Rivulet (9 page)

“Fate brought you home,” she said as her eyes raced across mine. “You couldn’t know this, and I hated that I could not tell you for so many years, but your birth mother did say something before she died, just before your adopted mother brought you back to life.”

“Back to life? I know I would have died if Mom didn’t show up when she did, that I may have even been meant to die. What do you mean ‘back to life’?”

“You weren’t breathing,” Gran said as her eyes glistened with tears. “Your mother had to cut the cord, clear your passageway and rub warmth into you. Precious seconds, maybe even minutes passed, but you finally cried.”

“What did my birth mom say?” I asked, trying not to cry, knowing it would cause her tears to flow. She never really got over losing my parents in that boating accident. I think a part of her died that day, too.

“She said that you were one of seven, that you’re hidden by a veil.” She smiled widely. “I knew then that you were home. You had found your way home.”

I furrowed my brow at her, wondering how healed she actually was. She wasn’t making sense and I had to wonder if maybe the stroke had damaged her beyond the grasp of any overnight miracle.

“I have real, live brothers or sisters? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No,” Gran said as she caught a tear that was trying to escape her eyes.

“Then what am I one of seven of?”

Her wise eyes rapidly moved across my fearful expression. “When your birth mother said that, she was gazing at the constellation of Taurus, to the Pleiades.”

“Stars. I’m…I’m lost here, Gran.”

“I know you are, but you will find your way. I believe you are one of seven very special people that will move this universe, that will bring more change than your parents could have by adopting lost souls.”

“Gran, maybe you need to lay down. Maybe you shouldn’t be moving around this much, this soon.”

She looked down and smiled tenderly. “I’m well. I’m at peace. I finally told you what that stroke would not allow me to. Genevieve, this is your home. Defend it, hold on to the fire in your chest, and trust that it will save you from this grief, trust that you are a part of an army that will rise to bring balance in this dark world.”

My eyes grew wide as she said ‘dark world.’ It was a casual statement, but it reminded me of the conversation I’d so recently heard in the North Wing.

My head started to spin. I really did feel like I was in a dream.

A knock at the door halted me from telling her that I was in love with the boy lost in my past, of asking her how she knew that before she ever led me there so long ago.

Chapter Five

Standing on the threshold was a man I’d never seen before. He was younger and looked a lot like the images I’d seen of my grandfather, the one and only love Gran ever had.

“I have to go now,” Gran said as she squeezed my arm once more.

“Where are you going? The weather is horrible, you need your rest.”

“There are a lot of things I want to see once again, a fresh snow is one of them.”

“Who is that?” I whispered, nodding to the door.

“A welcome sight.” She cupped her hand on my cheek. “I’ll see you soon, dear, but make sure it’s not too soon. Stay safe.” She kissed my cheek, then walked past me at a speed that I’d never seen her use.

I told myself to turn around, to follow her, at least to go along with her, but I couldn’t move. Her touch had ignited visions all around me, visions of my mother telling Gran about how she found me in the snow, visions of her and my mother mulling over endless legends that surrounded those stars my birth mother pointed out. They even had mythologists from all over the world flown here to teach them about the beliefs and lore, always finding conflicting information. One man told my parents very bluntly that I was the only one that would ever know what my birth mother meant, that I would feel it in my soul.

All I felt in my soul was coldness, the cold that I was born into, the cold that was my curse. With that thought, the room I was standing in felt empty, vacant, lifeless.

Finally, I snapped out of the spell I was under and turned, but Gran was long gone. I rushed to the hallway, looking in both directions, not seeing her or her companion anywhere in sight.

I went back to my room to find my phone so I could call Ben. I was mad that he didn’t tell me Gran was better, that supposedly I’d won the case against Mrs. Rasure, that my inheritance was free and clear mine—that I could kick Rasure out.

It took me three tries to get the call out because the phone kept freezing in my hand. Skylynn better pop in soon. I couldn’t control this much longer. All I got was Ben’s voicemail, and it said for personal reasons he was taking time off and directed his calls to his partner. My message was short and sweet. “Um, personal? What’s more personal than family? I’m a bit ticked at you. Why didn’t you tell me Gran was okay? Where are we with the case?” The call ended then because the phone had turned into a block of ice. I grunted in frustration. I never realized how dependent I was on that scarf, how much it shielded this curse.

Cadence walked in our room at that moment, holding a steaming cup of coffee. “Looks like you need this more than I do.”

“Thanks for noticing,” I muttered, balling my fist. “Did you know Gran was all better?” I asked, looking up at her.

She looked at me like I was insane. “Did you hit your head when you climbed the walls last night?”

“Looks like you did. What did you do to your head?” I asked, noticing the gash on the side of her forehead. It caused a panic to rush through me, and the room turned to ice for an instant; that was the same place I saw her bleeding from in my dream.

“I slid on the ice, hit it on the side of the car door when I was getting out.”

“Looks like you need stitches,” I said with wide eyes as I moved closer to her.

“No, it’s not deep. I have that invisible Band-Aid stuff on it, but you’re starting to make me self-conscious,” she said, taking down her ponytail.

I frowned as I noticed how easily the wound was covered when she did that.

“What about Gran? Are you serious?”

“Serious. I just saw her. She’s never looked better. The nurses are even gone.”

“You’re joking,” she said as she turned to go and see for herself.

“She left, went out with an old friend,” I said to stop her.

“Indie,” she said before she turned to look at me. “You’re seriously freaking me out.”

