“I don’t know, but let’s try to think of something else first. Come on, it’s time to cut the cake.”
We went through the motions of the party: cutting cake, singing songs, opening presents, and playing games. Nicolas arrived an hour late, with the rest of my brothers and sisters, but without Mom. Nobody said anything, but there was tension in the air. Everyone noticed.
The party lasted for three hours, well past the kids’ nap times. The adults simply went on without them until finally, everyone had left except for my siblings and two best friends. I sensed that none of them wanted to go home, and I didn’t push them.
Finally, shortly before dinnertime, the doorbell rang. My heart leapt, thinking that Mom had shaken off her stupor and come after all. I dashed to the front door and flung it open, trying to decide if I should shake my mom or strangle her.
Sheriff David Adams stood on the other side of the threshold, hands in his pockets, a familiar look of tension on his face. I’d seen that expression before – he wore it when a situation made him feel he was in over his head.
“We’ve got a big problem down by the lake,” he said without preamble. “I need you.”
Chapter 2
I HAVE TO ADMIT, "I NEED YOU” are just about my favorite words in the English language. I’m not sure what that says about me, but there it is. The words were especially welcome at that moment, when my mom had utterly failed her youngest children and, in so doing, failed most of the rest as well. Now, the sheriff needed me, and I needed a distraction. I was all set to go.
“I just need to grab my purse and let Evan know I’m leaving.” I turned my back to him and started across the foyer.
“You might want to bring Evan too.”
I stopped and tried not to feel hurt. Evan and I had an agreement – I was free to do all the investigating I wanted as long as I called him when there was danger. Now, the thing about “danger” is it’s subjective, and I’ll give you one guess as to whose definition was broader.
Whenever Evan joined me on a case, I felt overshadowed. It didn’t matter that he never made me feel less than himself, it didn’t matter that I did have skills to contribute, and it didn’t even matter that I’d set most of my old insecurities about not having magic in a magical world behind me. It was just how I felt. Less.
I guess in real life, self-actualization is a never-ending process rather than the dramatic culmination of a series of events. It does make for a handy conclusion to a memoir, though.
Evan appeared in the entrance to the living room, at the end of the hallway. He looked at me, then past me to the sheriff.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“The sheriff needs me,” I said. Then, grudgingly, “He suggests that you might want to come along.”
Evan raised his eyebrows for a moment, then nodded, wiping all emotion from his face. His neutral expression was one I called his “game face” and it was nearly flawless – except with me. I could almost always tell what he was feeling.
Like right now, Evan was wondering how bad the situation had to be for the sheriff to suggest he come along and whether or not that meant I should stay behind.
“Maybe I should check things out first,” Evan said. Yeah, like I said …
“I don’t know how long the scene will stay put,” Sheriff Adams said from behind me. “I’d like Cassie to get a look.”
“Stay put?” I asked. Then I shook off the question. Actually, I didn’t want him to tell me what he thought until after I’d seen whatever it was. I wanted to form my own conclusions.
“See if Madison will stay with Ana,” I told Evan. “I just need to take care of a couple things and we can go.”
By “a couple things” I meant taking some breast milk out of the freezer in case Ana needed it and sneaking into her room to whisper “I love you,” even though she was down for her nap and couldn’t hear me. It was more for me than her.
We were ready to go within five minutes, but the sheriff was tapping his foot impatiently when we returned to the foyer.
“Took you long enough.” The sheriff glanced at his watch.
“You’re lucky we had someone over to watch the baby, or it would have been longer,” I said. “What’s the big hurry? No wait, don’t answer that.”
The sheriff tapped the rim of his brown hat and gazed at me with something unfathomable in his weary blue eyes. He was in his late thirties but looked at least a decade older. Signs of stress, perhaps, from all the cases that had him way out of his depth? He didn’t even have a wife or lover to help him unwind at the end of the day. The last relationship he’d been in, as far as I knew, was with a witch named Belinda Hewitt who’d put him under a love spell. Maybe that had soured him on the whole idea of love. I hoped not, for his sake.
