My next lesson was making things float, which evolved into seeing how much I could move before I lost all accuracy and safety went out the window. I got nervous when floating heavier or dangerous things over people, or anything involving breakable objects, which usually made me lose concentration and drop them. I managed to lift a really big rock, but a mole ran out from under it, so I panicked and dropped it. Thank God it wasn’t on the mole
“How is this useful?” I asked, rubbing my hands together to stop the tingling.
“Patience, padawan,” Embry teased.
“What’s next, Master Yoda?” I asked instead.
“I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I think that’s enough for today.”
“We have things to take care of, but Charlie will be next door if you need anything,” Gabriel sounded reluctant, but looked resigned.
“Is this the kind of thing where you leave me for days?” It wasn’t that I hadn’t enjoyed spending time with Terrence and learning to knit when they abandoned me last time, but I didn’t want to be left behind again.
“We’re looking into the disappearances, making sure they don’t have anything to do with you,” Embry assured me.
“But you’ll be back today?” I verified.
“Take the rest of the day off and we’ll be back in time for dinner.” I looked into Embry’s eyes and decided I trusted them to come back to me.
“Just don’t leave the property,” Gabriel amended.
“And let us know where you are at all times.”
“Of course.” I rolled my eyes at their predictability before going to my room to get the Chronicles. I probably would have secretly explored the house, looking for clues on Helen, Jack and Beth, but I would never snoop when there was a possibility Embry could find me.
I brought the huge book to a garden swing deep in the yard and got comfy. I was half-hoping and half-terrified that Beth would use the Chronicles as a diary, but she only wrote about noteworthy adventures, remedies, potions, and some spells. So far there was absolutely no mention of Embry as more than her protector. Helen was the only child in evidence, from drawings and scribbles rather than actual mentions.
I was reading about a celebration Beth did with her friend Ingrid, when Charlie walked up to me. “I’m sorry, there isn’t usually anyone here when I take my afternoon stroll,” he apologized.
“I can go if you…”
“No, I was rejoicing at the company,” he corrected, taking a seat beside me on the swing.
“Company would be nice,” I agreed.
“Isn’t school out for the summer?” he asked, nodding to the Chronicles.
“Stories from my ancestors.” I closed the volume, not sure I wanted him to know about any spells or magic it might mention.
“Don’t stop on my account. I spent sixty years with a woman who always had a book in her hands,” he said fondly. “She died last spring, but there wasn’t a single idea that she shared with the world before sharing it with me first.” He must have noticed my reaction, wondering why he was such a controlling and restrictive husband, because he elaborated, “She wrote books, and I always got to read them first.”
“What kind of books?” I asked.
“Mostly on science, but she wanted them to be understood by the masses. People like me, not just the ones with PhDs. That’s not to say I’m not smart, but it’s a different kind of smart than she was.”
“You’re Mr. Haynes,” I realized, remembering when Embry told me about Laurel Haynes, whose husband was Gifted in the sense that he was the one who convinced her to publish her books. She would have written them no matter what, but shared them on a much smaller scale if he wasn’t around.
“No, Laurel kept her maiden name for the books, that way no one bothered us out here. It’s Mr. Finch, but friends call me Charlie.” His hand was callused from a lifetime working outdoors, but when I shook it, I was surprised to find it was still soft.
“Did my grandmother know her too?”
“Your grandfather introduced us,” he shared, smiling at my surprise.
“I never met him,” I admitted.
“Of course you didn’t. But I think you would have gotten along wonderfully.”
“All I know about him is that he liked vintage cars and died when my mom was in high school.”
“That’s a shame,” he looked genuinely hurt over it.
“Grams died when I was really young too,” I told him. I have memories of my Grams where she is kind and loving, but also a bit paranoid and removed from the outside world. Mr. and Mrs. Boyd would tell me she was different once, but the only example they had was that she used to have parties and visitors and go out all the time before my grandfather died. “You could tell me about them, if you’re not too busy some time.”
“I would love to,” he beamed. “I have a million stories. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“At the beginning?” I suggested.
