Mom stood and walked over to me. She brushed the hair back from my face and pulled a small twig from my hair. “Sweetie, I was born at night … but it wasn’t last night.”
She tipped my chin back and forth, looking at my face, before taking in the multitude of scratches on my arm. It didn’t dawn on me until then just how bad I must look. Trekking through the woods and getting sucked up by a tornado didn’t exactly make for a great fashion statement. I hoped she wouldn’t notice the bulge of the gold in my pocket. I couldn’t tell her what had happened. She’d never believe me, and then I’d have to see a shrink, who would tell her that I’d created a whole fantasy world because I couldn’t accept my dad’s death.
Whatever story I came up with, it had to be good. She had to believe it.
She took a step back, not taking her eyes off me. “Did someone hurt you?”
Yes, a wicked witch stole my best friend and wants to drain her blood. “No, Mom, I’m fine. I swear.”
“So you keep saying.” She sat back across from me and folded her hands in her lap. “Unless this party involved rolling around in the woods, I’d say there’s something you’re not telling me, young lady.”
She only pulled out the ‘young lady’ moniker when she was really upset. I couldn’t even remember the last time she’d used it. How the heck could I explain how I looked without alarming her?
Mom cleared her throat. “I was your age too, once, you know. I remember what it’s like to be young and impulsive.”
I stared at her. Where was she going with this?
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there’s a boy involved. Hmm?”
My mouth fell open. No way could she think that my shredded appearance was due to a wild night of forest sex with a boy. But if she did think that …
I gulped and tried to look guilty. Ballet came naturally to me; acting did not. “Um, well, there is a boy I like.”
Mom nodded. “I thought so. I can’t believe you’ve grown up so fast. I feel like just yesterday, you were coloring with me and watching cartoons with Dad …” She trailed off at the mention of Dad, and we both fell silent.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let her think those things about me. “Mom, we didn’t … I mean … nothing happened.”
She raised an eyebrow at me and gestured at my hair again.
“Well, okay, something happened, but that didn’t happen.”
Mom exhaled an audible sigh of relief. “Oh, thank the stars. I’m not ready for that. I mean, I don’t think you’re ready for that.”
I laughed. “I think it’s safe to say we’re both not ready for that. But I do like him.” I thought of Jay’s kind eyes and warm hands. “He’s nice. And smart.”
Mom smiled. “That’s what drew me to your father. I wish he was here to see how amazing you’ve become.” Her eyes looked far away. “Anyway, I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything. Especially when you feel you are ready, but I hope that’s not for a very long time.”
She stood and stretched out her arms to give me a hug. I pressed my arm against my pocket to keep the gold coins from jingling as I got up from the chair. She wrapped her arms around me, and I buried my face in her shoulder. She still smelled like the hospital, but it was familiar and that was a good thing. I wished I could tell her how much I was hurting about Ava—Mom thought of Ava like family—and maybe she would know what to do. But it wasn’t a normal situation and I didn’t see how worrying her would help.
“Okay, now go shower,” Mom said.
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I started for the stairs.
“And one more thing, young lady.”
Here it comes. “Yeah, Mom?”
“You’re grounded for the rest of the weekend. You’re not going anywhere, got it?”
That was fine with me. The only place I wanted to go was my bed.
Cal slept with his arm curled around a stuffed polar bear. I smiled and pulled the covers up to his chin. He turned over on his side and cracked his eyes. “’Night, night,” he murmured sleepily and fell back asleep.
I ruffled his hair and kissed his forehead. “Night, kiddo.”
I stripped off my tattered clothes and tucked the bag of gold deep into my closet with the other payments. The coins didn’t bring me the joy it usually did after a job. I felt a little sick looking at it, like I had somehow traded Ava for money.
