by Blythe Baker
She sighed, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, dear, but we don’t know who they were. At least one of them had to be a Faery, though, for you to have Faery in your blood.”
“Does my mom know?” I asked.
Aunt Candace shook her head. “No. She doesn’t know anything about your magical abilities.”
“She said she found a note in the basket that she’d found me in,” I said.
Aunt Candace’s brow furrowed. “Yes, I know. At least I do now. She never told me when she found you.”
“What did the note say?” Bliss asked.
“It said that I would be cursed if I was taken away from Faerywood Falls,” I said. “That my life would be plagued with misery and misfortune until I returned.”
“Whoa,” Bliss said. “And she still decided to take you anyway?”
“I guess she thought it was just nonsense or something,” I said. “She didn’t believe it. Neither of us did until one man I loved was murdered, and another tried to murder me.”
Bliss looked away, and Aunt Candace’s face fell.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Honestly, I’ve felt way better since moving back here. The nightmares I was having all the time have completely stopped, and I have more peace than I ever had before. I struggled with depression and anxiety a lot in the last few years. It’s as if stepping foot into Faerywood Falls has wiped that away.”
“It’s the magic in your blood,” Bliss said. “I was the same way.”
“Well, regardless of where you came from, you are our family now,” Aunt Candace said. “And we care deeply about you, Marianne. We will be here with you, and do our best to help you sort out this new part of your life.”
“That’s right,” Bliss said. “If anyone knows what it’s like going up that steep hill to learn your powers, it’s me. We are going to help keep your secret, and help keep you safe.”
I smiled at the two women. “Thank you…and thank you for being so honest with me. I think it’s going to take some time for all of this to sink in…but as crazy as it sounds, I…I think I believe it.”
“You won’t have any choice but to believe it,” Aunt Candace said. “The magic in you will make sure of it.”
14
I spent the rest of the afternoon with Aunt Candace and Bliss. After the ordeal of a night I’d had, I didn’t really want to be alone. That coupled with the revelation that I was actually some sort of supernatural creature had basically ensured I was living inside my own head, and was in no fit state to go home. I thought vaguely of Athena, but knew I didn’t have to worry about her. She would have found her way back to my cabin by now and let herself in the dog door. Or maybe she would choose to stay out in the woods awhile, prowling. Either way, she would be all right.
My aunt and cousin let me sleep for a few hours that afternoon in one of the empty guest rooms. It was a sounder sleep than I’d had in years, and when I woke up, my mind was clearer and I was able to focus more. A weight that had been hanging on me for years had been slowly, ever so slowly peeling away. And my dreams that were once filled with flashes and images of my past, were normal again. Was it possible that my nightmares had something to do with the curse? Was it really gone now that I was back in Faerywood Falls?
The fireflies had been there for me, leading me. I hadn’t just imagined that. The forest felt like home. Knowing it was where I’d been found seemed to bring me peace.
I smiled as I stared out the window at the place where I was really starting to feel like I belonged.
I tested my ankle and found that it didn’t hurt much anymore. Sleeping with my foot up seemed to have taken away the swelling too. I wandered back downstairs and found Aunt Candace and Bliss both in the kitchen, helping prepare dinner.
I stepped up to the assembly line, choosing to chop carrots and celery for a soup stock.
“You know, I was thinking,” I said as I tossed a handful of the fresh vegetables into the large copper pot in front of us. “That poor fisherman…now that you told me everything that you did about the townspeople, it made me see the situation in a whole new light. What if those weren’t stab wounds in his neck at all, but bitemarks?”
Aunt Candace glanced over at me. “I would have thought you would want to think about anything else besides that poor man,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “But I guess I sort of experienced this in my life once already, when Jacob, the first man I ever loved, was murdered. It was a horrible time in my life, and it wasn’t until the killer was found that I felt Jacob had any justice. Even then, it was still hard to swallow. But with how many people in this town are not Gifted, or don’t know about the Gifted, then the chances of finding the real killer are a lot less, aren’t they?”
Aunt Candace gave me a considering look. “Yes, I suppose that is true. And the bigger problem is that magic can be very deceiving, and that could make it even harder to distinguish the real killer.”
I tossed some celery into the pot. “The first thought that popped into my mind was that it must have been a vampire, right?” I said, my eyebrows raising. I couldn’t believe I was talking about a vampire as if it were a real thing. I couldn’t be sure part of that wasn’t because the shock hadn’t completely worn off yet. “The marks were close enough together that it could have been made from fangs. Do vampires have fangs?” I asked.
Bliss nodded. “They almost pop out of their mouths when they’re ready to drink. It’s really creepy.”
Aunt Candace gave Bliss a look that I recognized.
I said, “Look, Aunt Candace, I know you’re trying to protect me, but you don’t have to – ”
“You’ve been through enough,” she said. “What you need now is rest and relaxation, not to get yourself involved in that poor man’s murder.”
“I think she has some sort of right,” Bliss said from the other side of her mother. She was busy chopping up some fresh rosemary from their garden. “I mean, she was the one who found him after all. Maybe helping figure out whodunnit will help her have some closure.”
