by K. J. Emrick
“Well, I do,” she snapped. Standing up from the couch, Kiera fixed her sister with a stony look. “Would you mind following me? Alan, we’ll be right back.”
Kiera got up and made straight for the doorway out into the hall without looking back. Addie gave an apologetic smile to Alan. “Um. It’s nice to meet you finally. She’ll be right back. I think. Can we get you anything?”
“Well,” he said, a little uncertainly, “I guess I am thirsty. I was walking around the town for a long time before I got—”
“Okay great. I’ll make sure we bring back something.” She bounced off the chair before he could say another word. “I think we’ve got lemonade in the fridge. Or iced tea. Now I can’t remember. It’s one or the other. Um. Be right back.”
She didn’t like the idea of leaving him here alone so that she and Kiera could have a private chat, but there really wasn’t any other choice. Ordinarily she’d set Doyle to watch him while they were gone but since Kiera had banished the cats from the living room, Doyle was off God alone knew where. She’d just have to trust that there wasn’t any mischief Alan could get up to in their living room.
Kiera was already out of sight when Addie turned the corner from the living room, but she could sense her sister. She was in the kitchen.
As soon as Addie got there, a Cone of Silence descended around her.
“He doesn’t remember anything,” Kiera said immediately.
The spell wasn’t actually called a “Cone of Silence.” That was a reference to an old spy show that Addie still loved to watch even in today’s world of fast-paced, explosion-driven television programming. It was smart and witty. Maybe that’s why she liked it so much.
What the spell actually did was turn the air around them thicker. All around them, two feet away from where they were standing, the air had turned dense and impenetrable. All anyone standing nearby would hear from them would be muffled shouting.
Thus, Cone of Silence.
“Well?” Kiera pressed. “Are you going to take my word for it?”
“Did he tell you that?” Addie asked. “Or is that wishful thinking?”
Kiera gasped. “I am your sister, and I am the head of this coven, and if I say his word is good enough for me then it is good enough for you as well!”
Addie rocked back a step from the force behind those words. Kiera was a more powerful witch than even she realized, and a witch’s power always seeped through uncontrolled when they were emotional. Right now, Addie could only imagine what it felt like to be Kiera, with the emotions she sensed twisting knots around her sister’s heart.
“All I’m saying,” she tried again, more calmly so that Kiera wouldn’t think she was being insensitive, “is that we need to take this slow. We know he was somewhere for the last week or so. We know he was close by, because his accident was just south of this town. We should have been able to locate him with our magic and we couldn’t, and that means someone else was using a very strong sort of magic to mask his presence. That means trouble for us and for the town. He may not even know what he knows but we can’t just leave it be.”
In Kiera’s eyes, Addie saw her argument hit home. Her sister’s expression softened, if just a little, and she folded her hands at her waist as she lifted her chin.
“I will admit,” she said with slow deliberation, “that what you say makes sense, Sister Addie. However. I have spoken with Alan—my son—for the better part of three hours while you were off in town. I have listened to his story, and I have not found any subterfuge in his answers.”
“All right.” Addie considered that. “Well, what did he say?”
“He told me that after years of searching, he finally found a single record that placed his birth here in Shadow Lake. As there is no hospital here, he naturally assumed that he was born at the house of his mother. He took time off of work to drive here, with the intention of asking around to see if anyone remembered a boy being born here in Shadow Lake around his birthday.”
Addie nodded thoughtfully. “Which might have worked, under normal circumstances. He’s a smart guy.”
Keira smiled. “Yes. He is. He also told me that he remembers the car accident. After that, he doesn’t remember a thing until he found himself walking around the streets of Shadow Lake. And now here we are.”
“Yes. We are. Kiera, do you trust him?”
The smile slipped away from her sister’s face again. “Excuse me?”
“I’m serious. Listen, it’s been years and the first time you saw him, he was a baby. Now he suddenly pops up out of nowhere? Forgive me, but I think we need to be a lot more cautious than we’re being.”