I reached in to turn on the shower and let the water heat up, when I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Holy crap. I’d significantly underestimated how bad it was. My hair, frizzy on a good day, stuck out in bizarre patterns all over my head. Bits of grass and leaves clung to it, and my forehead and cheeks were streaked with dirt. I couldn’t believe that Jay had kissed me looking like this. There was nothing about me even remotely attractive at the moment.
I hopped in the shower and let the hot water run over my head. Ty Wilder popped into my head. He wouldn’t have wanted to kiss me looking like, that’s for sure. It crossed my mind that he’d only acted interested in me after I’d gotten the lead in Sleeping Beauty. Maybe it was less about me and more about his wanting to be seen with the best, no matter who it was. The fact that I’d ever be considered a status symbol was hilarious, but I didn’t want that. I wanted a guy who liked me even when I had sticks in my hair.
I put on my favorite cotton sweats and t-shirt, and crawled into bed. My eyes drooped as soon as my head sank into the pillow. Weird images swirled together in that state between waking and dreaming. Rolph gossiping with the stable boy, the Queen sitting in her throne and pointing her scepter at an unseen person, Ava giggling with Prince Evan. I’d find a way to get back to her, no matter what. There had to be way to get myself to Liralelle. Maybe the answer would come in my dreams.
“Ava, you’re okay! Oh, thank goodness.” I hugged her and stepped back to look around.
We stood in the middle of a forest in daylight, but the trees crowded us, with their branches poking my skin.
Ava didn’t answer. Her eyes looked beyond me.
I checked behind me but didn’t see anything. “A, are you okay? Did she hurt you?”
I turned back around.
She was gone.
I spun around, but Ava was nowhere to be seen. The tree branches grew longer and sharper before my eyes. One pierced my shirt, drawing blood from my arm. I pulled away and started to run.
“Ava!” I called out, as I ran. “Ava!”
Only a crow cawed in response. I struggled to get through the trees, and bits of my clothes were ripped off by the hungry branches. Tears streamed down my face, as I fought for every step to find my best friend.
The branches retreated without warning, and a crown was visible in front of me through the trees. I ran toward it, and saw Her Highness, head bowed. Rolph stood near her and he met my eyes as I raced toward them. He only shook his head and lowered his head.
Ava laid on the ground before him, her skin white as snow, a trail of blood from her neck. Her eyes stared up at the sky, seeing nothing.
“No!” I screamed over and over again until my voice grew hoarse.
12
The screaming didn’t stop when I woke up, but it wasn’t mine. The hair prickled on the back of my neck. I jumped out of bed to the sound of Mom’s screams. No. Oh God, please no. My legs shook as I ran down the hallway. She stood in the center of Cal’s room, staring at his bed and screaming at the top of her lungs. It was empty. On the floor by his bed was the screen from his window that had to have been pushed in from the outside. Cool morning air blew through the empty space in the window frame.
This wasn’t happening. My stomach sank like it was in a free fall. Not Cal. Not my little brother. Again. Flashbacks of my little brother from Liralelle surfaced—his crumpled body on the floor with Muriel standing over him. My knees were shaking so hard but I had to keep it together. I couldn’t lose Cal. A strange sense of calm came over me.
My mom sobbed and raced past me. “I’m cal
ling 911. Don’t go anywhere.”
I walked over to his bed and placed my hand on the spot where he’d been curled around his polar bear hours earlier. The sheets were still warm. The polar bear was nowhere in sight. What were the odds that someone would kidnap my brother on the same day that my best friend disappeared in another land? It didn’t make sense. It was too random.
Sirens wailed in the distance. The police would be here in minutes, but I felt in my gut that they wouldn’t find anything. They’d do an intensive search, exhaust all kinds of false leads, and ultimately declare it unsolved. I walked to the window and studied it, being careful not to touch it.
My eyes scanned around the frame but there was nothing. I thought a minute. As far as I knew, the only way to Liralelle involved the tornado, but a tornado wouldn’t have pushed in a single window screen and it would have appeared inside the room anyway. What if someone could make themselves appear here if they had the right equipment, say a crown and scepter? Like when she dropped me off at the orphanage when I was six-years-old. I suspected Her Highness might have other contacts in this world because of the book deals with the fairytales. But why would anyone want Cal, and why go through the trouble to make it look like a kidnapping?
