He looked a bit abashed. “Just for a few months. We . . . it wasn’t meant to be.”
“That’s okay, Peter,” I said, laughing at his expression. “I don’t mind that you guys were dating. I’m sad it didn’t work out, but you don’t have to be uncomfortable with me on that account. Now, where to start?”
We had entered the trailer and stood looking around it. “Bedroom?” Peter suggested.
“Good idea.” We both toddled back to it, making a quick search of the dresser pressed against one wall. There was just clothing in it, no big note saying where she’d gone, or even a love note from an admirer. More reassuringly, there were no signs of a struggle, so if Loki did take her, she hadn’t fought him.
I sat on the bed and thought for a few minutes. Peter went out into the living area and poked around in the drawers and cupboards out there, but I knew they wouldn’t have anything important. I mulled over where I would leave any references to a weekend trip, and after another few minutes’ thought, reached under the bed and pulled out a small metal box with a combination lock.
“What is that?” Peter asked as he returned to the bedroom. “I found nothing out there. Not even a note- pad.”
“I’m not surprised. This is mom’s lockbox. She keeps things in it like her passport. I can’t imagine why she’d put anything in here about her weekend trip, but it can’t hurt to look.” I spun the dial to register my birth date, my mother’s standard password, and sorted through the contents. As I suspected, it contained a few legal documents, a picture of the two of us together when I was about eight, her passport and various stamped visas, a credit card, three necklaces in silk bags, and a couple of stiff pieces of yellow paper.
“Well, that was no help,” I said as I replaced everything, absently unfolding the paper.
“What are those?” Peter asked.
“Nothing. Just birth certificates. Mom’s. Mine.” I tossed the first two aside and glanced at the other one. “This must be a copy of mine that she got when she thought she lost the original. Well, this has been a lesson in frustration. . . .” I stopped and looked back at the last paper. Something about it had registered on my brain as being not quite right.
“This isn’t my birth certificate.” I frowned at it as I read the name of the child. “Petra Valentine de Marco. Who on earth is that?”
“A friend of your mother’s?” Peter asked, looking in the tiny wardrobe that held Mom’s dresses.
“Why would she have someone else’s birth . . . green grass and salamanders!” I raised my gaze to Peter. “My mom’s name is on this.”
“It is?” He sat next to me and looked as I handed it to him.
“Right there. Where it says mother’s name.” I pointed. “That’s her name. Miranda Benson.”
“Is it your birth certificate? With a different name? Sometimes parents change the names of their babies. Perhaps this was your original name and they changed it.”
“Alphonse de Marco. That’s not my father’s name.” Chills ran down my arms as I realized what it was I was seeing. The birth date of the baby was almost ten years earlier than mine. “Goddess above! My mom had a baby before me. I have a sister.”
Peter looked suitably shocked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard her mention another daughter.”
I studied the birth certificate. “She was only sixteen when she had this baby. And it doesn’t say they were married. Stars and stripes forever. I’m just . . . I don’t know what I am. Flabbergasted, I guess. I never had the slightest idea I wasn’t her only child. Why didn’t she tell me?”
He took the birth certificate from me and tucked it away in the box with the other two. “I think, perhaps, this has nothing to do with your mother’s weekend in Heidelberg.”
“Even if she was sixteen, and it doesn’t look like she was married to this guy, did she think I’d judge her for that? I have a half sister out there who I didn’t even know existed.” The idea was so strange, I had a hard time processing it. I won’t deny there wasn’t a bit of hurt with the realization that my mother kept something so important from me, but I was more confused than anything else.
“Fran.”
“Hmm?” I realized what he said. “Oh. Yeah, you’re right. This is something I’ll have to talk to her about once I find her. It’s just . . . I never knew. I don’t understand why she would hide this from me. And speaking of that, just where is this Petra person?”
“Perhaps she did not survive?” Peter said, his expression sympathetic as he patted my arm. “I think we’ve pried enough. You will talk to your mother about this later, yes?”
“She must have been ashamed, but . . .” I couldn’t imagine my mother being ashamed of having a baby, even an illegitimate one. “Yeah, I guess it’s not really of vital importance right now. I’ll have to visit the police, though, since there was nothing in the trailer to show us where she’s gone. I’ll drop in on them and see what they have to say.”
“If you insist. How long will you be with us?” He walked with me to the trailer door. “That sounded rude, didn’t it? I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that your mother’s booth was always very popular, and if you were going to be around for a while . . .”
“I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” I said carefully. “My plans have kind of changed.”
“Ah?” He gave me a long look, then nodded. “Naomi.”
“Yes.” I examined my gloves, biting down hard on my lip to keep the tears from burning in my eyes again.
“It was a mistake to hire her, but we were short-handed, and Benedikt swore she would fit in well.”
“Ben got her the job?” I asked, the tiny little atoms of my heart crumbling even further.
Peter looked embarrassed, his gaze dropping as he fidgeted with the doorknob. “I had no idea that he . . . that they . . .”
“It’s all right.” I dredged up a ghost of a smile. “It’s likely I’ll be around for a bit, so I can run Mom’s booth while I’m here if you like. Although I really can only sell the things she already has made up—I can’t make any more.”
“No, no, of course not. But you know the things to say to customers, and you are familiar with Miranda’s stock. It would be a great help. The opera contest that is going on in town has brought in a tremendous number of people to the area, and the Faire, and I hate to waste the opportunity. I don’t like to ask you to tie up your evenings, but perhaps if you could see to her booth every other night? I will pay you, naturally.”
He looked so hopeful, I agreed, but declined the offer of payment.
“She would want her booth open.” My throat closed for a moment on a painful lump. “I just need to know Mom’s okay. If Loki hurt her—”
Peter patted my arm when I couldn’t finish the sentence. “She is strong.”
“I know, but she can still be hurt.”
“Not easily.” He looked thoughtfully at me for a moment before adding slowly, “I would not suggest this in normal circumstances, because Absinthe does not like it to be known, but she might be able to help you.”
“Absinthe?” I swallowed the painful lump of tears in my throat and tried to figure out how a mind reader could help me. “You mean like find out who’s taken Mom?”
“No. She would need a subject for that. She has lately started studying with a diviner.”
“A who now?”
“Diviner. They see things, you know? Tiny things, little bits of a bigger picture, Absinthe says. I don’t really understand it too well, but she has learned much in the last three years.”
“And she could tell me where Mom is!” I said, hope filling me. “I could kiss you, Peter! What a brilliant idea!”
“No, no, do not kiss me yet. I am not that brilliant. Absinthe is not learned enough to locate your mother, but she might be able to see if she has been . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Harmed,” I said, filling in the word he clearly didn’t want to say.
He nodded.
“I’ll take it.”
“It isn’t much, and I can’t guarantee that Absinthe will be able to tell you anything—”
“I’ll take it,” I repeated. “Is she here now?”
“Yes. I believe I saw Kurt about this morning.”
I hesitated for a few seconds. Part of me wanted to run to Absinthe and beg her to tell me how my mother was. But even as that thought ran through my brain, the word “beg” reverberated with ominous portent. Absinthe
