“Not at all. Deimos chose Simon to be the bait to lure Adrielle into Elydria so that Nestor could fill her with Anti-Magic, but she took him to Eden once she caught sight of his wand. Deimos must’ve been freaking out trying to find him and the wand he lost, and where’s the first place he looked? At the theater he was performing at, of course. Deimos has been around Nestor all this time, he knew exactly what qualities he was looking for in the legs and spine. When he saw Oliver and Samson performing, he must’ve picked up on their ‘tricks’ in a second. It also explains why Adrielle would trust Simon with finding us, wouldn’t it? He was friends with the people who were chosen to protect her dead brother’s legs and spine. That had to have counted for something,” Penny finished breathlessly.
Madeline was gaping at them. “What the hell are you people on?”
“Nothing, unfortunately,” said a chilling voice from the corner, and everyone turned to see Patricia standing in the archway of the kitchen with a waspish sneer on her face. “That would at least give a rational explanation for this outrageous behavior. The sad reality is they are all simply lying.”
“Will you please just go away?” Penny tugged at her hair as Patricia entered the kitchen with a slow saunter, her lips pressed so tightly together her mouth seemed to disappear.
“I will not. Not when you are leading these innocent people astray with your lies. Of course, you knew that my poor confused daughter would eat up a story about fairies and elves, and you guessed with some cheap tricks and ridiculous costumes you could get away with whatever you wanted. But I can very easily guess what really happened―I can guess because that’s exactly what she did to me when she was your age,” Patricia said, hatred in her every syllable.
“Call me a liar all you like, but don’t you dare bring that up,” Penny warned her grandmother, balling up her fists and snarling back.
“Oh, and why not? Hits a little too close to home, hm?” Patricia smirked. “You’re just like her. Only she disappeared with that deadbeat boyfriend of hers, not with her professor. She came crawling back months later, just like you, raving mad over being abandoned in Scotland without a friend in the world―and pregnant, to boot.”
“Shut up!”
“And that’s what you went and did, didn’t you? Only you knew you could take advantage of my Paulina with stories about magic. You knew how vulnerable she is about all that, you vicious little beast,” Patricia bellowed.
Madeline was looking at Penny with shining eyes. “Tell me that’s not true, Penny. Tell me you wouldn’t!”
“Of course it’s not true! She’s just―”
“Hurts to be caught, doesn’t it? I should imagine you’re quite embarrassed. And murderer or not, I’ll have you locked up anyway for misleading a girl who is barely old enough to think for herself into ruining her already pathetic little life,” Patricia spat at an irate Hector. “But you probably didn’t think it would make much of a difference if you ran off with her until they suspected you for murder, I wager. After all, she’s just a bastard whelp that no one would miss, right?”
“That’s quite enough of that, if you please,” Hector said evenly, golden runes bursting from his fingertips.
Madeline screamed and covered her head as Patricia’s eyes bulged in consternation. Her lips became stuck together as if cemented by a very powerful glue. Moans of wild torment filled the air as Patricia tugged at her jaw to open. For a moment Penny was very confused, and then Hector cleared his throat gruffly.
“Please don’t hurt yourself trying to get it open. It won’t stop until I undo the spell, and I’ll only do that when I’m quite convinced you’ve learned how to behave politely.” He leaned closer to Patricia and added, “And, madam, please mark my words, if you ever call Penelope such rude names in front of me again I’ll make it so you’ll be stuck like that until your days are done.”
He straightened his vest as Patricia stared at him, her arms limp and tears pooling in her eyes. Madeline was gripping at her hair, her jaw moving soundlessly.
“H-h-how…how did you…” she sputtered at last, sounding like a failing engine. Penny ushered Madeline over to a chair by the kitchen table.
“It got me pretty bad the first time I saw magic, too, don’t worry,” Penny soothed as Patricia turned and left the room with mechanical stiffness.
“Magic. Ah,” Maddie sputtered.
