by K. J. Emrick
Then she shook that feeling away and pulled the flaps open. If Kiera didn’t want anyone to see this, she wouldn’t keep it down here in the cellar. She’d keep it in her room. Under lock and key, and warded against prying eyes with a spell also.
So Addie pushed the flaps aside, and stared into this box of hidden treasures.
At first, it was just a bunch of knick-knacks. A ceramic sheep, modeled in the act of jumping a tiny fence. A Celtic cross made of red and yellow and green ribbons, all faded now with age. A few loose bulbs from a string of Christmas lights. Addie pushed through all of it, careful of each new find. It was interesting, but hardly anything that would have made Kiera act so strangely. Perhaps each of these was a memory, and Kiera had been feeling nostalgic, just like when Addie had pulled up the memories of her and Willow playing down here.
Addie chuckled softly. That wasn’t very likely. Kiera wasn’t the nostalgic type.
Then, at the very back of the box, she saw the thin stack of photographs held together with a purple paperclip. Real photos, like people used to have before digital pics and Facebook became the norm. These she took out slowly, looking over both shoulders again just to be sure she was still alone.
The first photo was of Stonecrest, taken from the front during a very bright, sunny day. The trees were shorter, Addie noticed, and that hateful vine crawling up the outside of the tower was only about half the distance up the shingles that it should have been. Apparently, these were photos from the distant past.
She went through them one at a time. She saw someone’s red 1980s hatchback. Her mother, smiling patiently while someone took her picture. A truly astonishing sunset. Nothing that was really all that interesting…
The very next one was a picture of Kiera.
This was a much younger version of her. Addie looked closer, trying to judge how old her sister had been in this photo. She looked to be younger than Willow, actually. At the end of her teens and smiling because the whole world was fresh and new. This would have been before either Willow or Addie was born, she realized, by virtue of the wide gap between their mother’s pregnancies. Interesting.
Her sister was a beauty back in the day. Her hair was like a sunset, all dark reds and lighter highlights. Her smile was honest and inviting as she laughed at something happening off camera in her world. She had worn long dresses even back then, but without sleeves, and the dress did nothing to hide a body that men would have gone to war over in the times of ancient Greece. Wow. Who knew?
Turning to the next photo, she found herself staring in disbelief. She held it up closer, letting the rest drop back into the box. This one was of Kiera also. This time, she wasn’t the only one in the picture.
In her arms was a baby boy. His head just reached Kiera’s shoulder from where he sat cradled in the crook of her elbow. He was dressed in slacks and a tiny white shirt, all dressed up and chubby. It was hard to see in the photo, but Addie was sure there was a family resemblance. Around the eyes. Yes…
She turned the photograph over. On the back was Kiera’s name, and the date, and the name of the boy.
Alan.
She gasped, turning the picture back around and looked into the happy eyes of her sister, smiling up at her from all those years ago. She did some quick math in her head, based on the date on the photo. No. It just couldn’t be. This couldn’t be the same Alan who had been driving his car on Lutherfud Road. The Alan who had disappeared after his car wrecked.
It couldn’t be.
But if it was…
Wouldn’t that explain why Kiera had been acting so strangely, and had shut down their Circle after seeing Alan’s face in that vision? If this was the same Alan, all these years later, could Kiera have even known?
“After all these years,” she found herself whispering, “could she have recognized him, all grown up like that?”
“Of course,” she heard Kiera say from behind her. “A mother always recognizes her child.”
Chapter 12
Addie had felt the presence of her sister just before she spoke, and had tried to hide the photos back in the box, but of course it was too late. She’d been caught snooping. After a moment of feeling embarrassed she realized she had no reason to be. She was only trying to understand what was bothering Kiera.
Now she knew.
With the photo in her hand, she stood up to face Kiera. “You had a son?”
Her sister nodded, strands of her hair falling across her forehead. “Yes. I hadn’t thought of him in years. It was just easier, you see, to forget. So I made myself forget, until yesterday. When the Vision insisted on showing us his accident, and then I saw his face, I knew. It was me the Vision was calling to. That was Alan. My Alan.”
She looked away for a moment, her eyes misting over with unshed tears.
Addie had never seen her sister cry. Not once, in all her adult life.
Not since their parents had passed away.
“I spoke with Detective Knight today,” she said gently. “He said the driver’s name was Alan Pierson.”
“Pierson,” Kiera repeated. “Well, then. I wondered, in those earlier days, who he had been adopted by. Pierson. That’s a good name. A strong name, for a strong boy. I hope… I hope he’s had a good life.”
“He’s missing,” Addie reminded her.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Kiera’s voice rose and broke, her eyes narrowed and accusing. It was unlike her to be so affected by anything.
Apparently, it was a day for the Kilorian sisters to be emotional.
“Kiera. Why didn’t you tell us? I mean, you could have said something at any point during all these years, but now? Especially when you knew he was the missing driver the police were looking for, why didn’t you say something?”
Getting control of herself took a moment, but when she looked at Addie again there was no trace of tears, no hint of the outburst that had just occurred. She took the photograph from Addie’s hand, and traced the image of the little child with her fingers. “I was ashamed,” she said at last. “I had done an awful thing by bringing this child into the world. Please don’t think less of me when I say that. It’s… complicated. It’s hard to explain.”