Kiera’s eyes held fire. “He is my son, Sister Addie. Do you somehow think I wouldn’t know my own son? I feel it. I feel a piece of me within every fiber of his being. You saw him sitting in there. Is there any doubt that he is our kin? This is my son.”
“Okay, all right. Kiera, if you say so, then I believe you. There’s still something not quite right about all this. You have to admit that.”
“Oh really? What exactly do I have to admit?”
Addie gestured with her hand. “Well, he’s got the scrapes and bruises from the car accident, but did you notice his clothes? They’re brand new. No rips, no tears. I don’t think they’re even his. So again I have to wonder, where was he all this time?”
After a moment, Kiera let out a slow breath. “You have questions. Just like you always do.”
“Well, sure I have questions. Don’t you?”
Her sister cleared her throat. “To tell the truth, until this moment… no. I did not. Now you have sown the seeds of caution into my excitement. We have invited my son into our home and I have told him he can stay for as long as he likes.” She nodded to herself. “We should be certain about him, I suppose.”
Addie could tell that the words hurt Kiera to say, but it was the right thing to do. For them, and for Alan too. Something had happened to him. They needed to find out what that something was.
“So,” Addie said, “you’re okay with me asking him to repeat his story for me?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I didn’t want this reunion to be shrouded in doubt like this, but I suppose that’s the life we lead.” She pursed her lips, looking more like the Kiera that Addie knew so well. “Which reminds me. What was the trouble in town that delayed you? Kyle’s message was less than clear. As usual.”
“Why? What did he say?”
“That you would be home later, because you were standing under something and couldn’t get away.”
“No, not standing under. I said understand…” Addie shook her head and gave up. “Forget about the message. There was a murder in town. That’s what kept me so long.”
The lines around Kiera’s eyes deepened. “A murder? Who was killed?”
“Seth Hunter. He died right there on the stage as the debate was about to begin.”
Addie quickly went through what she knew so far, about Seth being poisoned with the coffee he was drinking, and that there was going to be an autopsy. She went through her list of suspects, too. Cavallo Raithmore, with his motive to want Seth out of the way for his land deals. Mac McDougal, who disappeared for a short time just before the debate started and who refused to say why. The other candidate for town manager obviously, Miss Eleanor Griggs, who would be assured an easy victory at the polls now that he was dead.
Kiera nodded to each one. “It’s hard to imagine any of them killing someone. Well. Cavallo, possibly. He is the most ornery shapeshifter I have ever met. Even more so in his animal form, if you can imagine.”
“I’ve never had the pleasure,” Addie said sarcastically.
“Trust me. You’re better off without that particular pleasure. You’ve done well, Sister Addie. I trust your boyfriend Lucian is working the case as well? He was going with you to the debate, wasn’t he?”
Addie wasn’t able to stop the look that crossed her face in time for Kiera not to see it. “All right. Fine. He was there.
He’s doing the investigation. We, um, had a bit of an argument over how he thinks I should keep out of police business and not interfere with my witchy ways.”
Kiera raised an eyebrow. “Witchy ways? Is that what he said?”
“No, I’m just being stupid. I’m upset that he talked to me the way he did, and I’m upset that he thinks he can just walk into our town and tell me that I’m doing things wrong, and I’m upset that it upsets me so much because he’s just a man and our duty to the town comes first.”
With a wisp of a smile, Kiera sighed meaningfully. “I see.”
“What? Kiera, I’m serious. It shouldn’t bother me what Lucian thinks or doesn’t think about me.”
“But it does.”
“Yes,” she admitted, still not sure why.
“Oh, dear Addie. Sometimes you just have to accept that the man you love is not the man for you. Perhaps, if Lucian isn’t going to accept you for who you are, then he isn’t the right one for you.”
“Like Alan’s father wasn’t the right man for you?”