Aunt Candace sighed. “Well…I can’t say that I’m not at least a little curious,” she said. She then turned back to me. “Do you remember that castle up on the mountain that we saw from the front of Abe’s shop?” she asked.
I nodded.
“That’s Blackburn castle,” she said. “And like I said, old family. They’ve lived here a long time.”
“They’re the vampires?” I asked, the color draining from my cheeks. It was one thing to hear about these mythical creatures existing, and it was another thing entirely to actually be pointed in their direction.
Bliss nodded. “Yes. Cain Blackburn is a nice guy. I’ve met him a few times – ”
“You’ve done what?” her mother asked, rounding on Bliss, her dark eyebrows a hard, thin line.
Bliss grinned apologetically. “Easy, Mom. I just met him at that Spell Weaver event we had last summer. Apparently he and the head weaver had some sort of business dealing.”
“That does seem like a more likely alliance than vampires and, say, werewolves,” I said. “Do they hate each other?”
“The vampires really don’t like anyone,” Bliss said. “It was a business deal of convenience, nothing more.” She glanced over at the clock. “Well, we could always go talk to Cain. See what he might know about it. It’ll have to be a few hours from now, though. They don’t do well with sunlight, you know.”
“At least I know that already,” I said. I massaged my temples. “It feels like I’ve put too much info into my brain too fast.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Bliss said.
It took some time, but we eventually convinced Aunt Candace to let us go. Bliss insisted on going with me to protect me, being a spell weaver and all. My aunt kept telling us that we had no reason to go over there and ask the Blackburns what they had to do with the murder, but Bliss insisted that we did, since I was the one who’d witnessed the murder and realized it must have had some sort of Gifted ca
use, that we were just informally helping the sheriff get to the bottom of it. We weren’t sure if anyone would buy that, but it was the truth, and it was better than lying about it in the first place. I shot that idea down in the very beginning.
Bliss drove us up to the castle when it got dark, and I couldn’t sit still. My heart was in my throat as we made our way through the thick tree-lined roads, the moon shining high overhead.
“Looks like it’s almost full…” Bliss commented, shaking her head.
“Is that bad?” I asked.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s when the shape shifters change without control. They all have their means of dealing with it, but it always seems like us spell weavers are the ones who have to keep the illusion going.”
“What about these vampires?” I asked. “What can you tell me about them?”
Bliss sighed as she stared out the windshield. “Well…there’s not really a whole lot to say. They’ve been living here for a long time. It’s the same people who built the castle a few centuries ago. Because vampires are immortal and everything. They can die by violence but not natural causes.”
I swallowed hard. That was probably going to take me awhile to acknowledge. Or even believe.
“So are they actually a family?” I asked.
“No,” Bliss said, furrowing her brow, and shaking her head. “They say they are so the people who are not Gifted in town don’t think it’s strange when a man they met when they were twenty looks the exact same when they meet him at eighty. Anyway, only two of them are actually related.”
“I can’t imagine vampires living in a town of ordinary humans without something going horribly wrong,” I said. That further solidified my theory about the vampires being the killers. Especially in light of the bat-like silhouette I had seen in the forest the other night.
Bliss shook her head. “It’s not like that, honestly. They keep to themselves entirely. No one in town likes Cain – he’s the town mortician, but he’s also the vampire faction’s leader. People also don’t come up here much because there’s rumors that the castle is haunted.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah. Stories make their way through the town about some sort of female apparition that screams late in the night,” Bliss said.
“Is that true?” I asked.
“It is real, but she’s not a ghost,” Bliss said. “It’s Cain’s sister, and he keeps her locked up because when she is crazed with bloodlust, she’s a danger to the community.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’m leaning more and more on the theory it was a vampire who killed that poor fisherman.”
We rounded a corner and the castle came into view. This close, it definitely had the same shape as a castle, but on a smaller scale. It looked like it was meant to be a replica of a medieval structure. It wasn’t without its modern amenities, though. I could see the gate was all high tech as we pulled up.
Bliss rolled down the window and leaned out to a speaker beside a keypad and fingerprint scanner. Did that sort of technology work on vampire flesh?
“Blackburn estate, to whom am I speaking?”
Bliss gave me a sidelong look – what’s with the formality?
“Bliss Brooks,” she said. “We’re here to speak with someone about the recent murder of a fisherman down by Faerywood Falls lake.”
There was silence for a moment. “Mr. Blackburn has approved your request. Please proceed to the house, do not stray from the main drive, and walk only to the front door. Am I understood?”
“Yeah, sure,” Bliss said, putting the car back in drive.
The tall metal gate in front of us slid open and Bliss drove slowly through.
The driveway meandered up the mountainside. We passed gardens and pools. A set of tennis courts had been carved into the hillside, and I thought I could see a full size Olympic pool with a view of the whole valley below.
“These people really live in luxury, don’t they?” I asked, finding myself looking at a small golf course, the sand traps reflecting the glow of the moon.
“When you live for hundreds of years, money doesn’t matter anymore,” Bliss said. “You can basically make endless amounts of it.”
