(A year prior to present day)
It was becoming routine… waking up, working through the day… missing Lee.
There was one morning where I woke up and nearly ran over to Blakeley’s pack to go see him, in a fit of need, just to hug him.
And then it came to mind that he wasn’t at home. And that he wouldn’t be for some time.
I sighed.
There wasn’t much I could do, and since his carrier bird had to travel farther, the frequency of letters had gone down. And that was okay…
Kind of.
When night came, I reread his letters, over and over again. I pulled out some of the old ones, comparing just how different his handwriting was, how illegible both of ours had to have been.
It made me smile… and then it made me cry.
It had been months since I’d seen his face, and it wasn’t like we hadn’t done that in the two years since we became mates, but… he wasn’t just a sprint away anymore. He was…
I looked down at the map he’d slipped me when he left.
It marked where they were going and when.
I followed the line he’d drawn.
They were almost at the North end of whatever lake that was. I squinted. Did that say Hook Line Lake? I laughed a little at the strange name. But, I guess, with the land formation in the lake and the shape of the lake itself, it made sense.
I heard the light flick on out in the living room. I glanced at my clock curiously, folding up the map as I did.
Who else would be up this late?
I walked out of my room, my steps practiced and silent on the floor, and peered around the corner.
Mom?
She poured herself a glass of water before setting it down on the counter and staring out the window. Her hair looked frazzled, sweat on her forehead.
As I watched, she took a sip of the water, still unaware of my presence… just continuing to stare out that window.
“Mom?”
She spun and looked at me, surprised.
“Jane? You’re still up?”
“Mhm.”
I walked over to her.
“Are you worried about me?”
I nodded a little as I leaned against the counter.
“Yeah,” I eventually said. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, drinking down more of the water in the glass.
I, for a moment, wondered if I should even ask her. She got like this after getting visions. She must’ve had one that woke her up.
“Mom, can I ask you something?”
She stared at me a moment, silently, before nodding with a weighted sigh.
“Sure. What is it?”
My nose burned, in that way it did if you were nearly in tears. Part of me was scared to ask. The other part of me knew the answer… I’d known it for years, but we’d never talked about it.
I remembered the conversation I overheard when Lee and I were under the balcony a couple years ago.
My name.
She’d heard my full name. Because despite all that I shared with my late aunt Jane… we didn’t share that middle name.
Jane Karrie Blackstone…
I looked at my mother, stared into her eyes, afraid that she might try to lie, to say that she hadn’t…
“Have you had any visions about me?”
She froze, eyes widening before her gaze fell from mine. She shook her head a little.
It wasn’t a no. She wasn’t shaking her head no… she was shaking it at a thought she’d just had. At the situation, at me asking this in the first place.
And I didn’t want to.
I…
Who was I to ask this of her?
But, I had this ball in the pit of my stomach… that something was going to happen, something I couldn’t be able to stop, something–
“Why do you want to know?”
Something terrible was going to happen.
All this peace.
All of this blissful happiness.
Somewhere, someone was going to pop the bubble.
And then that conversation, the question and half an answer I’d heard my parents speaking of…
It was about me.
It… had yet to happen.
I didn’t even want to know what it was.
I just wanted to hear the truth. I just wanted her to admit that she’d seen something about me. She didn’t have to tell me.
I just wanted the bare minimum.
Yes.
Or no.
It was enough if she just told me the truth.
“You don’t have to tell me what the vision was, just whether you’ve had one or not.” When she still said nothing, I begged, the tears rising into my eyes, “Please.”
She must’ve heard something in my voice because she looked up, body softening when she saw me, almost in defeat.
“Yes, I have.”
I nodded, ready to leave.
“Would you want to know?”
What?
Yes…
No.
I hesitated before settling on my words.
“I don’t need to know.”
I turned to go, to leave her to her privacy and water. I shouldn’t bother her anymore with this. It was always dangerous to delve into the future too far – at least that’s what I’d always suspected. That’s why Cian was always so secretive.
“It’s always the same one,” she said quietly, so much so that I almost didn’t hear it.
When I looked back at her, she shook her head again. That also wasn’t a no, was it?
“You should know.”
“Mom, you don’t have to–”
She raised her hand to cut me off. I stayed silent.
“I do. I should.” She nodded to herself, eyes glued to the floor. “You’re old enough to know. You’ve been… you’ve been old enough for a while…”
Her voice drifted, trailed off into nothingness as she moved into the living room and sat down on the couch. She patted the cushion gently.
“Come here.”
I did.
As I sat down, she reached for my hands, grabbing them in hers. She sniffled.
Mom?
“It always starts with a weird note.”
“What does it say?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, frowning. “It’s a bunch of lines and dots. An occasional symbol. None of it makes any sense.”
A note…
Lines.
Dots.
Symbols.
A chill raced down my spine.
So, Lee was going to get involved in this too?
All those fears about the future we were going to share came racing back to me.
That was our code, our coded messages…
What was it going to say?
Which one of us was writing it?
When?
If I caused… If I was the reason he gets placed in harm’s way…
“Then it shows a cloaked person, standing on a beach somewhere,” my mom continued speaking quietly, her voice becoming a timid whisper. “The figure turns and the hood falls...”
She stopped, taking in a deep breath.
“Who is it?”
She looked up at me and licked her lips before squeezing my hands gently.
“You.”
“Me.”
Me?
Then…
What did that mean?
I was…
I was going off alone?
Why?
“There’s a cabin. Hidden well, up in the tree line. A man is there. He says he’s been expecting you. My vision skipped ahead and then he says your name. You accuse him of wanting you dead and he mentions – he…” She had to stop, letting go of my hand to wipe her tears. “Crackis. He… he mentions Crackis.”
If I hadn’t already felt cold, I would’ve better felt the chill that descended on us. It was faint for me now, like a light breeze added in a blizzard. Goosebumps on my arm.
Crackis.
He… He was the one who almost killed dad.
He – he tortured mom for a short while…
He killed aunt Jane.
He’d hurt our family so much.
But he was dead. 100% dead, never to rise again.
Because…
Because my dad…
The web was getting larger. It was making more sense. Crackis. People against Blackstone descendants. It was like there had always been someone, one group against us, and they passed it on, like a master to an apprentice.
If Crackis had somehow had a kid somewhere along the lines or even a comrade, they might want revenge on his death…
Because my dad, as close as he came to getting killed by the man, he’d successfully killed him. He’d killed Crackis in the same breath that he’d nearly died with.
“It showed me another moment though.”
I hesitated to ask.
“What was it?”
“He walked up to a solid silver door and slid a tray of food under it.”
Tears were falling more freely from her eyes and I fought my own that began to rise. I pulled her into a hug.
“Oh, Mom. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“Promise me, you’ll always be careful.”
“You know me, Mom. I am careful.”
I rubbed her back and she held onto me tightly.
“I’m careful…”
Except, there was always an exception to careful.
If it was Lee behind a silver door instead of me… If he was the one writing that message instead of me…
I’d probably be too pissed off to be careful.
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