by Laury Falter
“Vires?” breathed Jameson, as shocked and guarded as I was.
“His hand fell open, the neighbors saw the Caldwell family stone the Vires had placed in his palm, and no one believed otherwise from then on. Not Isabella. She couldn’t prove it but she knew the truth. We both did. I made the mistake of telling someone that I didn’t think the Caldwells were involved and they came for me the following morning. Because they knew what I’d done. I’d witnessed a crime the Vires wanted covered up.”
“And Jocelyn’s mother sent her to New York…” Jameson summed it up.
In the serenity of her home, just above the rainfall, she whispered, “His death haunts me.”
Their voices stopped, and in the silence my now rapidly pounding heart beat was magnified against my ear drums.
“But why?” Jameson implored. “Why abduct her? Did they already know she was The Relicuum? Is that why?”
“No, that couldn’t have been the reason,” she cogitated. “But it is my belief that whatever caused them to take such extreme measures… it relates directly to you.”
“Me?” he said astounded.
“Yes, because when they failed to abduct Jocelyn, they went after you.”
Stunned silence followed and then Jameson deliberated casually, “So they were the ones…”
I had a different reaction. Several thoughts swam around in my consciousness, none of them staying still long enough for me to grasp them in full.
…My family has been misled…
…Jameson’s family was not to blame…
…My father hadn’t been trying to protect me from the Caldwells…
…The Caldwells are at risk as much as I was…as much as I am…as much as I’ve always been…
…and I’m not the only one…
…Jameson…
“You need to tell her,” said Isadora, and I knew she was referring to me.
“I will.”
“Soon,” she insisted.
Only a brief pause later, she asked, patient but firm. “Does that shed light on why no one can know she was here?”
“Isadora,” said Jameson cautiously, as if he knew she wouldn’t like hearing what he had to say. “No one is safe here. Look at the evidence. La Terreur hasn’t hit anywhere but in our world. And it’s spreading but only to other villages. The villages are hundreds of miles apart. How did it spread?” He gave her the chance to answer but continued when she didn’t. “There’s only one reasonable solution. Someone placed it there. But why? Who has the motive? Who has the most to gain by eliminating you?”
A chair scrapped lightly across the floor and footsteps took the person from the table.
When Jameson spoke again, it was farther away. His voice was flat, speculative, but his message sent chills down my spine. “The Vires are becoming more bold.”
“At the request of those who control them…The Sevens.”
“La Terreur is their way of making sure that information never gets out, isn’t it?” asked Jameson. “By purging their enemies…”
“Yes,” said Isadora, her French accent accentuating as her anger surfaced.
A heaviness surrounded us then, choking off words, stirring up our nerves until it was hard to breath.
I’d heard enough depressing news for one day so, needing it to end, I slid my legs over the edge of the bed and lifted the sheets off me.
Jameson, who was at the window, turned and gave me a smile of relief. I returned one of my own, not bothering to hide the comfort in seeing him. It looked like he wanted to approach me but hesitated near the window. He still didn’t know I’d overheard him.
“How long was I out for?” I asked my voice scratchy from lack of use.
“Long enough to worry me,” he said gently, his face telling me that he was trying to hide just how excited he was to be talking to me.
“That long?” I asked, startled.
They chuckled at me.
“What you did was unheard of,” explained Jameson. “Healing over a hundred people, one after the other. It’s amazing you didn’t take longer to recuperate. How do you feel?”
“Like a champ,” I muttered.
Both he and Isadora laughed and seemed to relax a little. She stood and hobbled to the stove where she poured me a bowl of soup. Jameson saved her from a good scalding by carrying it to me though, and when he handed it to me I knew he was assessing me for the truth.
I was fine, a bit disoriented, but that may have been more because of the news I’d just overheard as opposed to three days on my back. Or maybe it was a little of both.
When he’d finished his evaluation, he didn’t leave my side but instead sat down next to me. His thigh landed against mine, sending a shock wave through me, but neither of us bothered to move apart. Instead, our legs steadily pressed closer together, teasing both of us.
It took halfway through my bowl of soup before I realized he was giving me another dose of energy, channeling his own into me.
“You need to stop that,” I reprimanded him. “Save your strength.”
He frowned. “I didn’t think you’d accept it outright…and I was right.”
He did break our contact but did it while exchanging a look with Isadora that made me think this hadn’t been the only time he’d given me a spike. I would have placed a bet that he’d been doing it regularly over the last three days.
The truth was, I wanted him to touch me but not just for that reason. I wanted it to be more than medical. Unfortunately, that wasn’t where the medical part ended. They made me lift everything in the room, together. When that didn’t prove I was fit enough to leave, I noticed Jameson’s bruise, a remnant from when he’d protected me at the outpost, and healed it. That seemed to convince them.
