Forever (3 page)

Chapter
3

“Mom!” Mina shouted. She fled
the protection of the salt-circle. Brody reached for her again, but she shoved
his hands to the side. He’d held her back! He kept her from saving her mom.

Mina raced outside, ignoring
the fresh blood on the back porch. It had to be from the omen. There wasn’t a
lot. It couldn’t have been from her mom.

There was no other visible
sign. She ran into the grass where the Reaper had stood only moments ago and
turned full circle, scanning the woods. Nothing. Only a bit of scorched black
grass.

Mina wanted to lash out and
scream her pain and her loss to high heavens, but she couldn’t do that.
Charlie’s wailing drew her gaze back toward the house. Brody held her brother
as he continued to cry loudly.

What a terrible miracle. He
was talking. He’d never spoken a word…until now. Until their mother died.

Everything pressed down on
her, and she couldn’t breathe. The world grew smaller, colder, darker. Hope was
blinking out like a dying star and being swallowed into a black hole of
nothingness. She couldn’t survive this. Not when the war was costing the lives
of her family.

Her knees collapsed beneath
her, and she wanted to give in, give up. The darkness seemed to be her only
peace, so she let it claim her. The cold grass pressed against her cheek, and
her eyes closed.

***

“Stupid. How stupid could you
be?” An angry feminine voice greeted her ears.

Mina opened her eyes and saw
a dark head of short hair blur in and out of focus. When she tried to look
beyond the shadowy form, she saw the faint outline of the familiar fireplace
and bookshelves of her front living room. She was stretched out on the sofa,
covered with an old woven blanket.

The girl studied her. Her
short black hair with purple highlights looked even darker in the light. But
the tone, the snarky tone of voice, was all Ever.

“Dumb. That’s what you are,”
Ever snapped.

“Who? Brody?” Mina asked, for
once close to agreeing with the pixie.

“Oh no. I’m not mad at him.”
She thrust her thumb in his direction. “He’s tolerable. He actually did
something smart. Kept you from doing something stupid by running after the omen
and suffering the same fate as your mother. You, on the other hand, are
foolish. You went back to the Guild? How stupid can you get? The final blast of
exploding Fae power probably attracted a whole bunch of evil Fae. They could be
sniffing out errant bits of magic hoping to scrape it up, and then you go and
get spotted by an omen. I can’t leave you alone for a few hours.” Her hands
waved in the air, and she started to speak in pixie. It was impossible to
follow along, but Mina just assumed she had run out of human names to call her
and had to berate her in her own language.

Mina sighed and dropped her
head back onto the cushion. She let Ever’s anger roll off her, ignoring it
easily.

Brody sat in a high-back
chair nearby, head in his hands and elbows resting on his knees. His hands
rubbed his face. He looked consumed in guilt.

Charlie sat on a rug, his
arms wrapped around his knees as he rocked himself, staring off into the
distance. This wasn’t good. How was she going to keep him safe?

Then Mina remembered what her
mom had done. She shoved the hurt away and hid it behind her anger. She didn’t
have time to mourn her mother’s death when she had her brother to look after.
How could their mom do this to them? How could she abandon them so easily?

She sat up and flung the
blanket off of her lap and walked over to Charlie. Kneeling beside him, she
wrapped her arms round him. “I’m so sorry Charlie.”

Her brother hugged her back,
his shoulders shaking in silent sobs. “M-Mom,” he gushed out.

She couldn’t help but cry
tears of relief. Her brother was speaking, and the sound of his young, unsure,
and unused voice was the one glorious spot in her grim future.

“I know, sweetie. I know.”
She rocked him.

“Mina,” Charlie whispered.

It unlocked something insider
her. And then, with Charlie, she let the tears and grief overtake her. Their
pain and grief poured out in loud, uncontrollable sobs.

When Charlie finally cried
himself to sleep, Mina whispered, “I’ll protect you, Charlie. I promise.”

