A mother could hope.
After a long string of tear-filled laughing emojis, he texted, “Sure.”
I smiled, opened my laptop, and went right to work.
Chapter 15
Even though it was Sunday, Alabastair had already written his report from last night’s mission and cc’d me on his email to Maritza. After transporting me and Jasper to my house, he’d returned to the Pearmains’ where he spent two hours interrogating the fairy sisters, Peasgood, and Hyslop. The two young men, who had met the sisters during a break in their druid training, were captured right off the ferry as they arrived on Salt Spring Island, which I already knew.
What they’d left out was the sisters had accompanied their new boyfriends on the same ferry. The fairies were able to cloak their appearance, follow the vehicle as it reboarded the ferry for Vancouver Island, and ride atop the SUV’s roof all the way to the Flechette estate.
The two were captured on surveillance cameras and made into fountains. They’d seen Peasgood and Hyslop similarly turned into lawn ornaments but missed the action when the hidden folk were hauled off the night of Meribah’s big reveal.
Peasgood and Hyslop were able to add the threats made by Meribah and her crew. The brothers had been given the choices to act as spies and live, answer questions and remain on the estate as statuary, or keep their mouths shut and be killed. Instead of following through, Meribah switched course and tried to use the hidden folk as bargaining chips.
For my sons.
The last note Bas made was in regards to the two sisters. Némophilie and Silène, of Clan LaFleur, wished to make contact with their families. He would await Maritza and Malvyn’s decision.
I hit reply, thanked Bas for keeping me in the loop, and scanned my unopened emails. The instructions for signing into the meeting room for my first virtual class were straightforward, and the day’s topic, timely: The Use of Blood in Spellwork, Level One, Section One.
How could Meribah’s blood have stayed active for decades in the wards ringing my property? I wanted to understand the mechanics of whatever magical chemistry was at work. Also, what it meant for me and the occupants of my house that her blood was in the root cellar. I scribbled a note to ask if there was a way for me to determine who else’s blood might be mixed into the soil and if I needed magical means to determine the answer or if it was a simple matter of sending samples to a lab, such as the one for Magicals only at Grand St. Kitts.
The next email was Kerry filling me on what to expect Monday: farmers and orchardists who needed help harvesting bumper crops of perishable vegetables and fruits and concerned citizens with questions about a proposed public set-up for islanders to do bulk canning. I had long supported that idea, but we weren’t the agency to tackle the necessary inspections. Our purview was the farms and organic farming practices.
My belly gurgled. I picked up my phone to read a text from Thatcher.
“OMW”
“What do I feed Jasper?”
“NVM”
The jangle and clank of a full tray sounded down the hall and stopped. My doorknob turned very slowly, released, and turned again.
“Jasper, push,” said Thatcher. He and the cat stumbled into the room. “Sorry for the delay, Mom. Everybody’s getting a slow start today. Sallie needed Jasper’s help.” He balanced the tray on my desk chair, after placing a book across the dip in the seat cushion. “But I called Shamaha, and she explained this stage of the withdrawal process. Sallie’s purging the poison, and she needs to soak.” He sat on the edge of the bed and patted the quilt bunched at my feet. Jasper hopped next to him and rubbed his head under Thatcher’s chin. “Is it okay if she uses your bathtub?”
“Of course,” I said. I was going to ask if Shamaha had anything else to say about caring for Sallie when one of my phone’s alerts went off. I handed the phone to Thatch. “Can you answer this? I have no idea what icon to tap.”
Thatch had that know-it-all teenager smirk happening as he thumbed the front of my phone and put it to his ear. “Hullo?” He nodded. “Sure thing.” He handed the phone to me. “I think it’s Tanner, but the connection’s really bad.”
Thatcher shouldered Jasper, to the cat’s obvious delight, and left my bedroom, closing the door behind him.
“Hello? Tanner?” I pressed the phone tight to my ear.
“Calli.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at a portal hub, and there’s a bit of traffic jam.”
“Are you at the one in Seattle?” I asked. Show me a place once, and I was an expert.
“No, Montreal,” he answered, and paused, his breath catching on an inhale. “How did you even think to ask?”
“Because I landed at the one in Seattle last night. Twice.”
“Calli, I have so many questions and not nearly enough time to ask them. I’m waiting in line for the portal back to France.”
Back to France?
“I have questions too,” I said, and because today was the day for me to get shit done, I pushed. “The other night, you left without saying anything. Wes had to go to the hospital with me because I was so upset, and when we got there, it was too late to see Abi and Cliff. By the time I got back to the hospital the next day, they had been discharged into Jessamyne’s care and taken Goddess knows where.”
“I know,” he said. Though the phone connection wavered, those two words came through crystal clear. In my upset with Tanner, I stood too fast and sloshed tea all over my sheets.
“What do you mean, you ‘know’?”
“I followed Jessamyne to France.”
France. I had never been to France. And now I wanted to tear the country apart until I found my friends and saw with my own eyes they were safe. “But couldn’t you have
