Timeless (6 page)

"Yes. The
Lochlanach
and Rivenfell Clans." Alexandria turned another page. "I think this is another clue." Drawn on the page was a picture of a snow dome with a miniature carousel inside.

"Lotta help that is," Andrew said, turning the book around to examine the beautifully drawn snow globe on the page.

"Not a lot of help at all, unless you know the meaning of the snow globe," she agreed, reaching into the bottom drawer again. She held out her hand to reveal a snow globe with a miniature carousel inside. "Ta-da! It was a birthday gift from my parents."

Andrew picked it up and examined it, squinting to make out the details of the tiny carousel inside, and smiled. "It's a beauty, but I still don't see how it could be of much help." He handed it back to Alexandria.

"I don't either, but perhaps Nina does, or even Kat's mother,
Aradia
. She was my mother's sister, after all."

"And you have no memory of Kat's family at all?"

"Nope. Nothing."

"You have to remember that this is the same sister who never took you in when your parents were murdered, and sent you away to live with strangers. Why would she help you now?"

"Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she had a good reason. Maybe it was for my own protection, or Kat's, I don't know. But what I do know is that Kat has her book."

"Then we should get Kat over here straight away."

The clock on the wall chimed three times.

"Is that the time? I should get going into town before the shops shut." Alexandria closed the book, wrapped it in the velvet cloth, and put it back in the drawer, setting the snow globe on top. She picked up the key from the desk, closed the drawer, and locked it, hanging the chain back around her neck.

"Listen, don't talk to anyone about any of this just yet, okay? Nobody. Not even Kat. I still have a few loose ends that I want to check out."

Andrew shook his head and made a lock-and-key gesture with his fingers on his lips, then tossed the imaginary key over his shoulder. "It's in the vault," he said, "and listen, you don't have to make a special trip into town just for me, you know. I can wait."

Alexandria shook her head. "I need a few things too. I have a paying customer to look after now, remember."

He grunted. "At least you don't have to feed her."

"Very true. Maybe vampires are the perfect house guests."

Andrew grunted again, crossed his arms across his chest, and leaned back in his chair. "You might not think that if you wake up in the middle of the night with one sucking on your throat."

Chapter 5 – Scones & Cream.

The ride into town was just what Alexandria needed to digest the events of the day, but mostly it gave her the time she needed to grieve her broken heart in privacy. She turned the stereo up loud and sang along to every sad song, tears streaming down her face.

When she reached the outskirts of the town centre, she pulled over, dried her tears for the second time that day, and reapplied a fresh coat of makeup to hide any tell-tale signs that she had been crying.

Alexandria drove down
Main Street, past Circular Park, which also marked the dead centre of Ferntree Falls. From a bird’s eye view, it also resembled a giant compass. People still estimated distance from one place to another by using Circular Park as a measuring stick. She found a parking space outside a store named '
Raven's Wing – The Witch's Cauldron'. The store advertised tarot card readings, homemade soy candles, herbs, crystals and books on witchcraft in its window. Gathering up her bag, she slid out of the car and walked across the all but deserted street to Ferntree Supermarket. She couldn't help but notice that the secondhand bookstore next door looked busier than the supermarket. She understood the preference, and stood poised between the two stores. Finally, an old book in the window caught her eye. She leaned in to study it, and on closer inspection, she realized that it was an old copy of
The Three Musketeers
by Alexandre Dumas and, according to the little sign displayed beneath it, the book had been published in 1846 and was a first edition. She smiled, remembering her father reading from one just like it when she had been a child.

The bell on the supermarket door clanged noisily as the new sheriff of Ferntree Falls walked out carrying a loaf of bread. Alexandria stood bolt upright. She would come back to the bookshop another day, she told herself.

The sheriff looked at her quizzically for a moment, then said, "Are you the girl from the accident the other day?"

She nodded. "Yes, sheriff. I hope your wife and little girl are okay."

He held out his hand. "I never really got to say thank you, or ask you your name."

Alexandria shook his hand. "Alexandria," she said, pleasantly.

"Sheriff Winterflood," he said. "My wife, Kerry, and our little girl, Mallory, are doing just fine, thank you."

She nodded. "I'm glad to hear that."

"Have you settled in okay? Your friend that gave us the lift, Kat, tells me you're living up at the old Witchwood Estate house."

"Yes, that's right."

"Well, if you have any problem with thieves, let me know. Some of my clothes have been going missing off the clothesline in the last couple of days. Probably just a vagrant, but you never know."

"I will, thank you, sheriff."

He nodded his head. "Well, I should let you go," he said. "You going in there?" He gestured to the supermarket door with his head.

"Actually, I am. I got distracted by the bookstore. I'm always a complete sucker when it comes to bookstores, especially ones that stocks secondhand books, as well."

"A girl after my own heart," he said, holding open the supermarket door for her.

"Thank you," she said, ducking past him.

"Alexandria," he called after her.

She spun around. "Yes."

"I don't suppose you would consider babysitting sometime?"

She thought about the possibility of the extra income. "Truthfully, I never have, but I would be more than happy to."

"Great." He dug down into his trousers and pulled out a slip of paper to write down her phone number on. "Fire away," he said, resting the piece of paper on his loaf of bread, a pen poised in his hand.