“I’m listening,” Addie promised. “Just talk to me.”
Kiera took a very slow breath, and closed her eyes, the photograph held tight between her palms. “Please don’t misunderstand me. Giving birth to Alan was one of the best moments in my life. He was beautiful, and smart, and even when he was this young I could feel the talent for magic developing within him. He was perfect.”
Addie could hear the pride in her sister’s voice. “It sounds like you loved him very much.”
“I did, Sister Addie. I did indeed.”
“They why…?” The words wouldn’t form themselves, but Kiera understood just the same.
“Why would I give him up?” she asked with a sardonic smile. “That would be because of his father.”
Addie waited, knowing there was more to this story.
“His father,” Kiera repeated. “Oh, Addie. I was so young, so foolish. I thought I was in love and that all of his promises meant something. I thought we would be together forever. I thought love would sustain us. It was only after Alan was born that I learned how stupid I had been. How trusting.” She swallowed back the memories she hadn’t thought of in years. “There are some evils that walk this world wearing masks of brightest light, and I was too naïve to see that back then. I see it now. I learned my lesson. The hard way.”
She crouched in her dress next to the box, carefully collecting the photographs up and sorting them back together. She looked through them as she did, and then clipped all but one of them back together with that paperclip. She stood up again, handing the single photo to Addie. It was one that she hadn’t seen yet.
“This is Alan’s father.”
A tall man dominated the photograph, looking into the camera with intense blue eyes. His skin was the color of caramel and his hair was the
color of gold, and though it looked like he was from somewhere in Europe it was impossible for Addie to guess his nationality. He was an exotic looking man, even in his dark jeans and red polo shirt.
“He’s a looker,” Addie said.
“Yes. He was.” Kiera turned the photo, looking backward into the past. “Especially for a fallen angel.”
Addie nearly choked on whatever she had been about to say. Her throat tightened up and she was sure she lost ten years off her life from the shock of that revelation. “You were involved with… You had… with him, and he’s a… Kiera, you can’t be serious! You dated a fallen angel?”
Her sister only nodded, and touched her hand to the picture again. “He was so beautiful, on the outside. It was the inside that I couldn’t see, not until it was too late. Someday I might tell you that story. Perhaps.” She took a breath, and held it, and let it out again. “Then Alan was born, and everything changed. He threatened our family. Me, and Mom and Dad. He threatened to take my son away from me forever and raise him in his image. I couldn’t let him do that.”
Yes, Addie thought to herself. She could see why not. “So you gave Alan up for adoption?”
Kiera shrugged. “It was more complicated than that. I gave him to the Church, and they took him away, to somewhere I wouldn’t know. Somewhere I wouldn’t be able to find him. There was no way for me to ever see him again. As sad as that made me I knew it would keep him safe. If I didn’t know where he was, there would be no way for his father to find him, either. He couldn’t get an answer from me that I simply didn’t have. This way, Alan could have a good life. He could grow up away from the darkness his father embodied. It was my gift to my son. My final gift.”
The tears she’d been holding back trickled out now from both eyes, down her cheeks, in single lines. She wiped them away on the back of her wrist, and tried for a smile that faded quickly away. “That’s who Alan is, Addie. He is the product of a Kilorian witch, and a fallen angel. Can you imagine the potential this child had? For me to have to give him up hurt so much, in so many ways. That’s why I’ve been so upset since I saw his face. He’s missing, and I’ve been looking for him. I was up in the tower all morning searching with my magics. I can’t feel him anywhere in Shadow Lake. I don’t know where he is.”
Addie put her hand gently on Kiera’s arm. “You should have told me. Me and Willow both. We could have helped.”
Willow. Saying her sister’s name reminded her of everything else that had happened today, of everything she had been meaning to tell Kiera before this revelation came pouring out. The fact that Gary might be involved in the murder, especially. They needed to decide if he was some kind of threat to Willow…
A horrible, horrible thought came to her. Willow said she and Gary were going out for a drive, by themselves. They were going to be alone all day.
And Gary might be a killer. If he decided that he’d already told Willow too much, she might be in danger and not even know it. She could be as blinded by love as Kiera had been to her fallen angel lover.
“Kiera, I’m sorry about Alan. We’ll help you find him, I promise we will, but right now we have to do something else. We have to find Willow.”
“Willow?” Kiera put the picture back, almost reverently, and then picked up the box to put it back on its shelf. “Sister Addie, I don’t understand. What’s wrong with Willow?”
“Come on,” Addie said impatiently. “I’ll explain it on the way up to the tower.”
She spoke while hurrying back to the stairs, giving Kiera the short version of what she and Doyle had found out today. She glossed over the bit about Lucian basically accusing her of being involved. That wasn’t important at the moment. She skipped over her little slip with her magic, too.
It was the rest of it that she laid out for her sister quick as she could. Misty being involved with Connor. Leo being jealous. The deal between the two biggest families in Shadow Lake. Misty now holding the financial purse strings for the Norris family.