He somehow looked older than the last time I’d seen him, which had only been a few days ago. A strange mist or fog had been lingering around the lake for months, and he’d wanted to know why. So did the White Guard, but I hadn’t told him that part; I’d only said that it didn’t seem to be hurting anyone so I’d look into it, but it wasn’t a priority. Which was, after all, exactly what the White Guard had decided.
“You’ll want to bring some winter gear – a heavy coat, hat, gloves, scarves.” The sheriff turned his back to us and headed for his SUV, parked right out front.
“Coat?” I glanced at Evan, then out the front door. The trees just visible in the deepening twilight had long since lost their leaves, but there wasn’t a hint of frost in the air. “How about a light jacket? It’s fifty degrees.”
“Not where we’re going,” he said cryptically.
Evan opened the coat closet, grabbed two heavy coats and the bag where we stowed our winter gear, and gestured for me to precede him out the door. He still had his game face on, but I could sense the underlying confusion there. Or maybe I was projecting my own confusion onto him.
We took Evan’s new car, a green Tesla Model X, with him behind the wheel – one of marriage’s many compromises. There’s really a lot that goes on behind the “Happily Ever After,” when you think about it. Who sleeps on which side of the bed? Do you squeeze your toothpaste from the bottom or the top? Who’s going to cook? Do the laundry? Mow the lawn? The list goes on and on.
I like to drive, but Evan loves to drive. More importantly, he hates feeling out of control (i.e., being in the passenger seat). So I let him drive whenever it’s the two of us. It’s not weakness, even if it is a gender-conforming stereotype; it’s just more important to him.
I got a princess theme at Ana’s first birthday party. And not Princess Leia. It’s all about compromise.
Evan followed the sheriff’s SUV down Lakeshore Drive heading east, toward the resorts and away from what I liked to call “Sorcerer’s Row.” Basically, the sorcerers all tried to live as close as they could to the node under Table Rock Lake, which was slightly west of Eagle Rock. To the east, lakefront property went to private industries, hotels, cabins, and condos. There were also marinas and public beaches that way. And, lately, a persistent fog.
“The cake was beautiful, in case I forgot to say,” Evan said after a few minutes of silence. It was usually my job to fill the silence, but my mom had me on edge. Unfortunately, thinking of the cake reminded me of her. She had always made such beautiful cakes.
“Thanks.” I stared out the window, watching tendrils of mist wind through the trees dotting the lake shore. Above us, the sky was clear and cloudless and I had the sudden impression that the clouds had simply fallen to the ground.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Must be bad then.”
I sighed. I usually did like to talk things through, but I didn’t see how talking would help now. I’d known Juliana had been doing most of the work with the twins, but today it had hit me: my youngest brother and sister were being raised by a seventeen-year-old. If my mom couldn’t do it, if she couldn’t be a parent, shouldn’t I be the one to step
in? But if I did that, it couldn’t stop with Michael and Maya. I had five other brothers and sisters between the ages of five and seventeen who were parenting themselves right now. The situation wasn’t fair to any of them.
So what was the answer? Take them away? Should I be the one to raise them? I had a baby myself now, but I sure didn’t feel old enough to parent teens. I was only twenty-three.
Besides, it wasn’t fair to me either. I wanted more kids. Evan had been hinting about trying again for the past three months, and I thought I might finally be ready. How could I have another baby and raise my seven siblings, not to mention Ana?
And how bad was it, really? Bad enough to even be thinking along these lines? Taking the kids away from home would be traumatic all by itself; it just wasn’t something to do – or even consider – lightly.
What I really wanted was my mom back. Wasn’t it bad enough that I had lost my dad?
The sheriff surprised me by driving past the resorts and the cabins without stopping. Leaning forward in my seat, I began to pay closer attention to where we were headed. Eagle Rock itself was pretty small, but the sheriff’s department protected the whole county, including broad swaths of forests and farmland.
