Secrets of the Guardian (Waldgrave Book 3)

by A. L. Tyler

  *****

  She hardly felt conscious through the next half-hour of her life. Later on, she would have trouble even recalling how she made it out of the hotel.

  She put on the backpack, shouldered the carry-on containing Brandon, and walked out the door. Turning away from the lobby, she went to the nearest hall exit and went outside into the blistering cold night, and then she walked a good deal of a distance knee-deep in snow, staying just off the main road in the trees, until she came upon a house that still had a first floor light on.

  Teeth chattering, she looked around. She wasn’t going to walk much further in all of the snow, and she couldn’t risk keeping Brandon out in the cold. Her jeans were soaked clear through up to the thigh and she wasn’t able to feel her feet. She trudged up to the front door of the small house and remembered to pull Brandon out of his bag before knocking. It took a moment, but the door eventually opened, revealing an awkward kid of about sixteen wearing a baggy tee-shirt and sweatpants the color of dirty dishwater.

  He stared at Lena for a moment, then turned and called over his shoulder. “Mom! It’s for you!”

  There was a sound of plastic-bottomed convenience store slippers on linoleum as the kid walked away from the door and a bleach-blond woman in a lavender bathrobe came into view. Lena readjusted Brandon in her arms; he had woken up at some point, but wasn’t crying. She brushed her hand across one of his cheeks; he was a little cold.

  “Well my, what the hell happened to you now?” The woman said in a husky drawl. As the woman looked Lena over, she suddenly realized that her face was burning. She brought a hand to her cheek and felt that it was wet—she was crying. “You get on in here with that baby…”

  “My…my car broke down…” Lena started, teeth chattering and voice breaking, as she crossed the threshold and followed the woman into the kitchen. But as the door closed behind her, and she was suddenly enveloped by the warm smell of a T.V. dinner cooking in a microwave somewhere close by, she felt the numbness that had held off her emotions through the snow beginning to melt away. Tom was gone for good; another orphaned child rested in her arms. The blond woman was prying Brandon away from her and pushing Lena into a chair at the card table that apparently functioned as a dining room set. Hot tears were beginning to pour down her face.

  “No such thing! Ain’t you got no cell phone? Everyone has a cell phone nowadays. You better be telling me what this’s all about before I call the cops!” Lena looked up at the woman, cradling Brandon against her shoulder, staring sternly down at her as her son looked bewildered in the doorway.

  “I…my phone…I…” But she just couldn’t do it. She looked down at her knees. “Please don’t call. I haven’t done anything wrong, I promise.”

  The woman stood over her for a minute longer before moving away into the kitchen.

  “Dan, go to bed! And check in on Mags when you go up!” She snapped from the other room. As the boy moved off, she came back holding a bottle of brandy and a glass. “You ain’t breast feedin’ are you…?” The woman looked Lena over for a moment. “You ain’t breast feedin’. Drink this, then tell me what the hell you’re doing out in the cold with a baby this young.”

  She poured a glass and shoved it into Lena’s hand. Brandon was starting to fidget and whine.

  It’s okay. It’s okay, Brandon, it’s okay, I’m here… She took the brandy in small sips as the woman opened another folding chair to sit down next to her. After she regained her composure, she tried again. “My car broke down—“

  “Bullshit.” The woman said simply. “This ain’t your baby. You’re too young and there ain’t nothin’ motherly about you. Just tell me what the hell happened and I might be more inclined to help you since you look like you’ll be needin’ it.”

  Lena glared at the woman. Of all the doorsteps in this miserable tiny town, she had to wind up on this one. She took another gulp of brandy and wiggled her feet in her sopping wet shoes. “Fine. He’s not my baby, he’s my cousin. I inherited him because I’m the last relative he has.”

  The woman gave Lena a sidelong glance. She raised her eyebrows. “Is that a fact?”

  “That’s a fact.” Lena said, drinking down the last of the brandy and setting the glass on the table.

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” The woman asked.

  Lena shook her head.

  “You running away from somebody?”

