by Katie Low
“We have to go back to the station,” he said without preamble. “I would drop you off with Orla, but she left to run errands in the human town. Your uncles will all be coming to the station with us, so I have no one to leave you with.”
A mischievous glint sparked in Liliana’s eyes before she said, “You could always ask Cardi if we could stay with her for a while.”
The change that overtook their dad’s face would have been comical if it weren’t for the severity of situation that they found themselves in. Strangers had infiltrated Fabled. Even worse, the adults were afraid.
At the mention of their teacher’s name, their dad turned a furious shade of red. “Just get in the truck!”
He didn’t wait to see if the twins followed him out to the vehicle, just turned on his heel and stormed off. Liliana tried to hide a snicker behind her hand, but Thad saw it. He didn’t know what his sister was up to when it came to their father and Ms. Salem, and he had no desire to find out.
At the police station, Liliana sat in her dad’s chair in the office, while Thad sat at their Uncle Ean’s desk. Technically, he wasn’t their uncle. He and his brothers were their mother’s cousins, and their father—and the alpha of the griffin clan—Fearghus, was her uncle. The four of them had been a part of Liliana’s and Thad’s lives more than their mother ever had been, however, so it felt right to call them their uncles.
The triplets were the most technologically savvy Mystics, not only in Fabled, but that her Uncle Ruarc had ever met. They had created a computer program that analyzed DNA and was able to distinguish which species the person belonged to. The last time that Liliana went out to visit them, they had been working on a way to make their program hack into hospital databases so that they could track down any Mystics living outside of the reservations.
It must have been that program that Uncle Ruarc wanted them called to the station for.
Shortly after Liliana and Thad were left in the office by themselves, Ean, Eamon, and Eoghan walked through the front door of the station with their father, Fearghus.
Uncle Eoghan (pronounced like Owen) stopped at her dad’s desk to ruffle Liliana’s hair. “Hey squirt,” he said, setting his computer bag on the desk. “You been keeping out of trouble?”
Liliana gave him her best innocent face, “Me? Of course, I have! A perfect angel, you might say.”
“Yeah, except that’s something I would never say when it comes to you, my girl.”
She tried to look appalled at his statement but couldn’t hold her face straight for very long. The two of them burst into laughter.
“Don’t worry, love,” Ean said. “You know that your secrets are safe with us. We also know that you’ll be dying to watch your da and Uncle Ruarc question these strangers, so the last thing that I would want to do is tell you that my passcode to get into the observation room is our birthday and yours combined.”
With a wink, the four of them went down the hall toward the interrogation room, where their dad and uncle were already set up with the strange family.
Liliana looked to Thad, and after a moment’s thought, her brother shrugged his shoulder. It was on.
They rushed down the hall, glancing into the window of the door to the observation room to make sure that it was empty, before entering her uncle’s passcode. The door swung open, and they filed inside to watch as Ruarc questioned the group.
“I swear,” the man was saying, “I didn’t come here to cause any trouble. My mother recently died, but before she did, she told me of a town that she grew up in just outside of the Sunday River Resort. She told me that I would find answers here. Like I said already, I don’t work for any government agency. I work in construction.”
Before the man finished speaking, the door to the room opened, and the triplets entered the room, with their father on their heels. In the corner of the room, Eoghan started setting up his computer, while Eamon started pulling supplies from his medical bag.
While the three of them were absolute geniuses when it came to computers and owned their own software company, they all held part-time jobs within the town. Ean was their dad’s deputy, Eamon was one of the town’s doctor, and Eoghan had set up a technical support line that the townsfolk could call for assistance. When Liliana asked them why they worked in these additional fields, they had told her that their work helps with their programing. Eoghan had told her that troubleshooting other peoples’ computer issues helped to keep his mind sharp and allowed him to reevaluate some of his own computer issues. Ean used his duties as the deputy to access databases across the country, and Eamon used his medical degree to accumulate the knowledge needed for the DNA portion of their program.
Liliana glanced at her brother as he watched the triplets work. Thad was so interested in what their uncles did, that it was difficult to ever pull him away from them when the time came. She didn’t know which aspect fascinated her brother the most, but she knew that when the time came for them to follow a career path, that he would want to join her uncles in whatever they were going to be creating at the time.
Eamon moved toward the table just then, and using a needle and what looked to be slips of paper, pricked each person’s finger, and let the strip soak up the drop of blood that beaded to the surface. He handed the strips off to Ean, who ran them through the computer program.
It didn’t take long for the program to beep, and Eoghan announced, “They’re sirens. And they’re all siblings.”
So much for her dad’s theory that they were a mother, father, and their children.
“Of course, we’re siblings,” the man stated. “I could have told you that, if you had asked.”
“You said that your mother grew up here?” Ruarc asked. “What was her name?”
“Her name was Willa Auman.”
Faolan and Ruarc shared a look before her uncle nodded. She figured that they recognized the name because her uncle’s features softened toward the man.
“Your mother didn’t say anything to you about what you are, or what this place is, before she died?” When the man shook his head, her uncle asked another question. “How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-eight. My sister is twenty-five, and these two,” he indicated his younger brother and sister, “are twelve and thirteen.”
