Anticipating Biscuit’s bark, I told him, “Shh…” I could feel him at my feet since he thought he had to follow me everywhere. His usual exuberance was absent in the early morning hours, and he trotted within inches of me down the stairs. After turning off the alarm to the right of the door, I crept to the kitchen where I could exit to the garage.
Two spotlights hanging on the roof corners lit the garage door. I didn’t open the large, vehicle-entry door but went to the side door. Reaching underneath a fake plastic stone, I found the hidden key and entered.
Biscuit followed me inside the garage, cheerfully wagging his tail and running his nose along the edges of all the boxes. I turned on the light and looked around. What was in all these boxes? I began to tear the seal on the first unmarked cardboard box. Sitting cross-legged on the chilly concrete floor, I removed the first mystery from within while Biscuit sat and nuzzled his nose into the small of my back.
Sliding my fingers along the edges of a silver picture frame, I gingerly separated it from the other contents of the box. The five-by-seven was new to me. I had seen only a few pictures in our house like the one I held.
The close-up of the woman captured her from the waist up. Her arms were stretched high to hold an infant above her head. The baby wore no clothes and stared straight into the woman’s eyes. Although naked, the side view didn’t tell me if it was a boy or girl, this baby with a downy cap of blond hair and dark eyes. The expression on the woman’s face interested me most of all. Pure delight radiated from her wide smile to her shining eyes. Crinkles at the corners of her eyes hinted at laughter. I looked at her face and found my mouth filled with the sweet tastes of vanilla and sugar. The warmth of it frustrated me. I knew the truth.
I tossed the picture onto the top of the next stack of cardboard boxes. Reaching into the box, I took out a soft, pastel-colored square—a green and yellow baby blanket. I refolded it and tucked it away. The last thing I wanted was for my dad to see that I had gone through any of the boxes.
Below the blanket, I carefully unwrapped the first of several newspapered items. I held a pink ceramic pig and tilted it, listening to the musical clink of coins in its belly. After unwrapping another package, I marveled at the weight of the tiny silver box monogrammed with a scripted “M.” I pried the lid off, then gasped when a tiny tooth tumbled out and fell to my feet. I hurriedly retrieved it, replacing it in the box. Next, I extracted a Ziploc bag with a tiny pink brush with pliable bristles, nail clippers, and several pacifiers.
The last item in the box was a scrapbook, with pink lambs on its cover. The title was Baby Memories. I sat cross-legged with it in my lap. I opened it to the first page, then read the inscription.
Name: Mia Carina Taylor
Parents: Steven and Nancy Taylor
The print was simple and neat.
My heart raced at the implications that she had actually claimed me once. I turned all the pages, resting on several to read a journal-type entry recounting a first smile, sitting up, and doctor visits.
An indescribable anger filled me. How could she have written these things as if they’d mattered? The bitter taste of truth forced me to swallow hard. I couldn’t understand this person holding the baby in the picture. How had she changed from the smiling woman to the one I had met with a gun in her hand?
I replaced the book in the box and closed the flaps. The box had raised more questions, not revealed answers. Biscuit followed me quietly out of the garage and away from the memories.
* * *
The knock at the door startled me. I ran to the window and parted the sheer curtain to see two motorcycles parked in the drive. Swinging the front door open, I eyed them both suspiciously.
“What’s going on? I didn’t expect to see you this early.” I glanced at my watch. Eight o’clock on a Sunday morning. Most would think that company knocking at the door at this hour on a weekend was weird, but I was getting used to the weird and unexpected.
“Come on in,” I said. I smiled to take the edge off my earlier greeting. I took Regulus’s hand and yanked him inside. I rubbed his cold hand between both of mine. Arizona followed, immediately making himself at home by removing his heavy jacket.
“We have something important to do today and thought you might be interested in tagging along.” Regulus looked around—for my dad, I guess—and when he was satisfied we were alone, he said, “You have some training to begin.”
“No one ever told me about any training.” I imagined running through tires and doing push-ups. I frowned.