Gary, being at the scene of the murder.
“That doesn’t mean he is the killer,” Kiera pointed out. They were heading up the stairs now. “He could have been walking in the woods and just happened on Esmerelda’s body accidentally.”
Addie knew that was true, because Gary was the athletic outdoorsy type, but at the same time the facts of this mystery could just as easily fit the other way. Gary had been employed by the Norris family, until Misty fired him. Had Esmerelda been about to fire him, too? If so, did Gary kill her to keep her job, only to find out it was for nothing because he was going to be fired anyway?
How much money trouble was the Norris family having, she wondered suddenly. Making deals with their rivals, the Raithmores, and firing their employees? What else was going on with them?
Now that might be a thought worth exploring.
After they found Willow, and made sure she wasn’t with a killer.
At the top of the stairs she threw open the door to the kitchen… and stopped.
Willow was standing there, one carefully sculpted eyebrow arching up high when she saw her two sisters coming out of the cellar together.
“Hi, you two,” she said, sipping a cup of lemonade. “I was wondering where you were.”
“What are you doing here?” Addie blurted out.
“I live here, remember? Besides,” she sniffed, swirling the yellow liquid in her glass, “you asked me to check in on Kiera.”
“That was this morning! I wanted you to check in on her this morning.”
“I was busy this morning, remember? We went on a little ride.” She tried to hide the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Gary showed me this amazing waterfall and we, um, did a little skinny dipping. It was incredible. That was, without a doubt, the best day I’ve had in a very long time. I know you think me and Gary are just a fling but he’s different, Addie. I really like him, and he really likes me.”
Gary’s voice surprised her from across the room.
“That’s right, baby. Hey, is there any spicy mustard in here?”
Addie turned sharply when she heard Gary. She hadn’t noticed him standing over there at the refrigerator, helping himself to whatever leftovers were in there. Now that she saw him she took ahold of Willow’s hand and pulled her back. “Stay away from him. Willow, you have to stay away from him. Listen to me—”
Kiera stepped past her and raised a hand and just as Gary stepped back from the refrigerator with an apple in his mouth and his arms full of sandwich meat and a head of lettuce and a half loaf of bread, magic came spiraling out from Kiera’s hand in a shimmering blur.
When the humming wave of it reached Gary it enveloped him and froze him in place where he stood, mid-breath, mid-step, caught between moments of time like a statue of living flesh.
“What in the name of the Morrigan did you do that for!” Willow pushed away from Addie, or tried to, while Addie held her back. “You Snared my boyfriend. I can not believe you Snared my boyfriend! Let him go!”
Addie got a grip on both of Willow’s wrists again, holding her fast and trying to calm her down. “Willow, just wait… Kiera, I didn’t think you were going to spell him!”
“You said he might be dangerous,” Kiera said, as if her motives should have been obvious. “I will not allow someone who might be a killer to roam free in our house.”
“Uhn!” Willow rasped. “Gary is not a killer!”
“He was there,” Addie pointed out, “at the scene. Doyle overheard you two talking. You knew he was there, didn’t you? You knew!”
She yanked her arms away to cross them over her breasts, sticking out her chin defiantly. “Sure I knew. He told me this morning. So what? He saw Esmerelda there, and he left because he didn’t want anyone to think he killed her. So what?”
“Is that what he told you?” Addie asked incredulously. “And you believed him?”
Willow was indignant. “I trust him. Isn’t that what happened to you, hmm? Detective Hotcakes thou
ght you were involved, just because you were there, right? Isn’t that what your whole argument at the café was about?”
Addie didn’t know what to say to that. “Sure, but you know I had nothing to do with it.”
“And I know Gary had nothing to do with it, either!”
“So why didn’t you say something?”
Willow was screaming in Addie’s face now. “I didn’t say anything because it isn’t my job! I’m a witch, not a cop!”
Kiera cleared her throat. “It doesn’t matter. Sister Willow, I will not allow someone dangerous to wander around our house freely. If Gary is not involved in the killing then I will reverse the spell and set him free and the only thing he will have lost is a day or so of time. If he is the killer, then we have him trapped in the Snare. I will not allow trouble to wander our halls.”
Willow sniffed and looked away from her sisters, muttering to herself, but not openly arguing. Their older sister had made a decision. That was the end of the discussion.
So it was time to talk about something else.
“Kiera, that reminds me.” Addie had wanted to ask about this anyway, but the events of today had just kept running away with her. Now, there was a Typic spell-trapped in their kitchen. If she didn’t ask now, she might never have the chance. “Anyway. What about the entity I felt this morning? That evil thing in the bathroom. If you don’t want trouble to wander the halls of Stonecrest it seems that thing would be the first on your list to get rid of.”
“From what you described of it, Sister Addie, I would agree.” Kiera spread her hands helplessly. “I searched for such a… thing within Stonecrest. As soon as you left this morning I spent more than an hour walking around and looking. I used every spell I could think of. At least, all of the ones that wouldn’t bring the rafters down on our heads. I’m sorry, Addie. There just isn’t anything like that in our home. I’m not sure what you felt, but whatever it was, it appears to have left as soon as you encountered it.”