by LJ Rivers
Morgana.
With trembling hands, I carefully inserted my index finger under the flap and broke it loose from the seal. Inside was a single sheet of coarse, slightly yellow paper. It was folded neatly in three.
Kit came out of the cat door and skipped to where I stood frozen on the garden path. He purred, circling my feet.
“Look, Kit,” I whispered. “It’s from my grandparents.” I unfolded the letter and read it out loud to my cat.
Dearest Ruby,
Thank you for telling us about our daughter. We are saddened beyond comprehension by the news of the tragic death of our Elaine, and can only imagine how devastating her loss must be for you. Time has passed by without us getting to know you, our granddaughter. There are many reasons for this, but both Lili and I wish to put the past behind us. Could you find it in your heart to do the same?
We will hold a Hanfod Chario for Elaine on Sunday, the 21st of June, and hope you are able to attend. It is somewhat the equivalent to a memorial. Should you so desire, I have already arranged for a driver to fetch you with his automobile in Pwllheli on Thursday the 18th. It is a green Land Rover, with modifications. I believe the train arrives at 5:13 in the pm. This would require you to wait for about three quarters of an hour, as our driver will not be able to be in Pwllheli until closer to 6 or thereabouts. He will wait for half an hour in the parking lot by the water, then return if you do not show.
I sincerely hope you can come and visit us, and maybe we can get to know each other during your stay. We have so much to talk about, annwyl.
With love from your devoted grandfather, Llewellyn Morgana
The waterworks were back on, but I didn’t fight the tears. “Oh, Mum, I’m going to meet them!” I said. “How I wish you were here, so we could take this journey to our past together.”
I googled Hanfod Chario, but it didn’t return anything. Both words sounded Welsh, so I entered them separately into a Welsh-English translation site. Hanfod meant “essence” while chario could mean to carry or bear something from one place to another. In context, it made all the sense in the world to me. My grandparents wanted to bear the essence of my mum from one place, the Earth, to another, which could only be Avalon. It sounded like a nice tradition, even though I didn’t actually believe in the “essence bearing” part of it.
Kit growled and started running in bigger circles between my feet as I staggered towards the swing in the garden. For the next hour or so, all I could do was read and re-read the letter, tracing the beautiful letters with my finger. I held the sheet up to my nose and smelled it, hoping to catch a scent of something, anything. And maybe I did, or maybe it was just my imagination. At one point, I thought I could smell a hint of roses, the next time it was more salty, like the sea breeze I had smelled when I was in Perllanafal.
When I was there!
It still baffled me that I had been in the very town my grandparents lived. Did they know? Had they been to the grocery store and heard about the old man and his daughter who were rescued by Rhys, the fisherman?
Or maybe they had been to the pancake place, where I had tasted Mari Wogan’s divine pogs with chocolate and strawberries?
Suddenly, it was all I could think of. Where did they go? Had they talked to any of the townspeople and heard about the strange visitors? Where was their house? What if they lived two houses down from the Wogans? Maybe they even knew them, and perhaps played bridge on Saturdays, with Mari serving homemade biscuits and herbal tea, like the Goblin she was.
Two days from now, I could ask all these questions and dozens more.
Brendan!
I pulled out my phone and sent him a text.
Ring me as soon as you can. I’m going to see my grandparents! Super excited!
Excited enough to forget the love and kisses I usually ended my texts to him with. The clock on my phone showed 2.14 in the afternoon. Time had flown by. I tapped the phone icon and hit the third item from the top in my call log.
Jen replied before the first beep had finished. “Hello, Red.”
“Jen, you have to come. Both of you.”
“What’s wrong?” Her voice instantly switched to the alert, wolf-like version. “Is Gemma back?”
