Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series) (24 page)

“So,” he asked. “Alexander’s okay?”

“We just came downstairs from talking with him,” Rolfe said. “He’s spitting mad, but he’s okay.”

Mrs. Crandall had stood, resuming her more usual air of chilly grandeur. “Rolfe has some silly idea that watching television is dangerous
for Alexander. While I agree about the harmfulness of TV, I think we’re talking about different things.”

“Very different,” Devon said.

“Amanda did, however, see the wisdom of removing the televisions from both the playroom and Alexander’s bedroom,” Rolfe said.

Mrs. Crandall looked at him icily. “And now that all that is settled, I thank you for your concern, Rolfe, and I’ll show you to
the door.”

“Wait,” Devon said, standing up. “That’s not the end of it. I mean, Jackson Muir is still out there. He’s not going to go away so easily.”

Mrs. Crandall sighed. “Devon, this talk about Jackson Muir has gone far enough.”

Devon looked over at Rolfe. “Is she still denying it? Even after everything you told her?”

“I’m not denying anything, Devon,” she said coldly. “There are
just things I will not have discussed in this house. And certainly not with Mr. Montaigne present.”

Rolfe laughed. “You’re an ostrich, Amanda. As vain and as obtuse.” He was putting his coat back on. “You have three young lives under your care. Think about them, if not you.”

She bristled. “If I were you, Mr. Montaigne, I wouldn’t lecture anyone about putting young lives in jeopardy.”

What Devon saw next startled him, caused him to gasp: Rolfe, in a sudden rage, bounded toward Mrs. Crandall, got right up in her face. She shrunk back in fear, and there was a part of Devon that thoroughly enjoyed seeing her composure broken, even for a moment.

“I’ve told you this before, Amanda, and I’ll tell you this again,” Rolfe seethed. “I will find a way to prove my innocence—and then
I’ll make you pay dearly for the five years you stole out of my life.”

“Get out,” she spit.

Rolfe turned to Devon. “Remember,” he said, “you’re stronger than any of them.”

With that, he turned and stalked out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

The seconds after Rolfe left felt like minutes—long, drawn-out minutes. Devon at first said nothing, then finally ventured over to the woman glaring out of the windows at the sea.

“Mrs. Crandall?”

“What is it?”

“I don’t want you to be angry with me. I want you to understand.”

She turned to face him. “What am I to understand?”

“Rolfe told me about this family’s legacy. I know
about the Nightwing.”

“He had no right.”

Devon sighed. “Maybe not. But he did. So I know that these things that have been happening aren’t just my imagination.”

“Listen to me, Devon. I am your guardian.” She smiled. “Lowercase. Guardian with a small ‘g.’ And with the legal admonition to watch out for your welfare. I am telling you only what you need to know. Anything else you must simply
trust me about.”

She pulled herself up to her full height, looking down at him. “And I assure you that no matter what frightens you in this house, nothing will hurt you. I have seen to that.”

“That’s what you always told me, Mother,” came the voice of her daughter.

They both turned. Cecily stood in the doorway.

“But it’s not true,” she said calmly, never taking her eyes from her mother.
She walked into the parlor, approaching them. “I was almost killed earlier tonight. If it wasn’t for Devon, I’d be dead.”

“Killed!” Mrs. Crandall grasped her daughter’s face in both her hands. “Cecily! Are you all right?”

“I told you, thanks to Devon.”

Mrs. Crandall looked over at her young ward. “Devon …”

He patted his bandages. “You never asked how I got the wound. It was as if you
didn’t want to know.”

She seemed as if she might break then—as if her body was on the verge of trembling, collapsing, her emotions ready to shatter into uncontrollable tears. But she didn’t, and Devon marveled at the woman’s control. He could see her struggle quite clearly, the yearning to surrender—but he could also see the invincibility that ultimately forbade it. She took hold of the back
of her chair to steady herself, drawing in and then exhaling a very long breath.

“Long ago,” she said, “terrible things happened in this house. Maybe your friend Rolfe told you about them. Whether he did or not, it suffices for me to remember them only in their terror, not in their specifics.” She looked off toward the fire. “Why do you think my brother wanders the globe? Why do you think my
mother cannot bear to leave her room? Because they are trying, each in their way, to cope with the past. As I am. As I must raise the three of you to do.”

Devon walked up to face her plainly. “But how can we do that if we don’t know what that past is? Especially me, Mrs. Crandall. I’m not a Muir. I never even knew such a place as Ravenscliff existed until a month ago. And suddenly here I am,
dropped down in the middle of it, and you expect me not to ask questions, not to demand answers!”

She looked at him sadly. “I know it’s difficult, Devon. But that’s all I can I say for now.”

“No, you can say something else,” Devon said. “You can tell me what you know of my parents. My real parents. You can tell me who I am and how I fit into all of this.”

She sighed. “I’ve told you, Devon.
I can’t help you there. I don’t know …”

“You knew my father. He lived here under the name Thaddeus Underwood. He was a Guardian here, teaching you and your brother in the art of the Nightwing.”

“The Nightwing?” Cecily asked.

Devon didn’t answer. He kept interrogating her mother. “Why did my father change his name? Why did he take me to New York to raise me?”

Mrs. Crandall clapped her
hands to her ears. “I don’t know, Devon! Stop badgering me with these questions. I don’t know why he changed his name! I had no contact with him after he left Ravenscliff. I have no idea why he moved to New York or why he adopted you or why he sent you here!”

