Frozen: a ParaNormal Mystery (Cassie Scot Book 7)

by Christine Amsden

  “They’ll be frightened,” Belle said finally. “Would you mind if I sent my apprentice to work with you, maybe tomorrow or the next day? We’ll have to check her schedule first.”

  “Thank you,” I managed to say. Why had I resisted calling her for so long? Oh yes, because Alexander had used empathic healers as spies and reinforced my distrust of all mind magic.

  “Your mom will be okay,” Belle said gently.

  “I know she will.” I recalled my recent dreams and added, impulsively, “I’m going to name my next daughter after you.” I knew it was true, too – it might not be the specific daughter I’d dreamed about, but there would be another daughter.

  She blinked in surprise. “Really? Are you a seer, then? I’m surprised you’re able to see much with you nursing right now … or have you weaned already?”

  “No,” I said, taken aback, “but I only catch glimpses.”

  “Not surprising.” She smiled and I felt warm inside. “I’m glad to hear this will work out.”

  “Do you know … how do you know about this?”

  “Seers are common in my family.”

  “But Matthew–”

  “Is a man. The gift is rare in men. Aunt Grace used to say they lacked vision.”

  “I see.” And I was beginning to understand. Abigail Hastings had once told me there was no such thing as a seer-sorcerer. Most people didn’t know that, but apparently Belle was one of the few. There were so many things I’d never asked Abigail before she died.

  “People keep telling me to relax and accept.” I thought back to last night; I’d talked myself into thinking I’d done just that, but now I wondered if my improved visions had more to do with only nursing Ana once the day before.

  “We can talk about it if you like,” Belle said, still smiling. “Later, of course. You’ve got a lot on your plate right now.”

  I longed to do just that, but I had to ask, “What’s the price?”

  “My new granddaughter has the gift; I only had sons so there’s no one left to help her if I die. If I share this with you, then you help her, when the time comes.”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. “Done.”

  “Done.” She glanced at the cracked bathroom door and then turned back to me, all business. I sensed a shift in her mood, and wondered if she’d planned to talk to me about this all along – maybe Matthew had said something to her. Had I accepted her offer too quickly?

  “You can’t help your mom right now,” she said firmly.

  “I can’t?” Was I part of the problem, then?

  “She’ll need you in the coming days.” Belle placed a gentle hand on my elbow and I felt a strange warmth infuse my body. A sense of hope and of purpose. “But not today. Today, she needs you to find the creature that did this to her and to so many others. If I’m not mistaken, you got at least a glancing blow from the creature yourself.”

  I had wondered if that was the case. Hearing it from someone else made me feel oddly vulnerable, and reminded me of the mental attacks I’d endured and overcome years ago. How could I ever truly know my own thoughts?

  The sound of running water stopped abruptly.

  “Go on, I’ve got this.” Belle slid past me to tend her patient.

  I hesitated for just a moment; there was so much more I wanted to say. More I needed to ask.

  “Now isn’t the time,” she told me, and I knew it was true. “Go.”

  * * *

  Henry Wolf lives closer to the node than anyone else in the area, even if he claims that honor by about ten feet “as the crow flies,” according to him. His house is old but sturdy, surrounded on all sides with vast swaths of lands – a buffer between himself and the rest of the world, or so Evan told me.

  There was no way to warn Mr. Wolf that I was coming. He had no email, no cell phone, not even a land line. He was completely isolated. And liked it that way.

  I shuddered when I drove through the wards marking the edge of his territory. They seemed to run along my body, testing me, feeling me out. This, I supposed, was the magical version of a doorbell. Hopefully, Mr. Wolf would welcome me in. Otherwise, I would probably find myself in a world of hurt.

  To my surprise, Mr. Wolf came striding down the dirt path leading to his home before I made it all the way to his house. He walked directly toward me, hands raised in a clear indication that I should stop the car. I did, then stepped out to greet him.