"I'm sorry. I don't have the phone on at the house yet, and there's no cell phone service out that far, but it's due on this week sometime, so if you give me your number, I could call you as soon as it's connected."

"Just as good," he said, scribbling down his number for her. "Here you go." He handed her the piece of paper. "I'll wait for your call." He tipped his head in farewell, and was gone, whistling as he walked down the street, his loaf of bread swinging in his hand.

Once inside, Alexandria whizzed through the items on her shopping list and was finished in twenty minutes. After loading the shopping into the back seat of her car, she made her way to the newsagent to buy a receipt book. She only got as far as the front window. A small snow globe, almost identical to her own, sat on a small pedestal with a label that said, 'created by Raven – Ferntree local.' She went quickly inside and walked up to the counter. The store looked deserted, so she tapped the small brass bell on the counter, once, then twice, her finger poised for a third.

"Hold your horses," came a man's voice from the rear of the store. "Kettle's just boiled, and I tend to get cranky when I don't have my tea. Would you like a cup? The Missus makes a fine scone with vanilla frosting. Mind you, I blame her, and the scones, for the extra inches on my expanding waistline."

"Um… Thank you, but no. I'd just like to know more about the snow globe in the window," she called back.

"Enough with the shouting, princess, I'm half blind, not half deaf, and the mind is as sharp as a tack."

A trill of a woman's chuckle.

The old man paid it no attention as he waddled up to the counter, his baggy pants not concealing his bowed legs. Setting his cup and saucer down on the glass counter, he studied her over the rim of his spectacles, then pulled his trousers up. He took a long sip of his tea, instantly fogging up his spectacles. Without complaint, he plucked them off the end of his nose, and cleaned the lens with the corner of his plaid shirt. "Are you sure you wouldn't like a tea? It's no trouble. As I said, kettle's just boiled."

"No, but thank you. Maybe next time, when I'm not in so much of a hurry."

"Next time," he agreed, combing fine wisps of hair down on his head with his fingers. "So, the snow globe, it's locally made by one of our own, you know. It's a replica of the carousel in Circular Park."

The carousel in Circular Park, yes of course it is
, she realized suddenly, and wondered why she hadn't thought of that. "Yes," she said, turning slightly to glance at it over her shoulder. "The thing is, I have one almost just like it, and I'd really like to know how I can contact Raven."

"You're new to town," he said, making an odd little wheezing sound as he returned the spectacles to the tip of his nose. "Everyone knows how to find Raven. Her family has lived in these parts for years."

She nodded. "Yes, I'm new." The lie was easier than going into detail about who she really was, and how she had been born in Ferntree Falls.

"The name's Billy Bob. I own this place," he said holding out his hand. "Have we met before? You look strangely familiar."

"I don't think so," she replied, giving his hand a warm shake. "I'm Alexandria."

The old man's eyebrows arched above his spectacles, as though pulled by a puppeteer's string, creasing his brow even further. "Well, I'll be. You're Felicity and Alexander's kid." He shook his head and chuckled. "I heard you came back to Ferntree Falls, just didn't believe it. Good for you. Good for you." He dragged out an old wooden stool from behind the counter and placed it down next to her. "Now I insist you have a cuppa with me, princess. Sit," he said in a manner that did not allow any wriggle room for her objections. "Violet," he called to his wife. "Get your fat ass out here. We have a visitor."

An old woman with gray hair pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck popped her head out comically from behind the door at the far end of the store like a wise little owl. "Sweet Jesus," she exclaimed from the doorway, as though she had just seen a ghost. Rubbing her hands on her red and white checkered apron, she almost flew to Alexandria's side. She was a little woman, no more than four feet tall, and although her husband had insinuated that her posterior was on the large side, the little woman was actually as thin as a reed. Her eyes sparkled with an equal measure of both enthusiasm and surprise as she stared up at Alexandria. "Sweet Jesus," she said once again, her finger reaching up to tap Alexandria on the tip of her nose. "Quite real, too, I see. Not a ghost at all."

The old man nodded beside his wife, his hands on his hips.

"My dear child, did you know that you are the spitting image of your grandmother, Savannah, at the same age? Your grandmother was a timeless beauty, too."

Billy Bob snatched his spectacles off his nose again, briskly polishing them on his shirt before depositing them back on his nose. He studied Alexandria even more closely. "Ahh, yes," Billy Bob exclaimed, seeing the impossible resemblance. "I see it now. I knew I had seen you before." He looked at his wife. "How many years has it been, you know?"

Violet thought for a moment. "1991. If memory serves me well, Felicity was just a wee lass of twenty-one when her mother died. Savannah, your grandmother, was a dear friend of mine, and I still miss her dearly."

"The two of you fought like cats and dogs, old woman," Billy Bob said, rubbing his chin keenly with his knobby fingers, and thinking about his wife and Savannah arguing over whose cooking was better.

Violet gave her husband a sharp slap on the arm, startling him, pulling him from his reverie. "Woman," he snapped, "keep those vicious little hands to yourself."

"Then stop filling the girl's head with lies. We did not fight. We merely engaged in passionate discussions, is all."

"Savannah's home-baked bread was always so much nicer than—"

Violet slapped him again. "Shush, old man, or I'll make you bake your own bread, see how much you like that. Make yourself useful, and go make Alexandria a cup of lavender tea."