“You ready to hear what really happened?” Penny asked dubiously and Madeline’s eyebrows raised as she gripped the side of the table for support.
“U-um. I think so. Yes. But first, I’d really, really just like to sit here quietly for a moment and drink some tea…or actually, something quite a bit stronger, if you’ve got it.”
Penny lingered outside of her mother’s bedroom door, wanting to go inside but feeling as if her legs had become stuck. Downstairs, the voices of her friends in the kitchen were barely audible as they answered Maddie’s endless stream of questions. Through the crack beneath the door, Penny could see a strip of warm, yellow light, and at last turned the knob enough to poke her head in.
Paulina sat on her bed, surrounded by towers of books, heaps of disorganized papers, scribbled notes and a charm for good luck hanging above her bed. A pair of rhinestone-studded glasses were perched on Paulina’s nose as she flipped madly through a book about biblical mysteries with a pencil stuck behind her ear. When she heard Penny come in, she grinned and gave a sigh.
“What I love about you is how obedient you are,” she commented sarcastically.
Penny smiled, pushing through the mess of papers that was her mother’s nest so she could snuggle close. “Any luck?”
“Not especially. So far I’ve found claims that Eden existed in Jerusalem, near the Persian Gulf, in Iran, or an island in Scotland, a mountain in Sri Lanka, or possibly in Jackson county Missouri according to some Mormons,” Paulina said, tapping each book she had found such evidence in as she named them. “But the problem with all of that is that they all say where the Garden was, not is.” Paulina scratched at her head. “I’m starting to think the Eden in these legends, the Eden that you’re looking for isn’t actually the same place―but that’s just a guess. But I still can’t shake the feeling that I’ve read about this somewhere, though. I’m sure I must have that book here somewhere. I buy every weird book I can find.”
“That you do,” Penny mumbled, finding it hard to concentrate on what her mother was saying for the uneasy feeling stirring within her. She was eager to talk with her mother about what she’d been through in her absence, and to find a way to make amends for what she’d done. She thought in muddled silence for a means of doing so. She looked around and at last saw the rune pendant she had left behind as a token of her return hanging up on the wall.
“You kept it,” she noted, and then took it off the wall to look it over.
“Of course I did―I saved it for when you were coming back. You should’ve kept it, though, it really will keep you safe. Go ahead, take it back,” Paulina told her distractedly.
Penny hesitated, then slipped the pendant over her neck with a strange feeling of dissatisfaction.
“H-hey mom, I had a weird dream last night. Actually, I’ve been having a set of recurring dreams…strange, huh?” Penny decided to try again, a subtle level of nervousness in her tone. Paulina didn’t look up from her research but made a vague noise of interest.
“Have you?” Paulina said, and then fell back into silence. Penny waited anxiously to continue the conversation, but waited in vain.
“Yeah,” Penny pushed onward, realizing her mother wasn’t going to say anything more. “One’s about this river―always the same river. Nothing even happens there, but sometimes I can faintly hear a song or something and it’s really bright and everything’s sparkling. Then the other one is kind of like that dream I had on the morning I―on the morning I went away.”
Paulina looked over the top of her paper and Penny’s heart leapt at having gotten her attention. “I see that same fore
st. Sometimes I go running through it in a panic, and sometimes I’m just staring around at the trees and I just have this feeling that something’s lost in there. Something I’m supposed to find. It’s buried under a tree―only I can’t find that tree again.”
“That is a little irregular. There’re some books about dream interpretation in the corner over there, maybe you should have a look.” Paulina nodded to the bookshelf against the wall and Penny’s heart sank.
I knew she wasn’t okay. It’s completely unlike her not to care about something like this. She’s got every right to be upset, though.
“Mom, listen,” Penny sighed, pulling at the loose threads on the covers. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to say since I got back, but I couldn’t quite find the right moment and―”
“Stop right there,” Paulina interrupted, setting down her work. Penny stared at her mother as she whipped off her glasses and looked Penny in the eye. “I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t want you to apologize for doing what you needed to do. I didn’t raise you to feel like you need to ask forgiveness for doing something that you truly believed to be right.” Paulina frowned. “You had to overcome something within yourself before you felt ready. Isn’t that why you stayed?”