“We’ll take advantage of the talents that we’ve already witnessed. Marksmanship, problem solving, portal detection…nothing too outside your range of abilities. And we’ll work on the things you don’t do well, like following my orders.” Regulus paced around the room like he had unspent energy that needed releasing.
“I’d like to work on her cooking skills. I’m starved.” Arizona said it with mock seriousness.
I playfully hit him on the arm. “You’re always hungry. I swear you’re a bottomless pit.” I waved for them to follow me into the kitchen. They both took seats at the heavy oak dining table while I began opening cabinet doors in search of something quick and easy.
“What about the eggs and bacon your father made last weekend?” Arizona looked around at the countertops like the food would magically appear. “That was very tasty.”
“Yes, I’m sure you thought so.” I laughed at his sad expression. “But since I’ve never done that, you might get lucky enough to get a Pop-Tart or cereal.” I grabbed some bananas and oranges from the fruit bowl on the counter and put them on the table.
“Where’s your father?” Regulus asked. He grabbed an orange while Arizona slid the bowl across the table and examined the cereal boxes. Regulus scored the rind with a pocketknife so that he circled the circumference from top to bottom. Then he peeled off exact sections to place on a paper towel. The precise, surgical method of eating an orange was very much like him.
“I forget,” I said. “He got up really early and said good-bye before he left. He flew out to somewhere on the East Coast.”
“And when will he be back?” Regulus nodded, looking pleased.
“End of the week,” I said. “Thursday or Friday. I can’t remember. I guess I don’t pay attention.”
“You should. It is an important detail.” Regulus’s voice held a scolding tone that irritated me. I was the most responsible teenager in Whispering Woods.
“Well, um-hum. Is something going on in my so-called training at the end of the week? If you expect me to be strategically planning my schedule, it would be nice to clue me in.”
“It is important because he is your father. No other reason according to Arizona,” Regulus said.
Arizona poured cereal into his bowl and helped himself to milk from the refrigerator. His chomping sounded overly loud in the next few moments. He always kept quiet when I wished he would jump in and take one side or the other. He smiled at me. “I’ve been explaining some family issues to Regulus this morning.”
“Huh?” My irritation subsided, replaced by confusion. I put bread into the toaster. “What kind of family issues?” I asked suspiciously.
“Role of a father. Although I didn’t know mine until I was older, I had one. Before my father came to get me, I had several men who acted as a father. I basically know how it works,” Arizona said matter-of-factly. He rose and went to the counter, reaching for the bread.
I glanced at Regulus and wondered what Arizona had told him. He had finished the peeled orange and was spinning a whole one like it was a top.
“The father is different from the mother in the nurturing of an offspring,” Regulus said it like he was reciting from a book. “He shows affection for the offspring in a different manner as his biological makeup demands protection of family.”
“My dad loves me just because.” My words came out simple and childlike. “I’m all he has right now.”
“And when you leave him?” R
egulus asked.
“Why would I leave? I mean, sure I’ll leave someday after college. I’ll probably still see him at least once a week, even then,” I said.
“I don’t understand these parental attachments, but I’m trying to learn them,” Regulus said. “What do you know of your mother?”
“Coldhearted witch.” The answer was simple to me.
“But Steven Taylor had emotional ties with this woman.” Regulus rose and crossed the room to stare at the picture on the refrigerator. Most of the four-by-six prints were of Peter and me. A few included my dad. Regulus picked through the numerous photos until he found the one he wanted. “Do you have memories of this woman?”
He held the one picture that I’d hidden beneath the others. I hadn’t thrown it away because I knew Pete would’ve been angry if he returned to find it missing. The family portrait was covered by several other pictures and magnets. The section of the picture with the woman holding the baby had been covered. I wasn’t sure how Regulus had discovered it.
“No, not really.” I thought about my midnight trip to the garage and the dream that had prompted my curiosity. “She left us and went to start a new life somewhere. It was a long time ago.”