“Down, girl.” I chuckled. “My bad. It’s just that my grandparents have invited me to come to Wales. They’re arranging a kind of ceremony for Mum, a Hanfod Chario, and I want you and Char to come, too. You’re both swamped, I know, but it’ll only be for three or four days, and I—”
“We’re on our way!” She paused a couple of seconds. “As soon as I can get hold of my secretary, that is. She’ll get the appropriate tickets way faster than I can. As a matter of fact, it might be best if you coordinate the details with her.”
I could envision her bossing Charlie around. The image made me miss them even more. “Great, Miranda,” I said, jumping into one of Jen’s favourite films. “I’ll call Andy and we’ll arrange it all. Just relax and enjoy your no-foam skimmed latte with an extra shot.”
“Oh, I like this,” Jen said, turning into Meryl Streep in a heartbeat. “But I’ll not be bored by details. Tell Michael Kors I’ll not attend his party as long as he keeps churning out those ghastly sunglasses.”
“I think I’ll live to regret comparing you to Miranda,” I said. “But thanks, I couldn’t imagine going to Wales without my angels. Talk to you later, OK?”
“Whatever,” Miranda Priestly, aka Jen, said. “I have no more time for this now.” She rang off.
As the phone buzzed again, I thought she was ringing back, but it was a reply from Brendan.
Sounds great. When? I’ll ring you around 8 tonight. Love ya, ginger.
I wasn’t exactly sure how, but during the next hours, I managed to take a shower, go shopping—including dropping off the bags of clothes—and order a Sesame Chicken to go from Lee’s. With the chicken dish on the table in front of me, extra onion rings on the side, I re-read the letter from my grandfather for the umpteenth time. As I read, and re-read again and again, the words started coming to me in a different voice. It reminded me somewhat of Auberon’s when he played the part of the old professor, Gabriel Kaine.
Dearest Ruby.
Dearest. And he had signed it ‘devoted grandfather’. I wasn’t sure how to interpret that and came to think of the three letters Mum had got from them. Or rather, from my grandmother. If they truly were as devoted to me as my grandfather had indicated, they must know more about me than Mum had led me to believe. Did they know about me going to uni? And what about Dad, and how he died?
Question upon question echoed in my head. It seemed the past year had been all about questions, all about my past.
Lili and I wish to put the past behind us.
I wasn’t sure I could do the same, although I understood what he meant. I would gladly close the door on any feud between them and Mum if it meant giving me—and my grandparents—a fresh start. If memory served, they would be approaching sixty by now. Providing they were in reasonable health, we could have many years together.
I promised myself to help them put the past behind us.
Chapter Five
Kit and I joined Charlie and Jen on a train in Hartford. We huddled around a table, me next to Jen, with Kit lounging on the table. Charlie sat by the window, facing the same direction as the speeding train, and an oversized backpack occupied the seat beside her. The rest of our luggage was neatly stacked in the luggage compartment behind us.
It was more than five and a half hours from Hartford to Pwllheli, and another forty-five minutes to wait for our pick-up after that. My grandparents had been vague in their descriptions of the driver but told me exactly the brand of car to look for, as well as when and where to expect it. There had been no time to tell them I’d invited three other people along, but if they didn’t approve, we could always turn back. I wasn’t prepared to face them alone, and my angels had all said yes in a heartbeat. Bless them.
My phone vibrated on the table, and Kit lazily st
retched himself away from the disturbance. I looked at the screen, then gave Jen a sideways glance.
“It’s fine, Red. Just because Nick and I aren’t together anymore, doesn’t mean you can’t still be his friend.”
“If you’re sure.” I picked it up. “Hey, Nick, I’m on the train with Jen and Char,” I babbled.
There was a long pause before he spoke. “Oh, all right. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve got everything covered at work, so you don’t have to worry about it. Josh is gonna help out for however long you need; said he could use the extra cash. He wouldn’t mind if you stayed away all summer, I think.”
“That’s great. Cheers, Nick. Tell him I’ll probably be gone for a while, so he might as well take the rest of my shifts for the summer.”
“He’ll be stoked.”
“I appreciate it. You’re a good friend.”