I tried to remember if I’d ever been out this far past the resorts, even when I’d been a deputy, but I didn’t think I had. The resorts gave way rather abruptly to forest, right around the time Lakeshore Drive went from a four-lane road to a two-lane road. After another half mile or so, the road veered away from the lake, and ramshackle homes began to dot the landscape, making me wonder if Lakeshore Drive had changed names. These homes were set further north, well away from the water.
The sheriff slowed and put on his turn signal. Evan slowed too, and I noted the fog stopped abruptly at the edge of a dirt driveway just up ahead. The sheriff’s SUV turned onto that driveway and Evan followed without comment, giving me a chance to take in the scenery.
A ramshackle, ranch-style home was set so far from the road that it looked no bigger than a shoebox. The yard was huge, though, assuming the surrounding acres went with the house. And someone had done a good job of keeping those many acres looking neat and tidy. There was nothing fancy here, no flower beds or gardens or hedges, but the lawn was neatly mowed. Back through a few sparse trees, I spotted an old shed and a well-loved riding lawn mower.
As the house loomed larger, I spotted a patrol car parked in the grass near the drive. Something glinted off the windshield, and I realized with a jolt of surprise that it was iced over. I spotted Frank Gibbons standing guard just outside the front door to the little ranch house. He rubbed gloved hands together and blew on them just as I became aware of a chill in the air. I didn’t see his partner.
“Is the heater on?” I answered my own question with a quick glance at the temperature controls. It was on, albeit low.
The sheriff parked his car and Evan pulled in next to it. Grabbing my coat from the backseat, I slid out of the car … and instantly wished I’d put the coat on before leaving.
“It’s freezing!” I quickly bundled up, ducking back inside for the hat and gloves Evan passed my way.
“Where’s Jim?” The sheriff had emerged from his SUV, also bundled up, and was approaching the front door, his hands buried deeply in his coat pockets for warmth.
“We’re taking turns to get out of the arctic circle.” Frank lifted a hand and pointed to the east. “He went that way this time, keeping his eye out for anything suspicious. The freeze loses intensity about a hundred yards out, and disappears completely after another hundred or so.”
“All right.” The sheriff nodded toward the door. “Things still frozen in there?”
“Yes sir. Hard to say if it’s easing off.” Frank waved at me and smiled. “Hi, Cassie. Nice to see you on this one.” His smile faded as he nodded at my husband. “Evan.”
“Frank,” Evan replied tonelessly. My husband had cultivated a bit of a bad boy reputation in his youth. Some would say more than a bit. He made most of the locals nervous; the rest were terrified.
I shoved my gloved hands into my pockets for added warmth and started for the house, ready to take a look at whatever had the sheriff so on edge. He was already ahead of me, going up the steps to the front porch where he stopped beside Frank and waited for us to join them.
The cold grew more intense with every step I took toward the house. My ears grew cold, despite the hat I had pulled down low around them, and I lifted my gloved hands to cup them.
“The temperature is measuring zero degrees out here,” Frank said. “That’s ten degrees higher than it was when you left, but it’s not getting warmer as fast as you thought it would.”
The sheriff seemed to relax slightly at those words. “How about inside?”
“You think I’ve gone back in there? I’m not crazy!”
The sheriff only grunted his response.
“Hang on.” Evan’s voice came from behind me, sharp and commanding. I turned to see a look of intense concentration on his face. “There’s magic in the air … but it’s odd.”
“Dangerous?” I asked.
He hesitated. “Odd. But … I think I can dispel the cold.”
“No,” Sheriff Adams cut in. “Not until Cassie has seen what’s inside.”
“I’ll be fine,” I told Evan. Clearly, someone had already gone in the house and come out alive. I could handle the cold.
“I can’t cast a warming spell,” Evan said, but I didn’t let myself worry about that. Heat magic wasn’t his forte.