Arizona stopped crunching the cereal. “How do you know that was your mother that you saw in Dr. Bleeker’s house?”
“It was Nancy Taylor,” Regulus said flatly.
Arizona and I both stared at Regulus. He obviously had information about the woman who had been missing from my life the last fifteen years.
“What do you know that we don’t? I thought it was her, but I wasn’t sure.” I accused him with my tone. I waited for him to look guilty, but he didn’t look apologetic at all.
Over a month ago, Regulus and I had searched an empty house looking for Dr. Bleeker. Instead, we’d been surprised by two people, a man and woman, who seemed to be intent on killing us. Or that was my interpretation of the gun aimed at the back of my head. The woman had been Nancy Taylor, my mother.
“I know of your mother. I have reviewed a file of your entire family.” Regulus always met my gaze when he talked. His unwavering blue eyes never held any regret or avoidance.
When I got nervous, I couldn’t meet those eyes. I ended up looking at the small, almost imperceptible dimple in his chin. “What did you learn that makes you positive that it was her? A lot of women look like the one we saw. Blonde, petite, pretty.”
“Nancy Taylor has a scar along her right cheek. She also has a condition called heterochromia.”
I didn’t want to ask what it meant. It sounded like some horrible disease. After waiting a moment for an explanation, I decided to ask. “I give. What is that?”
“One green eye and one blue,” Regulus answered.
“You noticed all that in the few minutes we saw her?” My mouth dropped open in amazement. I couldn’t tell you what the woman was wearing, much less the color of her eyes. My mind had been racing with the problem of her gun to my head. And how to save myself and Regulus from biting the dust in Bleeker’s house.
“You said that you thought it was your mother as we walked out of Dr. Bleeker’s home,” Regulus said. “Then we have a positive identification, correct?”
I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I hope we’ve seen the last of her.”
Now close to me, Regulus murmured, “You know that we will meet her again. She is a traitor. She may be involved in the disappearance of your brother.”
The pounding of my heart sounded in my ears. I could hear my own breathing in the silence that followed. My hatred for her grew to an incomprehensible level.
“Stop keeping information from me. What makes you think that she had anything to do with Pete leaving?” I waited for Regulus to respond. He was silent, to my chagrin. “What’s in the file? My mother left when I was only a baby. She’s living with some new family somewhere in Idaho or Nebraska. Or maybe Alaska…” My childish protests sounded weak.
Regulus rubbed my shoulder, comforting me before he moved away. Had he remembered Arizona was watching? “Your mother was an agent of the IIA. That is how I know these things. You have the gifts that your mother passed to you. Genetic gifts. She was a synesthete.”
His gentleness made my throat constrict. I stared at the pictures on the refrigerator door.
“Do you miss this woman? Your mother?” he asked.
“No, I don’t know Nancy. But I can tell you that she has never been a mother to me.” I drew a deep breath. “We need to find her as well, right? And turn her over to the IIA.” I glanced from Regulus to Arizona for confirmation. Neither one would look at me.
“I wish it were that easy,” Regulus said. “We are not authorized to bring Nancy Taylor to the IIA. She has been granted autonomy. She is a citizen here.”
“The woman put a gun to my head…her own daughter. I don’t get it. We’re supposed to bring Bleeker in, but you can’t turn that woman into them? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Bleeker doesn’t belong here. He is not an original citizen and was never granted the right to live here. Nancy Taylor must stay here. She belongs here no matter what illegal activities she is performing. Your government has jurisdiction over her.”
“I don’t care. If she knows something about Pete, then I’ll find her too.” I lifted my chin. “I could do a citizen’s arrest. That’s my right.” My skewed logic probably wouldn’t get me anywhere, but I was desperate. My voice had risen, and I stood, glaring at Regulus, challenging him.
“What about your high-school winter formal? Are you taking Regulus, and does Emily have a date?” Arizona asked.
Regulus and I both swiveled to face him.
“How do you know about that?” I sputtered in confusion. The shift in conversation threw me.