While I’d recovered enough to levitate Jameson and me back the same way we’d come and even though it was night again we wouldn’t have faced as much risk in getting caught, I just wasn’t sure how far my energy would take us. So we said goodbye to Isadora and then took the boat she lent us, and the car keys to an old pickup truck she kept so we could reach New Orleans. A nice offshoot to this way of transportation was that he and I had more time together. What I didn’t realize was that it would be spent in awkward silence.
Seeing things from his perspective made me realize that the last time we’d had a conversation of any real length was on his front porch, where I’d accused his family of killing my father and then told him that I wouldn’t be speaking to him again. Neither of those proved to be true.
When we reached the city, the constant rattle of the pickup truck’s cab was disrupted, thankfully, by Jameson’s voice. It was restricted and insistent.
“You need to get rid of the rope,” he stressed. “The Rope of The Sevens.”
I blinked, taken by surprise. How could he know?
As if reading my thoughts, he said, “I figured it out the day you got it. And I thought it was an interesting artifact that might come in handy some day. But the risk of keeping it is too much…far greater than the possibility it could be helpful. You need to get rid of it. Don’t destroy it. Just move it out of the house.”
“You knew I stored it in the house?” I muttered, still overcoming my surprise. He could read me better than I thought. “And you never said anything about it to anyone else?”
He shook his head solemnly, his eyes frozen on the road in front of us.
“Even after you found out I was a Weatherford…?” I reflected on how much damage he could have done if he’d wanted to.
“No, Jocelyn,” he replied tenderly.
I was dumbfounded. “Why did you keep it a secret?”
He shrugged and I noticed he was turning onto my street, preparing to drop me off in front of my house. I was temporarily speechless at his courage.
“Just do me a favor?” he sighed. “Get rid of the rope?”
He pulled to a stop next to the curb but kept the truck running, just in case a Weatherford stepped out.
In the dim li
ght of the surrounding houses, I could see the handsome, rugged contours of his face. What saddened me was that they were downcast.
“Since we met,” I mumbled. “Since the moment we met you’ve had feelings for me. My family’s past didn’t matter to you.”
“Go inside,” he instructed softly. “Your family is worried about you.”
I didn’t listen. “And here I am condemning you for your family’s past…and it wasn’t even true.”
Wallowing in my self-criticism, I barely noticed his head jerk back.
“What?” he said. “How did…?”
I saw the awareness in his eyes, awakening them.
“How long were you awake?”
Before I even answered, the memory of the entire conversation came back to him.
“How long were you listening to us, Jocelyn?” he asked nervously.
“I heard it all,” I admitted trying to deliver the news as gently as possible.
Still, his head dropped to his chest and he laughed. I knew how he felt. Completely exposed.
He’d been through so much my heart sank for him and I opened my mouth to tell him that he’s not alone, that there’s hope. I wanted to tell him that I loved him too.
But the words never came out.
Instead, he lifted his head and looked at me. And then his face fell because he’d seen something over my shoulder. His jaw clenched and his nostrils flared just before he stated urgently, “Whatever you tell her, it can’t involve the swamp.”
This sudden change in his behavior and the course of the conversation threw me a bit. “Ha?”
“Don’t tell her that you were in the swamp these last three days.” These words rushed passed his lips as if he were fighting against time to release them.
I couldn’t understand why he’d start talking about the swamp or the fact that he didn’t want me to mention I’d been there or who he was referring to by “her”. Then the car door to my right swung open and I rotated my head toward the person, ready to demand they close it. But my mouth clamped shut.
Because I was suddenly staring in to my mother’s eyes.
19 MISSING
“Are you all right?”
It was the second time my mother asked the question before I gained enough control to ask, “What are you doing here?”
She heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s good. Attitude. It means you’re all right.”
Only slightly offended, I retorted, “Yes, I’m fine.” And then followed it with, “Mom, what are you doing here?”
In turn, she gawked at me. “I should be asking you the same question.”
My first thought was that she’d noticed who I was sitting with, a Caldwell, but that wasn’t what she was referring to.
“You’ve been missing for three days.”
“Two,” I corrected her.
“Three,” she stated. “You left school on Monday. It is now Wednesday. I was called back because they couldn’t find you.”
“You left the ministry?”
“Where have you been?” she repeated, avoiding my question.
She still had one hand on the open door and the other propped against the cab’s frame, leaning forward toward me. She looked very imposing.
“Where?” she demanded.
“I went to heal others outside the city,” I explained. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think anyone would notice.”
Her eyes widened. “Notice? We’ve contacted almost everyone in the province. We hired channelers to give us a hint as to where you were.” She stopped, shaking her head, her mouth hanging open, speechless. Then she found her voice again and I wished she hadn’t. “What have I always taught you? Safety first. You have to think, Jocelyn. You can’t go running off on a whim.”
“I was safe,” I declared.
She stared at me briefly and then asked, “And do I have you to thank for it?”
My mother was now leaning to the side in order to peer around me at Jameson.
When I turned to look at him, I found him staring back at her with intensity, almost sternly.
“It helps if you speak,” she said. “I don’t channel.”
