Autumn Calling (21 page)

“Well,” she paused, “I’ve always been a
believer of second chances— I mean look at Mortimer.”

“Precisely. Getting to know my father
wouldn’t be a crime, would it?”

Her eyebrows raised, but she didn’t answer.
“What if by getting acquainted with him, and my sister, I could
somehow disarm this ticking bomb between our families.”

“Is that really something you’d be willing
to do? I mean the crows came after you and they attacked you when
you went to their house to help that cat of theirs.”

“Yes. I don’t think it will be easy, by any
means. The deck is definitely stacked against us, but what if…”

“What if…”

“Just think.”

“It would be lovely to not be fearful to
leave my own home or walk the streets of town once more.”

“Wouldn’t it?”

Myrtle nodded and pondered what life might
be like without the constant weight of the Macabres on her
shoulders.

“It would be lovely to finish out my years
that way, but I’ll tell you straight, your biggest obstacle will be
Mortimer. He’ll never agree to peace after what Yvonne did to
him.”

“Maybe not, but even if only me and my
sister can be a family that would be enough for me.”

“It would be something to see my nieces
together and happy.”

Summer smiled watching Aunt Myrtle consider
a future without imminent battle on the horizon. She’d done it.
She’d planted the seed of hope in Myrtle—now was the hard work to
make it all come together.

* * *

Summer was very pleased with the outcome of
her conversation with Aunt Myrtle, but it was only early afternoon
and her early morning with Autumn was taking a toll on her—she was
very sleepy. She headed to the bedroom for a little nap and Sully
was happy to join her, taking up most of the bed. Despite her lack
of room and the horrific snoring, he was like a warm furry pillow
to burrow her back into.

It wasn’t long before she was fast asleep.
She did, however, have the oddest of dreams. She was surrounded by
snow and not exactly dressed for it. Her teeth chattered as gust
after gust of snow-filled wind beat at her. The odd thing was, she
was in her house. All the furniture was gone and there was no roof
or windows. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself trying to
keep any warmth she had from escaping, the attempt was of no use.
She would die of hypothermia if she didn’t find something to wrap
herself in. She looked around the cottage and behind her she beheld
a woman in a pencil skirt and silk blouse wearing heels in the
snow. The most disturbing thing about the woman was what she held
in her hand—Sully.

She had the huge hellhound by the throat,
her hand extended almost straight up to accommodate the hound’s
height. His back legs scraped the floor and his front legs flailed
to find something to push off of to get out of her grasp. How could
anyone pick up a two hundred plus hellhound and render it
incapacitated—the only explanation? Magic. She ran to Sully and the
woman, hitting and beating her to let Sully loose, but it was like
hitting a brick wall—cold and solid. That didn’t stop Summer from
trying. Sully squeaked what Summer assumed was an attempt at a
bark, but the woman’s hand held tight as steel.

A change of tactic, pulled Summer away from
the pummeling the ever-smiling woman and she raised her hand at
her. Her hand trembled and glowed red as a ball of fire formed.
Fire wouldn’t hurt Sully given he’s a beast of hell, but it might
hurt the woman. Forming the ball had taken too long and the woman’s
other hand came up in defense. Fire was not Summer’s forte, but she
was too worried about Sully to try anything else. She released the
ball and it dissolved into a shield the woman had called up before
her.

Think, Summer. Think. She told herself. The
refrigerator stood ten feet behind the woman. If she could use her
wind element to throw it at the woman it surely would knock Sully
loose of her grip. With a wave of her hand she commanded the air to
bring it forward hitting the woman from behind.

Yes. Summer said to herself. It worked. The
woman was expecting things to hit her head on, not from behind. It
was enough to get her to release the pup. But as strangely as the
whole thing had started, the dream ended with Sully hitting the
floor. Her eyes opened and she found herself in bed with Sully who
had woken as suddenly as she.