  “Cassandra,” Mr. Wolf said warmly. “Where’s Evan?”

  Fixing my mess, I thought. “Busy. But I wanted to talk to you. If that’s okay.”

  “‘Course it is. Let’s take a walk.”

  Mr. Wolf gestured toward an old walking trail that jutted away the road not too far from where I’d parked. It went straight for a few yards, then disappeared into the woods bordering the lake.

  Wordlessly, I fell into step just behind him – the path wasn’t big enough for two. He moved quickly for someone so old, navigating the forest with the gait of a man closer to my age than his. He even leaped over a fallen log, one that I chose to carefully step over.

  He didn’t say anything for a long time, and neither did I. Finally, we reached the shore of the lake and paused on a bluff overlooking vast swaths of water. It was a clear, cloudless day and I could see straight across to the opposite shore.

  The blackened shore.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  “Admirin’ the view.” He shoved his hands through his suspenders and stared out over the water. He was a naturalist too; he had to be as angry at me as Evan was right now.

  “It’s not misty anymore,” I said on a sigh. If only it were, I might not be able to see the blackened shoreline. “I guess we really stopped the dangerous gift unleashing fog everywhere.”

  Mr. Wolf chuckled. “I heard about that.”

  “How?”

  “I got my sources.” He drew in a deep lungful of air and exhaled slowly. “Least it smells better.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” I had only noticed the rotten egg smell closer to what I now thought of as the epicenter of the mist, but there had definitely been something lingering in the air for the past few months.

  “Wanna talk about it?” Mr. Wolf continued to stare out at the lake, and though his words were kind, I felt like his gaze was accusing.

  “She’s really got a powerful gift,” I said. “Couldn’t see my nose in front of my face the day the sheriff and I went to talk to her. And the smell … but that’s not why I did that.” I gesture at the lake shore.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “The air temperature was dropping. Freezing. We still don’t know who did that. I got scared and I … well, Evan says I know just enough magic to be dangerous.”

  “Huh.”

  I didn’t look at him. Feeling suddenly fascinated with my toes, I spent a minute scuffing the earth with the point of my tennis shoe. “My mom tried to kill herself today.”

  “Heh.”

  I glanced up at him; he was still gazing out over the lake, but I sensed he no longer studied the blackened shore line.

  “As if I haven’t messed up enough, I decided to set loose a creature Cormack McClellan had locked up in the back of his shop. Turned out, it spreads misery and despair. I’ve decided to call it the Fairy of Despair.”

  “A fairy, huh?” Mr. Wolf asked.

  “Maybe. Fairies vary from tale to tale quite a lot.”

  “So do real fairies, but no one’s seen one since hell hounds disappeared. Damn, I shoulda figured…”

  “Fairies and hell hounds are linked?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Neither’s been seen for five hundred years.”

  “So what’s going on?” I stopped scuffing the earth and instead looked out at the lake shore, forcing myself to see it. I shuddered. “Linda Eagle says magic is stronger in the new generation, and that little girl who made the mist, well, she might not have been causing the freeze but that mist is powerful enough – and she’s
not from a magical background.

  “I’ve got four people dead, frozen to death, a pack of hell hounds, one fairy causing people to want to die, maybe even kill themselves – the sheriff said there’s been three suicides – and no better idea of what’s causing it all than I did when it started.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute and then, “You done?”

  “For now.”

  “Good, now listen. You got it in you to figure this out. Just like you got it in you to learn magic without turnin’ selfish.”

  “Did Evan talk to you?” I asked.

  “He didn’t have to.”

  “Evan and I have been fighting.”

  “Happens.” He paused. “He still loves you.”

  “I know.”

  “You still love him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then work it out.”

  “I can’t fix it.” I gestured to the blackness.

  Henry Wolf didn’t answer, but he lifted his hands in the air and made a sort of complicated gesture I’d never seen before. Suddenly, I was hit with a wave of vertigo as the blackened shoreline seemed to zoom toward us. Or maybe we were being transported there. No… I finally understood that we were seeing it in front of us as if it were right there, though we hadn’t moved.

