Fragility Unearthed

by Rebecca Royce

  Henry looked up from the subpoena. “We need to get a lawyer involved in this. Who did you use when you got divorced?”

  Victoria stroked the back of my head while she held Jack in her lap. Across the room, next to Henry, Block waited silently. My parents flanked both sides of the room. Even with all these people surrounding me, all I could think about was the absence of my children.

  “We used an arbitrator. Our divorce was very non-contentious. Levi was angry at me but not enough to be cruel. We split everything fifty-fifty and never argued over anything except the children’s baby books. We both wanted them. Eventually we decided to move them year to year. I guess I could have pressed for more money, probably should have. He came up with an amount he thought was fair, and I agreed to it. I was so hurt at the time. I just wanted it over.” I hated even thinking about that time. “I need a lawyer.”

  “I know one. My agent’s sister. She’s very good, and if you can believe it, she’ll believe you about any of the stuff we do.” Henry’s eyes were sympathetic. “She’s sensitive. Sees ghosts. Can’t clear them, but she gets it.”

  Block laughed. “You two have more friends who know what you do than anyone else I know. I don’t have any friends who know.”

  Henry nodded. “We’ve been lucky. I’ll call her in the morning for you.”

  “Do you think she can beat a shadow in court? Can anyone?”

  Victoria made a sound, something close to a hush. I imagined she sometimes used it on Jack to soothe him. “This is too much. A shadow has Levi. Malcolm and Chase are missing. You can fall apart. No one would blame you. I think I’d prefer it to this dead-tone thing you’re doing.”

  “I can’t fall apart.” I rubbed my eyes. “If anything, I’ve been formulating a plan. It’s a bad plan. An awful one, really. But I think it might work.” I stood. “I’m going to call someone who might be able to help me. Then we’ll have to do something drastic. Something I never thought I’d ever do.”

  “What are you thinking?” Block hadn’t budged from where he sat. “For this bad plan?”

  “Malcolm is missing. Chase is missing. Levi is trapped in his body with Top Hat. A demon attacked Jack and Grayson. I’m tired of our families being in play. I’m sick to death of it.” I kicked the side of my coffee table because it momentarily made me feel better.

  Victoria cleared her throat. “I brought the stuff to scry. We’ll give it a go. See if we can find Malcolm and Chase.”

  “Great.” Another thing to try, another thing to hope …

  “Kendall, don’t stall.” Block spoke again. He was getting to be downright chatty. “What’s the plan?”

  I took a deep breath. “Henry can create a safe space. Some place where the shadows can’t get in or out. Victoria can help. I know you can. The bubble you used to make in the Other space. Henry blocks the energy. You enclose it. And then we hide. I know a woman, a sensitive, she might be able to help me get my kids. Mom and Dad, I’ll need you. I can’t leave just now. I have to see if I can help Levi. He’d do the same for me. I can’t let the children think I didn’t do everything for their father. I …” My voice broke. “They’ll have to get in the van. Mom and Dad, I need you to take them, Victoria and Henry, too, and Jack. Just get out of here. With my kids. Please. Don’t tell me where you’re going.”

  I expected an argument. I didn’t get one. They must have seen it, too. Or maybe they felt the same shift in energy I couldn’t get away from. The Cascade was upon us.

  Victoria communicated silently with her husband. “You’re talking about handicapping yourself even more. Malcolm is missing. Chase, too. You send us away, and—please don’t misunderstand me, I sit up at night terrified for Jack—and you’re down your witch and a powerful practitioner. I don’t think it’s strategically smart.”

  “You’re not chess pieces to me. You’re family. You can go too, Block. I’d never insist you stay here.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “I’m good.”

  “And you, Dad? It’s a lot to ask …”

  He interrupted me, his voice harsh. “It’s very little. What I want is all of you in the van. Right now. You’re my daughter. I don’t want to leave you here.”

  “She’s not our daughter.” My mother’s light faded more and more every day. It broke my heart. Her mind was disappearing, and there was nothing we could do about it. “Our daughter died. This woman is pretending to be our daughter.”