  Lena nodded. The brandy had warmed her up; she was fighting to keep her wits about her and not say too much.

  “But not the cops?”

  Lena shook her head. “Not the cops.”

  The woman looked down at Brandon, then gave Lena a sidelong glance from under her drastically pale bangs. “This about a man?”

  Lena took a deep breath in and tried not to shake as she let it out. She poured herself another glass of brandy and only spoke once the cup was raised to her lips. “Yes. He wants to take him from me.”

  She wasn’t sure if this blond, lavender-robed woman had any intention to help her, but she knew she was the best option at the moment. Going back out into the cold meant death for Brandon at least, whether the Silenti found them or not.

  The woman waited until Lena had finished her second cup of brandy before she sighed, got up, and started shuffling away in her plastic-soled house slippers. “M’names Grace. I’m gonna put him down in the crib with my girl for the night, then we’re gonna set you up on the couch and sort all this out in the mornin’.”

  And that was just what she did—the alcohol was a godsend, because Lena just refused to care after that point. She was so inebriated that she barely remembered anything until the following morning. Grace brought down some blankets and a pillow, and a bucket “just in case,” and Lena slept scrunched up on the loveseat until early the next morning; if Brandon cried at all that night, she didn’t remember hearing, but if he had, she hoped Grace would have taken care of it.

  Just before the sun hit over the mountains the next day, Grace shook Lena’s shoulder and shoved a hot cup of coffee into her hand. With great trepidation, and not without headache, she sat up from her makeshift bed and stared at her hostess, now dressed in what appeared to be a blue striped waitress uniform.

  “You gotta choice here.” Grace said, putting her hands on her hips. “I’m workin’ the early shift today, so I can take you out to Waynesville right now if you like, or you’ll have to wait ‘till I’m back around five-ish. Your choice.”

  Lena sat back into the couch. Her head was throbbing; it was a miracle no one had found them yet. The town was probably crawling with Silenti by now, all looking out for her; they would be in Waynesville, too, of course—but she wasn’t keen on becoming a sitting target just yet.

  Lena gritted her teeth against the aches in her body and the bomb exploding in her head. “We’ll go with you. Now.”

  Grace was kind enough to have put together a small care package of diapers and formula for her, and Lena fed Brandon a bottle as they drove the ten miles to Waynesville. It was so early that no one else was out, but Lena took care to overdress herself in the coat, hat, scarf, and mittens that Grace offered her so that she was less recognizable. She hoped she looked like Dan, Grace’s son, to anyone who might have seen her walking out. It was only a thirty minute drive through the snowy roads in Grace’s older-model pickup truck, but it felt much longer.

  “You need to think about what you’re doing.” Grace began. “And I mean really think. Really. It’s not easy goin’ out doin’ what your doin’.”

  Lena remained silent. Grace continued.

  “Now I don’t know what you’ve gotten into, but I sure as hell know you better not be doin’ anything what puts that baby in trouble, too. You keep him safe now, you hear? You got anyone your goin’ to, or a plan or anything?”

  Lena sighed and readjusted the bottle in her hand. She looked up through the windshield and squinted against the sunlight. “I’ve got someone I’m going to.”

  “Bullshit. No
w what’s your plan?”

  “Um…well.” Lena tilted her head in thought. What was her plan? “I’ve got a little money. I guess I’m going to buy a car and get out of town. Rent a hotel room somewhere until I can figure out something better.”

  “That’s a crap plan. You need work?” Grace looked over at her. “I can get you work here if you need, and you can live on with me for a bit until we figure something out.”

  “I need to get out of town.” Lena said with force. “Thanks, but it would be a really bad idea for me to stick around here right now.”

  Grace was silent for several minutes as they went tumbling across the unplowed roads. Finally, she spoke very quietly. “Did you ever think it might be better if you just let them take him? Now, I mean, I realize you think he’s your baby and all now, and maybe you’re his family, but maybe you’re just not what’s best for him, you know? No one would think any less of you for givin’ him up. It’s for the best.”