“The beginning of her? Or of us?” he asked.
“When did you first meet her?”
“I can’t remember not knowing her,” he tried to think. “Her mom brought her here every summer, even after they moved to Boston. I met her before I could walk or talk or any of that.”
“Did you two ever…” There was something about the way he said it that made me wonder if they were more than just childhood friends.
“First love and first kiss,” he agreed. “I still get nervous around Embry sometimes.”
“He was overprotective?” I smiled.
“Very,” he agreed. “It was a weird dynamic if you didn’t know what was going on.”
“Probably weirder if you did,” I pointed out.
“Arguably, yes.”
“Who broke who’s heart?” I asked.
“It wasn’t like that,” he brushed it off. “She was amazing. This fierce girl from the North who didn’t let anyone tell her what to do. It was usually just the two of us, but anyone who met her fell for her. I was lucky enough to be her favorite person in Louisiana,” he said, which sounded exactly like what I was asking.
“When did you meet my grandfather?” I asked.
“The summer we turned sixteen, we drove to Nashville to see Johnny Cash at the Grand Ole Opry. I won’t lie and pretend I wasn’t hoping something would happen, but Grant came over to say hi to her, and the way she looked at him, I knew she would never be mine.”
“She broke your heart,” I concluded.
“She would have,” he agreed. “But by the time she admitted to liking him as much as I knew she did, Grant had spent quite a few weekends in New Orleans, most of them with his best friend, Laurel.”
“Were they like you and my Grams?” I asked.
“I am told it was like kissing her brother, so she was relieved when he told her about the girl he met at a concert, and she orchestrated most of their trips.”
“For him to see Grams, or so she could see you?” I called him on it.
“Her motives grew more selfish as the summer went on,” he smiled.
“Did Grams still spend every summer here after she got married?”
“Once she went to college, she had to go home to Boston in the summers, but we were all at Louisiana State together, so I still got to see her.”
“What did they study?” I asked. I had no idea what Grams did other than be rich and take care of me.
“Grant was in the science department with Laurel. Astrophysics and space stuff,” he shrugged like it was all Chinese to him. “And your Grams was the only lawyer I have ever trusted. She refused to take on clients who were guilty and deserved to pay for their crimes.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that,” I argued.
“Not technically, but she did.”
He went on to tell me about her entire process once she had her practice set up, where she would interview potential clients. “If the crime was one she found reprehensible and they were guilty, she sent them away. If it was a crime she might have committed if she were in their shoes, she would defend the innocent and the guilty alike.”
“A lawyer with a moral code,” I shook my head. It was hard to picture Grams as a powerful lawyer.
“And how many times did she get you out of something?” Eric came over, wearing dark blue jeans and a green plaid shirt with a cowboy hat, which would have made me laugh my head off, only it somehow worked for him.
“Only the things she got me into.”
“I’m sensing a story,” I smiled, hoping Charlie would share.
“Lots of them, but I believe my grandson came over for a reason.”
“I’m down for stories,” Eric assured his grandfather. “But if Lucy would like to accompany me, I was going to go riding.”
“We’ve got time to finish this later,” Charlie told me.
“Then I would love to go horseback riding with you. I’ll change and be right back,” I told Eric before heading inside to put the Chronicles away and change into a pair of pants.
When I got to the stables, Eric had a beautiful, butterscotch colored horse saddled and waiting for me.
“This is Donner,” he introduced him to me.
“And who is this?” I asked of the chestnut mare he had for himself.
“Rudolf,” he looked embarrassed. “We were very young when we chose their names, and it was December, so…”
“Reindeer,” I let him know I understood. “Do you guys get snow here?”
“No, we don’t. My oldest sister convinced us that horses were reindeer who lived in warmer climates.”
“I’m sensing a lot of these tricks.”
“My entire childhood,” he agreed. “But now they’re having kids and I’m their older and wiser uncle, so I’m making up for it.”
“I didn’t know you were the vengeful type,” I remarked.
