by ID Johnson
***
“How is she?” Elliott asked as Aaron stepped through the back door, joining him on a large wraparound porch that consumed most of the outside of the house.
“Not good,” Aaron admitted, shaking his head. “She’ll be all right in a few days, though.” While he would like to say this was just optimism, unfortunately, he’d seen his fiancée go through enough deaths to know about how long it would take her to begin to recover. “How are you?” he asked, turning to face his friend.
“I’m… okay,” Elliott said slowly, with a nod. “It’s a bit surreal for me, too. I mean, I don’t remember exactly what it was like over there, but I know it was beyond anything we are even capable of imagining. Janette is definitely not missing us.”
Aaron smiled and nodded along with his friend, the man just last week he was certain he would never see again. He saw no point in asking why Elliott was willing to give all of that up in order to come back to their mundane-in-comparison existence. There was nothing that could be done about it now. “I think we will all eventually come to that conclusion. It’ll just be a little harder on some of us than others.”
“Right,” Elliott replied. “Want to see what I found?” he asked, changing the subject.
With a gesture that said lead the way, Aaron followed him down the steps to the back yard which included a lovely flower garden and a small orchard where Janette had grown apples, pears, and peaches.
There was a little clearing in the middle of the garden next to a bench that Aaron noticed was carved with moons, a detail he’d noticed before but hadn’t ever made the leap to connect the significance. On the ground in front of it sat two urns and an outfit he’d seen Janette wear on more than one occasion. The urn on the left was Jordan’s, which usually sat on the mantel over the fireplace in Janette’s living room. The other one, which was of similar shape and decoration, though it was green and the first was brown, was new. Both were full of ashes, the lids sitting nearby.
Bending to carefully pick up the unfamiliar green urn and its lid, Elliott said, “It’s got her name inscribed on the side.” He placed the lid on top and took the few steps closer so that Aaron could see.
Taking it, Aaron read Janette Josephine McCumby Findley clearly etched on the side as Elliott continued his explanation. “The outfit looks as if she stepped through the portal and it just fell to the ground where she stood.”
Aaron looked closely at what Elliott was alluding to and confirmed his assessment was true enough. “I wonder how she knew it would work.”
“I don’t know. Hell, I’m still trying to figure out how it works at all. But lucky for us, we will at least have some interesting footage to examine.”
Elliott was gesturing to the top of a nearby lamppost. At the top of the ten-foot-tall structure was a security camera. “Grandma Janette became technology savvy in her final days,” he muttered.
“Yep,” Elliott agreed. The camera mounting didn’t appear to be very complicated, and he easily managed to leap up and pull it down unharmed. “This should be fascinating for our friends in the lab.”
“You mean Christian?” Aaron asked, still carefully holding what could only be Janette’s remains.
“That’s the bastard I was referring to,” Elliott nodded.
Aaron couldn’t help but laugh at the paradox. He wasn’t exactly sure how, but he knew Christian was definitely helping Cadence with her plan to get Elliott back. How bizarre that someone who seldom saw eye-to-eye with the deceased Guardian would fight so hard to return him to the team? “He may have just done you a big favor,” Aaron offered.
“Maybe. Or maybe not,” Elliott shrugged, as if he was thinking about where he might be at that moment if he hadn’t agreed to come through. “What do you think we should do with the clothes?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Take them in, I guess,” Aaron replied, not knowing what they would do otherwise. “And we’ll return Jordan’s urn to its rightful spot, Janette beside him.”
“All right. I’ll take care of this. You go check on Cadence,” Elliott insisted.
With a nod, Aaron turned to go, still holding Janette’s urn. Before he got more than a few steps, he turned back around to face his friend. “Glad to have you back, man,” he said clasping his hand one more time.
Elliott laughed. “I’ll remember you said that the next time I screw up one of your perfectly planned hunts.”
“Yeah, well, if things end up as I suspect they will, we will definitely need you out there. Nothing will go as planned from here on out if you weren’t the only thing to come through that portal.”
“Right,” Elliott agreed. Aaron could see that he wanted to say more, but he didn’t and before embarking on what could potentially be an uncomfortable discussion of how risky using the portal could be, he headed back toward the house, hopeful that Cadence was all right and that she wouldn’t question exactly what—or who—he was carrying.
Chapter Eighteen
The ride from Des Moines to Shenandoah could take anywhere from two hours to three depending upon who was driving and how much lead they had in their foot, though it was still a lot quicker than driving with a human. Cadence had asked to go back to the airport to get her bike so she could ride solo with her thoughts, but Aaron didn’t think it was a good idea, so she found herself in the backseat of the Jeep Patriot piloted by her fiancé and navigated by her best friend, headed straight for the most uncomfortable conversation she’d ever have in her life.
A few hours of introspection had left her feeling a bit better. Rationally speaking, she knew her grandmother had made the choice to go on to the other side and join her grandfather, and she had no doubt the woman she loved so very much would be happy with her decision. The idea that she likely couldn’t remember Cadence even existed now was a little unsettling, but most of all, she couldn’t believe that she would never have another intimate moment with the woman who had taught her who she was and all that she could be if she only believed in herself.
