She shook her head.
“This is me, and I don’t understand how it’s possible I’m sitting there with a child I’ve never seen before in my life.”
“But you have seen her,” I said.
She looked into my eyes, confusion and fear written across her features. “I don’t understand.”
“Maria, you know what the Order is capable of,” I said, my voice a low whisper. “They can make people disappear. They can alter your memories. They can do anything they want, and you would be powerless to stop them.”
Her hand trembled. “What do you know of the Order?”
“Plenty,” I said.
She clamped her eyes shut and her hand gripped the photograph tighter. “I can’t be talking to you,” she said. “If they find out—”
She dropped the picture and started to stand, but I grabbed her hand.
“Maria, please wait,” I said. “Sit down. All I am asking for is five minutes of your time. After that, if you don’t believe me or want to hear what I have to say, you can walk out that door and forget this whole thing ever happened.”
She pulled her hand away, but sat back down.
“Hi,” the waitress said, walking over to us. “Would you like anything? A cup of coffee, maybe?”
“No,” Maria said. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, well, I’ll be back in a few minutes if you want to order.”
Maria nodded, but kept her eyes on mine the entire time.
“You have five minutes,” she said.
“The Order has taken someone from me, too,” I said. “The emerald priestess has her locked away somewhere, and I need to find her. I was hoping you might be able to tell me something, anything about where to find the priestess or where she takes these girls once she’s kidnapped them.”
“We shouldn’t be talking about such things out here in the open,” she said, glancing around. “If my Prima found out I was here, she would punish me in ways you cannot possibly understand.”
“I do understand,” I said. “I have seen with my own eyes the things the Order is capable of, and believe me when I say I know the risk you took to be here. But that also means you must know there is truth to this photograph. There has to be some part of you that recognizes this girl. Maria, she was your child.”
She closed her eyes again, not even bothering to wipe away the tears that flowed freely down her cheeks. “I spent the entire night staring at that picture, trying to remember this little girl,” she said. “I searched old family photographs and journals. I tried to remember anything. Maybe she was a cousin or a little girl I used to teach in school. I tried to convince myself that she couldn’t be who I thought she was.”
I held my breath, waiting for her to continue.
“But there was something in my heart that knew the moment I looked into her eyes,” she said. She picked up the picture and clutched it to her chest. “This really is my daughter, isn’t it? Why don’t I remember her? Do you know where she is?”
My heart broke at the sound of her grief. If I hadn’t come here, this woman would never have known she had lost a child to the Order. I hated to have to tell her the truth, but this was my best chance to find out anything about the emerald priestess.
“I saw her,” I said. “A few days ago. She gave me this photograph and asked me to find you.”
Maria placed her hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs.
“The reason you don’t remember her is because the emerald priestess stole her from you,” I said. “Juliana told me she fell in love with the wrong person, and the emerald priestess didn’t approve. When she disobeyed her coven, she was taken away and all memories of her were wiped from your mind, as if she never existed. But your heart remembers her. You know I’m telling you the truth.”
“For years, there’s been this hole in my heart,” she said. “I couldn’t explain it or understand it, but it was as if a piece of me was missing. It all makes sense to me now. I need to see her, please.”
“I’m sorry, Maria,” I said, unable to meet her eyes. “Juliana is dead. She wanted me to tell you that she died with honor.”
I couldn't bear to tell her what had become of her child. Most witches in the Order didn’t even know about the hunters. They saw them on the other side of the portal when the gates were opened during initiations, but most of them had no idea that the creature on the other side had once been human.
“No,” she cried. She wrapped her arms around her body and rocked back and forth, sobs shaking her shoulders. “My baby girl. Why? Why would they do this to me? I have been nothing but faithful all these years.”
“Because this is what the Order of Shadows does,” I said. “They take whatever they want and think nothing of the lives they destroy in the process. Please, Maria, I need to find the emerald priestess. I’m sorry that you lost your daughter, and I’m sorry that you had to find out this way. But I have lost someone too. Someone very special to me. If you know anything about where the emerald priestess lives or how I can find her, I’m begging you to tell me.”
Maria wiped her face on her sweater and shook her head. “I don’t know anything,” she said. “The emerald priestess never shows herself to us in person. She only visits our Prima when they have business to discuss. She’s very private. None of the other witches in the coven have ever even seen her. I have no idea where she lives.”
I ran a hand through my hair. It was the same story I’d heard a thousand times.
“What about your Prima?” I asked. “Do you think she would know where to find her?”
“She would never tell you even if she did,” she said. “She is extremely loyal to the emerald priestess. Her family line goes back many years, and their family has always been very strict and devoted. She would never betray our priestess.”
Maria wiped a napkin under her nose and crumpled it in her hand. She smoothed the photograph against the table and traced a fingertip across her daughter’s face.