“It’s not revenge so much as my duty,” he argued.
“You’re close?”
“Not like when we were all living together, but they come out here every summer, we get together at Christmas... I try to make it to all the birthday parties, but there are lots.”
“How many nieces and nephews do you have?”
“Eighteen and a half.”
“Missing body parts, or someone’s still pregnant?” I got him to laugh.
“Franny married a guy who already had a four-year-old daughter, so she calls herself my half. As far as I’m concerned, it’s nineteen, but the nickname makes her happy.”
“My niece likes to introduce me as her sister-aunt to kids at school.”
“But she’s really your niece?” he asked.
“I was orphaned when I was four and the couple that took me in had a son. We grew up together, so I feel like his daughter is my niece, but I also still live with them,” I tried to find a less tragic way to explain that every member of my family died, so I won’t ever have a sister or a niece, technically speaking. He also didn’t need to know that I’d lost Sam too. Maybe I was cursed.
“Sister-aunt,” he agreed with Clara’s title for me.
“I guess so,” I rolled my eyes.
He took us through a path in the wooded area, toward the swamplands.
“Not a fan?” he asked when I kept slapping myself to kill the bugs.
“It’s beautiful, but I’m being eaten alive.”
“Zombies or cannibals?” he asked.
“Mosquitoes. They’re not bothering you?”
“Guess your blood is sweeter,” he smiled. “This was my favorite place to play as a kid, until grandpa freaked out.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“The mosquitoes carry a deadly virus,” he teased. “I think people might drown in the swamps sometimes, or there’s alligators, but it had more to do with me bringing half the swamp back to the house with me.”
“That could be upsetting.”
“Now the horses play in the mud and I can outrun the bugs.”
“I doubt that,” I argued as he started slapping himself as well.
“Come on.” He brought me around the property, which was beautiful, but also very different from our land in Boston.
He told me more about his family and his childhood with Charlie while I shared stories about life with Sam and Deanna, as if this was just a summer trip and everything would be back to normal once I went home.
When we brought the horses back to the stables, he showed me how to take the saddle off and let me brush Donner.
“Out of all the reindeer, why Donner?” I asked as I brushed. “I get Rudolph, but Comet, Cupid, Blitzen, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen…”
“He came seventh,” he shrugged.
“You’re the youngest?” I guessed.
“They would never say unwanted, but my siblings were all born very close together, and I came as an afterthought.”
“Maybe they missed having a baby.”
“I’m Charlie’s favorite now, so that’s good enough for me.”
“You liked it here because you got to be an only child,” I understood.
“And there is nothing wrong with that,” he laughed at being caught.
“Nothing at all,” I assured him. I had wished for siblings, in the sense that I wished my parents had been around long enough to have more kids, but I was perfectly happy when I had Sam.
“Same time tomorrow?” Eric asked me.
“I have no idea what they have planned.
“Are you their prisoner?” he asked, mostly teasing, but I could tell he was curious.
“I thought you knew them?”
“Embry comes sometimes, but it’s more like I know his house really well.”
“I have yet to explore it.”
“Most of the fun stuff is behind locked doors.”
“It usually is,” I agreed.
“Not a prisoner?” he verified.
“It depends on your definition.” I considered it, but he looked concerned, so I backtracked, “They’re looking out for me. I’m ninety-nine percent sure they’re the good guys.”
“Well, with that glowing recommendation…” he laughed, and I did too, until we ran into Gabriel. Literally, because it was getting dark and he was standing in the shadows, dressed in black.
“Where were you?” he asked, not exactly reproachful, but concerned.
“We went riding.”
“We told you not to leave the property.” The vein in his forehead was pulsing again.
“We didn’t. I know the limits and we went nowhere near them,” Eric assured him.
“Thank you.” It sounded difficult for Gabriel to get out.
“I’ll maybe see you tomorrow?” Eric asked me with a smile.
“Maybe,” I agreed, smiling back. Eric went to Charlie’s and I headed to the villa, leaving Gabriel outside to do god-knows-what in the shadows.