Chapter 21

 

 

Grace halted on the other side of the doorway to look back. Empty woods surrounded her where Jamie once stood. The foliage was different. He was on the other side, far away on the other side of eternity.

She turned away and headed down the hill. Her legs weighed a ton so she could barely lift them. Why did she have to fall in love with a man who did this? Why couldn’t he accept her staying with him?

She hated to think of him facing those giants alone. He must realize he couldn’t survive another attack, especially without someone helping him. Why did he have to be so stubborn?

The birds squawked in the Aviary when she passed. They grated on her nerves like never before. Every sound set her on edge. She didn’t want to be here. This world repelled her somehow. She didn’t belong here anymore.

What happened? Last night happened. This might have been coming for a long time, but last night capped it. It had begun long before now. She’d started moving away from Mike in her heart a long time ago, so long ago she couldn’t even remember the exact moment it happened.

Either way, a guy like Mike could never hold a candle to Jamie. He occupied so much space in her life she couldn’t think of any other man. She’d never really loved until now. She’d never understood what love was. She’d never considered letting someone into her heart like this.

Now she’d lost him, just like that. She wanted to sit down against the Aviary wall and cry her eyes out, but she refused to let herself fall apart. She pushed down the hill and past the Rose Garden.

The traffic noise on the streets clanged against her ear. How could anyone live in a world like this? How did she ever stand it all these years? She longed for the peace and tranquility of the village, even if she had to fight to the death to get it.

She cringed when cars whizzed past at the crosswalk. She had to get out of here. She had to get somewhere quiet where she could think. She picked up the pace and turned her steps toward home.

She found the front door open. When she walked in, Nora hopped off the couch where she sat eating a bowl of ice cream and playing on her phone. “Oh! I wasn’t expecting you back. Where have you been? I hope you don’t mind me…”

Grace waved her hand. “Sit down. You don’t have to get up when I enter a room. Consider this your place as much as mine.”

Nora looked both ways. “Uh, okay.”

Grace sat down in the chair opposite. The house definitely looked lived in—a lot more lived in than it ever looked when Grace lived here with Mike. Nora brought some sense of life to the place.

Grace could understand now why Carmen gave Lucy her house. Carmen wouldn’t need it anymore. Carmen had never really lived in it herself. She’d always worked or went out in her free time. The house was nothing but a stopping place on the way to somewhere else. Anybody could see no one loved it or made it their own.

Nora fidgeted. She didn’t know what to do with herself, now that Grace showed up. Grace got the impression she should leave. “How are you doing, Nora?” she asked. “Have the police made any progress on figuring out what caused that fire?”

“They figured out it wasn’t electrical and it wasn’t started by a gas leak or arson,” Nora replied. “They say it started in Ivy’s bedroom, but that makes no sense. They think it started from some incense or candles or something, but she wasn’t there. They already determined no one was in the house, and now Alexis turned up missing, too.”

Grace’s head shot up. “Alexis! What about her?”

“She wasn’t in the house, either. No one was.”

“What do you know about Alexis?” Grace did her best not to shriek at the poor girl.

“She’s Ivy’s roommate,” Nora replied. “I thought you knew that.”

Grace’s hand flew to her forehead. “How could I know that? Tell me everything.”

“I just did,” Nora replied. “Alexis is Ivy’s roommate—or she used to be.”

Grace jumped to her feet and paced around the room. “This is incredible!”

“What’s so incredible about it?” Nora asked. “It doesn’t mean anything, except that they both disappeared at the same time. The police are trying to find out if they had some kind of lesbian relationship and ran off together. They want to know if they burned down the house to stop anybody finding out about it. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

Grace came to a halt in front of the girl. “Do you know anything about Ivy’s aunt Lucy?”

Nora frowned. “She might have mentioned her aunt a few times.”

“Can you remember what she said?”

“Only that she had an aunt named Lucy,” Nora replied. “She always loved her aunt Lucy.”

Grace threw up her hands. “This is amazing. They must have done it together.”

“Did what together?”

“Never mind.” Grace raced around the room. Her mind ran a mile a minute. “I’m not sticking around Nora. You can stay here. You can stay here forever if you want to. I might be gone a long time. Don’t feel in any rush to find another place to live.”

Nora got up off the couch. “Where are you going? Do you need me to do anything?”

“Stay where you are,” Grace called from the kitchen. “I’m going out. You’re already doing everything you can for me by staying here. Just keep the place going while I’m gone. You don’t have to worry about the power or the property tax. All that comes out of our bank account on automatic payment, and we don’t owe anything on the place. You should be fine for a good long while.”

Nora’s eyebrows flew up. “Are you sure about this?”

Grace laughed. “I’m very sure. Just stay here. It puts my mind at ease to know someone’s taking care of the house while I’m gone.”

“I don’t know about this,” Nora replied. “I don’t feel right just moving into somebody’s house. It doesn’t seem right.”

Grace squeezed her arm. “It’s okay. Don’t think about it too much. Just enjoy yourself.”