“Mm-hmm. Precisely. Then again, your man is a very attractive police detective, and my man was an irresistible fallen angel. There’s quite the difference between them.”
That was the secret they had been keeping from Alan. The secret that had driven Kiera to make her decision to give up her child. She couldn’t let him be raised by one of the Fallen. She had done what was right for her son, as hard as it had been on her personally.
Kiera waved a hand and broke apart the Cone of Silence spell. “Yes. Well. For now, we must prepare to look into the murder of Seth Hunter. The three of us—me, you and Willow, that is—will convene a Family Circle tonight and see what we can learn. After Alan goes to sleep, of course.”
“One thing at a time,” Addie agreed. “First, let’s get to know your son better.”
Chapter 4
Before they went back into the living room Addie remembered to get the glasses of lemonade that she’d promised Alan. She had wanted to add some powdered sweet flag root to the drink, since that particular herb was a basis for a lot of truth spells, but Kiera had flat out refused to let any sort of spell be cast on her son. At least not until they had revealed what they really were to him.
Addie had pointed out that Kiera had no qualms about using spells on either her or Willow back when they were just unruly teenagers.
“Yes, I did,” Kiera had said cheerily. “It was better than spanking you. I think our parents would have approved of the compromise.”
Which was her way of saying doing as I say, not as I do. So for now, she was going to have to do things the old fashioned way, which was to ask questions, and listen to the answers, and judge for herself if Alan was telling the truth.
“Here we are,” she said with a bright smile as she came back into the living room. She set the tray of drinks down on the coffee table. “Sorry to leave you by yourself.”
They hadn’t been gone all that long, but he had wandered over to the bookshelf, looking through the titles on the spines. “It’s all right, really. I know me dropping in was unexpected. I would have called ahead but, well, I didn’t exactly have a name or a number.”
“You will,” Kiera promised, folding her skirts around her as she sat back on the couch again. “From this day forward, you are a part of our family.”
He picked up a book, and thumbed through the pages. “I thought I was already family?”
Kiera fidgeted, uneasy with the hidden accusation there. “Of course. I mean, yes, you were. Are, I mean. You are part of our family.”
She pressed her lips together, staring hard at the floor.
“It’s all right, Kiera,” Alan promised. “I didn’t mean it that way. Hey, would you two mind if I made some phone calls? I was only supposed to be gone a week and from what you’re telling me it’s been all of that already. My job must be starting to wonder what the deal is. Oh, and my girlfriend. She must be worried sick.”
“Sure,” Addie said. “What is it you do for a living, if you don’t mind my asking?”
He closed the book, and put it back, and took out another. “I’m a public accountant. Not very exciting, I know, but it pays the bills. I had some vacation time saved up, and my boss agreed to let me have a week off, so I talked myself into coming out here.”
“Where did you drive from?”
“It’s not that far from here, actually. I live in New York now. ”
Addie was surprised. “That’s where your foster family lived?”
Flipping slowly through the pages, Alan shrugged. “No. My parents… sorry, my foster parents, I mean. That’s going to take some getting used to. They lived in Minnesota. That’s where I grew up. Then I moved to New York after college for a job. The state, not the city.”
“You mean Upstate New York?” Addie asked.
“A little further north, actually. Think Canada, two steps back. So anyway, like I said, I got some time off from my job and I knew it was time to finally find my roots. I got in my car and came up here.”
“And that’s when you got into the accident on Old Lutherfud Road.”
She didn’t say it as a question. They all knew he’d been in that accident. Kiera and Addie and Willow had seen it unfold within the scrying images in their Family Circle upstairs. Addie saw Alan’s eyes unfocus, and she knew he was reliving that moment in his mind.
“Yeah,” he said, bouncing the open book on the palm of his hand. “I swerved to miss an animal, or something. The car went off the road and up on its roof. I woke up and everything hurt. I mean, everything.”