“What was that?” she said out loud waiting
for some explanation from the hellhound. He coughed a couple of
times as if he had been chocked.
Was it real?
Her arms were
cold to the touch. Sully’s fur was cold too. She got up and walked
into the main part of the house and looked around half expecting it
to be roofless, without furniture, and several inches of snow
laying on the floor. But there was nothing amiss, not even a dish
out of place.

Sully stood beside her looking around the
room as if whatever she had dreamt, he too was there. He coughed
again and went to his bowl of water taking in an endless amount.
That’s when she heard it. Sully must have heard it too for at the
same instant he stopped gulping and cocked his head to listen. It
sounded like a far off rumbling, but with each drawing second it
became louder. Whatever it was it was coming and it was coming
really fast. Was it an earthquake? A low flying jet? The rumbling
became louder and louder until it was deafening—like thunder that
wouldn’t stop but only got worse. She looked to Sully and he ran to
her side and laid down putting his paws on his ears and whining.
She too put her hands to her ears.

BOOM. Every window in the house blew in
towards her. Without even thinking she shielded herself with a
quick burst of wind that radiated outward from where she and Sully
stood. If she had been thinking she would have done a harder blast
but this was a knee-jerk reaction and she was very lucky she had
the gumption to think of it when she did, for all around her and
Sully, in a perfect circle were shards of glass. Summer noticed one
just inches from her foot that was at least two feet in length and
six inches at its widest. It would have gone clean through her if
she hadn’t used magic.

She did however have some small cuts from
the remnants of the blast. Again if she had been thinking clearly
she might not have had any cuts, but that obviously was not in the
cards. The worst of her injuries was a piece of glass that was in
the fleshy part of her upper arm. It was in pretty far and it would
be hard to get it out on her own since it was her right arm and she
could barely brush her teeth with her left hand.

She checked over Sully to make sure he was
okay. He had a few tiny cuts, but nothing deep. She pulled her
phone from her back pocket and called Aunt Myrtle to come down to
the cottage. Summer had no shoes on and the floor was covered in
glass looking like snow from her dream.

“Aunt Myrtle? It’s Summer?”

“Did you hear that terrible roar of
thunder?”

“I don’t think that was thunder. Could you
come down to the cottage right away. We’ve had a little incident
down here.”

“Oh? Of course, dear.”

“And Aunt Myrtle?”

“Yes?”

“Could your bring a broom, or two?”

“Uh, yes. I suppose. What for, dear?”

“You’ll see when you get here.”

“Okay. I’ll be there lickety-split.”

“Thanks.”

Two or three minutes later she could hear
her aunt coming up the stairs then a knock came at the door.

“Come in, but be careful,” Summer called out
to her.

The door opened and Aunt Myrtle shrieked.
“Good Lord, what happened here.”

“Magic.”

“Come again?”

“I believe I received a little gift from the
Macabres. I don’t have any shoes on and I don’t want Sully to walk
on the glass, can you clear a path to us so he can go outside and I
can find some shoes.”

Aunt Myrtle dutifully swept a clean wide
path to them speaking to herself all the while with a few “Dear
Lords and “Mercy me.”

“Thank you, Aunt Myrtle.” She squeezed
Summer tightly with a hug, grabbing just above her wound, making
Summer squirm a bit.

“Oh dear, that’s nasty. Better take you up
to the house to get that out.”

“Okay, but could you grab my Wellies from
the shed so I have shoes?”

“Certainly, sweetheart. Certainly. You just
wait here.”

In a flash the old woman was off and back.
Sully and I walked up to the main house where Aunt Myrtle patched
them up and gave them both something to eat.

“So you still wager on peace talks with the
Macabres after this?” Myrtle asked.

“Well, I didn’t expect it to be easy, if
that’s what you’re asking. And it’s not like it was Marcus or
Autumn who attacked me.”

“Even though neither of them were the
initiated the attack, it doesn’t mean they don’t know about it,”
Aunt Myrtle said, making a very good point.

“True, but I prefer to think the better of
them and give them the benefit of the doubt.”

“How very sweet of you. I just hope you
don’t get burned or worse.”

Summer hoped not too, but she was going into
this with her eyes open. Chances were it was going to get bad
before it got better, but she had her sights on the bigger picture
and determined to meet her goal, no matter what it took to get
there.