I searched the room on hands and knees around Cal’s bed but didn’t find anything. The sirens screamed down our street. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was a random kidnapping and I was tampering with everything. My fingers combed the rug by his bed and I peered underneath to see if something had fallen. Nothing. Not even a polar bear.
Police cars screeched to a stop in front of our house, and I pulled my head out from under the bed. A glint of something caught my eye as I stood. A few specks on the edge of his pillowcase. It looked like gold dust. He wasn’t an arts and crafts type kid, so I doubted it was glitter. I touched it and it disintegrated in my hand. Though I’d never seen the substance before, it had to be from Liralelle. The anguish in the pit of my stomach hardened into anger. Muriel was not taking my baby brother or my best friend from me. I was going to find a way there. My eyes flew to his bookshelf and fell on the fat book of fairytales that Cal begged me to read night after night. I grabbed the book and ran down the stairs as the officers were racing up.
Mom’s voice was hysterical and shrill while showing the police to Cal’s room. More officers pulled up to the house as I reached the living room. I let them in and answered their questions as best I could. Their eyes took in the fairytale book I clutched in my hand. They probably thought it was a grief reaction.
“That one of his favorite books?” an officer asked.
I nodded.
A female officer shook her head. “Crazy ass world.”
I slunk to the couch and opened the book like I was trying to find his favorite story. But I wasn’t interested in George and the Dragon. My interest was in the copyright page. I scanned the page with my finger and tried not to scoff at the 2020 copyright date. No one had a clue how old these stories were. My eyes found the publisher. I felt stupid for never having checked it out before, but that was when I thought things were cut and dry. Kill the witch, get paid, go to Juilliard.
Maleficent Publishing House, Inc. New York, NY. Figured. New York was more than a hop, skip, and jump from me, and I didn’t have a funnel cloud to take me there. Maybe I could reach them by phone. I glanced at the officers hovering around the house. They would find it strange if I insisted I had to call a publisher in the midst of my brother’s disappearance. I could call Jay though.
His sleep-filled voice answered on the third ring. “Bree? You okay?”
“My brother’s missing.”
The sleepiness left his voice. “I’ll be right over.”
He hung up, and just knowing he was on his way made me feel better. I was so used to taking on so much responsibility—in this world and the other—that it felt good to have someone else around.
I saw there was a voicemail from Rae. She’d probably been freaking out about how Ava and I disappeared from the party and wondered where we went. I had no idea what to tell her. I bet I would soon have voicemails from Ava’s mom too. Panic gripped me. How could I not think of that? Ava was missing too, and her mom probably thought she slept at my house. At some point she would wonder why Ava wasn’t home yet. It was bad but I hoped she was drinking as much as Ava said and would be sleeping off a hangover. What could I possibly tell her that wouldn’t sound completely crazy?
The officers and my mom came back downstairs to join the others. The female officer and another guy asked me some questions on my own in the living room, apparently to rule out my mom as a suspect. Seriously?
I grew more agitated with each question. “Enough. This is seriously messed up. My mom is the best ever and would never hurt Cal.”
“I believe you, but sadly, it’s most often the case,” the female cop told me.
“It’s just procedure,” the other guy added.
I really wanted to tell him where he could put his procedure. “Well, you’re wasting your time.” I didn’t add that they were wasting their time because he was somewhere they would never find.
The woman spoke in a soothing tone. “We have two guys up there now collecting evidence, dusting for prints. We’ll let you know as soon as we find something.”
“Some will obviously be mine. Can I see my mom now?”
The woman nodded. “Absolutely, we’re all done here.”