She’d phoned her mom to tell her she had some news and that she wanted to have a family meeting as soon as she got there. By then, Cassidy would be home from school, but her father would have to leave work early. Her mother was alarmed but didn’t question her too extensively over the phone; Cadence did her best to keep her voice calm. She wasn’t prepared to tell her parents her grandmother was gone on the telephone.
As they approached her neighborhood, Aaron turned to Elliott and said, “I don’t think you can just walk in there. That’ll be a little too much all at once.”
“Right,” Elliott nodded. “Why don’t you let me out here, and I’ll disappear for a while. You can just let me know when you’re ready for me to make my grand entrance.”
“How are we going to do that if you don’t have an IAC?” Cadence asked as Aaron stopped the car and Elliott opened his door.
“I have my ways,” he replied with a wink, and then he was gone.
“Has he gotten faster now that he’s back from the dead?” Aaron asked as he took a moment to stare after Elliott’s ripple in the air before resuming their journey.
“Maybe,” Cadence shrugged. “You did.” After Aaron had come back from his death experience, he had become capable of speeds and feats of strength she would have never fathomed before. “Maybe I need to die and come back to life so I can increase my speed.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Aaron insisted, peeking at her in the rearview mirror.
She had obviously been kidding, but the thin line between life and death was growing blurry, and the more she thought about it, the more she began to reflect on her own mortality.
Aaron pulled the car into the driveway and flashed around to open the door for her. “My lady?” he said with a smile, an attempt to make her laugh.
It worked. She grinned at him and slid out, taking his arm. “Thanks,” she said, and before they made their way to the front door, she wrapped her arms around him briefly, beginning to feel as if the
y’d gotten past the chasm she’d caused.
“Are you ready?” he asked, leading her up the steps.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Liz and Eli Findley were there to greet them before they could even knock, and her mother’s warm embrace was enough to make Cadence forget for a split second exactly what had brought them in the first place. But a glance at her father’s concerned face, which looked so similar to his mother’s, particularly around the eyes, brought it all crashing back.
“What in the world could possibly be the matter to bring us all together on a Thursday afternoon?” Liz asked, leading them into the living room.
Before she could answer, Cadence was taken aback by Brandon’s presence. He was sitting on the sofa next to Cassidy, and they both stood up in greeting as Cadence and Aaron approached. Cadence looked at Aaron, but his expression didn’t reveal whether or not he was aware that Brandon was already at her parent’s house. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she gave him a quick hug and then forced her sister to embrace her as well.
“I live here,” he said with a shrug, plopping back on the couch next to Cassidy.
Cadence just shook her head, not bothering to argue with ridiculousness. She squeezed her way onto the couch between her sister and Aaron and waited for her mother and father to sit down in their respective recliners. Her mother offered, “Brandon visits frequently, so we weren’t too surprised when he showed up awhile ago. How was your trip?”
Small talk. Polite but not necessary. “Fine,” Cadence replied dismissively. “Look, I know you’re all wondering what I needed to talk to you about, and there’s no easy way to say this. So I’ll just get on with it.”
Her parents were leaning forward, concern in their furrowed eyebrows. Her sister was rigid next to her, as though she were bracing herself.
Cadence took a deep breath. “I actually have good news and bad news, but they are both extremes. So I’ll start with the bad news.” She felt Aaron squeeze her shoulder, and clearing her voice, she continued. “We’ve just come from Grandma Janette’s house… and she’s gone.”
There was a pause as her audience collectively gasped. “She’s gone?” her father echoed. “You mean, she’s passed away?”
It was a legitimate question, one Cadence had asked herself, but she wanted to be honest with her parents without overwhelming them with too many details. “Not exactly,” she said. “Like all things related to the Ternion, it’s complicated. Essentially, there is a portal that can open under specific circumstances related to the blue moon. Grandma had been using this portal to communicate with Grandpa Jordan for the past several years. Last night, when the portal opened, she went through it.”
She let that sink in and watched her father’s face in particular as he processed. It was her mother who spoke first. “You’re saying that Janette went through a portal to the other side to be with Jordan?”
“Yes,” Cadence confirmed.
Her father leaned back in his chair, opened his mouth, closed it, and then shook his head for several seconds before he said, “Are you sure?”
“She wrote a letter,” Aaron replied, calmly, drawing it out of his jacket pocket. He handed it to Liz who was closest.
Cadence turned to see how her sister was reacting as her mother began to read the letter aloud. Cassidy’s face was a blank slate, and Brandon’s arm was wrapped around her. Other than a lack of expression, Cadence could tell no difference between her sister’s initial reaction to seeing her sister and having received the news. Perhaps her Vampire blood left her a bit colder than she would’ve been before. Or maybe she just hadn’t come to terms with the news yet.