  Lena licked her lips. Of course she had thought of it, but it just wasn’t an option. She had promised Tom. “It’s not like that. I have to keep him. I’ve got a friend out in Australia with a kid, and she’ll help me out. We’ll be fine. But we won’t be fine if they catch us.”

  “You can’t live in a car.” Grace accused. “The government’ll take him away.”

  Lena looked over, sure that Grace was trying to scare her. “They can’t. He’s mine.”

  Grace took her eyes off the road long enough to make honest contact with Lena’s. “You gotta keep him healthy and sheltered. Child services is serious, and I know enough people who’ve talked to them to know the rules. You’ll need to find a family shelter, or they’ll take him away from you.”

  The rest of the drive went on in silence. When they arrived in Waynesville, Grace dropped her at a bus stop with her phone number and fifty dollars in fives and ones. The bus was by shortly, and then they were off. Lena did nothing but ride buses all day, forgoing eating until much later; she wasn’t even sure what town she was in. She got off her last bus at a shopping center with a fast food place. She knew the second she stepped inside, and saw the numerous surveillance cameras, that she had made a bad choice—but seeing as she couldn’t correct the situation, she bought a burger meal and settled down in a back corner to think.

  Going through the stuff Tom had packed into the backpack the night before, she discovered his wallet, all the cash, her money belt, passport…everything they could have used to identify either of them. He had thought of everything before going; that, at least, was a comfort.

  She needed a car. And as she had no clue how to hotwire a car, she was going to have to buy one somewhere. From someone. Using cash, hopefully with no questions asked. She sighed, wishing she would ever have had the interest to know where or how Griffin used to get cars in a pinch. Where was she going to find someone willing to just give her a car for cash on the spot, without asking any questions? Who could possibly be that stupid?

  But as she sipped at her soda, her eyes fell on the clerk who had taken her order sheer minutes before. A teenager, maybe just seventeen. Closer inspection revealed that she didn’t see anyone working that day who looked out of their teens.

  Lena diverted her eyes to the parking lot outside of her window. There were four or five cars; she watched for almost an hour as people came and went, and three of the cars never moved. She picked the oldest amongst them, a Buick with rust spots forming on the hood and doors, and approached the clerk during a lull in business.

  “Hey,” Lena smiled. “I was just wondering—my dad really loves old Buicks, and I saw one sitting out in the lot there. Do you happen to know who owns it?”

  An hour later found her cruising southbound in an old Buick, fifteen-hundred dollars lighter from buying her new car off of a pimply sixteen-year-old kid and another two hundred gone after her stop at a baby supply store to buy a car seat and a few other items. Brandon was asleep in the backseat, wearing a new, warm sleeper, and Lena was hell bent on making it to Mexico as soon as possible.

  They pulled into a smallish motel in Grantville, Georgia just off of interstate 85. She had driven all night, stopping only to feed and change Brandon, to get them there; traveling with a baby was proving to be a challenge. As she hauled everything into the motel room and collapsed onto the bed, it dawned on her that Brandon had slept most of the last twelve hours that she had been driving, and he wasn’t in a mood to be sleeping anymore. He was whining and fidgeting; always just on the brink of tears. She might have left him to fidget if he hadn’t been a Silenti baby; he was loud. Mentally loud.

  His emotions were so overbearing that she found she couldn’t sleep without remedying the situation. Small pinpricks of adrenaline and panic kept bristling in her brain as she tried to rest, even if only for a moment. She got up and picked up Brandon and started to pace; she was exhausted, and she would have given anything to sleep right at that moment, but Brandon wasn’t going to let it happen.

  You know, Lena started, I’m kind of glad it happened this way. I know this. This is how it was between me and my dad. I hope I can be as great for you as he was to me…except for a few things. We’ve got a hard road ahead of us, Brandon, but I hope you never realize that. There’s a lot of scary people here, and you’ll probably have to meet at least some of them someday, but I’m going to make it okay for you. We’ll make it okay together.