We parked the car beside a few others, all of which probably cost more than all four years of my college tuition. We stepped outside into the cool night air and stared up at the house. Most of the lights were on inside, pools of warmth flooding out onto the ground outside.
A silhouette of a petite woman stepped in front of one of the windows, paused there for a moment, and then continued on past.
We started up the wide, stone stairs, and I worried that my knees were going to give out on me. I was going to meet a vampire, face to face. Maybe I already had in my life, but never realized it. “I’m really glad you’re with me,” I said to Bliss, my heartbeat hammering inside my ears. “I couldn’t do this without knowing that you can protect us.”
“Yeah, about that…” Bliss said under her breath.
I wheeled around and looked back at her. She was a few steps lower than I was, her hand holding the marble railing with a white-knuckled grip as she ascended. She gave me a sheepish look. “I’m really only an apprentice. I mean, I know some pretty cool stuff, but to keep vampires away…”
“So you lied to me?” I asked.
“Not lied,” Bliss said. “Just…maybe stretched the truth a bit?”
I let out a shaky breath. It was pointless to get angry with her when it seemed she was just as scared as I was.
We reached the enormous wooden front doors, easily two stories tall. We looked at one another. I noticed her face was as pale as mine felt.
I lifted a fist to knock on the door, but it began to swing inward at the motion.
It didn’t open very far before a tall, slender man slipped outside. He was wearing a dark suit with tails as if he were in the middle of some big, fancy party. His shoes shone in the lamplight on the front deck. When he turned around, my stomach dropped.
Whatever image I’d concocted in my head for a vampire, this man was not it. I’d imagined pale skin, black, pupil-less eyes, pointed teeth. But the man standing in front of me was the classic tall, dark, and handsome. His hair was slicked back elegantly, as if it was effortless. He had high cheekbones, a wide jaw, and deep set eyes that were so green I wondered if they were contacts.
He was one of the most attractive men I’d ever seen in my life. It was as if he’d stepped out of a magazine or a movie or something.
“Good evening, ladies…” he said with a sweeping bow. He grinned at us as he righted himself, making my heart flutter. “What brings you to my humble home?”
I glanced upward at his “humble” home, and wondered if in comparison to all his other vampire friends, it was small. “Hi, Mr. Blackburn,” I said nervously. “Should I call you Mr. Blackburn?” I asked.
His smile widened. “Please, call me Cain. And what may I call you beautiful women?”
My cheeks turned pink. “Oh…um, I’m Marianne, and this is my cousin Bliss.”
Bliss lifted her hand in a small wave of hello.
There was a flash of recognition in his eyes. “You’re a spell weaver, aren’t you?” he asked Bliss.
“Yes,” she said.
“I thought I recognized you,” he said, and a knowing smile crept up his face. “Very well. What may I do for you?”
It was hard to form words in my mind as he turned his bright green eyes on me. I couldn’t remember the last time that a man had been so attractive to me that he’d numbed my brain. I was tongue tied.
“We are looking into the death of the fisherman down by the lake,” Bliss said, thankfully stepping in for me. “It happened the other night.”
“Ah, yes,” Cain said, shaking his head, concern furrowing his brow. “How unfortunate for the poor man.”
“We think he was murdered,” Bliss said.
Cain gave her a steady look in return for her hardened one. “I imagine I am a suspect then?
” he asked. “Or one of my kin?”
Bliss and I looked at one another.
“Well, it only makes sense,” he said. “Why would you come up here otherwise? Yes, I know the story about what happened. I saw the body shortly afterward.”
I blinked at him.
“I’m the town’s mortician,” he said kindly and with a smile as if he’d just told me that he was a veterinarian or a dentist.
“Right,” I said. I didn’t ask why a man of his obvious wealth would choose such an occupation. As a vampire, perhaps the job gave him access to things I didn’t want to think about.
“Well, I will tell you both right now that I was not involved in the poor man’s death in any way,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. “But how are you two involved?”
Bliss gave me an anxious shake of the head, but I looked away.
“I was the one who found the victim,” I said. “I was on my way home from work, got lost in the woods, and found him near my cabin.”
Cain’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if they were lenses focusing more intently on me. “I see. Well, you’ll soon find, Miss Marianne, that it does not do to linger in the forest so late at night.”
His words sent a chill down my spine, but his voice was so deep and so smooth that I just wanted him to keep talking.
“How can we believe that you aren’t the one who did it?” Bliss asked, folding her arms.
Cain returned her gaze easily. “Because the marks on the neck of the corpse were clearly an attempt to pin the killing on my family and me,” he said. “And a poor one, at that. My kin are not murderers.”
“What about your sister?” Bliss asked.
“My sister has been restrained for the safety of everyone in Faerywood Falls,” Cain said. “She has not stepped foot out of this house in a very long time. I assure you, it was not us.”
I looked over at Bliss helplessly. He could have been lying, but how could we know for sure?
“I have security cameras covering every inch of my property,” Cain said, his voice darkening and his gaze hardening. “If you would like, I could provide you with the evidence.”