  “Is this farsight?” I asked.

  “Close. Just watch.”

  I watched. Evan was there, amid the blackened stumps, with Aunt Sherry at his side. She glanced around, and when her eyes came into view I saw that they were puffy, as if she’d been crying.

  Of course, her twin sister had just tried to kill herself. Maybe now wasn’t the best time to have her out working.

  I started to say something, but of course she couldn’t hear me. She only looked like she was right here. She closed her eyes, lifted her arms, and began to revolve slowly on the spot. I couldn’t hear her, if she was saying anything, but I saw a few blades of grass poke hopefully through the ruined ground.

  “It’s working,” I said.

  Aunt Sherry suddenly collapsed; Evan caught her in a cushion of force just before she hit the ground.

  “Too much too quick. She’s gotta go slower.”

  “Slower? It was only a few blades of grass.”

  “Yep.”

  I turned away. I didn’t want to see any more.

  “Why’d you come see me?”

  “To ask about fairies,” I said. “Cormack offered to tell me how he captured one, but first I have to tell him who killed his brother.”

  “He’s gonna figure it out, you know. Sooner or later, there’ll be a reckonin’.”

  “Are you a seer now? I thought that was my job.”

  “Nope. Just seen enough of human nature to know.”

  “Fairies?” I prompted him. “How do I find it? How do I capture it? How can I send it back to wherever it came from?”

  “What makes you think I know?”

  “Don’t you know everything?”

  He chuckled. “No. Just been around a while.” He started to walk back down the path. “Come on, we’ll walk and you’ll figure it out.”

  “Figure it out?”

  “Yep.”

  He was already a good ways down the path when I got my feet moving, and I had to jog to catch up.

  “Cormack had her in an iron cage,” I said, panting slightly. “A lot of stories say iron hurts fairies. Is that true?”

  “Never ran into a fairy myself. Could be true. Lots of folks say so. Course, lots of folks say a silver bullet’ll do in a werewolf.”

  “The iron cage was working, though,” I mused.

  “Yep.”

  “But it moves so fast! How do I catch it? What’s its goal, anyway?” I stopped short, then had to jog again to catch up. “What is its goal? Is it just to spread misery, or is there something else? The hell hounds … you said the last time the fairies were here, the hell hounds were too. The hell hounds seem to be trying to protect kids – maybe not all the kids but some of them. What are the fairies trying to do?”

  “You’re doin’ great, keep talkin’,” Mr. Wolf urged.

  “Wait, is there just one fairy or more than one? There’s been a lot of misery lately. Plus the freezing …” I stopped again, abruptly, and this time Henry Wolf stopped too.

  He turned back to look at me, and in his gnarled eyes I saw the light of comprehension mirroring my own.

  “You said … you said the cold was a strange power, that the human body doesn’t create cold.”

  Mr. Wolf nodded. “Knew you had it in you to figure it out.”

  “A fairy of cold,” I breathed. “I wonder if there are others.”

  “Best focus on what you know.”

  “Good point. But I still don’t know how to find, corner, or capture a fairy.”

  “You got it in you to figure that out too.” Henry Wolf started walking again, and I followed mutely until we reached the car I’d borrowed from Mom.

  “Thanks,” I told him as I rounded the car to the driver’s side door.

  “Anytime. But do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “Stop being so damn prideful and let Evan teach you magic.”

  Chapter 20

  I SPENT THE REST OF THE afternoon packing clothes and toys for the younger kids, then shuttling it back and forth and preparing the guest rooms at my own house. We had six rooms, apart from the master bedroom and the nursery where Ana slept, which meant the twins would have to share. But given their behavior, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

  At three o’clock, I called Juliana and told her to come straight home without picking up the twins – I’d pick them up along with Ana. Half an hour later, she drove the van with Isaac, Elena, Adam, and Christina up to the front of the house and got out, glaring at me suspiciously as I stood on the front steps.