“Son,” Uncle Ruarc started, “I don’t know how to break this to you gently, so I’m just going to jump right in to save us all some time. You-all are not entirely human. This town, it is made up completely of people who are more than human. This is a sanctuary of sorts, to keep us all safe from the scrutiny of the humans and their hunters. I knew your mother. She was a siren, and you four are all sirens. She left here about thirty years ago wanting to pursue a career among the humans. She was supposed to let us know if she ever had children, so that we could welcome them into our town if they ever chose to join us. I’m sorry that we didn’t come to you, but we would have if we had known of your existence. You are more than welcome to stay here for as long as you would like, and I’ll arrange for you to stay at one of the cabins out near the lake so that you can be close to the other sirens in case you have any questions for them. They will help you to figure out what your abilities are, how to control them, and what you’ll need to do to survive.”
The man looked absolutely shell-shocked by the time Ruarc was finished speaking, and rather than respond, simply nodded his head slowly.
As her uncle spoke to the others about the arrangements to be made for the strangers, Thad elbowed Liliana in the side and jerked his head toward the door. He was right, if they had any chance of not getting caught in here, they had to make their way back to the office.
“I can’t believe it,” she said to her brother once they sat down at the desks once again. “I have never heard of a Mythic being raised as a human and not knowing anything about us. Do you think that they’ll stay in Fabled?”
Thad shrugged, “I’m not sure, but I think that we’ll find out soon enough. That girl was our age. If she’s stay
ing, she’ll probably end up at school with us.”
Chapter Nine
The entire town had been talking about the strangers that had arrived, so when the young girl entered Ms. Salem’s classroom a few days after their interrogation, no one had been surprised.
The girl handed Ms. Salem a slip of paper before taking the empty seat in front of Liliana.
“Alright everyone,” Cardi announced, “this is Gemma. She moved here from Ohio with her brothers and sister. Gemma, do you want to stand up and say anything about yourself?”
Gemma shook her head, and after a few moments of consideration Cardi moved on, going over the announcements for the day. Liliana tapped the girl on her shoulder to get her attention before reaching her hand out for her to see it. “Hi, my name is Liliana.” She jerked her thumb to the seat to her right. “That’s my twin brother, Thad.” With a flourish to the left, she said, “and that is Hannah,” finally pointing in front of Thad, “and her brother Jeremy. If you need anything at all, just let us know, okay?”
After taking Liliana’s hand in hers, Gemma nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered.
With a smile and a nod, Liliana went back to paying attention to what Cardi was saying at the front of the room. The silence didn’t last long, however. From behind them, someone made a scoffing sound before they heard a muttered, “Ugh. Apparently, we aren’t even safe from the humans on our own reservation. Now we have to go to school with them?”
Liliana turned to see Angela, the class bully, faux-whispering to her friends.
“Don’t pay any attention to her,” Liliana said to Gemma. “She thinks that because her uncle is the alpha of the werewolf clan that she can bully everyone around her. Everyone knows that you aren’t really a human.”
Before Gemma could speak, Angela responded to Liliana’s words. “She might as well be, though. I mean, she didn’t even know what a siren was until a few days ago. She was raised thinking that she was an ordinary human.”
“She isn’t really any worse off than the rest of us. None of us has experienced our transitions yet. She has time to learn. Besides, growing up around other people that shift into wolves hasn’t prepared you for what it will feel like, has it? It’s something that we all must figure out for ourselves. She’ll do the same.”
“Alright, children, that’s enough. It’s time to start Math,” Ms. Salem said, walking between the desks to put herself between Angela and Liliana to cut off their communications. Liliana turned back around in her seat and saw Gemma smiling at her when she did. With a mouthed “thank you,” the new girl also turned to get out her Math book.
When the school day came to an end, and all of the students were filing out, Liliana approached Ms. Salem’s desk. “Cardi? Is it okay if I call you Cardi now, since almost everyone is gone?” She turned to see that Hannah, Gemma, Thad and Jeremy were the only ones left in the room.
“Yes, Liliana, that’s fine. How can I help you?”
“Well,” she started, “I don’t know if you know this or not, but Thad and I are turning fourteen in about a week. It’s a big birthday for us, since we’ll most likely be able to shift into our animal that day. My dad is throwing us a party at our house, and I wanted to see if you would please come, if you aren’t too busy.”
Cardi looked surprised at first, as if she hadn’t been expecting an invitation to what was the biggest birthday in a young shapeshifter’s life. Quickly, however, she smoothed her features into a large smile. “If that’s what you, and Thad, want, then I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Great! It’s a week from Sunday. Gemma,” she said, turning toward the new girl, “I hope that you can come as well. If you want, you can even come over tomorrow so that I can show you where we live.”
The girl grinned and nodded, “Yeah, okay! I’ll ask my brother tonight.”
Chapter Ten
The following afternoon, after getting permission from their dad, and Gemma’s brother, Thad and Liliana rode their bikes out to the cabin that Gemma’s family was staying in, since it was on the other side of the town from their house.