“Can I keep this?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m so sorry I had to tell you about this. It might have been easier for you to never have known.”
She shook her head, wiping away a stray tear. “It’s better to finally understand why my heart has been in pieces for so long,” she said. “It’s better for me to be able to see her face and know that she was mine, even if I can’t remember our time together.”
I set a five-dollar bill on the table and packed away my drawing pad.
“Thank you for telling me what you could,” I said. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
I stood, but as I passed by her, Maria grabbed my hand and met my eyes.
“I hope you find her,” she said. “Your loved one.”
“Me, too,” I said.
As I walked away, I added Juliana Rodriguez to my mental list of names to avenge. Someday, when I looked into the eyes of the emerald priestess just before I killed her, I would think of the names of those she had wronged, and I would know that they could finally rest in peace.
I started my bike, but before I could drive away, the waitress ran out of the diner, waving something in her hand.
“You forgot this,” she said.
It was a drawing pad, just like mine, but I remembered putting it away.
“I think you made a mistake,” I said.
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”
For the first time, I looked down and noticed the name tag pinned to the woman’s shirt.
Her name was Kristie.
She Always Does
I put the extra drawing pad in my bag and drove off, but as soon as I had a chance, I stopped and studied it. The notebook was mostly empty except for a few doodles and sketches in the front, but near the middle I found an address scribbled on the bottom of the page.
Maybe this trip wouldn’t be a bust after all.
I found a place to wait until night had fallen. Whoever she was, Kristie was taking a huge risk meeting me like this. If t
he Order found out, they’d kill her for sure. Especially if she had something valuable to tell me.
Once the house was covered in shadows, I shifted and flew around back. It was a small house with faded vinyl siding and an overgrown yard. Not exactly the kind of house witches of the Order lived in.
I knocked on the back door, and it opened almost immediately.
“Come in,” she said. “I made fresh coffee.”
“Thanks.”
I walked inside and looked around. I didn’t think this woman was affiliated with the Order, but I also didn’t want to walk straight into another trap. But the house felt quiet. There was no other energy here.
Kristie poured two cups of coffee and set a bottle of powdered creamer on the table. “I’m sorry I don’t have any milk,” she said. “I work so damn much the stuff always ends up going bad before I can use it.”
“This is fine,” I said, pouring some of it into my coffee. “Thank you.”
“Sugar?”
“Sure,” I said. I took a seat and waited until she joined me.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked. “I’ve worked double shifts every day for a week. I could really use a night to relax, if you know what I mean.”
I smiled. “Go ahead,” I said. “Can I bum one of those?”
She raised an eyebrow and offered me the pack. I hadn’t smoked in a long time. Harper hated it. But hell, I could use a night to relax, too.
We sat there for a while smoking and drinking our coffee, making small talk about her work at the diner and why we liked to draw. She seemed nervous, her hand sometimes trembling as she reached for her cup. I didn’t want to rush her.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come here,” she said. “I was half-scared you’d think I was trying to make a pass at you and you’d skip town without giving it a second thought.”
“I saw your name tag,” I said. “Juliana mentioned a woman named Kristie before she died. She made me promise to find you, but the only clue I had was a photograph of her with her mother.”
Kristie’s eyes fluttered and she drew a quivering breath. “I’m glad she’s dead,” she said, her forehead wrinkling as she began to cry. “I’m glad she’s finally at peace.”
“She is,” I said. “How did you know her?”
She sniffed and straightened, as if deciding she was going to be strong. “Shit,” she said, laughing. “I never cry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just take your time.”
“I loved her,” she said. “We were best friends since we were little girls, but as we grew older, it turned into something more. Neither of us planned on it, really, but it just happened. I loved her so much, she became a part of me. Do you know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said.
I hadn’t expected this at all. When Juliana told me she’d loved someone the Order didn’t approve of, I’d assumed it was a man. Maybe a high school boyfriend? I never expected to find out she’d loved a woman.
“We told each other everything,” she said. “Or at least I thought we did. But I guess I knew all along that she’d been keeping something from me. Her mother was part of the power-group in town. That’s what I called them, anyway. The women who make all the rules. Juliana never talked about it, but a part of me knew there was more to it than just money and politics. I wish she had just trusted me back then.”
“It wasn’t about trust,” I said. “She was probably protecting you. When a girl is put into their training program, she’s given a tattoo on her lower back. It’s a tracking device. When the Order wants to, they can see and hear anything going on in that girl’s life. She couldn’t tell you the truth.”
Kristie’s eyes went wide, and she shook her head. “That stupid tattoo,” she said. “I hated that thing. It was this giant cat, like a bobcat or something. Whenever I asked her about it, she said she liked cats, but I hated it.”
She lit another cigarette.