“Fine, go look for yourself,” I said as I sucked in a deep breath and stood to go to my darkroom.

“Hiding in the dungeon again? Maybe you should head to the North Wing. You’re always in a better mood when you leave there.”

I was so not going there with her.

“Gran told me to develop the film.”

“
The
film.”

“Yup.”

“Are you going to?”

I smirked. “It felt so good to hear her voice again. This was basically her only wish. Who am I to deny it?”

“Do you want me to call the bar and tell them we can’t come in, that is, if they opened today? This storm is wicked.”

“No, I want to get out. This won’t take long.”

“Give me a second to check on Gran. I’ll be your hands.”

I was close to telling her no, that I’d call Mason over to help, but I didn’t feel like fighting with her about it.

I’d been staring at this camera for almost fifteen minutes before Cadence showed up. I’d already had everything else ready to go. I just needed her hands.

“Told you so,” I said absentmindedly as she came to my side.

“You don’t think this is weird?” she asked with eyes wide.

“Developing my dead mother’s film? Yes, that is weird.”

“Not that. Ben told me yesterday that he was going to start to make the calls, tell everyone to say their goodbyes, and today she is out of her bed, out on a date or something?”

“What is it with Ben lately? He didn’t tell me that either,” I seethed.

“Either? What else did he not tell you?”

“That I’d won against Rasure.”

“You won?” Cadence said with absolute disbelief.

“I’ll believe it when I hear it myself. That is what Gran said.” I peered to the side at her. “She also told me to get that woman out of our house.”

“I bet she did. Gavin told me last night that the doctor that oversaw Gran after her stroke was put in jail last week, for malpractice.”

“How did he know that?”

“Read it online. I guess you were right to have Ben fire him. Gavin thought you’d seen it online or something and that was why you were all frazzled. Apparently, that doctor was paid more than a few times to end a life and make it look natural.”

“The doctor Rasure insisted should look over Gran? Are you telling me she paid someone to kill Gran?” I fumed as the room around us turned to ice.

“I’d tell you to chill out, but that statement is apparently overrated. It doesn’t matter anyway. Gran survived her, and we will, too.”

With a soothing sigh, I managed to make the ice vanish once again.

“There are more facets to that woman than just a gold-digger. I can feel it.”

“She’ll get hers. One way or another.”

I nodded for her to go to the camera. Slowly, step-by-step I told her what to do, what chemicals to pour, and what temperature the water needed to be, and she carefully listened to every direction I gave. Before long, we were watching images come to life before us.

“Nothing…” Cadence said with a sigh as we stared at the dripping film.

“Just wait,” I said as the first one began to come to life. At first I thought it was me, but that was impossible. The figure looked like I did today, a young blonde with a scarf tied around her head. I assumed it was her, my birth mother.

“Whoa,” Cadence whispered. “You could be twins.”

I understood her awe. She had no idea what her birth mom looked like. She was raised by a reckless aunt that authorities had to rescue her from at age seven, then she bounced around in the system until she was thirteen, when our parents found her. Cadence never got her closure. I don’t really think she wanted it in the first place. She had a lot of buried hate for her birth family that no one would blame her for not facing.

The next three images were whitewashed, only shadows across them.

The fourth image made my skin boil and the room freeze again. Cadence gripped my arm, telling me to get a grip. She didn’t want me to damage the last stages of development.

The image showed Rasure, standing with all of her dominance. It was an image of an image, meaning someone took a picture of an old newspaper, a newspaper that was dated May 12, 1901. She was standing with a man that had obvious wealth, about to board a ship.

“That has to be an ancestor or something, right?” Cadence said with a gasp.

“Then they must all look alike,” I teemed as the next image came to life. It was of a painting dated with the year 1810. Rasure was there again, with another man, shrouded with wealth.

“I don’t know what I’m more freaked out about, the fact that Rasure looks just like her ancestors or the fact that your birth mom knew that.”

A beat later, I came to my senses, went to my desk, and wrote down everything I could about those images, those articles that were photographed. I knew Gavin could uncover what they meant, the story behind them. Research was his passion. I didn’t want to wait for the film to finish developing before he started.

At a second glance, I noticed the shadows on the three blank images, when pinned across the strings side by side, looked like a key; a really old key.

I turned back for the camera and started to feel around in the place behind where the film had rested for countless years. I did feel something, but my insane emotions were causing the camera to freeze. In frustration, I grunted and handed it to Cadence.

“There’s a key in there. It’s taped down or something.”

Questioning my sanity, and still unraveled by what we’d seen, she took the camera and gently dug around. She pulled a piece of tape out, then a skeleton key.

“The mystery deepens,” she mumbled, looking closely at it. “It says ‘Falcon M’ on it.”

“‘Falcon M?’” I repeated as I took it from her. How or why would my birth mother have this?

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think your mom had every intention of having the Falcons raise you. The question is, was she for or against Rasure, and how did she know Rasure would surface years later?”

I let out a sigh, almost wishing I hadn’t listened to Gran and opened this Pandora’s Box. “It doesn’t matter either way. I’m a Falcon. And I’m against Rasure. When Gran gets back, I’ll ask her if she knows what this key might unlock.”

I stuffed the paper with the info on it along with the key in my back pocket, glanced at my image that was hanging before me, then walked up the stairs with Cadence trailing behind.

My favorite eternity scarf was on the edge of my bed. I almost didn’t put it on. I kept seeing that dream, me wrapping it around Mason so I could pull him out of the water. I put it on anyway so I would at least look like I was acknowledging the frigid weather.