The sirens usually lived closest to the border of the reservation that jutted up against the Sunday River Resort. Since the sirens and vampires needed access to humans to survive, they resided as close to the most heavily populated human area as possible.
Alternatively, because the dragons and griffins both took flight, they were the farthest from human civilians that they could get, on the other side of the reservation.
Even being across town, it didn’t take long for Thad and his sister to ride their bikes out to Gemma’s cabin. She and Liliana had text all night the previous night, so Lil said that she knew exactly where to go.
Thad hoped that the girl was as nice as she seemed, and was as “great” as his sister kept telling him that she would be. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his sister’s judgement, he just knew how much she loved the idea of being outside of Fabled and wondered if it wouldn’t sway her opinion of the girl. He supposed that he would just have to wait to form his own opinion of her.
When they knocked on the door, her older brother had answered. He introduced himself as Brenner, before leading them through the cottage to Gemma’s bedroom that she shared with her older sister Gretchen.
They had only been in town a few days, but already they had the cottage filled with all of their belongings. Thad wondered if one of the witches helped them get their things to them from Ohio. When Liliana had told him about how Ms. Salem had magicked her belongings from Chimeric, he had been impressed. He didn’t get to see a lot of witch magic performed but knew that magic like that took an advanced witch to execute it.
He was about to ask Gemma about it, when the sight of her lying across her bed with a giant lizard on her arm stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Hi!” She beamed up at them, and her smile was almost as bright and cheerful as Ms. Salem’s got when she talked about Math being the basis for all things.
“What is that?” Thad asked, realizing after the words left his mouth that he sounded absolutely appalled.
Instead of showing offense to his question, though, her grin grew even larger. “This is Sammy, my Bearded Dragon. Samuel Jackson Auman, meet Thaddeus…I-don’t-know-his-middle-name Sparks.”
“Darragh,” he said, and when she gave him a quizzical look, he elaborated. “My middle name is Darragh. I was named after my grandfather who died a few hundred years before I was born. My dad still talks about him though. Apparently, he was a fierce warrior and he died protecting a group of Mystics who were pinned down by human hunters. He fought them off, even with an iron arrow piercing his heart.”
“Wow, that’s amazing! I wish that we had stories like that to tell, but my mother never really…wait, did you say a few hundred years?”
Thad laughed at that. “Yep. Didn’t anyone tell you that part yet? Mythics can live to be thousands of years old. My dad and my uncle are both over two-thousand years old.”
“I don’t understand. If that’s the case, then how did my mom die? Your uncle told me that she was only in her fifties.”
“I’m not sure, exactly. I don’t know much about what sirens must do to survive, other than inspiring creativity and feeding off of it somehow. If, for some reason, she hadn’t been doing it, that could explain her death. My dad says that when Mythics try to suppress their heritage and live as a human, they often end up living a lifespan even shorter than a human’s.”
Her features turned sad as she stroked her lizard. Since she didn’t ask any other questions, Thad stayed quiet, assuming that she was thinking over his response. After a few minutes, she gave a clipped nod before she stood and put Samuel in his enclosure.
“I hope that you don’t mind if I ask you both a bunch of questions today. I am trying to learn as much as I can about this new life.”
“It’s no problem at all,” Liliana assured her. “Anything that we can answer, we will, and if, for some reason, we don’t know,
we’ll try to find someone who does.”
Gemma nodded and thanked them before she took off down the hall to let her brother Brenner know that they were going to be leaving. She met the twins out front with her bicycle, and the three of them rode off toward their home. Liliana spent the ride pointing out landmarks that Gemma should use to find her way to their side of town. His sister had always been better with giving directions than he had, so he stayed quiet and let her lead the way.
Gemma seemed to be completely in awe of everything that they passed. True to her word, she asked them a ton of questions. She actually reminded Thad a lot of Liliana. She wanted to absorb all of the information that she could about everything around her. Her face lit with a mixture of curiosity and wonder at all that was around them.
The best part of the afternoon, though, had been when the twins asked their dad if he would shift into his dragon in front of Gemma. When his body expanded to his larger beast, she had gasped, and then squealed in delight. Thad knew that his dad’s dragon was an awesome sight to behold, even for people who did grow up around other Mythics. His scales were onyx, each one tipped in a hunter green that winked in the sunlight. Thad had always hoped that he would be half as majestic as his father when he finally shifted for the first time.
The large dragon hunkered down close to the ground, and without hesitation, Liliana leaped onto their father’s back. Thad held his hand out to Gemma and waited for her to take it.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t,” she said, shaking her head vehemently.
“Trust me. You won’t want to miss this.”
She nibbled the fingernail of her left index finger for a moment before she slipped her hand into his. He helped her slide behind his sister, before he took up the position at the rear. When the three were settled onto his back, Faolan shot straight up into the sky. The suddenness of the takeoff had Gemma screeching and gripping his sister around the waist as tightly as she could. Her eyes were scrunched firmly closed until Thad tapped her cheek and whispered, “look.”