I walked into the kitchen where Mom stood among the officers, looking lost and confused. She kept picking up and lowering her coffee mug without taking a sip. I rushed over and hugged her, and she leaned down and cried into my hair. After a bit, we sank into chairs at the kitchen table in silence. I usually had a plan for everything but didn’t know what to do.
Another hour passed of officers looking around and asking questions before we were told that the two men upstairs would be finished soon and they promised to call with any updates. Then they left.
An eerie, empty quiet filled the house. No pleading by Cal for sugared breakfast cereal, or wheedling to play video games before doing his weekend chores. Guilt racked me. I’d never even gotten to take him for that game of catch in the park. All he’d wanted was to throw the football to me, and I’d let him down.
My weeping morphed into full-fledged sobs. My mom stroked my hair and let me cry into her shirt.
“Shhh. They’ll find him, honey. They have too,” she said.
That only made me cry harder. No, they wouldn’t find him. They couldn’t find him, no matter how good they were at their job. He was gone. I had to find a way to get to Liralelle. Two of the people I cared about most in the world were trapped there.
The doorbell rang. Jay. I wiped the snot from my nose, but knew my eyes were swollen and puffy. He’d certainly seen me looking a mess lately. My mom went to the door for me, while I blew my nose into a tissue. I heard his low tone in the entrance, introducing himself to my mom and telling her how sorry he was to hear about Cal.
She brought him into the kitchen.
I looked at him through tear-stained eyes. “Hey.”
He walked over without a word and hugged me. I buried my face into his shoulder and tried not to lose it again. I had the weird thought that my mom must think this was the guy I almost had sex with and suppressed the urge to giggle. Rae would say it was a hysterical grief reaction, and that people sometimes laughed at inappropriate times when faced with horrific circumstances. I wondered if her mom could get me some meds, because I could sure use some. I pulled myself away from Jay and offered him coffee.
He nodded, heavy bags under his eyes. I moved around the kitchen pushing buttons on the coffeemaker in a robotic manner. At least making fresh coffee was something I could manage.
Mom struggled to keep herself calm. “I just wish I’d heard something, anything. I didn’t hear a sound.”
I took the cup from her hand and dumped the cold coffee into the sink. “I know, Mom. Me either.”
I’d been in a dead sleep
and doubt I’d have heard bombs going off next to my bed, but what happened to Cal was likely a very quiet process. We sat down at the kitchen table, and when the coffee finished percolating, I poured us all a warm cup. When I handed Jay his coffee, he raised a questioning eyebrow at me. He must suspect that Cal’s disappearance was out of the ordinary. I shook my head slightly. As much as I might want to unload all of this on Mom, there was no way she could handle it. I’d have to talk to Jay alone.
Mom took a sip this time before setting her cup down. “Who would do something like this? What kind of person takes a child?”
“Somebody very messed up, Mom. Don’t worry. I’m getting him back.” I set my cup on the table with more force than intended, and coffee sloshed onto the table.
Mom frowned. “You mean the police will get him back. I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re all I have left.” Her voice broke on the last word.
“I’m sure the police will find him,” Jay said in a calm voice. “And I don’t plan to let Bree out of my sight either, if you don’t mind.”
I’d have to find a way out of here sooner or later but would have to resign myself to staying put for the time being. “Mom, you look exhausted. Why don’t you try to rest and I’ll answer the phone if the police call?”
She eyed me. “You look like you haven’t slept at all.”
If she only knew. “I’m fine, Mom. I’ll hang out down here with Jay.”
As if on cue, the two remaining police officers came downstairs.
“Did you find anything?” Mom asked.
The officers looked at each other. They looked uncomfortable. One of them finally spoke. “No.”
“But fingerprints, surely, on the frame?” Mom’s voice had risen an octave.
The officer looked around before responding. “No, ma’am, the frame was clean.”
Mom looked confused. “But how is that possible?” A look of horror crossed her face. “Oh God, that means they were wearing gloves, right? Like a professional.”
Killer Pointe Page 12