Arizona grinned like a Cheshire cat. “I listen. Emily talked with you about girls getting asked by certain boys. I’m interested in how this works.”
“I don’t think I’ll go.” I avoided looking at either one of them.
“Regulus will take you,” Arizona said as he grinned at Regulus.
Silence.
“It’s not a big deal. Really.” The words were rushing out of my mouth of their own volition. “I don’t go to most of these things anyway. It’s all about clothes and who’s taking who, and it will probably be lame because I’ve heard the original deejay has canceled and now they’re looking for a band instead of a deejay—”
“Yes,” Regulus said. “I want to take you. Unless there is some reason you don’t want me to go.”
“I…” I finally looked up into his eyes. “You don’t have to go. It’s a stupid high-school thing. Really stupid.”
“I said I would like to go. You must tell me the rules for it.” He seemed uncertain all of a sudden. “Am I not requesting it properly?”
“There aren’t a lot of rules. You’ve asked fine,” I said. I wanted the awkwardness to go away. “Yeah. I’d like to go with you.” As an afterthought, I added, “You’ll have to wear something different from your everyday clothes. There’s a store on the square downtown that has tuxes. You could wear a tux, if you want to.” I shrugged, my face heating. I really hadn’t planned to go.
“And Emily. Would Emily go with me if I asked her?” Arizona asked, looking very pleased. I didn’t know how he had shifted the conversation away from my issues with a renegade mother to this, but he had.
“I can’t answer that. But I think she might. Maybe.” I had a hard time figuring out where Arizona stood with Emily. I didn’t want to give him false hope.
“Good,” Arizona said. “I’ll call her later. Now, we go to the woods for training.”
Chapter 3
Fight Training
“Portal finder. I can do that. I didn’t sign up for this other part.” I shivered in the cold morning. Deep in the woods, a fine mist hung in the damp, sticky air. We had walked at a brisk pace to match Regulus’s for a couple of miles, and now my hair clung to my neck and cheeks. Irritated, I shov
ed the strands off my face.
“These skills are necessary for all agents of the IIA, portal finder or not.” Regulus nodded at Arizona. “Arizona is adept in judo, jujitsu, and several other martial arts. He is small but quick.”
I looked at Arizona, a head taller than myself.
“I am skilled in everything from hand-to-hand combat to weaponry. You do not have time to become skilled in anything,” Regulus said.
“Gee, thanks,” I answered.
“You will rely on your ability in marksmanship, which you recently demonstrated irresponsibly.” Regulus referred to an incident over a month ago at Dr. Bleeker’s involving a gun and a precise shot into the thigh of a bad guy holding Regulus. Video gaming had paid off for once.
Arizona smirked. “I think she did pretty well. Saved your backside,” he said.
Regulus shot him a look that would wilt most people, but Arizona grinned even wider. Then he took off his backpack and removed two weapons, setting them in a precise line on the ground: a black-handled, five-inch-long knife, and the silver box from Regulus’s world that I called a stunner.
Examining the knife, I imagined slitting someone with it. Nah. The knife wasn’t my style. I picked up the stunner.
“Be careful,” Regulus said as if I were a child. “You could hurt yourself.”
“Do I finally get one of these?” I asked the question and then stuck out my tongue at him. The wind blew and twirled leaves around my head in a kaleidoscope of red and orange. I pushed hair out of my eyes.
“This is how you hold it.” Regulus took the rectangular box from me with deliberate care. He held it much like a cell phone and said, “Make certain that the opaque end faces out.” He then pointed somewhere in the distance. “See that tree with the knot in the center?”
I shook my head.
“I will take the limb off. The one that is a foot above our heads.” Regulus pointed the stunner and squeezed both sides. A high-pitched whistle sounded, and the tree limb fell to the ground. “Now, you shall hold it. No pressure should be exerted in this hold.” He handed me the box. “Hold it lightly.”
Whisper of Memory (Whispering Woods Book 2) Page 3