Secrets of the Guardian (Waldgrave Book 3) (17 page)

“Well, that’s nice that someone’s been keeping you informed. Might help you down the line. I never really knew her in person. She left when I was very young, because she couldn’t take the pressure. Just up and left…I think it was all the politics. After her husband was taken away, she couldn’t stand to be around all of us, slaughtering each other over politics, making up reasons to fight and be prejudiced. She retired somewhere in Greece, I think. Old family land. An island like this one, I think. Huh. That was the reason he wanted Jack in the first place—so much death. He thought Jack was a strong enough leader to bring everyone to the table and hold the line, and I guess it’s true he did it.

“But then, I’m going off the path again. The echoes. Yes. My father was a staunch believer in the old religions and all of their implications, even though he only saw the portal once when he was a child before coming to America. He believed that none of us ever really leave because we don’t belong here to begin with—that our souls were trapped here on Earth, forever returning in new bodies, until we went back where we came from through the portal. Our trapped souls would forever affect the people they returned to. Angst, secrets, and depression can do that do a soul, he said. Personally, I think it could be a simple matter of psychology. I watched a show on the television one day, talking about how these situations run in families—women who have mothers that walk out on their families do it themselves and whatnot. Of course, as Silenti, we’re a little different—we do live in the echoes more so than any human. Here you are, the ghost of my past, about to make a very big decision regarding the future of yourself and that baby in the next room, just like the rest of us had to. God knows the rest of us screwed up—my grandmother ran away from her responsibilities, as did my mother, as did I—I hope you can do a little better, whether that’s taking Brandon or not.”

Lena felt goose bumps forming on her arms. It was true that she had been living in the echoes since coming to Waldgrave. The legacy that Jack and Olesia had left had played itself out again between Griffin and Lena until he had broken it by walking out at the start of the summer. He had been a house hand at first, until Daray claimed him as heir; he was the leader Lena could not be. The only person who could have prevented the bloody revolt, as Jack had the first time around, and he had broken his destiny by walking out. It explained the way Lena had felt toward him since his departure—like he was supposed to be there, just taking care of things. Like even though she wasn’t fond of the fact of everything that he had done to get where he was, she was somehow thankful that he was keeping everyone safe. Since his leaving, she had been on her own without the guidance of the past, and the world had descended into chaos.

Ava had lived in Olesia’s echo by choosing to abandon an unhappy life and marriage, leaving her daughter behind.

And Lena had probably created new ones that future generations—like Brandon—would live with. It was the reason Brandon was destined to be an orphan, never knowing his true identity. Someday, people were going to find out, she was sure, and then Olesia would have to flee with him, traveling so far and fast that people would never catch up with them, because she didn’t want this life Lena was living to become his reality.

And someday, inevitably, it would.

Unless Lena refused to live these echoes. She knew her intuition was telling her not to take Brandon with her. And now she knew that her intuition was nothing but a phantom of the past, and it was wrong. She had to take Brandon with her to break the spell; she had to fix this. She wasn’t going to walk away from the child that needed her.

“It’s not as easy as you think.” Olesia said, resting a hand briefly on Lena’s knee. “The answers are never what you’d think they’d be, or I’d have figured it out years ago. Maybe it’s right for you to take him, maybe it’s not. Do what you think is right and I won’t judge you. You can’t see the future, after all.”

Olesia got up off the couch and headed towards the stairs; her final words made Lena sigh and laugh as she shook her head.

Olesia looked over her shoulder, winking. “What?”

Still shaking her head, Lena looked up. “I always thought Pyrallis was good at telling lies…I thought he was the best. But you…no one even
 
knows
, and you read all the books, and you 
understand
 this stuff. You disappeared, and no one will ever know how. It’s like you know everything.”

Olesia looked down at her cigarette and smiled. “You can think what you want, Lena, but I’m no magician. I made a deal with the devil, and no one controls the magic. You’ve got to learn to live with that.”

She turned and left, leaving Lena alone in the living room with the dying vespers of her nicotine addiction. She eventually found her way up to her assigned bedroom. She set up her laptop and wasn’t surprised that there was no internet connection; they really had fallen off the face of the planet. Things were weird here; everything fit. There weren’t mysteries or games or contests—everything just was as it was, good and bad, naked and pure as the first sin.

In Lena’s mind, this was the way things were supposed to be. Except for the fact that the Silenti felt the absence when they were isolated from others of their kind, Tom had lived a blessed, simple life. The irony that Silenti could not live alone, and yet could not live together, made Lena wonder how much longer they could possibly survive on Earth. Perhaps it was true that they had come from some other place, where they weren’t constantly driven to be at each other’s throats.

She opened her window to the sound of distant waves and wind rustling in through the sleeping flowers, put on her nightclothes, and got back into bed, pulling the comforter over her legs. Her cell phone suddenly beeped at her, and she picked it up off the nightstand. At some point, either Warren or Kelsey Astley had tried to call her and had been bumped directly to voicemail due to the lack of signal; she couldn’t even call out now, and made a mental note to get in contact with Kelsey as soon as her phone and internet allowed it. If she had bothered to call, it must have been serious.

The door creaked and Lena looked up. Devin was standing just outside her room, dressed in his usual evening attire of sweatpants and a raggedy old T-shirt. “I’m sorry…are you going to bed now?”

“No.” Lena said quietly. “Come on in. What’s up?”

Devin sidled into the room and shut the door behind him. Lena moved her laptop off onto the nightstand so that Devin could sit facing her on the bed.

“It’s really nice here.” He began. Lena tried to remain impassive, but she already knew where he was going. “It’s really nice here, and I don’t think we should leave.”

