“I guess so,” she wandered through the section, reading the names aloud. “This must have been the family plot.” She went back and forth from stone to stone, retracing her steps to double check. She could scarcely believe what she was seeing, and gooseflesh rose on her arms as her face registered the shock.
“What’s wrong?” Calvin asked, worried. “Cali?”
“Look at this!” she exclaimed. “All seven of them died on the same day.”
Calvin looked them over, equally stunned. “Whoa… That’s freaky.”
He looked up to see that the police cruiser had returned, turning around to park. Two officers got out and inspected their truck closely. He watched the younger one of the two walk all the way around it, like he was looking for something; the second cop started heading towards them.
“Uh oh,” Calvin said, expecting to be hassled. “What did I do now?” He cursed under his breath, prompting Cali to look up.
Her face broke into a bright smile. “Sherriff Brown!”
He rushed up to clamp her in a joyful embrace. “Cal! It’s sure good to see you again, young lady. How are you?” he asked.
“I’m great,” she said, smiling at Calvin’s surprised face.
“Are you back to stay?” Sherriff Brown asked.
“Only for a few days. I’m eighteen now, and I’m here to claim my land.”
He nodded. “The wife will sure be happy to hear that you’re doing alright.”
Calvin stood nervously while the officer turned his attention towards him. Once again, Caledonia introduced him to the last person he’d expect her to know. He shook the older man’s hand nervously, uncomfortable with the way the cop was scrutinizing him. He’d never had a positive experience with the law.
Sherriff Brown turned back to focus on Cali. “We can’t be too careful about strangers around here… There’s been some talk of outsiders, gangbangers and dopers, and I don’t want that sort of thing to get a foothold around here.”
Too late, Calvin thought.
“Keep your eyes open when you’re out at the place. I want you to let me know if you see anything suspicious.”
“Sure,” she nodded. “Uhm… Sherriff Brown?” Caledonia asked, “I found out that my father was orphaned when he was very young… Do you know what happened to his family?”
The sheriff explained that he’d arrived in town just before her parents had, directing her to the courthouse. “Ask Miss Millie. She’s lived here her whole life. She’s the county clerk, librarian, and town historian all rolled into one. She knows everything there is to know about this town… And everybody else’s business too.”
“Okay,” Cali said. “We’re headed there next.”
The other officer approached them, “Everything alright sheriff?”
Sherriff Brown introduced them to his new deputy, Ramon Ruiz. He was a handsome young man with dark hair and eyes who looked even younger than Calvin.
“Pleased to meet you ma’am,” he nodded politely, dimples popping onto his smooth cheeks when he smiled.
“You can call me Cali,” she returned his smile, nodding as she shook his hand.
Calvin watched the pair walk away, startled when Ramon turned on his heel to look him in the eye, “It was Cal… Right?”
Calvin straightened up, “Yes?”
“That’s a nice truck you got there.”
~
“Well I’ll be,” said Millie, regarding Caledonia over the top of her bi-focals. “You’re a Mackenzie?” The old woman glanced over at Calvin, her eyes landing on his tattoo with a flicker of disapproval. She got up from her desk with a grunt, taking her time to dig up the deed from a dusty old file cabinet, leaving the two Cals waiting at the counter of the little courthouse.
“Here’s a map of the property,” she said, unfolding it across the counter. “And right here…” she traced the border with her index finger, “Is your parcel.”
“How big is that?” Caledonia asked, puzzled.
“Looks to be a little over two-thousand acres,” Millie nodded.
“Two thousand?” Caledonia said. “There must be some mistake.”
“No mistake. Your property extends from here to here.”
Calvin looked down at the map and back up at her. “Whoa.”
Caledonia was barely over the shock of that revelation when Millie opened her mouth once more. “I see that you come by those eyes honestly– Just like your grandmother’s… A Mackenzie… Well, I’ll be,” she repeated herself.
Caledonia was taken aback, “You knew my grandmother?”
Millie looked back at Caledonia and hesitated, unwilling to go into detail. Calvin watched as the two women locked eyes; he suppressed a smile when he realized that the old lady wouldn’t even know what hit her.
“What do you know about my family?” Caledonia demanded. “Tell me everything right now.”
Miss Millie blinked a few times, and started talking, “Oh, they had a huge estate up in the mountains. Big old Victorian house… People said it was haunted. There was talk of strange goings on, rumors of...” she lost her train of thought.
Caledonia’s eyes bored into hers. “Rumors?”
“Witchcraft,” she said like it was a dirty word. She dove back in, chattering away like the town gossip she obviously was, “Oh, you know how people talk. Folks said that old lady Mackenzie would put a hex on you if you crossed her, and there were all kinds of stories about devil worship and such… No one wanted to look her in the eye because of those strange… Witchy eyes, people said.” She paused, glancing up at Caledonia as if she was surprised at the words coming out of her mouth.
The two Cals exchanged a meaningful look, but Millie didn’t seem to notice. She was on a roll, and she kept up her running commentary, “People say the whole family was cursed… They say that their ghosts still haunt that land.”