“Maybe we should have brought Nicolas instead,” I said.
Evan grunted. He and my brother, Nicolas, only got along grudgingly, for my sake.
“When you go inside,” the sheriff was saying, making me shift my attention back to him, “you’ll get hit with a cold so fierce you think you’ll freeze to death. Might not be as bad as it was thirty minutes ago, but it’s bad. Get in, take a look around, and get out. Don’t risk lingering too long. Okay?”
“Okay.” I hesitated. Evan had joined me, sliding a gloved hand into mine and tucking me close to his side, providing much-needed warmth and that familiar sensation of being cherished. I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back, telling me without words that he would let no harm come to me.
I stepped past the sheriff and, with my free hand, twisted the doorknob. It was a good thing I was wearing gloves, because if I hadn’t the chilled metal probably would have frozen my fingers off. I twisted and pushed, shoving the door inward, and stepped into hell frozen over.
Chapter 3
THE COMBINATION LIVING ROOM AND KITCHEN WERE hidden beneath thick layers of ice from ceiling to floor. Frost coated every surface, and ice crystals seemed suspended in midair. Cold tore at me through layers of clothing as I stepped inside, plunging me into temperatures beyond anything I had ever experienced in my life. Someone from Alaska might have known this sort of cold, but here in Missouri we had no point of reference for it. My “heavy winter gear” was totally inadequate, and I instantly understood why the sheriff had warned me to get in and out quickly. If I stayed here, I would become part of the frozen landscape.
Much like the couple frozen to the couch, arms locked around one another in a fierce embrace, faces etched with terror.
Drawing in a lungful of frigid air, I crossed the modest living room to get a closer look at the couple. Fairly young. About my age. In fact, the woman looked familiar.
“Nadine,” I whispered as the name popped into my head. She’d been a couple years ahead of me in school and I hadn’t known her well, but we’d been on the cheerleading team together.
She didn’t look dead. Part of me itched to take my glove off and search for a pulse. Her face was so animated, so full of life. Maybe she was just being held in some sort of cryogenic suspension. It was a desperate hope, but I’d seen some bizarre things happen with magic. Impossible wasn’t a word I liked to throw around too much.
“Has this scene been processed at all?” I asked through the st
ill-open front door.
“No,” Frank replied. “Can’t stay in there long enough. You might want to back out.”
I flexed my fingers, which were starting to turn numb. I didn’t want to leave yet. I hadn’t ID’d the man, and I hadn’t gotten a good look around.
I took that look around now, before Evan forced me out – as I knew he would in about sixty seconds. I wasn’t sure if this was Nadine’s house or the unknown man’s or both, but it was very well loved. There were things everywhere, buried in the ice – knickknacks and crafts and pictures on the wall, some clearly homemade – but it was all neatly organized and immaculately cared for. In another person’s hands, this space would have been cluttered, but these two had made the place look cozy and welcoming. The kitchen, separated from the living room by nothing more than a counter, was neat and tidy, not a dish or cup in sight. Across from the frozen couple, a small flatscreen TV hung from the wall, a crack marring the once-smooth surface.
“Let’s go,” Evan said.
I didn’t argue. Backing out, I joined the sheriff and his deputy on the porch and closed the door behind me.
“So,” the sheriff said, “who can work ice magic like that?”
“Nobody,” I replied.
He looked at me skeptically, but after a quick glance at Evan to confirm what I already felt certain about, I repeated, “Nobody. I’ve never heard of a gift like this.”
“A gift.” The sheriff rubbed his gloved hands together. “But there’s more to magic than gifts. Haven’t you always said so?”
There was more to magic than gifts. In fact, there was some debate as to whether or not a gift counted as magic, since it was instinctive and automatic, tied to a person’s soul in a way nobody understood. Someone with a gift, like Evan’s gift of telekinesis, could use it all day without growing tired, as effortlessly as breathing.
Frozen: a ParaNormal Mystery (Cassie Scot Book 7) Page 2