Nick paused again, and his voice dropped several octaves. “How is she?”
Beside me, Jen’s ears pricked up, though her eyes were glued to the book in her lap.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s sitting right next to me, and she can already hear every word you’re saying.”
“Nah, I don’t … some other time, maybe. Say hi to her from me, though. And to Charlie. And good luck in Wales. Sorry I won’t be there.”
“You’re saving my job, which is more than enough. I’ll tell them you said hi.”
He disconnected, and I put my phone back on the table. Kit didn’t so much as lift a paw.
“Nick says hi,” I said.
“He did?” Jen shrugged, turning a page in her book. With a sigh, she closed it and put it on the table. “Oh, who am I kidding! Hearing his voice makes me miss him more than I already do. But I really am fine most of the time.”
“I get it,” I said. Unlike Jen’s, however, my relationship was doing great these days, even with everything going on. Brendan’s team had come back from France to continue their training in Edinburgh, and he would come to Wales for the Essencebearing. I kind of liked that term. After he ditched the last few days in France to come back when Mum died, the coach wouldn’t allow any more leeway on weekdays. Jen’s wound was still pretty raw, and though she kept a straight face most of the time, I recognised pain when I saw it.
“So, excited to meet the old folks?” Charlie raised her eyebrows at me, and I could feel Jen relaxing at the turn of the conversation.
“I’m not sure what I am. It’s weird. Mum hadn’t seen them for twenty years, and now they’re holding a memorial. Sorry, an Essencebearing. I mean, she might as well have been dead already.”
“It’s different, you know, knowing that there might still be a chance to see the people you love, and actually never having that chance again.”
“I guess.”
“They did invite you to come to their strange town, so maybe they want to make amends?”
“Maybe.”
She guffawed. “I’ll be completely out of my element. Can you imagine? Living off the grid like that? I can’t believe you’ve only had contact through a couple of letters.”
“I got to look around a little when Auberon and I sort of tumbled out after that whole ordeal in the Realm of Shadows. It seemed nice. A little quiet, but we met a sweet elderly couple who took us in for the night. The Wogans. Not entirely sure what Rhys is, but Mari is a Goblin.”
“Well, I brought my digistuff, just to be on the safe side. Also, Travers gave me this.” She pulled out a chunky phone with a massive antenna from her backpack.
“Did Marty Mcfly give you a ride back to the 90s to get that phone?” I giggled.
“Uh uh, this is a high-tech satellite phone, a 2019 model. You know, Travers didn’t want me to leave at first. There’s just so much to do after Jubilee Gardens. Colburn’s death drove a battering ram into his entire operation, and JC Pharmaceutical has taken a serious dive in the stock market without their captain. The Harvesters are coming out of the woodwork. It’s some job to try to shut down the industry as a whole, though, and years of intel to comb through. We want to stop the next JC from rising to power and take control of his legacy.”
“Who do you suppose will take over?” Jen asked.
“Colburn’s wife is apparently running things at the moment, but we’ve got intel that they are prepping Colburn’s son to take the reins in a few months’ time, once he’s turned eighteen. One can only hope he’s nothing like his father.”
“Apples and trees, though,” I mumbled, thinking about my own father. Were he and I so different? The story Willow had shared with me clouded my mind, and I shuddered. We might be alike in more ways than I wished to admit, but I would never be that cruel.
“Anyway, so I mentioned to Travers where we were going, and he had a sudden change of heart.” Charlie leaned forward, her hands folded around the satellite phone on the table. “Apparently there’s a cold case he would like to shut. One of a whole stack he more or less inherited, once Mag-Ops was established.”
“What is it?” Jen asked.
“He didn’t give me a lot of details, just that the town was singled out during a missing person case around 2010. They never found anything, but since the case was never solved, he told me to keep my eyes open and to contact him if anything suspicious popped up.”
“Not sure what we would find ten years later that the cops didn’t back then,” I said.
“Depends.” Jen wrinkled her nose. “They probably didn’t have a wolf with them.”