  The room fell quiet. I wasn’t ready for this. My mother knew what had happened to me, how I’d died and come back. Or at least she used to know it.

  “Mom …”

  She put her hands over her ears. “No.”

  My father put his arms around her. “It’s okay. This will pass.”

  “What do you need to make your bad plan work?” Block asked, fortunately drawing the attention away from my mother not knowing me. I had a million and one problems. I couldn’t process any more.

  “I need you all to get ready to go. Get in the van. I think it’s the safest way. They’ll be looking for Victoria’s car.” Purple and painted yellow on the side, her ‘baby’ would be way too obvious. “I’m going to see to it that I can get the kids tomorrow. Then go. Don’t look back. If the world ends, please know how much I love you.”

  Victoria stood. “Let’s scry. Let’s see if we can find them. Maybe we’ll turn the tables and never have to worry another minute about any of this.”

  Maybe pigs were going to fly out of my butt.

  “Please.” I waved at the table. “Give it a go.”

  “I’m not feeling like you think this is going to work.” Victoria patted me on the shoulder. “Ye of little faith. And by the way, you should have brought me to talk to Troy. I always had a way of getting that little turd to do what I wanted.”

  I sat down at the table. I had to at least try to seem a little bit like I believed this might work. The problem was that seeing Levi’s body being used by Top Hat had done something to me. I’d somehow believed in the future. Okay, things were hard, they always were. Even if the shadows were out there, we had a chance of beating them. Or so I’d thought. We had momentum.

  Only, we didn’t. Not even a little bit. Why had Michael sent us back here? Why had he thought we had even the slightest chance of beating back the inevitable? They should have left us alone.

  “Don’t go dark, sister.” Block sat down next to me. “We need you not to fall apart. The kids. All of us.”

  I didn’t have to answer him. Victoria’s crystal started to move over the scrying mirror. We all watched in silence as she picked up an energy. I hadn’t asked her which one of them she sought because I hoped, beyond hope, that they were together.

  Victoria took a long, deep breath. “It’s coming.”

  “Would we see if they were dead?” I had to ask even though vocalizing the thought burned my mind.

  Henry shook his head. “Nope. The crystal wouldn’t move. It would sit quietly over the mirror, completely still even if there was a hurricane in the room.”

  “See?” Block raised his eyebrows. “One worst case scenario avoided.”

  “I don’t need you to be the voice of positivity. Another minute of this, Block, and I am going to whack you over the head.”

  He snorted.

  “Okay, we’ve got something.” Victoria moved her hand over the mirror, and a picture formed. Well, sort of one. There was a slight glow to a room, but otherwise I seemed to be looking at complete blackness.

  Henry touched Victoria’s hand. “Is there something wrong with the picture, hon?”

  She shook her head. “No, this is it. This is what it is. I chased Malcolm’s energy. This is where he is. I don’t know what we’re looking at. A white glow around the edges and a room full of blackness.” She looked around. “Anyone recognize this by any chance?”

  Silence met her query. I couldn’t imagine where the nearly all black location could be. I put my hand on the mirror. I wanted to touch him, and that was where h
e was. But then I wanted a million things, and all of them were falling apart.

  One by one, my friends excused themselves. They had to get ready. I was sending them off in my parents’ van, away from here. But could anyone really outrun the darkness which plagued our world?

  Victoria didn’t leave. Holding sleeping Jack, she remained where she’d been sitting to scry for Malcolm. “Say it. Whatever miserable, awful thing you’re not saying in the midst of this horrifying time. Say it. I can take it. I can hear it.”

  “Oh, Victoria.” I wiped at my eyes. “You really don’t want to know.”

  “Sure I do. I’m your vault. You’re mine. I told you when I thought I was going to put Henry out the window during his latest sculpture endeavor. I can take it. Say it, please. I can feel the words you don’t say radiating out of you like they’re going to eat you alive.”

  I sat across from her. “Hell. Hell. Hell. Honestly? I was thinking that wherever they are, when the Armageddon comes, and it’s coming fast, that it will go gently on them. He’s already had a horrific death. I’d like him to slip into the next world this time in peace. Even if the rest of us can’t have it.”