The face nearly cracked, but she pulled back again. Mrs Crandall closed her eyes, sighing heavily, dropping her hands again to the back
of the chair for support.

“Mother,” Cecily said, near tears, “I’m frightened.”

Devon saw the maternal love emanate from Mrs. Crandall’s eyes. She let go of the chair, approached Cecily, and clutched her daughter to her bosom. Devon watched them and felt very alone. He’d never known a mother’s love. As a young boy he used to dream about his mother. She was an angel, with golden hair and a
long flowing white dress. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, lithe and lovely and ethereal. In his dreams, she’d sing to him and hold him the way Mrs. Crandall now held Cecily.

If she’s my mother
, he thought sadly,
she has no interest in consoling me.

Mrs. Crandall took Cecily’s cheeks in her hands again, looking at her. “I promise you, Cecily, as I promised you when you
were a little girl. I will not allow anything in this house to harm you. I promise you I will redouble my efforts in keeping you safe.”

Redouble her efforts? Devon wondered what she could mean by that.

“But Mother,” Cecily added, “it wasn’t in this house that I was almost killed. It was on the village road.”

Mrs. Crandall let her go. She drew herself up again. “Let us speak no more of
it. No more mention of such things in this house.”

“But, Mrs. Crandall—” Devon insisted.

She held up a hand to silence him. “That’s my final word, Devon. I don’t know why such things are happening again, but I will do my best to put an end to them.”

Devon considered revealing his powers to her—after all, that might help explain the why—but for some reason the Voice cautioned him. It might
be wise to keep one last card up his sleeve in dealing with her.

But Mrs. Crandall had another hand to deal herself. She leveled her gaze at Devon. “One other instruction,” she told him. “One that I expect to be followed completely. Under no circumstance are you to have any further interaction with Rolfe Montaigne. As your guardian, I forbid it. Is that understood?”

“Mrs. Crandall—”

“Is
that understood?”

It was no use fighting her here and now. “Yes, ma’am, it’s understood.”

“Classic example of major denial,” Cecily commented
after her mother had swept out of the room.

Devon had filled her in briefly about what he’d learned from Rolfe, as much about the Nightwing and the demons and the Hell Holes as he could in the space of a few minutes.

“No doubt about it,” he agreed. “But if her father died fighting Jackson Muir in the Hell Hole, I guess maybe I can understand her reluctance to bring it all up again.”

“I
can’t, not if it puts us in danger.” Cecily sat down in front of the fire. “Like, how can I concentrate on my algebra homework now?”

Devon grinned. “Oh, yeah. Forgot about that.”

They got out their books and worked their way through a few problems. But Cecily was right: it wasn’t easy to concentrate.

“You know what really makes me wonder?” Devon asked suddenly. “How she said she’d redouble
her efforts.”

“Yeah,” Cecily agreed. “She said she’d do her best to put an end to all this.” A thought seemed to strike her. “Do you think my mother still has the powers of the Nightwing?”

Devon shrugged. “Rolfe told me the family renounced all their powers, their whole Nightwing heritage.”

“We’ve got to learn more about all this,” Cecily said.

Devon nodded. “I’ve got to talk with
Rolfe again. There’s so much I still need to know.”

“Mother will atomize you if she found out.”

He smirked. “Or maybe cast a spell on me.”

“Turn you into a toad. Hey, can you do that?”

He laughed. “Never tried. And don’t think I will right now either.” He considered something. “You know, if I can’t get to Rolfe, I’ve got to get back into the East Wing. There are books there.”

She
shuddered. “Yeah, and that door.”

“And the portrait that looks like me.”

It was all too confusing.

They managed to get through their homework and wolf down a little dinner: Simon’s prepared roast ham and butternut squash. After that, Cecily headed off to bed, though she admitted she wasn’t likely to sleep much.

She went to kiss Devon goodnight, but he stopped her.

“What?” she asked,
bewildered.

“It’s just … there’s too much weirdness right now,” he said.

“I know what you’re thinking, Devon,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

“What am I thinking?”

“You’re thinking we’re related.”

He lifted his eyebrows at her. “Well, you gotta wonder about it.”

She frowned. “What does that Voice thing of yours say about it? Wouldn’t that tell you if we were brother and sister?”

“It doesn’t always tell me stuff. I think it only speaks up when it thinks I can handle it.”

She sighed. “Well, we don’t look anything alike.” She winked. “Anyway, thanks for saving me earlier, Spider-Man.”

Devon watched her close her door. He wished he could have kissed her. He really did. In the midst of all this craziness, he had really started liking her. A lot. He’d never felt this
way about a girl before. Suze didn’t even come close. He remembered Dad saying that things would start changing now that he was fifteen. He would start to feel differently. He’d see girls in a whole new way.

Well, they have, and I do.

Devon knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep right away. So he decided to pay a visit to Alexander who, sulking about the lack of TV, had refused to come down for
dinner.

He wasn’t in the playroom. Not in his room either. Devon worried at first that the boy might be in East Wing, but the Voice told him otherwise.

Try the basement, it said.

He found Alexander in the cold, damp darkness, behind a forlorn dressmaker’s dummy and several trunks plastered with stickers from foreign countries. The boy was crying.

“Hey,” Devon said gently, approaching
him.

Alexander didn’t look up. In the dim light from the overhead bulb, Devon discerned that the boy was holding something—cradling it, in fact—in his lap. Devon’s eyes strained to make out what it was, and then he saw.