom, I glanced over to find Tad staring at me. I crossed over to him. “Dude, that kid’s freakshow scary. I’m talking Children of the Corn scary. She reacted to the iron. I didn’t even touch her with it, but she screamed bloody murder.”

  “Then she could easily be Fae. And they can take on an almost fool-proof glamour.” He motioned for me to sit on the sofa. “Why don’t you start monitoring the security camera.”

  Caitlin, who was already watching, glanced up as Tabitha entered the room, mug of tea in hand.

  “Did I hear…her…scream?” Tabitha asked.

  “Yes, but she’s fine. She’s not hurt.”

  “All right…” Tabitha looked harried and tired and confused. “Oh, I forgot to ask, do you want anything to drink or eat?”

  “That’s fine, Tabitha. Sit down and relax while we do the work.” As I sat on the sofa, I slid off my boots. “Do you mind if I sit cross-legged?” I asked.

  Tabitha shook her head. “I do it all the time.”

  I crossed my legs and moved the cart with the monitors on it to where it was directly in front of me. Hank would set up other surveillance cameras around the house and outside, and we’d stay for at least four or five hours. I must have looked tense, because Tad rested his hand on my shoulder.

  “Take it easy. We can only go so fast. There’s no way to rush this.”

  I glanced up at him. “You really are a good boss. I’m just nervous. When the baby screamed—and I just held the chain near her—it startled the hell out of me.” I forced myself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, then sat back, watching the monitor.

  Zoey was asleep, looking cherubic, but then, within a few minutes, her eyes opened. She pulled herself to a standing position, holding on to the side of the railings, as she looked around the room, and then let out a laugh that chilled me to the core, a full-fledged I’m going to get you laugh. It rebounded through the room, far too deep for a child’s lungs.

  “That’s no baby,” I said, pointing to the camera. There was a shadow on the wall, thrown by the baby, and it wasn’t at all the same shape. It seemed bipedal, but the shape was odd, though I couldn’t quite point out why.

  “You’re right.” Tad leaned forward. “What is that?”

  “She can’t be a shifter—even shifters throw the shadow of whatever alt-form they’re currently in. Tell me more about changelings. How does it work?”

  “From what I know, the Fae take human children and leave duplicates in their place. That’s one of the reasons I asked about the possibility—the duplicate will resemble the missing child in every way, down to their DNA. It’s as though the Fae are able to clone the child through their glamour magic. But the soul, the spirit, is the Fae child.”

  “Why do they do this, and how does the glamour break? Do you know? Is there any time when you can see through it?” I had very little to do with the Fae, but it seemed as though Tad had far more knowledge than I did.

  “Yeah, there is. I remember reading stories about cases where changelings were involved. I’ll have to look them up again, but I seem to remember hearing that the shadow can’t lie and will give away the creature. Let me look it up again.”

  As he tapped away on his laptop, I gestured for Caitlin to take over watching while I crossed the room to sit by Tabitha. “I’m sorry we don’t have a simple answer.”

  She gazed into my eyes, looking worn and weary. “Thank you. You’re the first ones to take my concerns seriously. The doctor thinks I’m nuts, I know that. And so did everybody else I talked to. To be honest, I don’t feel safe with…whatever it is in my house.”

  “When did you notice a difference?”

  “About two weeks ago. It was the nanny’s day off, so I took her on a walk to the park. She was in her stroller.”

  I perked up. So there was a defining moment. That could shed light on the issue. “Tell me everything you remember about that outing.”

  “We went to Thimbleberry Park—it’s right next to the Mystic Wood. It was chilly but the sun was shining, and it was such a beautiful day that I wanted to get out. I was sitting on a bench and Zoey was in her stroller. Then…” She paused. “You know, I had forgotten all about this. I don’t know how, but it just slipped my mind. I heard a child crying. It sounded like she had been hurt. I mean, really crying—you know, the ‘Oh shit, did they break their arm?’ kind of cry. I looked around and saw what I thought was a child sitting just inside the tree line. No other adult was around. It was only a few yards away, and I didn’t want to leave her there if she had truly broken her arm or something like that. So I ran over there to check on her.”

  “And what happened then? Was she hurt?”

  “She…wasn’t even there. I got there, and there was no child in sight. I looked around, but she had vanished. It confused the hell out of me, but there was absolutely no one there. So I went back to Zoey, who was still in the stroller. The park suddenly felt darker… It made me nervous, so I left. When we got home, I thought I noticed something about Zoey. She seemed different. But I blew it off as a result of the odd encounter in the park. After that, though, Zoey didn’t seem like herself. The nanny got spooked because of her—even though she gave me a different reason for leaving, I know it was because of Zoey. I took her to the doctor, but he said she was fine. I called the police, but they just acted like I was hysterical. So I tried to ignore it, but then I saw your card and thought I’d call you.”

  Crap. The Mystic Wood—anytime that copse was involved, something odd was sure to follow. I turned back to Tad, who had been listening even while he was searching on his phone.

  He paused, then looked up at Tabitha. “Tell me something. How long were you there? How much time passed between when you went over to check out the little girl, and when you arrived back at the stroller?”

  Tabitha frowned. “That’s the odd thing. I went to the park during the early afternoon. I swear we can’t have been there more than half an hour before that incident occurred. I arrived at the park at two o’clock. When I got home
, it was nearly five. It takes me ten minutes to drive to Thimbleberry Park. So where did most of those three hours go?”

  So we had missing time along with the event. “And you didn’t make any other stops on the way there or home?”

  Tabitha shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

  Tad motioned to me. “I’m sending you some information via text. Take a look at the links.”

  I pulled out my phone and waited for his texts to come through. The links led me to stories about changelings—and almost all of the documented cases involved time loss and memory loss components. Each one seemed to mirror Tabitha’s experience in terms of everything being fine, then some event where they had been separated from their baby for a time, and boom, the baby didn’t seem the same afterward. I wanted to ask Tad what the end result was, but I worried that if it were bad, Tabitha would overhear and fret.

  “Tad, can we chat in the kitchen?” We entered the kitchen and moved away toward the outer wall so that we were out of Tabitha’s sightline and earshot. I sat down at the kitchenette table.

  “What happened in those cases? What was the end result?”

  “In two of the cases, the changelings just up and died on the couple. When they died, they turned back into their Woodling forms. There was one case where the mother went nuts and beat the child to death—again, it changed back into its natural form and she was acquitted when the court wasn’t able to produce a corpse of the actual child.”

  “How long before it reverted to its natural shape?”

  “It was on the morgue table, and the coroner was about to autopsy the child. The judge gave her a stern warning, but there was nothing else he could do. Without a body, they had no case. They searched for her child—she had been begging them to do something because she was convinced her child was missing—but they never found anything. In other cases, the changelings grew up and then vanished. A couple went missing as teens, while others managed to stick around till their early twenties and then vanished.”