  When she paled, I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. “You think it’s really the end?” She gripped Jack tighter. “There’s no chance?”

  “Are we any closer now than we were before to knowing where they’re getting in from? Are we likely to be? Top Hat has my ex-husband trapped. I have to send my people away to keep them safe. I don’t want to be dour. I know how you must be feeling with Jack …”

  She placed her hand on my arm. “Look at me. We always knew it was a risk. All of us knew it when we came back. The thing is, I’d do it again. I know you would, too. We’re never promised any length of time. Who would know that better than us? We have these beautiful kids. I don’t want the world to end for them, either. But they didn’t get any more of a promise than we did. I’ll be satisfied if I know we did our best. I think we are.”

  The room dropped in temperature by two degrees. Was a ghost daring to enter my home? I would dropkick it to wherever it was going.

  “Kendall.” The voice boomed through the room. Female. Loud. Terrified. I knew the sound. It was … Mary Joan. Chase’s sister. She said something else I couldn’t make out, and the sound disappeared. Just as quickly as the room had dropped in temperature, it went back up.

  I stood very still. I wasn’t even sure if what I had heard happened. Victoria grabbed my arm. “What was that?”

  “I think … I think that was Mary.”

  “Is she a ghost?”

  I shook my head. “No. It didn’t feel like any ghost I’ve ever encountered, other than the temperature change.”

  I didn’t have the slightest idea what she wanted or why Mary’s whatever would be reaching out to me. It wasn’t, however, the strangest thing that had happened to me today.

  If she needed me, she was going to have to try again.

  Later, I sat in my bed and sent out a text that could save my children, if she’d just say yes. Dr. Bloom had been my children’s’ psychologist when Levi and I first got divorced. These days she just saw Grayson, but she knew all of them. She also happened to be a talent and the first person to alert me that Grayson would end up talented himself.

  She’d offered to help but what I was going to ask her to do would be breaking all kinds of oaths and trusts. I needed her to lie. And if this went badly, she might be sitting right next to the shadow in court testifying against me.

  She answered on the first ring. “Dr. Bloom, this is Kendall Madison, Gray’s mom. I’m wondering if we could talk about something … about something you and I share and what’s happening.”

  Patricia Bloom took an audible sigh. “I told you about myself because I knew there would be a time when we might need to speak truth to each other.”

  “Good. Because I’ve got some very serious truth to dish out. And a favor I have no right to ask for.”

  “Then I think maybe it’s time for you to call me Patricia and me to call you Kendall.”

  I didn’t know how I did it, how I dished out years’ worth of insane occurrences to her. So few people had ever heard the dying-and-coming-back-to-life story. The shadows. The memory loss. The Others.

  When I was finished, after I had told her about the shadow who had my ex-husband and was now in possession of my children, she was silent. The seconds felt like years. I really, really hoped I hadn’t made a mistake telling her.

  My whole world depended on what she said.

  “How can I help? We have to get them from him today.”

  Tears streamed down my face. “Thank you, Patricia.”

  If I could save my children from the shadow masquerading as their father, I’d never doubt my planning abilities again.

  Chapter Four

  I sat in one of Chase’s cars behind Dr. Bloom’s office. She still had her soul light. I’d checked. Annika sat next to me. She’d been happy to let me in to get to Chase’s cars, but then she’d insisted on coming. I didn’t know if she was worried I was going to do something to the vehicle or if she just wanted to be included in the madness.

  Block nodded to me and made his way up the backstairs. I couldn’t go into the building and risk the Shadow wearing Levi seeing me. I hadn’t let myself start to mourn my ex yet. He was still alive somewhere, and if there was any chance I could bring him back, I would.

  Even though I knew I could never give that Shadow the phoenix. The thing had come to life and saved mine. I wouldn’t give that kind of power to evil beings bent on getting themselves bodies. I had to get my kids out of the game.

  It would be hard enough trying to keep Levi alive without bartering with Top Hat.

