by Pat Esden
While Newt and Selena took off to buy lobster rolls and drinks, Chase and I caught up with the drummer. She said the flutist’s name was Lotli. As far as the drummer knew, she wasn’t local. She didn’t belong to any of the Wabanaki tribes. She just showed up at powwows and other events, and everyone let her play because she was one of the best and most adaptive flutists around, and they felt sorry for her.
At this point the storyteller joined our conversation and clarified. He told us that Lotli usually had her sickly grandfather with her, that she drove an old bread truck that had been converted into a camper. But neither he nor the drummer knew where they stayed, in a campground or on private property—or if they had a house, for that matter.
“Her music isn’t ours,” the storyteller added. “But it is as beautiful as the stars, isn’t it?”
I pressed my fingers against my temples, easing a newborn headache. I could see where this was leading. Asking them about the smoke and flute-magic might score us a myth or two, but that was it. We had to hunt this Lotli girl down ourselves, somehow.
CHAPTER 4
Baby with blue eyes, baby with black.
One of you belongs to Daddy.
The other won’t be coming back.
—Disturbing Nursery Rhymes
www.DarkCradleTime.com
Once Selena returned and Newt took off, we decided it was probably smarter to head home for the day, talk to Kate, and figure out the best way to find Lotli.
However, we weren’t even out of Bar Harbor yet when Chase filled a lull in the conversation with an awkward clearing of his throat. “Let’s drive by the house,” he said.
I looked away from the road for a second and gaped at him. “Your mother’s house? Are you sure?”
Selena rested her hand on the back of his seat. “You don’t have to do it to make us happy. Seriously, I won’t bug you about it again.”
“I need to do it,” he said. I felt the weight of his gaze shift onto me. “I keep thinking about it and I can’t afford to have anything take away from my focus, not with everything that’s going on.”
The steering wheel grew hot and moist beneath my hands. I hesitated before glancing his way. His eyes, ocean-deep and sad, touched mine, telling me something I didn’t quite get. Or maybe I didn’t want to understand it. I would have thought he was referring to his nightmares, but he didn’t know I was aware of them. I shook my head. This was all getting so confusing.
Taking a steadying breath, I looked back at the road. “All right, then,” I said.
Ten minutes later, we reached Harbor View Lane and I turned onto it. Some of the houses on the road looked new, others older. They all had landscaped yards and thickets of trees between them. The odd-numbered houses were on my side of the road, the even on Chase’s side, at least according to the mailboxes.
As we got nearer Selena counted. “452. 454. 456 . . . you said it’s 460, right?”
Chase nodded. His lips grew taut as bands of steel. He looked straight ahead, his spine glued against the back of the seat.
“Sure you don’t want me to turn around?” I asked.
“No.”
“458. Your house is next.” Selena’s voice choked a little.
Sunlight flashed against the windshield, its shimmering brightness shielding the view.
460. The number on the mailbox gleamed in the haze. It was a newer box, decorated with a typical Maine lighthouse and ocean scene. The name Abrams was stenciled in stiff black letters. Chase’s last name.
I pulled to the edge of the road and parked next to the box, near the end of a driveway.
“Shit. I can barely see the house,” Selena said.
She was right. Only glimpses of a two-story white colonial were visible down the driveway, closely flanked by overhanging trees.
Chase stared toward the house, his shoulders rigid.
A car whirred by us, the sound of its passing moving into the distance, vanishing a second later. What was Chase thinking? And what if someone noticed us sitting here and thought we were burglars casing the place? What if they called the cops?
I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. “It looks like a nice house,” I managed to say.
“We could pretend we were Jehovah’s Witnesses and knock on the door,” Selena suggested. “They’d never know we weren’t.”
“No. I just want to sit here for a minute,” Chase said.
Selena’s suggestion came back to me, circling and giving me an idea. Knock on the door. Dad and I had occasionally knocked on strangers’ doors to see if they had anything to sell. We hadn’t done it often, but I knew how it worked.