“Cool! If we get bored, we can play investigators.” Charlie and Jen high-fived each other, and Kit jerked. He growled a little and sprawled back out over the table. The girls raised their hands to me, both with inquisitive eyes.
“Sure.” I slapped their hands with about as little enthusiasm as I felt. “Let’s make Nancy Drew proud.”
Charlie put the satellite phone away and brought out her private iPad instead. “If we’re about to go off the grid, I think I’ll let Dunc know first.”
“Checking up on him?” I asked.
She smirked, put the iPad on the table, and opened FaceTime. Kit had apparently decided enough was enough and bounced to my lap. I scratched him between his ears, waiting for the call to connect.
“Char,” Duncan said in a loud voice, and Charlie turned the volume down a few notches. “Ru. Jen.” He waved.
“Hey,” Charlie leaned in front of the camera. “Where are you?”
“The Krushuna Falls. It's up north, close to the Romanian border,” Duncan shouted. “Liv’s cousin, Nadya, is giving me a tour.”
A girl, probably in her mid-twenties, popped her head into view. Silver-dyed hair framed her face in a neat bob cut. She grinned and waved, mouthing something I could only interpret as a hi.
“Sorry about the noise.” Duncan panned his phone out to show us the waterfall. “It’s amazing.”
“Looks gorgeous,” I said.
Charlie cupped her hands by her mouth and angled towards the microphone. “We’re off to meet Ru’s grandparents in Wales.”
Duncan stuck a finger in his ear and pulled it back out. “What?”
Charlie leaned into the aisle, then turned back and raised her voice. “We’ll be off the grid for a few days. No internet or nothing.”
“Oh, all right.” He shook his head. “Who doesn’t have the internet these days?”
“Have fun.”
He gave us a thumbs up, and the screen switched back to his picture before Charlie turned it off.
“Looks like he’s doing just fine,” Jen said.
“It does, doesn’t it. Nice scenery, cute girl. Hopefully, Nadya will keep Gemma far from his mind.” Charlie smiled.
I stared at the landscape racing by outside, the shadows catching my attention. Auberon wasn’t here this time, but the last time I sat on a train going from Wales instead of towards it, I had been with him. We had sat much as I did with the girls now, and at that point, I had loved him. However much I wanted to deny it, a part of me still did.
He had managed to attach himself to me, and a piece of him had sunk under my skin like a festering wound. But he wasn’t the man I had thought him to be, and I could never allow myself to forget that.
“Auberon came by,” I mumbled.
Both girls gaped at me. Kit hissed, and Charlie rubbed her face. “Again? What did he want this time?”
“Well, he was there the day I got back, then again the day after, though I told him to go away, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“Good.”
“Maybe not.” I inhaled sharply. “He wasn’t alone. Gemma, as a fox, was there with him.”
“Gemma.” Jen ground her teeth.
“Why? I mean, what’s he doing with her?” Charlie asked.
I braced myself and spilt the words out in a single breath. “They stole the chalice.”
“You mean the chalice you took from Auberon’s private collection.” Jen cocked an eyebrow at me.
I clicked my tongue. “That’s the one.”
“While I’d like to sink my teeth into that two-faced fox, it wasn’t strictly theft, then.”
“No, but I worry about why he wanted it so bad. What could he possibly use it for? I never got much out of it apart from that one connection I had with Nimue. But she used it more as a channelling device. I’m not sure the chalice in and of itself is magical.”
“You think he means to contact her?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t think he can unless she wants him to.”
“Mm.” Charlie adjusted her glasses and leaned back. “She’s his mother, though, so maybe that’s why he took it? To be able to speak to her again. I mean, if that’s the case, I understand why he would want it back.”
If being the operative word. “I guess, maybe, but it feels like he has other agendas.”
Jen snarled. “That man always has an agenda. And he brought Gemma.” Her lips curled away from her teeth, and I dug my fingers into Kit’s fur.