In any other world, outside our society, this would have been funny. But my mother actually meant it.
“Yes,” he replied tightly. “You can thank me for it.”
Her eyes fell to his neck then and instantly it was me who was tense. She’d caught sight of his chain, from which his family stone hung.
“Which Caldwell are you?” she asked firmly.
“Jameson.”
“All right,” she said, without a hint of opposition. She did take a few seconds to assess him, looking him up and down as any parent concerned for their child’s welfare would. But this was no simple comparison. He was a Caldwell. She should have been yanking me out of the truck by this point, terrified, angry, and screaming demands not to come around me again. She did none of these things. In fact, she did the exact opposite. “Thank you, Jameson, for bring her home safely.”
He blinked several times, as stunned as I was. There was no inhibition, no surprise, no incredulity in her reaction. It was as if Jameson were a Smith.
“You’re…welcome,” he replied uncertainly.
“If you wish to see her again, you’ll need to ask me beforehand. Understood?”
His forehead folded in astonishment and I knew he was trying to determine if she was playing some sort of perverse practical joke on him.
“Do you understand?” she prompted in her typical straight forward manner, the kind that always intimidated me.
It was a colossal testament that he didn’t waver. “Yes,” he replied.
“Do you have our phone number here at the house?”
“No.”
She glanced around the cab. “Then I’ll need a piece of paper and a pen.”
“I’ll remember it.”
Finally, she showed some measure of surprise but it was in relation to his excellent memorization skills. Not what I expected. Then she prattled off the number. “Repeat it back to me please,” she demanded, verifying that he’d, in fact, remembered it.
He did and she seemed impressed. Then she launched in to a set of instructions that left me thoroughly confused, and I was certain Jameson felt the same way.
“Now when you do see Jocelyn again she will need to be home, nightly, before the eleven o’clock hour. She will not be pulled out of classes again, day or evening. She will not go beyond the city limits. Further rules may apply but you seem like an intelligent young man. Use your best judgment and we shouldn’t have a problem. However, if any of these rules are broken you will suffer the consequences. And you, being a Caldwell, know full well that I, being a Weatherford, am prepared to deliver on that threat.”
“You’re allowing me to see your daughter, Ms. Weatherford?” asked Jameson, thoroughly confused at this point.
“Only if you follow the rules. Any rules are broken and…” she let her voice trail off.
When he didn’t respond, she hinted, “And…?”
“I’ll suffer the consequences,” he answered slowly.
“Good,” she stated. “You should do fine.” She finally turned back to me, drawing a breath, preparing to tell me to get out of the car when he cut her off.
“Ms. Weatherford,” he said. “Do you know anything about me?” Given the conversation so far, I didn’t blame him for asking.
Then my mother chattered off his profile, one she’d clearly researched. “You maintain a 3.9 GPA. You drive a silver Range Rover. You’re headed for an Ivy League college…if you don’t screw it up. Your favorite food is shrimp po’boys and you like a wide range of music. You channel…and though it is not widely known, you are one of the best at it. Casting is difficult for you because your other gift absorbs the abundance of your energy. That doesn’t sum you up but it is a good start.”
Though he didn’t admit it, I’d say my mother actually taught him something about himself. I wasn’t surprised. She was always
prepared.
“I meant…about my family?” he specified.
She stared at him and then replied flatly, “Your family and I have a lot of talking to do.” Without mentioning it, she confirmed that she understood the history between the Caldwells and Weatherfords and yet she was still all right with two of us seeing each other.
Jameson and I were stumped, but we weren’t able to reel in it for long. She stepped to the side and said, “I need your help, Jocelyn. Your cousins have gone missing, too.”
I gave Jameson a quick, baffled look, which he returned, and then I stepped out of the truck.
“Remember what we discussed, Jameson,” she warned through the window after slamming the door.
“I won’t, Ms. Weatherford,” he said and then his eyes drifted to me. They changed from confusion to longing, telling me that he didn’t want to leave. I understood because I felt the same way.
“Jocelyn,” my mother called from the walkway leading to the porch but I didn’t turn until Jameson pulled away from the curb. Then I saw her and my breath caught.
Standing there in her grey business suit, her dark black hair curling down around her shoulders, she looked like someone who’d just come home from work and was about to prepare a healthy, balanced dinner. It was the image, the hope I’d carried with me the first few years at the academy in New York now actualized right before my eyes. It had defined my dreams of living a normal home life with a normal family. But I realized right then and there that I…we would never be normal. We were witches. We lived a secret existence. We moved things without touching them, cured others without pills or surgery, controlled the elements, channeled energy from one source to another. Just as significant, our world was far more treacherous than the one I’d dreamt of as a little girl. I knew that my cousins’ disappearance was not something to be taken lightly. So by the time I’d reached the walkway my focus was on them.
“They weren’t in school today,” my mother said when we’d entered the foyer and the door was closed behind us. “Their casting supplies, all of them, are gone.”