Swallowing hard, I turned the Mercedes into the driveway.
Chase wheeled toward me. His deeply tanned face blanched. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.
“You really want to do the Jehovah’s Witness thing?” Selena said, clearly shocked.
“No, but I’ve got an idea.” I moistened my lips with my tongue. “You and Chase are going to have to stay in the car, though.”
Selena huffed. “That’s no fun.”
Still silent, Chase settled back into his seat, once again staring straight ahead.
I slowed the car, inching down the tree-shadowed drive. Here and there, streaks of stark sunshine broke through the shade, opening up glimpses of clipped hedges and a turnabout in front of the colonial, a nice newer house but disappointingly neat: no junk cars messing up the yard, no pile of old lobster traps, vintage signs, or even rusty license plates nailed to the side of a garage, nothing collectible that I could use as an excuse to knock on the front door and open up a conversation. Still, I couldn’t turn around. I had to do this.
I pulled the Mercedes up in front of the house and took a deep breath.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, getting out. One thing was for certain: No matter what excuse I used to get inside the house, no one would mistake me for a junk antique dealer, not driving Dad’s classic Mercedes.
Head held high, I strode up the front walk, jeans shushing and heels sounding with each step. On either side of the front door, cast-iron urns overflowed with petunias and marigolds, really ornate urns, over a hundred years old, exactly the sort of thing that an antique dealer might stop to inquire about. Perfect, in fact.
I rang the doorbell. Its musical Westminster chime echoed inside, going on for quite a while. I counted to ten and rang again.
“Estelle! Answer that damn thing.” A man’s gruff voice came from a room to the left of the front door. I had no trouble locating or hearing it, thanks to an open window.
My stomach flip-flopped and sweat dribbled down my sides. Was he Chase’s stepfather? I’d tried not to think about him.
Asshole, not father, was the word Chase used for the man who’d never referred to him by any name other than little bastard. The man who—according to Grandfather—had convinced the police that Chase was the product of his wife’s cheating with a Brazilian businessman, and that his wife had given five-year-old Chase to this nonexistent man who had in turn fled back to Brazil with him. That there was no kidnapping. Not that anyone would have believed his mom was impregnated in her sleep by a genie and that the same being reappeared five years later to claim his child.
Through the windows alongside the front door, I spotted a gray-haired woman in a prim maid’s uniform bustle across the foyer. The door opened. Her gaze flittered from me to the Mercedes and most likely the people sitting inside it.
“Hi,” I said, stepping forward, successfully getting her to step back. “Is this the Abrams residence?” I took another step, making it impossible for her to slam the door shut on me.
“Yes. Is Mr. Abrams expecting you?”
“Ah—” My mouth dried. I scanned the foyer and up a staircase behind her. It seemed like if Chase’s stepfather hated answering the door that much, then his mom would appear any second. I decided against the “I noticed your lovely urns and wanted to make an offer” ploy and took a more personal approach. “I
t’s actually Mrs. Abrams I stopped by to see. She went to college with my mom. I’m an appraiser. My mom said Mrs. Abrams had some items she wanted to have valued for insurance purposes. It’s been a while, but my mom said I should stop by when I was in town.” It was a total lie, but it was also a con one of my dad’s less scrupulous dealer friends was known to use.
A dismissive snort came from the other room. “Must have been a fucking long time ago,” said the man I assumed was Chase’s stepfather. “Tell her that Mrs. Abrams is no longer in need of any services.”
My head swiveled toward his voice. What did he mean by that? Was Chase’s mom—dead? Was he being sarcastic about her funeral service? Grandfather, Kate, no one had mentioned anything about her dying. What else could he mean?
The maid stepped toward me and this time I retreated, all the way back outside. But instead of shutting the door, she followed me and eased the door shut behind her. She held her hand up to stop me from leaving and whispered, “Your mother, she must not realize. Mrs. Abrams is not well. She’s at Beach Rose House.”
I frowned. She’d said the name like it should mean something to me.