  I live with my uncle. He’s a good guy—he’ll probably be really happy to have you around. I have a…Rosaleen…an aunt, I guess. She loves babies, and then there’s Pete, and Darius, and maybe they’ll be like brothers to you if Pete stays on long enough and Griffin doesn’t take his brother back because he keeps his head shoved up his…

  Lena sighed. Brandon was watching her with his small, sparkling eyes; he had quieted down considerably.

  I’ve got a friend named Hesper. She’s got a little girl. I wish that I could talk to her about you…she’d laugh so hard about all of this. She thinks my life is funny. I mean, you won’t get this until you’re older, but here I am, going out of my way to avoid having a kid, and here you are. You’re the center of the universe, Brandon. Someday the world is going to stop just for you, and I hope the rest of us are ready when it happens.

  My mom…your aunt, I guess. She used to love being the center of everything. I always hated it. Still pacing, she looked down at Brandon and sighed. You can think whatever you want about it. Be whoever you want to be, because it’s okay. I think a lot of people are going to want to make you a lot of things, but you don’t have to do any of it if you don’t want to…

  Lena suddenly realized that everything she was saying was predicated on her return to the Silenti world, which might never happen. The thought depressed her more than she ever thought it would, having spent the last few years wishing for nothing more than to wake up and find that the Silenti were all a terrible dream. Now she would probably never go back. No more Howard and Rosaleen. No more Hesper and Maren. No more Masons, no more nights out with the kitchen staff. Waldgrave was a thing of her past. It was possible that Brandon would grow up very much as his father had, feeling alone and deprived of his kind. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and then laid down with Brandon resting on her chest. She didn’t want to have to think about it anymore…what was she going to tell him when he got older? Old enough to understand?

  Brandon was fidgeting again. Lena shifted uncomfortably; he was just so loud…

  She didn’t want to pace. She didn’t want to talk about things that made her depressed.

  Her father had never been a big fan of fairy tales, but he had told her one or two on certain long ferry rides. She couldn’t remember any of them from start to finish at the moment, so she picked the only one she had heard recently enough, and so many times, to tell correctly. In fact, she had studied it almost obsessively during some of those sessions with Griffin.

  The journey begins here, and here it shall end, with nothing changed save those who return, she began. Bran
don was quieting down again. Long ago, in the land of plenty, a Magician gathered together the three sacred items, those things he needed to create the portal of worlds. And once he had gathered them together, the crown, the shield, the sword, he had those things he needed to open the portal to the land of the dead. It was a terrible place, filled with monsters of all sort, intelligent and yet unfeeling. They preyed upon the poor people of that place, those who could feel, could love through each other, and it was such a terrible place that parents learned not to love their children, not to love each other, because it was such a terrible thing to love and lose a loved one so frequently. And once the portal was open, the Magician called through it and said unto the poor people, ‘Come here to me, where you can learn to love again.’ And the people, they came through the portal, and the first of them was their leader. ‘I am the Traveler,’ he said to the Magician, ‘We shall return someday to our land, when we are strong enough, to rule over the lands that shall forever be ours.’ And the Magician said, ‘So you shall.’

  *****

  Days later, Lena found herself sitting on the Texas-Mexico border once again, terrible memories of her last visit swimming in her brain. Once she crossed, she became infinitely harder to find; but once she crossed, she knew she risked never coming back again. She didn’t have a passport for Brandon. She wasn’t going far with him under the latest travel restrictions and checks for planes. Besides, babies needed clean water. Healthcare. Gear and toys intended for children—things that were regulated by the government. As young as she was, and with so little money, she didn’t want to risk Brandon’s safety more than she had to. Those things were available in the richer and tourist areas, but Lena wasn’t planning to go to those places. She couldn't afford it.

  From where she was sitting, she could see Mexico—literally less than a mile away. A country where there were far fewer questions and surveillance cameras. In the end, though, she couldn’t do it. She took Brandon to another hotel to do more thinking. Between the diapers, formula, and gas for the car, the money was going faster than she had hoped it would. She still had around six thousand dollars, but she knew it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t last forever.