“Yes, that’s exactly why, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that people got hurt because of it. I abandoned you and Maddie, and I can’t forgive myself for putting you two through something like that.” Penny hung her head, somehow wishing her mother was blaming her and shouting instead.
“It’s true that I suffered while you were away, but…” Paulina looked over at Penny, her eyes radiating a warmth that Penny had dearly longed for. “But when I see you there, when I think of just how strong you’ve become, and hearing how you gave so much of yourself to set things right…being able to see with my own eyes this magnificent courage that’s sprouted up where I once only saw fear and weakness in you―Penny, it makes it all worth it.” Paulina sniffled and looked out of the window. “And you must know I’d go through every one of those miserable nights all over again for you. I’d do it just for another chance to tell you that I love you, kid.”
Penny, overwhelmed by her mother’s words, flew into her arms and was reduced to feeling like she had as a child.
“Hey, now, don’t cry. For a death-defying adventurer you sure are a softie.”
“Mom. Everything will change from now on, I’ll make it happen, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you,” Penny pledged, drawing her face upward and looking at Paulina through her tears. “I’m going to put everything back together, exactly the way it was…no, even better. Here and there. And when it’s all over, when it’s safe, I’ll take you to see all the things you’ve only ever dreamed of. I’ll show you the whole world and you’ll get to meet all my friends. There’s a place called Lindenvale that’s got pretty little cottages like the ones you’ve always wanted to live in, and it’s by a river and the most beautiful town you’ll ever see. We’ll make a home there and you’ll never have to be lonely ever again. You’ll see. It’s going to be wonderful.”
Paulina’s eyes brightened. “Do you mean it? You’ll take me there?” she whispered, clutching Penny’s hands.
“I promise. You’ll fit right in―probably better than you ever did here.” Penny and Paulina giggled together. “You were made for this place. The magic is all real there, not like that crap that you sell in the store―”
“Hey!”
“―and even better, it brought out an aptitude for magic in me, too. You might even be able to learn how to do it, too.” Penny winked.
“It’s that memory thing you do, isn’t it? How does it work?” Paulina asked with a spark of her old excitement and Penny inwardly marveled at Paulina’s mercurial moods.
“I can show you, if you like. Just give me your hand and think of a happy moment in your life. That’s it.” Penny took her mother’s hand as she closed her eyes and began to dwell on a long-forgotten day.
Paulina’s cheeks and nose stung in the bitter cold, but the delight of seeing the white flakes filling the air and whizzing down the blankets of snow that covered the Scottish countryside was too much to resist. She labored with a large ball of packed snow in her arms, carrying it in her gloved hands as she set it upon the other two icy spheres outside the cottage.
Panting, she stepped back to admire her work while touching the swell on her abdomen lightly. Catching her breath, she dug her hand into her pocket and pulled out a handful of shiny black stones that she began to poke into the snowy statue to make a smiling face.
“What a strange fellow you are,” Paulina said to the snowman as she circled around it.
Footsteps crunched in the snow behind her. She turned toward the noise, her breath coming out in rhythmic white clouds as she awaited her visitor.
When a tall, lithe man with sable-black hair, a red scarf wrapped around his face, and his arms full of weatherworn books came through the trees, Paulina waved and trotted through the snow to him. His eyebrows raised in slight concern when he saw her, but he moved all his books to one arm and caught her in an affectionate embrace. She tore away the scarf around his face, revealing startling handsome features, and pecked his cheek.
“You’re home early! What’s this?” She grabbed at the books in his hands. “Ooh, are these for me?”
“Yes, they came in today. I thought you’d like them.” The man’s voice was soft, calm, and deep, and each time Paulina heard it, she thought of a cello. “What are you doing out in this weather? It makes me worry, you know. Isn’t it bad for the baby?”