He stopped there, like that was the end of the story. Addie threaded the distance between them with a little of her Essence, just enough to scrutinize his words, not enough for him to feel what she was doing. She didn’t sense any deceit from him. Everything he was saying was the truth, just as Kiera had said.
At least, it was the truth as far as he believed it.
“What happened then?” she prompted him.
He closed this book as well, and shelved it. “What do you mean?”
A little flicker of something zipped across his aura, too fast for Addie to get a clean look at. Not something to do with the accident itself, but with what came afterward.
She sat forward in her seat. “What I mean, is what happened after the accident? You’ve been missing all this time, Alan. We searched for you for a week. As soon as we knew who you were and why you were here, as soon as we knew you’d been in that car wreck, we started searching for you. We couldn’t find you anywhere. Were you with someone?”
He ran his fingers over the spines of the books. “I don’t know.”
There was no dishonesty in his voice. Addie would have felt that. There was something else, though. Something she couldn’t read. “Those aren’t your clothes, are they?” she asked him, trying a different approach. “You had to get the clothes from somewhere.”
He looked down at himself, frowning deeply. “I don’t… I don’t know.”
“Sister Addie,” Kiera whispered softly. “Please. That’s enough.”
But Addie disagreed. “Did you crawl out of the car yourself? Did you walk around in circles? How did you survive for a week without food and water? Alan? Alan, I’m asking you a question. What happened after your accident?”
“I don’t know!” he screamed, and as he screamed he threw his arm out, fingers splayed, muscles tense.
Every book on the shelves flew out from their place and hovered in the air, turning slowly, pages making whispery sounds like barely heard voices as they slid against each other.
Alan gaped at what was happening. Slowly, he lowered his arms.
The books dropped to the floor, one by one. Thud. Thud. Thud thud thud.
Kiera stood, her hand shaking as she placed it over her mouth.
Addie found herself on her feet as well. This shouldn’t be happening. The books had been moved by magic. Not hers. Not Kiera’s.
There was only one other perso
n in the room.
“What was that?” Alan asked, backing away from the shelves and the fallen books. “What just happened? What’s going on here?”
“Alan,” Addie started to say, although she had no idea what was going to follow his name. He had just performed a very simple levitation spell, fueled by his confusion and rage and frustration. Judging by the look on his face, it was his first time doing magic.
Well, if she’d had any doubts left about whether this really was Kiera’s son, she didn’t have any now. The ability to tune into the natural world, to perform spells and witchcraft, was genetic. You were born a witch. Sure, there were certain spells that anyone could perform with enough practice but this one had sprung from deep within Alan. This was his innate ability, given to him by right of birth.
He was a son of a witch.
Right now, he was a man on the verge of pure panic. “What was that? Did you see that? All the books…? What did that? What could make them all jump like that and then they were just hanging there and I don’t understand what’s going on! What did that?”
His eyes were wide and no matter how Kiera and Addie tried to calm him down, and tell him it was going to be okay, he only spiraled deeper into his growing sense of alarm.
When he looked like he was about to bolt, Addie put her hand on his forehead, and spoke a single word in Gaelic.
“Codladh.”
The suggestion to sleep was backed by her Essence, and he had no defense against it. Dropping to his knees, and then to his side, he was asleep before he drew his next breath. Addie managed to cradle his head on the way down before he added another bruise to his collection.
“Addie!” Kiera snapped at her, her voice cracking. “What did you do?”
“He’s just asleep. He’s fine. We couldn’t have him freaking out and running around town shouting to everyone that he’d seen books flying around our living room, now could we? I mean, unless we really want the whole town to know we’re just as weird as they think we are.”
Kiera knelt by her son, stroking his hair gently. She took a deep breath in, and let it out again. “No. You’re right, of course. I just… oh, I so wanted this reunion to be perfect! I wanted him to feel safe here and come to know me as his birthmother. Even if we never grew close I wanted him to know who I was and be proud of me. I wanted that so much.”