Tim laughs. Some guy thinks Mommy’s stories are real? The women hear him, and Mommy gives him a small smile. “Okay, Paula. I understand where you’re coming from. Thanks for letting me know.”
Mommy reaches for the paper in Paula’s hand and takes the stack of envelopes filled with letters that had been chosen to get a personal response from her. She tells Paula she’ll talk to her soon and closes the door after her when she leaves. Tim watches as she glances at the piece of paper, then shivers, slightly. She looks up with a big smile on her face. “Did I hear you ask for another cookie, baby?”
Tim nods and follows Mommy back to the kitchen. She puts two more cookies on his plate and says, “Stay here and finish your cookies, baby, I’ll be right back.”
Mommy leaves the room, but Tim hears her stop outside the door to Daddy’s office. When the office door closes behind her, he runs to the door to try to listen. Mommy never gives him two cookies when he asks for one more. He’d already had four! “This man knows! How could someone here know? We need to leave immediately! Tim isn’t safe here, if this man comes here thinking we can help him!”
Mommy sounds very upset. He could hear Daddy calming her down. Then Daddy says, “Honey, you have no reason to worry. No one knows who really writes your books and that’s why the mail goes Paula’s office instead of our house.”
It is quiet for a moment. Tim knows he should go back to the kitchen and finish those cookies before Mommy realizes she gave him too many. He quickly runs back and slides into his chair just as he hears the office door open.
Tim opened his eyes to find every person in the room staring at him. “I remembered something.”
Yma bounced up to him. “I saw it! You were little!”
His eyes flew to Anna’s and she nodded. Apparently, he’d projected that memory to everyone, including Myra and Adam. Adam was looking at him in shock. Myra was staring off into space again. She really didn’t seem like herself lately. “Sorry about that everyone. I didn’t mean to do that. The memory hit me so quickly. I guess it saves time explaining what I remember, though.”
Adam seemed to get over his shock, quickly. “You think my brother was the one that sent that letter?”
Tim shrugged. “I don’t know. Myra remembers him saying he wrote a letter to a woman. My mother got a letter from someone who knew her books were based on Snillotia. It seems like it was him. I just don’t know how to check.”
Adam looked up in surprise. “I thought you went through the storage locker finally?”
“Well, sort of. I really only went to get my mom’s laptop. I stopped looking once I found it.”
Adam nodded and didn’t question him about the laptop, but Tim could tell he had questions. “Well, there are probably two or three boxes in there filled with nothing but fan mail.”
Tim glanced at the clock on the wall. He and Anna had been awake for over 24 hours. He knew they needed to move quickly to find Anna’s parents and the storage place was open 24 hours, but he didn’t want to draw any suspicion to them by having two teenagers show up at two o’clock in the morning. “Look, Anna and I need to get some sleep. Anna, I know you disagree, but we really do need to sleep. We won’t be able help to your parents if we’re exhausted. A few hours, that’s all,” Tim said, mostly to Anna.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed her an alarm set for five o’clock. “Myra, do you have any extra blankets we can use to make some beds in here? We’ll figure out permanent sleeping arrangements for the kids when Anna’s parents are safe and sound.”
Myra nodded after a moment and got up to get them. Everyone retired to their own rooms to get some sleep themselves. Grandma Aras and Grandma Eilime stayed. “We’ll stay out here with the darlings,” Grandma Eilime said, as Myra came back with the blankets and a few pillows.
“Thank you, dear,” she said to Myra.
Tim watched as Grandma Eilime quickly made some beds. Grandma Aras walked over to where he and Anna stood with the children. She gave them each a hug. He immediately felt refreshed and knew she had used her power. “I know you want to sleep, son, but I wanted to help you a little as well.”
Tim nodded and after speaking with the children, he and Anna left the room. He paused at Anna’s door and promised her he’d be in to wake her as soon as the alarm went off. She nodded and slipped inside her room. He continued to his own room, quickly cleaned up and slipped into bed. He had feared after Grandma Aras’ hug he wouldn’t be able to sleep but he could feel his body relaxing as soon as he lay down. As his eyes shut, he thought he felt someone sit on his bed, but he was too far gone to care.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The alarm blared at five on the dot. Tim shifted to shut it off before he woke the whole house up. His blanket felt heavy on top of him and it took him a moment to realize that it wasn’t a blanket. It was Anna. “Um, good morning?” Tim said, confused as to why Anna was in his bed.
“Hi,” she said quietly, averting her gaze to anywhere but him. He realized at that moment he was only wearing