Brody came over and helped
lift him onto the couch that she’d vacated. Mina pulled the blanket up to his
chin, and her hands accidentally brushed his cheek. It was hot. She touched his
forehead. Charlie was burning up.

She grabbed a digital
thermometer from the bathroom. His reading was 101 degrees. She got a wet
washcloth and put it over his forehead and searched for some liquid fever
reducer to give him.

“Mina, can I talk to you?”
Brody spoke softly over Charlie’s sleeping form.

She didn’t want to even look
at him. He was the reason her mom was gone. He barely knew her mother, yet he
listened to her mom instead of her. How could she trust him?

“I’d rather not,” she said
stiffly.

Brody’s hands fisted, and he
took a deep breath, about to say something, when they heard a knock.

All three of them turned to
the door. Ever’s wings started to flutter, and she hovered off of the ground.
Brody reached for the fire poker, and Mina walked quietly to the window and
pulled the curtain aside to see Nan’s Volkswagen Beetle parked out front. They
hadn’t even heard it pull up.

Mina opened the door, and her
best friend rushed in the door. Her blonde hair hung plaited in one long messy
braid, and she wore a sparkly headband over her forehead. Her cheeks were
flushed with worry as she rushed inside.

“Mina, you won’t believe what
I found…” Nan trailed off when she took a long look at her friend’s swollen and
red-rimmed eyes. “What happened? Are you okay? Is Charlie okay?”

Mina nodded her head. “Yeah,
we’re fine. But my mom’s gone.”

“What?” Nan snapped and
rushed into the living room and was greeted by Brody’s somber face as he stood
with Ever. “How?”

Mina didn’t want to relay the
tale. She looked to Ever, who pulled Nan to the side and told her in hushed
tones. Mina stayed near the front door. As she closed it, something rushed
inside and scurried up her pant leg.

“Whoa!” She screamed and fell
backward, thinking the omen had returned.

The thing scrambled up and
out her collar, and her hands flew up to guard her. But she wasn’t being
devoured by the invisible beast. She was being nuzzled.

A second later, Anders, the
Baldander, appeared as a large brown squirrel.

“Anders?” Mina let out a
relieved laugh.

Nan came back to the front
room and kneeled beside her. “Yeah, he showed up at my condo this morning, a
little burned, but he was okay. He wouldn’t stop morphing until I promised to
bring him to you. “It’s like he knew something bad was coming.”

Mina sat on the floor with
Anders cuddled up in her lap. He seemed content and unwilling to move.

“I know that a lot has
happened. I can’t even imagine how it feels to lose your mother, but—”
Nan spoke softly.

“Nan, not now.” Mina tried to
stop the lecture that was sure to come.

“If not now, then when? When
your brother is killed as well?” Nan’s eyes burned with indignation and unshed
tears. “Ever told me Charlie spoke. Mina, you saw what happened with the
Godmothers’ Guild. I just want you to know that—when you’re ready, you’re
not alone. We’re in this together.”

“I don’t think I can involve
you anymore. The cost is too high.”

“That’s bull! And you know
it. This isn’t about you versus the almighty Teague. This is about us
protecting ourselves from a greater evil. So grieve, sort of quickly, and then
pull yourself together and fight back.”

Mina nodded and hugged her
friend. “We will. I will. Thank you.”

A second knock on the door
had all of them turning and looking at the door in distrust.

“Were you expecting anyone
else?”

“No.” Mina shuffled her legs,
and Ander scurried off of her lap and onto the floor as she slowly stood up.
She reached for the doorknob and was about to open it when Nan hissed, “Stop!
What if it’s Teague?”

“He wouldn’t knock,” Ever
said. “It’s not his style. He’d just blast the door in or appear in the room.”

Brody positioned himself next
to the front door with a baseball bat he’d pulled from the hall closet, and he
gave Mina a nod of encouragement. He twisted his hands around the grip, hefted
it over his shoulder, and waited. Without questioning her, he was once again
stepping in to protect them all.