Her hand went to her throat, clutching at a cross. Her voice hushed even further. “It’s a permanent care facility. Mrs. Abrams is not well, mentally.”
My cheeks heated. That possibility had never occurred to me. But, of course, after all she’d endured it made sense. Mentally ill. Crap. I’d just gone through that with my dad. Well, sort of. He’d been possessed by the genie Culus and the symptoms had mimicked mental illness. It was why we’d ended up returning to Moonhill.
“Thank you,” I said. Then I fled down the walk, my head whirring as I tossed back and forth whether to tell Chase about his mother’s condition or not.
But as soon as I got into the car and saw the eager look on Chase’s face, the squeeze in my heart made the decision for me. I had to tell him the truth.
His eyes met mine, worry flicking through them. “Well?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. First we need to get out of here.”
I drove back under the darkness of the shade trees, past the mailbox, and onto the road.
“Was she home?” Chase nudged.
“She’s—She wasn’t home. The maid or maybe she was a housekeeper . . .” My mind staggered and I gripped the steering wheel super tight, struggling to find the right words. Finally I just spat it out: “Your mom’s at a place called Beach Rose House. It’s a facility for people with mental issues.”
“That sucks,” Selena said.
Chase let out a long breath. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, husky with emotion. “How long has she been there?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t find out anything else, not really.” I glanced at him. His face didn’t hold any anger.
His eyes grew sad, but a faint smile touched his lips. “Thank you for doing that. I couldn’t have ever walked up to that door.”
If Selena hadn’t been with us, I’d have pulled over to the side of the road and wrapped my arms around him, told him that his mother’s condition wasn’t his fault and that her issues had started before his conception and even before Malphic had slithered into her dreams and life. They had begun with her choice in husbands.
“We could find out where Beach Rose House is and try to see your mom sometime,” I suggested.
He closed his eyes. “Maybe, sometime.”
* * *
When the three of us got back to Moonhill and pulled into the garage, we found Tibbs inside, tinkering on one of the ATVs. Tibbs and his mother, Laura, were the only nonfamily members besides Chase who lived on the estate. Tibbs was a lanky, ginger-haired guy. And, despite being almost twenty-three, he stumbled over his tongue like a lovesick teenager whenever Selena spoke to him. However, he and I got along like old friends.
“You know where Kate is?” I asked him as I got out of the Mercedes. I bit my lip and nodded at the ATV he was working on. It was the one I’d used this morning. “I didn’t screw it up, did I?”
Tibbs laughed. “Nothing’s wrong. Just changing the oil.” He shoved his camo-colored cap in his hip pocket and smoothed back his hair. “By the way, Chase, would you mind taking my patrol shift tonight? I’ve got something to do in town.”
“No problem,” Chase said.
Selena lifted an eyebrow at Tibbs. “Got a heavy date?”
He went bright red, right up to the tips of his ears. “Um—no.” He looked at me. “You and Chase didn’t have plans for tonight, did you?”
“Not really,” I said. Swallowing my disappointment, I headed into the office and flung the Mercedes’s key ring onto the pegboard with all the other sets. I’d hoped Chase and I could get together tonight. After all, it wouldn’t be long before he went to the realm. What if something happened to him? What if he didn’t—?
I squeezed my eyes shut, putting an end to that train of thought. Nothing bad was going to happen to him or Dad or Mom. They’d all be fine. They’d come back from the djinn realm. Mom and Dad would rebuild their life together, and Chase and I . . . I scrunched my eyes even tighter. It was impossible, downright stupid, to daydream about the far distant future—my future—with everything so precariously on edge.
Taking a long, slow breath, I forced my mind away from the future and back to the recent past, to the first time Chase and I had spent an entire night together, to the good stuff, not the nightmare part.