A week went by before hearing anything from
Autumn and just when Summer was starting to get worried things were
not working out as they had hoped, she got a text from her asking
her to meet with her at the cabin, though this time it wasn’t quite
as early or late, depending on how you look at things, as the their
last meet.

When Summer knocked the door, an eager face
met hers.

“Come in. I’ve got some news,” Autumn
said.

“Me too. Do you want to go first? Or shall
I?”

“I’ll go. So I did what you told me to do. I
went to Dad and confronted him about Violet. I’ve never seen him in
such a state. I guess because we had already broken the boundary of
Juliette not being my mother and that whole gross situation, he was
much more willing to talk.”

“See. I told you.”

“Yeah, yeah. It was so cool. We sat and
talked for hours. I can’t remember the last time we’ve done
that—maybe even since I was a little girl. I can tell you it was
awesome to be alone without Juliette watching over us. I hadn’t
realized how much she hovered until I found out she wasn’t my
mother. I never liked her much as a mother, she was never
exceptionally motherly and she absolutely never let me and Dad have
time alone. I think she’s a control freak when it comes to us.”

“So in your conversation, did you bring up
the possibility of a nonviolent way to solve this feud.”

“Not exactly. But we did talk about Violet—a
lot.”

“What did you learn about our mother?
Anything you can share with me?”

“Yeah. Tons. He was totally in love with
her. No potions or spells were used like the Midnights suggested.
He was heart broken when Violet lost faith in him and it nearly
killed him when he had learned that she was in cohoots with her
family to take you and me away from him.

“He asked a lot about you. I think out of
all of this I may not have planted the seed you wanted but I’m
pretty sure he would very much like to meet you.”

“Really? He said that?”

“Yes, and why wouldn’t he. You’re the
daughter he never got to know. He showed me that he keeps a picture
of you and me as babies in his wallet. He’d shown it to me in the
past but what I didn’t know was that it had been bent in half and
you were on the backside which I never saw. I suppose this kept
Juliette from hounding him too.”

“That is interesting.”

“So what’s your news?”

“I talked to Aunt Myrtle about things. I
didn’t actually suggest meeting up or anything like that, but I
definitely planted the seed of a possibility. She was able to tell
me Violet’s side of the story as she knows it. I don’t believe she
felt that Marcus had put a spell on Violet and I know she and Ivy
both tried to give Marcus the benefit of the doubt but there was so
much evidence piling up against him. Violet believed in him for as
long as she could but I suppose the hormones and emotions of
pregnancy along with the pressure from the family was just too much
to take.”

“What do you mean ‘evidence’?”

“A potion bottle was found in his coat
pocket, a letter from his mother that referred to his role in the
plot to steal magical powers from his offspring, and Violet finding
him in bed with Juliette.”

“What? He would never sleep with
Juliette.”

“According to Aunt Myrtle that’s what
happened, and we both know that they faked being married for you
benefit. As for the potion and the letter, both were rather
circumstantial and could have easily been planted and faked.”

“It must be a mistake or a misunderstanding.
Dad swore to me nothing ever happened between the two of them. In
fact he seemed quite disgusted by the suggestion.”

“It does have a certain bit of ‘eeewww’ to
it.”

“No joke. Do you think you would be willing
to talk with him?” Autumn asked.

“I don’t know. My gut tells me I shouldn’t
but my heart is dying to meet him.”

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t, unless you
don’t trust us.”

“Remember, Autumn, everyone around me is
telling me how I should stay away from you and the Macabre.
Especially after I was attacked again after we met.”

“What? What do you mean
attacked
.”

“I figured you would have known about it. At
the very least Marcus would have known about it.”

“No. I haven’t heard of any attacks on the
Midnights at all.”

“This wasn’t an attack on the Midnights, per
se, but very specifically me.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Well, first it was the crows and last time
Juliette came in to my dreams and tried to kill my pet, when I woke
up he was choking and all the glass in my house blew in trying to
cut me.”