“Things were good between us back in high school. We had to keep our relationship secret from our parents and our friends, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with her,” she said. “But after Julie turned eighteen, everything changed. She was different. She stopped hanging out with me, and when I confronted her, she told me that if I loved her, I would forget her. She said she had things she needed to do, and that it was dangerous for us to be together. I thought she was just scared to tell her parents the truth.”
I drank the last of my coffee and poured another cup.
“We couldn’t stay away from each other, though.” She smiled at some passing memory. “I loved her so much.”
“When did they take her away?” I asked.
She closed her eyes and leaned forward against her hands. “After she graduated from college, her mother kept pushing her to date this guy we all hated,” she said. “He was older. An attorney in Salt Lake City who came from old money. Julie despised him. She refused to be with him, but they just wouldn’t stop pushing.”
She hid her face from me, her shoulders shaking.
“She came to me in the middle of the night with a bag slung over her shoulder,” she said. “She told me we needed to leave and never come back, but I hesitated. My whole life is in this town. My family, my job. I thought she was nervous about people finding out she was gay. I wish she’d just told me the truth. I wish I’d gotten in that car with her and never looked back.”
“They would have found you,” I said. “This isn’t your fault.”
“I should have fought for her,” she said. “Instead, I told her to go home and we’d talk about it in the morning. I told her everything would be fine.”
Kristie began to sob, and I moved to sit beside her, putting an arm across her shoulder.
“I never saw her again,” she said. “I went about my life, and I forgot about her, as if she’d never even existed or meant anything to me. I heard her mother talking about it earlier in the diner. She said there was a hole in her heart she couldn’t explain. That’s how I felt, too. I thought I was going crazy until one day, there she was in my dreams. And I knew she was real. That’s when I started to remember her.”
“Did you say anything about it?”
She shook her head, wiping away her tears. “No, I didn’t dare,” she said. “I just started watching. I started listening. You’d be amazed at how openly people speak to each other when they think the diner’s mostly empty. It’s like they assume the waitress is bound to some confidentiality clause, like a priest or a lawyer. I did my best to seem invisible, and I listened.”
“So you know about the Order?”
“I know,” she said. “I know everyone in town who’s a member. I know details of their meetings and the things they’ve done. Things people wouldn’t believe.”
“I believe,” I said. “I’ve been fighting them for a very long time.”
“You’re part of that group who killed the sapphire priestess, aren’t you?” she asked.
“You heard about that?” I asked.
She took a drag of her cigarette and nodded. “Some witches in town are excited, hoping they’ll be free someday, too. Others want to kill you with their bare hands.”
I laughed. “I’ll bet.”
“I’m sorry about your girlfriend,” she said. “I can tell from your eyes how much you miss her. How much you love her.”
“We have something in common, then,” I said, and she smiled. “Do you know something that could help me find her?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t tell you where to find the emerald priestess. I’ve never even seen her myself. But I can tell you this. Whenever there’s a problem here or if someone disobeys the Prima, someone always comes.”
“What do you mean?”
“She sends someone. A daughter,” she said. “It’s not always the same lady, but someone always comes to deal with the problem. They always have red hair, and they always wear the same scarab beetle bracelet around their wrist.
”
I nodded. The bracelet was good information to have, but I wasn’t sure how it helped me right now. “Thanks,” I said.
“I’m just telling you that if you’ve been searching for her all this time and you can’t find her, maybe you could try something new,” she said. “Maybe you could bring her to you.”
My lips parted, and I stared at Kristie. She was right. All this time, I’d been searching for information on where the priestess lived and how I could get to her. Never once did I consider drawing her out and making her come to me.
“She might not come in person,” Kristie said, “but if you make her angry enough, she’ll send one of her daughters. She always does.”
I smiled, a plan forming in my mind. “Thank you,” I said. I crushed my cigarette into the ashtray and stood up. “I have to go, but thank you.”
She walked me to the door. “I may not have the magic or skills to fight them myself, but I want to see them dead just as badly as you do,” she said. “Make them pay for the things they’ve done.”
“I will,” I said. I opened the door. “And I want you to know that before she died, Juliana said she wanted me to tell you how much she loved you. She wanted you to know she died saving what was left of her humanity. In the end, she died free.”
The Images That Haunted Me
I squinted against the light that poured into the room as the door opened. They’d kept me in darkness for days, only coming in to ask questions and give me more drugs. That nurse had told me I killed my whole family, and then she’d locked me away in this room all alone.
What kind of person did something like that?
What was this place?
I pressed my back farther into the corner, turning my head and shielding my face. My entire body trembled.
I didn’t want to be restrained again and pumped with sedatives. I just wanted to go home.
“Harper, sweetheart, are you feeling any better today?”
The nurse’s voice was calm and gentle.
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