  I’d hardly slept the night before. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the strange light in Victoria’s mirror surrounding the complete darkness. Where were they? I chewed on my fingernail.

  Patricia Bloom was a goddess as far as I was concerned. She’d called “Levi” confirming the kids’ appointment the next day. He’d finally agreed to bring them for their follow-up so she wouldn’t have to notify the state they were missing their mandatory counseling. They had no mandatory anything, but either Levi didn’t know that or Top Hat hadn’t gotten into that particular piece of knowledge. Or Top Hat was lying about having Levi in there with him altogether and had managed to pull out one little piece of memory before he killed him.

  Annika reached out and touched my arm. “I can feel your stress. I see no reason why this isn’t going to work. You’re just stealing your children from a shadow posing as your ex who now has a restraining order against you seeing them. You do know you’re going to end up in jail, right?”

  I liked Annika so much. She didn’t mince words, and her pointing out the obvious in exactly the wrong moment couldn’t have been more endearing. I snorted and then covered my nose with my hand to stop from doing it again. Before we could help it, we were both laughing so hard we were crying.

  I wiped my tears before I pointed at her. “Accessory. Does that word mean anything to you?”

  “Yes.” She settled down in her seat, still grinning. “I know this is going to sound really screwed up, and maybe now isn’t the time to bring up Chase—”

  I interrupted her. “Please bring him up. Anything to not think of Patricia sneaking my children out the back door of her office to Block on the back stairs without the shadow noticing.”

  “It’s weird, right? That I’m so attached.”

  “Honey, you are asking the wrong person what’s weird. I think when you know, you know. He seemed pretty crazy about you too.”

  She seemed to glow when I said that. “Then I’m going to keep holding out hope we find him.”

  “You and me both.”

  I jolted forward hitting my elbow on the steering wheel. Block held the door open, and one by one my kids ran out the back door. Grayson held Molly’s hand, and Block pointed to our car. Behind, them Patricia followed outside. I was
glad she was there, too. Top Hat wasn’t safe for anyone. I’d hate to see the good doctor get hurt.

  They all piled into the SUV, Block shutting the door behind us. “Go. Fast. I don’t want him noticing.”

  “Mom.” Dex’s hands shook while he buckled his seatbelt. “Something’s wrong with Dad.”

  I met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “I’m going to work on that. And you guys are going on a trip with Aunty Victoria, Uncle Henry, and Grandma and Grandpa while I do.”

  His eyes brightened. “What kind of a trip?”

  “The kind that goes on for a while.”

  Grayson kissed Molly’s head. “I told you Mom would come for us. He took my phone. I couldn’t call or text you. What’s going on with Dad?”

  “I’m going to figure it out.”

  Patricia took Gray’s hand. “I know this all seems scary. I’d like to hear your feelings on this. But for now, let’s hold onto the idea that sometimes things happen with adults and kids have to go along for the ride. Trust your mom.”

  Annika turned around. “Hey guys, I’m Annika. I’m friends with your Uncle Chase. I work with kids like you, and I brought you a present.”

  She had? I tried to keep my eyes on the road while watching what she did at the same time. Chase’s girlfriend pulled toys out of her bag. A paddle ball for Grayson, a stuffed bear dressed as a doctor for Molly, and a yo-yo for Dex. They immediately turned their attention to the toys. I didn’t imagine Gray would be interested in the ball for very long, but if it took his mind of his father for a second, I’d be glad.

  “Thank you,” I mouthed to her, and she grinned.

  We finally got to my house and piled out. Victoria stood in front of my parents’ van, her arms outstretched. The kids ran to her, throwing their arms around her and chatting all at once. Henry held Jack next to them and answered some of the questions Victoria couldn’t get to.

  “You did great up there,” I turned, thinking Block spoke to me, but it wasn’t me he talked to but Patricia. She smiled up at him as though he was the answer to everything she’d always wanted. I turned back around. Okay, good for Block. She was smart, gorgeous, and willing to help me break the law. He was smart, strong, and really powerful. They could both do a lot worse. Was there happiness to be found in such a time as this?