She had never seen him so serious in his life. For a second, she found herself flashing back to the short, giddy, smiling youth she had once met years before as he was doing dishes. He had asked her if she came there often—now here he sat, taller, thinner, one kidney short, and still baring that charismatic smile when he chose to share it with the world. He was choosing to share it less and less since getting shot, she reminded herself. He had been shot because of her—because he had met her, and she’d had to drag him into all of this.

“We have to go, Dev. We have a responsibility to fix things.” She said softly.

Devin’s response wasn’t quite a yell; he was obviously trying not to wake anyone. “No. No!
 
He
 has a responsibility to fix things—Lena, I know you think we can’t, but we can make this work. Don’t go back there. There’s nothing there for us anymore. Please, we can make this work. He can fix things on his own.”

Lena toyed with the edge of the blanket on her bed. She was having a hard time looking Devin in the eye. He had been so wonderful since their ejection from the Silenti—traveling wasn’t his strong point, but he had taken on a whole new persona to keep her safe, moving her around, never complaining about the fact that she had screwed up his life so badly. “It’s my responsibility to fix things with him, Dev. It’s my responsibility to fix things with him, so that he can fix the rest of it. He’s never been able to take care of himself—you always said it, and it’s true. I need to take care of him, so he can take care of the rest of us. I am half of the blame for what’s going on right now.”

They both fell silent, as Devin stared at her in dismay. He finally looked away, shaking his head.

Lena tried to change the subject. “Tom wants me to take Brandon back to Waldgrave.”

Devin looked up at her sharply. “Why would he want that?” He asked in an even tone of voice.

“He wants him to be with family.” She said simply. “He thinks that family is more important than—“

“Our safety? Look, I realize you all think he’s going to die, but even so, why can’t we stay here with Brandon? It’s safer, Lena, it’s better. If you leave here, bad things will happen.” He took a moment, and Lena realized that even though it was quite cool in her bedroom with the window open and night air pouring in, Devin was sweating. “I have a bad feeling. You remember the last time I told you not to go?”

Suddenly, the chill air was too much. Lena pulled the down comforter up and hugged it to her chest.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“He’s out here, Lena, and he knows we’ve got to come out sometime. He’s looking for us. No more hostages, remember?” Devin’s bright sad eyes locked with hers. “He’s moving again. He’s growing stronger.”

“You’re paranoid.” She accused.

Devin laid a hand on his side, where the doctor had cut into him. “I know you think it’s just silly superstition. But he left a mark, and I don’t just mean a physical one. When someone wants you dead—when one of us
 
feels
 that strongly—you know. And I can feel it, Lena. He’s hunting again, but he won’t find us here. This place is safe. It’s forgotten.”

Lena tried to shake off the chill that was cutting into her being by sinking lower onto the bed and curling into a fetal position so that she could pull the blanket over her shoulders and up to her chin. He couldn’t know for sure, could he?

“I have to make a call to Howard at least. And I’m not using their house line to do it…”

They were both quiet again. Devin got up from the bed. “Maybe you could run into town tomorrow and find a place. But geez, you’ve got to be careful. We’ve been pushing our luck awful far lately.”

The next day got off to a slow start. Lena awoke sometime after ten to the smell of pancakes, maple syrup, and manic laughter wafting up the stairs. She found her way down to the kitchen, where Devin was still in his nightclothes flicking a half-done disk of batter across the room and at Olesia. Olesia, dressed in a flowing old woman’s nightgown with cartoon cats all over it, ducked swiftly and then turned to watch the pancake hit the wall behind her, stick, and slowly start to dribble down to the floor.

Then she grabbed it and chucked the mess back in Devin’s direction, sending crumbs and goo spraying across the room.

Confused, Lena turned to face the noise of more footsteps tumbling down the stairs behind her.

“’Morning…” A freshly showered Tom said to her before glancing over his shoulder and into the kitchen. “Ah, mom…not again.”

Olesia turned her large green eyes on her son as she licked batter from her fingers. She seemed to settle down a little and grabbed a broom and dustpan out of the corner to clean up the mess. Devin shot Lena a devious smile as he flipped the remainder of breakfast, which was still on the griddle.

“I told you,” He said in a sing-song voice. “I told you, we shouldn’t leave here. You like hotels anyways, and this is a bed and breakfast with family. The kind who don’t try to kill you. It’s perfect.”

“Oh, now you hush!” Olesia said from the floor, grabbing a rag off of the counter and slapping Devin’s backside with it before she went back to cleaning up her mess. “My granddaughter is a career woman. She’s got her responsibilities and she’s going to take care of them. Stop trying to hold her back. You get further in life if you don’t try to swim against fate.”

Devin shrugged as Olesia got up off the floor and seemingly whipped a cigarette out of nowhere. She leaned against the sink, smiling ever so slightly, as Tom and Lena sat down at the table in the corner—Lena suddenly realized that Brandon had been present for the whole ordeal, buckled into his chair bouncer on top of the table in the corner, passively watching two adults sling half-baked breakfast foods at each other. He was a quiet baby, for sure. An easy baby; the kind Ava would have liked, if she were still around.

Olesia held her cigarette over her shoulder and flicked it firmly with her thumb, sending ashes trickling down into the sink basin. She took another long draw. “You know, after the two of you are gone, I’m going to need some help around here. It’s January now, but we hit tourist season starting around May.”

The words hung in the air as Devin turned the stove off, picked up the plate of pancakes, and took them to the table without ever making eye contact with Lena. She sighed in an overly dramatic kind of way and threw her arms up in the air. “It’s not like you need my permission! You should stay, Dev. You love it here.”

“I want you to stay too!” He said, pulling up a seat next to Lena.

“Hmm…Don’t we all.” Olesia mumbled as she started passing out plates. “I’m afraid she has a life to get back to, and we’ll have to sit here, off in the wings, until her next visit. She’ll be back.”