“Oh, it was only for a bit. Come on, let’s go inside! Hot chocolate for you and boring hot milk for me!” Paulina said happily, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him toward the door as he laughed under his breath.
“Lina dear, slowly, if you please. I’m going to trip.”
Penny could watch no more and with a feeling like she was pulling her head out of a barrel of water, she withdrew herself and her mother from the memory, the feeling of the bitter cold air and snowflakes on skin fading in an instant. Paulina gasped, and lifted her hands up a fraction as if trying to cling to the departing fibers of the memory.
“It seemed so real. I was nineteen again. I was with―” She shuddered, smiling with bittersweet catharsis.
“That was him, wasn’t it?” Penny asked darkly. She had never seen so much as a photograph of the man who helped to bring her into the world and it came as a heavy shock to know his face, to hear his voice, and to catch a glimpse of what might’ve been a complete family. “How could you want to see that filthy, lying―”
“Penny, stop―please.” Paulina’s voice quavered as she wiped a tear out of her eye before it could fall. “Though you may not believe it, he was a good man. He meant everything he ever said to me, I’m sure of that.”
“He left us. He didn’t even stick around to see me born, and he abandoned you without a dollar to your name or a word of explanation in a foreign country. That’s not what I call a good man.” Penny gestured emphatically, hating to see that the memory of her father still affected Paulina this powerfully. “I can’t see why you haven’t forgotten about it and moved on.”
“Penny, if you’d known him, you’d still be waiting too. He wouldn’t have left unless he had no other choice. If you had seen the way he lit up when he spoke about you, or how he went to all lengths to see that I was happy and well cared for, you’d understand. He wanted so badly to meet you, Penny, he loved you―”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Penny cut her off, reeling inside. “There’s no reason he would’ve stayed away more than twenty years if he’d cared.”
“There must be, there has to be a reason. And maybe one day, when we both least expect it―” Paulina began timidly, but stopped when she saw the way Penny reacted to this notion. She let out an exhausted sigh and reached for Penny’s ha
nd just as the door swung open and Maddie peered inside.
Paulina rushed to embrace her. “Maddie, it’s so good to see you again!”
“Likewise.” They shared a quick glance as if to say they completely understood each other and were glad to have a comrade. “Sorry to interrupt, but it’s just getting to be too much. Talking to Professor Arlington about crap like magic spells from La-La-Land is just messing with my brain a bit. I needed to be with someone sane for a minute. Wow, no offense, but I never thought I’d be saying that about you, Ms. Paulina, and yet here we stand,” Maddie joked, and Paulina laughed with good humor. Madeline sauntered over to the bed, looking tired and strangely content, and took a moment to peruse Paulina’s work. “What’s all this?’
“I’m researching the location of the Garden of Eden for them, and nothing’s really turned up so far,” Paulina shrugged, standing beside Madeline as she picked up the gray stone slab and looked it over briefly.
“What’s this song have to do with anything?” Maddie asked. Penny peered over her shoulder in confusion.
“That’s not a song, it’s just a piece of rock with some weird dots on it that Della gave me. We can’t figure out what it’s supposed to mean.” Penny tapped on the stone and Madeline shook her head.
“Um, no. This is music―look. These lines are the staff and the dots are notes,” Maddie assured her with something of a haughty nature and Penny snatched it back, astonished. She examined it closer. Maddie was right. Penny resisted the urge to smack herself in the face.
“How did I not notice that? How could Hector not notice this?” Penny exclaimed, then raced downstairs with Madeline and Paulina following. She skidded to a halt beside Hector.
He jumped as Penny shoved the stone into his hand, shouting, “Musical notes!”
It took him a moment to register the meaning of these words, but when it hit him he stood abruptly. “Of all the idiotic oversights I’ve ever made―”
“No way, I would’ve noticed. Let me see that!” Annette snatched it away from Hector. “This doesn’t look like Elydrian music at all!”
Eden Undone (The Dawn Mirror Chronicles Book 2) Page 32