“What happened?” Cali asked, “What happened to them?”
Millie seemed surprised. “Nobody told you? Why, that big house of theirs burned to the ground. Killed just about the whole family in one fell swoop. Of course, I was only a teenager when it happened, but I remember the stories.” She leaned across the desk conspiratorially, “The family kept to themselves up there in their fancy mansion. They say the Mackenzies swindled a fortune in gold and built that palace on the hill to hide away from the rest of the world…”
“The old ruins? That was their house? Up on the hill?”
“Yessiree. That’s all part of your property too. Some people say that robbers came and killed them all in their beds, ransacked the place and lit it on fire to cover their tracks… Only those two poor babies got out of there alive–”
“Wait…Two? There were two children?”
“Why yes… Your daddy and his baby sister. They were taken out of the house by the maid. She dropped them off right here at the courthouse and left town as fast as she could skedaddle. Whether it was robbery, revenge… or just plain bad luck, nobody knows, but rumor has it that maid was in on it.”
“Baby sister,” Caledonia repeated. Her father had never spoken of his childhood at all, and Aunt Angie told her that they were adopted from two different families… Why would she lie? Did she not know?
“Yes, they were the only two family members to survive. Let’s see… Hmm…” She shuffled through some papers. “Since they were the only legal heirs, the land was put in trust for them, but only your father returned to lay claim on it.”
“What happened to the children?” Calvin could see the determination on Caledonia’s face. She gripped the counter tightly, her eyes blazing, determined to extract all the information she possibly could. Millie looked up at her and had a sudden, overwhelming sense of urgency. She got right back to her search.
“Let’s see…” Millie licked a fingertip and flipped through a few more documents. “No one here in town wanted anything to do with those Mackenzie children, so they were sent to the foundling home out to Ukiah…” She cleared her throat, “I’m not
supposed to give out this information, but it looks like she was adopted within days, and then he was placed in a different home about a year later.”
“A different home?” Caledonia repeated in disbelief.
“Why would they split a brother and sister up?” Calvin asked, shocked.
“Folks did things different in those days,” Millie explained. “Maybe the first family only wanted a girl… Besides, younger children always got adopted right away.”
Caledonia was stunned, turning to Calvin. “My father never said anything about Angie, but he never told me he had another sister either. He never talked about his family at all…”
“I’m not surprised, after seeing the bunch of them go up in flames!” Millie reached over to pat her hand with a sudden rush of sympathy, “He might not have remembered very much about it dearie… He was barely five years old when the children were separated. We were all surprised when David came around to claim the land… He just showed up, paid the back taxes and disappeared. We never did see very much of him after that, and nobody even knew a thing about you until that one time–”
“So I have another aunt? What’s her name? Where is she?”
She shuffled through some more papers. “Oh! Here it is… the baby was named Alastrina… Alastrina Mackenzie.”
“Alastrina?” Cali was shocked, and she felt her stomach lurch with sudden emotion. The only other time she’d ever heard that name was in a newspaper story about Layla and Michael’s mother. More specifically, it was an account of the tragic suicide that orphaned the twins. Could it be? If this was the same Alastrina… Caledonia wavered on her feet, feeling lightheaded.
“Are you alright?” Millie asked. “Why don’t you sit down?”
Calvin helped her over to a chair while Mille rushed to fetch a glass of water. Caledonia sat with her head in her hands, calculating the odds as she considered everything she had in common with Layla and Michael.
The name Alastrina… Layla’s heterochromia … The fact that their parents had been orphaned… There was no possible way these were all coincidences, and there was only one logical conclusion to draw. The twins were her cousins. Their parents had been randomly selected by Professor Reed, not realizing that they were related.
And that led to another final, inevitable conclusion. She remembered Roxy’s story, letting out a low moan when she thought about all of the graduate student’s pointless torture. The professor’s Athena drug had done nothing at all to cause her synesthesia. It had all been one big horrible, terrible coincidence.
She and Layla had inherited their ability.
There was no Athena effect.
~
Chapter Thirteen
YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN
~
She staggered out of town hall in a daze, letting Calvin help her into the truck.
“I can’t believe it,” she said numbly.
“Yeah… Two thousand acres! That’s like…” he couldn’t think of a comparison, “a lot.”
She looked at him, shaking her head, “No… not that. My father had another sister.”
“Yeah, but isn’t that a good thing?” he asked. “Maybe you can meet her someday or something.”
She shook her reeling head. “No… No, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m afraid she’s dead. She killed herself.”
“What?! How do you know that?”
“Because she was Layla and Michael’s mother.”
“You mean the twins?” he asked, confused. “How could that be?”
She looked at him with shocked eyes, speaking in a monotone, “My father and his sister were the only survivors of the fire that killed their whole family. They were adopted by two different families, and they ended up at the same school by chance. With the same professor.”
“Professor Reed?”
Her voice cracked, “I bet they never even realized that they were brother and sister when they met…”
“Wait– Why wouldn’t he know her name?”
“She went by a nick-name… Trina.” Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “And she was a baby when they were separated. She wouldn’t have known a thing about him…”
“What are the odds that they would both end up in the same place?”