Grace raced down the hall to Mike’s office. She pawed through his desk drawers in search of something. She pulled out an envelope and checked inside it. Then she rummaged in the closet and pulled out two big heavy canvas duffel bags.

“What are you doing?” Nora asked from the doorway. “Where are you going?”

“There’s something I have to do. First, I’m going to see Lucy. Then…. well, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t stay here, though. I can’t sit on my hands and do nothing.”

She ran past Nora to the kitchen. She snatched up her handbag. She hadn’t touched it since this whole thing got started. “See ya later. Don’t eat too much ice cream.”

She burst into the garage and fired up the car while the garage door scrolled up. Grace screeched into the street and motored straight for Carmen’s house. She pounded on the door, but no one answered.

She threw the car into reverse and drove through the town in search of…. something. Where could she go? What could she do? She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t let Jamie fight those giants alone, no matter what he said.

She burned down the street going way too fast until she spied a crystal shop downtown. She screeched into the nearest parking space and slammed the car door. She found Angelo standing at the counter. “You have to help me Angelo,” she blurted out.

“Sure thing,” he replied. “What do you need?”

“I need you to help me find someone—someone on the other side.”

His eyes widened. “Over there, you mean?”

“There are two of them—two that I know of so far,” Grace told him. “They were roommates, and they disappeared at the same time. One of them knew the spell—at least, she heard about the spell in childhood. Either she remembered it all this time and tried it out with her roommate, or she worked the spell accidentally and transported both of them over there. Something must have gone wrong, because the house they were in burned down at the same time.”

Angelo frowned. “That’s weird. The spell makes a bright light, but I never heard of it causing any fire.”

“Either way, one of them is over there. I saw her there, but then she disappeared. I need you to help me find her.”

“I can find her. Getting her back is another thing.”

“I don’t want to get her back,” Grace replied. “I want her to do something for me over there.”

“What is it?”

Grace fought down her mounting agitation. She had to keep calm, just a little longer. She had to make him understand so he would help her. “The curse—do you know about the curse? I thought so. Whenever anybody goes over there, it creates these curses. Hazel caused one when she sent us through, and now these women have created another one. It’s causing problems over there. Jamie is over there right now. He’s fighting incredible odds alone, and he can’t win. We need to find Alexis.”

“Is she the one that worked the spell in the first place?” Angelo asked.

“As far as I can tell, it was Ivy, her roommate.”

“Then it won’t work to find the other one,” Angelo replied. “We have to find the one that worked the spell.”

Grace shook her head. “Ivy is under the ocean somewhere. That’s what Fergus says, and I know for a fact Alexis is there. I’ve seen her and the…well, the curse is concentrating on her.”

“If you know where she is, what do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I know she’s nearby, but I don’t know where she is. I need to find her so she can deal with the forces of the curse. I know she has the power to do it. I just have to find her.”

Angelo sighed. “All right. What will you do once you find her?”

“I’ll take her where the fight is, I guess. I suppose I could bring her back here, and you could send us to the fight, but she should have the power to transport us there herself. Or maybe I could bring her and Ivy back here. That would lift the curse, and that would solve the problem.”

“You can’t,” he told her. “If I send you to where Alexis is, you won’t be able to get back.”

“Why not?” she asked. “I’ve been going back and forth all this time.”

“You won’t be able to now. You won’t be able to go back and forth anymore. Is that what you want?”

Grace stared at him. Is that what she wanted? Did she really want to go back over there and stay there? She wouldn’t be where Jamie was, either. She’d be stuck somewhere with Alexis. She really couldn’t be certain Alexis would be willing or able to transport the both of them anywhere. She could wind up trapped somewhere with no way out.

She took a deep breath. “I don’t care. Just send me over there. I’ll deal with everything else.”

Angelo bent down and fiddled with something under the counter. He brought out a wrapped parcel of tanned leather and spread it on the counter Inside, he took out a large crystal of amethyst and a branch from an olive tree with three dried leaves still attached.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “This isn’t the same spell Hazel used.”

“Everybody does it differently. That may be why the girl did it without realizing. That happens sometimes, especially when someone is Faery and doesn’t know it. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. It doesn’t happen as often now as it used to, ever since the Faery have taken steps to stop people getting taken.”

“Taken? Taken where?” Grace asked.

“It used to be a big problem back in the day,” he replied. “Faery children used to get switched with human children all the time. Quite a lot of Faery children were raised in the human world. It doesn’t happen so often now. The Faery live farther away from the human world now, and the Faery King—the current one—he makes it his business to bring them back whenever he can. Faery living in the human world who don’t know who and what they really are—it causes a lot of problems, as you can imagine. They go around casting spells and making weather storms without realizing it. It happens all the time.”

“Okay. Let’s get this show on the road. Can you find Alexis from here?”

“I don’t have to find her. I’ll cast a spell that will send you to her. No stopping on the way. Do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars. You ready?”

“Just like that?” Grace asked. “You don’t have to do anything to get ready?”

“I am ready,” he replied. “Are you?”

She squared her shoulders at him. “Yeah. I’m ready.”