  “You guys are going to stay with me for a few days,” I said, trying to project a note of cheer I didn’t feel into my voice.

  “Like a sleepover?” Christina asked.

  “Yes, just like a sleepover.” I ruffled her hair and shot a false smile at the others, who weren’t convinced. Not even eight-year-old Adam. “I packed some stuff for the younger kids, but Elena, Isaac, and Juliana, you should decide what to bring. Adam, Christina, why don’t you make sure I didn’t miss something important?”

  Christina went straight up to her room excitedly, Adam following behind at a more sedate pace. Elena frowned, her eyes glassed over slightly, though I knew she hadn’t spoken to the dead in a couple of years. Our dead grandparents had, apparently, insisted that no one speak to her until she learned to cope in the real world.

  “Out with it,” Isaac said.

  “What’s going on?” Juliana asked at the same time.

  “Mom’s sick.” I glanced at Elena, wishing she’d gone too. Eleven was really too young to hear this. Then again, eleven was too young for a lot of things she’d gone through lately. And I wasn’t sure twenty-three was old enough either.

  “She’s not in the hospital again?” Juliana asked. “I can heal her.”

  “Not from this.” I tried to look Juliana straight in the eyes. Failed. Looked at her bright white tennis shoes. “She tried to kill herself.”

  They stood frozen on the front steps.

  “She’s with Belle Wright, the empathic healer I mentioned last night. But I don’t think this was her fault. She was attacked by something – a creature Christina called a fairy.”

  “Attacked how?” Isaac asked.

  I told him what I knew, leaving out my private fears that the fairy hadn’t created all – or maybe even most – of Mom’s troubles. The blueprint for disaster had always been there.

  “You two go pack,” Juliana said when I’d finished. “Cassie and I need to talk.”

  I stepped aside so Isaac and Elena could disappear inside the house, both looking remarkably subdued. I wondered if they knew what I suspected – that they’d be living with me for longer than a few days – then I
turned back to Juliana.

  “I won’t stay with that man,” she said without preamble, reminding me with words and menace that we hadn’t had this argument out.

  “I’ve been married to that man, as you call him, for almost two years. The feud’s over.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe for you it is.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I stared levelly into her brown eyes and she stared back, unflinching.

  “You surrendered.”

  “Is that what you think happened?”

  “I know that’s what happened.” She scowled. “He stole your magic! You might have forgotten, but I haven’t. And I’ll be damned it I’m going to let any of us move into that bastard’s house!”

  “Juliana!”

  “What? You going to wash my mouth out with soap?”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” I clenched my hands into fists, keeping them carefully reined in at my sides. “And if you felt this way, why haven’t you said anything before now?”

  “You never asked me to move in with him before now. And I’ve thought about saying something a hundred times! But no, the feud’s over, we need to keep the peace. Fine. As long as it’s your life and your choice, fine. But not when it’s my life or the lives of the kids I’ve been taking care of for over a year without your help!”

  I glanced over my shoulder through the open front door. Adam stood there, staring at us, stunned. I took a step forward and closed the door on him, blocking him out.

  “Evan didn’t steal my magic, his father did,” I said, even though I’d said it before. Many times. To many people. I was actually sick to death of saying it.

  “And yet, he still has it.”

  “He offered to give it back.” This, too, I’d said before.

  She snorted. “Yeah, so you said. Sorry if I’m not buying it.”

  “Why wouldn’t you buy it? Am I lying?”

  “No, I just think he knew you wouldn’t take it. I don’t think he wants to give it up at all.”

  I froze, thinking of the look on his face when he’d made the offer – again – just the day before. No, he didn’t want to, but that didn’t make him insincere. It meant he loved me, even now, when he was mad at me.

  “Hit a nerve, did I?” Juliana sneered.