“Stranger things have happened,” she said.
“So you think Professor Reed messed them both up.”
She shook her head sadly, “Yes.”
“And the twins are your cousins?”
“Yes, and do you realize what that means?” Her voice was quavering with suppressed emotion, “There is no Athena effect!”
Calvin looked puzzled, “But he gave them both the Athena drug, so–”
“Yes, and all it did was destroy their minds! That lady in Vegas– Roxy– She was right! Me and Layla are just like her. We were born this way!”
She laid out all the evidence, piecing together the puzzle as she explained it to him. The more she went over it, the more sense it made, and by the time she was finished explaining it to him, she knew exactly what she had to do.
“Are you sure about this?” Calvin asked. “Maybe it’s only a coincidence…”
She sighed. “I almost wish it was, but no… When the professor tested us, he found that we shared matriarchal DNA. He wrongly assumed that the Athena drug was the cause of the mutations on our X chromosomes, but he was wrong. There’s only one possible explanation… It’s simple heredity. Seeing the auras must be a naturally occurring phenomenon… And it’s inheritable.”
Calvin finally grasped the truth, “So… You think the professor and his drug have nothing to do with it…”
“Yes! All of his experiments – All of the deaths! They were all pointless. Me and Layla got it from our Grandmother.” She turned and looked out the window. “Our Grandmother,” she said again softly.
“Are you sure?”
As shocking as it was, she knew in her bones that it was true. She nodded vehemently, “Yes.”
“Whoa.”
“Layla and Michael have to know about this. I want to go to see them right away.”
“In San Francisco?” he asked. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“I have to,” she said firmly.
“Cali… Just because you’re related to them, doesn’t mean you’re responsible for them or anything. I have cousins I’ve never even met.”
She was astonished, “Really? Why?”
He shrugged. “My dad’s side of the family is all messed up. None of them get along.”
“Wow,” she said quietly, trying to digest the idea of families that didn’t know each other by choice. Angie had been such a huge disappointment that Caledonia had resigned herself to the prospect of being completely without any relatives. Now that she knew about her connection to the twins she was even more determined to free them from the professor’s evil grasp. It was completely non-negotiable.
After they’d driven along for a while she spoke, “This is something I have to do. I was planning on going back for them even before I found out.”
He sighed, “I know.”
She could see his burnt orange disappointment, and she flushed pale green with guilt for dragging him into the mess that was her life. She tried to sound light, to absolve him of any responsibility for what she now considered her duty.
“It’s okay… You don’t have to be involved. I can figure out how to get to them somehow. I’ll just need enough money to get to the city, and then I can–”
“STOP IT!” he yelled. He slammed on the brakes and pulled the truck over to the side of the road. “Stop acting like it has nothing to do with me! Stop trying to leave me out of it!”
He sat gripping the wheel, his jaw clenched tight. She was surprised, feeling the scorching anger pouring off of him, tasting the rank undertones of hurt feelings.
“I– I didn’t mean…”
When their eyes met his blazed into hers. “You act like you do
n’t even want me around!”
“I do,” she gasped, alarmed at the violence of his outburst. “It’s just… I just…”
“Just what?” he snapped.
Her eyes were so big and frightened that he instantly felt like some kind of monster. He was acting like a jerk– just like his father. He looked down and turned away from her, ashamed of his outburst.
She could see his pain and shame and fear, and she felt awful for causing it. She unhooked her seatbelt to scoot closer to him, reaching up to gently touch his arm. Her eyes stung with tears. “I’m sorry… I guess I’m just used to doing things by myself.”
He turned to look at her. “Well… Stop it, okay?”
She nodded, whispering, “Okay.”
He kissed her, and her eyes spilled over. “Okay,” she repeated, “Okay… Okay.” He kissed her again, twining his fingers in her hair and holding her close until they both calmed down. When they finally parted he sighed and started the truck, waiting for her to slip her seatbelt back on.
He pulled back out onto the road, reaching over to pat her thigh.
“Alright… We’ll go there tomorrow. But we’re not going in without back-up.”
~
They pulled up at Calvin’s house to see Jarod out front working on his bike. He looked up at the shiny new truck suspiciously, his face breaking into a broad grin when he saw Calvin climb out of it.
“Cal!” he cried, rushing forward to clasp his brother in an enthusiastic embrace. He spotted Caledonia and lunged to greet her next, lifting her off her feet and spinning her around, “Cali! You guys are finally back!”
Calvin looked at the dilapidated house, its paint peeling and weeds growing high all around it. It stood out like a sore thumb next to the equally old, but better maintained homes surrounding it. Calvin wondered why he’d never noticed it before.
Jarod was beaming, “You two look great!” He turned toward the house to call out, “Hey Crystal! C’mere!”
They heard the screen door slam and were joined by Crystal, dressed casually in flip-flops and cutoff jean shorts. She looked younger without her usual heavy makeup, and her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that bobbed up and down when she rushed over to throw her arms around Caledonia.
Mackenzie Legacy, The Page 10