When Liz finished reading the letter, she handed it to Eli, as if he might need to see it in person to believe she hadn’t just made it up. “Well, that is… shocking,” she muttered, clearly at a loss for words.
“I know,” Cadence nodded. “It’s all very surreal. I am having a little trouble accepting it myself.”
Eli read through the letter, wiping tears from his eyes. Cadence could only remember a few times when she’d seen her dad cry, the most recent being when Aaron was asking for her hand, though she didn’t know at the time that’s what was being discussed. She absently twisted her ring on her finger.
“Did you want to see it, Cass?” Eli asked, once he’d finished reading the letter.
Cassidy merely shrugged, and Brandon stood to get the letter in case this particular shrug actually meant “yes.” Once she had the paper in hand, Cassidy did read it to herself, and Cadence noticed the shell beginning to break a bit. She longed to see traces of her sister’s former self, even if it meant seeing her tears. The entire drive over, she’d been leery of telling her sister the news for fear of seeing her cry; this reaction was far worse.
“When did you learn about this portal of the blue moon?” Liz asked awkwardly.
Despite the situation, Cadence was tempted to chuckle at her mother’s phrasing. “Grandma told me about it last week. I had no idea that she was intending to use it. In fact, I didn’t even know that you could go through it that way.”
“What do you mean by ‘that way’?” Brandon asked, and Cadence peered around her sister to look at him, a bit surprised to hear him speak up.
“Well, we knew that once, a long time ago, a Guardian had used the portal to come back after death, but there were huge ramifications from that, and it hasn’t been used in over two hundred years,” Cadence explained.
She saw the same question in his brown eyes as she had asked herself just over a week ago, wondering at the possibility, and she attempted to distract the conversation before they all got ahead of themselves. “I know that Grandma is in a better place, that she chose to go there so that she could be with Grandpa. I have no doubt this is what she wanted. It’s just… hard to imagine being without her.”
All eyes shifted to her dad, who was nodding solemnly. “Well, it’s definitely a shock,” he agreed. “But I do think it is best if we try and focus on the positive. I suppose I’ll need to drive over and let my sister and her family know. We’ll need to make… arrangements.”
“She already bought an urn,” Cadence offered. “I’m not exactly sure how the portal works when a living person goes through, but we found her urn next to Grandpa’s in the back yard.”
Her father’s eyes showed more disbelief now than they had when she’d initially told him of her grandmother’s decision to go. “So, she’s essentially cremated?”
“Something like that,” Aaron nodded. “She set up a video camera, but we haven’t watched it yet. It appears as if she had a better understanding of how the portal works than we do. She just stepped out of this world and into that one.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be prepared to watch a video of my mother disappearing,” Eli said, running a hand through his thinning brown hair.
Before Cadence could comment, Brandon interjected. “This portal… you said it had been used in the past for a Guardian to come back from death?”
“Yes…” Aaron began, but he was interrupted.
“Why are we just hearing about this?” Cassidy asked, the blank look replaced with the seething look of contempt only a teenager can muster.
Cadence caught his eye before Aaron continued. “There are a lot of adverse effects to using the portal. When the Guardian Cadence was referring to came through, something evil came through as well, and it took us a very long time to defeat this particular Vampire. Additionally, we’ve discovered that, once a Guardian comes through, he or she can never ever go back. So we’ve essentially decided not to use it anymore. For anything. Ever. Until this week. I had no idea that your grandmother had been using it.”
“That’s stupid,” Cassidy said, crossing her arms across her chest. Her mother called her name in admonishment, but that did not stall her resolve. “If we know that we can use this portal to bring someone back, then we should do that. I don’t care if Satan himself comes out. I’ll send him back q
uickly enough.”
“Cassidy, I’m sure the reasoning is legitimate,” Brandon offered, though a glance at his expression told Cadence the conviction wasn’t there.
“So did something evil come through when Grandma left?” Cassidy asked, ignoring Brandon’s rationality.
Cadence’s attention immediately flew to her fiancé’s face, her forehead crinkled in concern. Cassidy had a point; if letting Elliott come through allowed something evil to pass, what would happen when something good, such as her grandmother, went through the portal?
“Honestly,” he began, running his hand through his hair, an indication to Cadence that the question made him feel uneasy, “I have no idea. I would think, yes, that each time the portal opens, there’s a very good possibility that something bad will come through, but last time it took us decades to establish what had happened, and by then, we were fighting the most prolific monster we’d ever encountered.”
“Dracula,” Cadence said, looking at her sister and then Brandon. She thought she may as well just come out and say it. “Dracula came through last time.”
“The Dracula?” Cassidy asked, her eyes narrowing.
“No, Phil Dracula, a great tailor known for his impeccable seams,” Brandon chimed in elbowing her as he did so. “Yes, they mean the Dracula.” He shook his head, clearly more in disbelief over the question than the original statement.
“Well, I didn’t know…” Cassidy spat back, slamming her shoulder into his armpit where his arm surrounded her. “It just sounded a little crazy!”