Tibbs had been on duty and everyone else had left for the marina in Port St. Claire where the family kept a boat. Chase and I were supposed to meet up with them and go for a sunset cruise and dinner, but I’d texted Dad and pretended I had menstrual cramps as an excuse to stay home. After that, I’d grabbed a bottle of sparkling wine from the family’s cellar and headed for the cottage. Neither one of us had much for cooking skills, but Chase made boxed macaroni and cheese. It was a wonderful meal by candlelight on his living room floor, like a picnic. We had tossed salad and pickled beets, too. Our eyes had met so many times during the meal, both of us resisting the urge to kiss, laughing and smiling.
By the time we’d gotten around to doing the dishes, the smolder in his eyes was so wicked that I was forced to splash soap bubbles at him to keep him in line. He retaliated by throwing the sponge at me. Later, we lingered on the sofa in each other’s arms, listening to music in the candlelight as evening drifted into darkness. Chase hinted that his neck was stiff. I heated some baby oil, pulled off his shirt, and massaged his shoulders and back. I moved down, unzipping his pants, taking them off, rubbing his beautiful butt cheeks, his thighs, his calves, his toes, languorously as if time didn’t matter, as if there were no world beyond that room. He undressed me, massaging the oil into my temples, my neck, my shoulders. We moved together, massaging, caressing. His lips roamed my body. My hands skated across his skin. I nipped his shoulder. And, in a hot flash, the smolder in his eyes darkened into fierce lust. Time burst back to life. He pinned me to the couch. I gripped his arms in wanton desire, arching against him—
Headlights fanned through the windows and across the living room walls.
“Shit,” he said. Letting me go, he snuffed out the candles. We grabbed blankets from the couch and peered out the window like guilty kids. Grandfather’s Land Rover followed by Uncle David’s Jaguar passed by the cottage, continuing on toward the main house.
Once we had been certain they weren’t coming back, Chase led me upstairs and we made love. And, oh God, did we make love. Exhausted, we’d slept, spooned against each other—that’s when I’d discovered the nightmares.
“Annie?” Selena’s voice brought me from my thoughts and back to the garage. “Tibbs says Kate’s down in the research room.”
“Ah, yeah. That’s great,” I said, ignoring the puzzled look she was giving me. I could tell by how hot I felt and the tingle on my skin that I was totally flushed. Oh, man. If only Chase hadn’t agreed to swap shifts with Tibbs.
Chase, Selena, and I went back into the house and took the ki
tchen elevator down to the basement level, then went through a security door and into one of the family’s labyrinth of secret tunnels. Ceiling-to-floor mirrors and gaudy-colored frescoes studded its walls. We hurried past a suit of armor and an Egyptian sarcophagus to a mural that depicted people being burned at the stake and dancing demons. I breathed into my palm and pressed it against the tiles.
The wall slid open, revealing nothing except blackness. I shuddered as I remembered the first time I’d stepped into that nothingness, terrified that Grandfather was luring me into an eternal pit of darkness. It was hard to believe how much my life had changed in less than a month, my fear of the dark subsiding and my trust of Grandfather budding into genuine fondness. Totally amazing.
I smiled to myself and led the way, stepping into the darkness, immediately coming out into the stark light of the research room’s vestibule. It was a small, white-tiled space overlooking an enormous laboratory that resembled the engineering deck on a starship crossed with an alchemist’s dungeon.
Kate and my aunt Olya, Selena’s mother, were working down in the laboratory, dressed in full-length rubber aprons and gloves. With a serious scowl on her face, Kate drizzled oil from the Lamp of Methuselah through the mesh of a small cage and down onto an adolescent cat, soaking him until his brown tiger-stripes glistened black.
The cat hunched into the farthest corner of the cage, hissing and thrashing his tail like a cornered rattlesnake.
Olya’s fingers fluttered to her chest. “Oh, my. He does not like that,” she said. Her throaty Eastern European accent sounded even raspier than usual.
Kate tsked. “It’s the cage time not the oil he’s fussing about. Serves him right, too. The beast shat in my bedroom.”
Judging by the glare in Kate’s eyes, I suspected the cat was guilty of more than that single offense. She generally loved cats. Personally, his insolence toward her had just scored him top position on my cat-ranking card, not that I was much of a cat person.