Mina let out a sigh of worry
and concentrated on the door, trying to let her senses feel beyond it. She
didn’t feel the onslaught of Fae power that she got when Teague was near, but
she did feel a tingle of something or someone Fae.

She opened the door to reveal
a distraught Terry Goodmother on the other side. Dressed in head-to-toe white,
she rushed into the foyer. Her white hair looked disheveled, and black streaks
of mascara ran down her face. Mina quickly waved for Brody to lower his weapon.

“Oh my darling, Mina. I’m so
sorry.” The elderly woman, who was both her mother’s boss at Happy Maids and
her Godmother, came into the room and wrapped her chubby arms around Mina.
Terry’s shoulders wouldn’t stop shaking as she started to cry big, heaving
sobs, which only set Mina off on another round of her own.

“I knew as soon as it
happened.” She held up her heavy ringed hand, and the sparkle of her diamonds
almost blinded Mina as she placed her hand over her heart. “I felt it here, and
it hurts so much. What happened?”

“An omen came for me. Mom
saved us all by sacrificing herself,” Mina said as calmly as she could.

“She always was one of the
most selfless individuals I’ve known. Which is why I’ve been trying to keep her
from doing what she just did. By failing your mother, I’ve failed you. I’m so
sorry.”

“You’ve been the one adding
the charms to her bracelet,” Mina stated.

Terry nodded. “Yes, I’m also
the one who’s made her just fearful enough to run with you and hide from the
Fae. Otherwise, she would have sacrificed herself long ago to fight the curse
upon you. I couldn’t let her leave the two of you orphaned. I added another one
after the attacks on the Guild.”

“
You
made her fearful?” Mina said in disbelief.

“She wasn’t weak as you
believed. In her younger days, she fought alongside your father against the
Story’s wrath. But when your father died and your mother was pregnant, we
needed her to stop and go into hiding to protect you. So we turned all of her
passion and fire into self-preservation for you and Charlie.” Terry started to
wring her hands and pace the room.

“But you made her forget
about the curse, forget what was happening.” It felt good to finally be able to
confront her mother’s Godmother.

“The last year has been rough
on your mother. She came to me for help. She’d been running for so long, she
didn’t think she had it in her to fight anymore. So we did what we could to
make her non-interesting to the Story, so she wouldn’t become a target—so
there would always be someone here to protect your brother.” She looked up at
Mina, her eyes pale with age. “Now that job falls to you.” Terry seemed a
little unstable on her legs, and she kept grabbing her heart.

“Are you okay?” Nan asked,
worried.

“Oh yes, dear. I just need to
sit. ” Mina helped Terry into the living room, and she sat in the high-back
chair by the fire. “I’m very old, you know. My joints don’t work like they used
to.”

Mina looked Terry over with
suspicion. “No, I don’t quite believe that. You’re hiding something.” She sat
in the other chair across from Terry. “Who are you really?”

Terry’s eyes flicked between
Ever, Brody, Nan, and then to Charlie sleeping on the couch. “I don’t know what
you mean.”

“Yes, you do,” she accused.
“I know this is a glamour over your Fae self. Mei was a brownie. Constance told
us you’re a house elf.”

Terry looked scared, and she
twisted the bracelets on her wrist. She seemed like she wanted to be anywhere
but in this room.

“Terry, it’s safe. You can
trust us.” Nan piped up and smiled widely at the old Fae woman.

Terry nodded, blushing
softly. She released a long sigh and glowed white before her body began to
shift. The wrinkles softened but didn’t quite disappear, her body became
slimmer, and she started to shrink. The smaller she became, the brighter she
appeared, until only someone the size of a small doll sat perched on the edge
of the cushion. Her skin was a creamy opaque color, and her ears were pointed
and long with a cute dip on the tip.

In her house-elf body, it was
even more apparent that something was wrong with her.

“Terrylin,” Mina spoke her
real name, and the house elf smiled softly and shivered. “What’s wrong?”