Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) (36 page)

I didn’t share my concerns with Devon.
She was under the impression that I was destined for a wonderful
afterlife among other angelic souls, and I wanted nothing to change
that impression.

I continued reading Dad’s notes on G.
Rochester. Just like Kannon’s story, G. Rochester told Dad that
Rhadamanthus said he was lucky to be over the age of consent. At
sixteen, G. Rochester was old enough to enter into the Egrgoroi
contract. His service to the chosen god would begin on his
eighteenth birthday. Messages would be communicated to him whenever
he was sleeping, unconscious, or in a meditative state.

It suddenly occurred to me that those
situations other than sleeping must be why Kannon wanted me to
always wear my necklace. If I somehow lost consciousness or
accidentally meditated, then I would be susceptible to the
messages. What I didn’t understand was why both Kannon and my
father wanted to block the communications. I’d obviously made a
deal to receive them and carry out the god’s wishes in exchange for
returning to earth. Shouldn’t I be holding up my end of the
bargain?

Devon tapped her pen against the
coffee table, drawing my focus from the notes I was reading. Her
brows were drawn together and she chewed her lower lip.

“You got something?” I
asked.

“Not sure.” Devon began starring words
on the page she was examining. She looked up. “Have you ever heard
of the Daughters of Cassandra or the Apollo Society?”

I shook my head. “What are
they?”

“Don’t know,” Devon admitted. “But
your father has made several references to both in this notebook.
And,” she turned the notebook towards me, “isn’t this the symbol
that was on Mr. Haverty’s ring?”

Next to Dad’s mention of the Apollo
Society was a crude drawing of a goblet with an eye in the center.
The eye did look a lot like the one carved into the diner owner’s
ring.

“Maybe they are other types of
Egrgoroi?” I suggested, recalling what Kannon had told me the night
before. But that didn’t really fit in with what I knew about
Egrgoroi. I’d never felt any unease in his presence, and when he
placed his hand on mine, no shock passed between us.

Devon stared at me like I had three
heads. So, I launched into an explanation similar to the one Kannon
had given me to describe the lake creature.

“Fascinating,” Devon mused, blue eyes
alight with interest. “So there really was a mermaid in the
water?”

“I guess so.” Truthfully,
all of this
was
incredibly intriguing, and if I’d been researching the topic
purely for academic purposes, I might have shared her enthusiasm.
Right now, though, all of this new information just made my head
hurt.

“Dev?”

“Hmmm?” She had once again buried her
head in a book.

“Do you think he found a way into the
underworld?”

When we started on this fact-finding
mission, I’d been certain that my father’s research would provide
us with the clues we needed to find him. The deeper we delved, the
more I hoped that wouldn’t be the case. All signs were starting to
point south, to the underworld. And that scared me. Appealing my
sentence, if that was what he was doing, was not worth risking his
life in the process.

“Truth?” Devon asked after a long
pause.

“Truth,” I answered.

Devon sighed heavily. “I
do.”

That was what I’d been afraid
of.

“I’m not sure how he figured out the
locations of the gates, but the maps prove he did. Not to mention
what he told Mr. Haverty.”

“Do you think that is where he is now?
In the underworld?”

“I think there is a strong
possibility.”

“Do you think he’s dead?”

My best friend hesitated. Her eyes
were sad when she met my imploring gaze. “I don’t know, Eel. I hope
not.”

Me, too, I thought. Me,
too.

****

“How did Aunt Sam really die?” I asked
Mom.

We were seated at the kitchen table,
both of us with untouched plates of chicken and broccoli in Alfredo
sauce on our placemats. I already knew the answer to my question,
of course, but I wanted to see if Mom was ready for full disclosure
or if she would continue to lie to me.

Mom stared past me, absently twirling
a long strand of pasta with her fork. Her short black hair was
pulled back with a clip, a look that usually made her appear
younger than she actually was. But today she looked old, tired and
old.

“There were complications with your
birth,” she finally said. “Sam, well, she lost too much
blood.”

Hearing my mother say it was a lot
worse than reading it on Dad’s laptop. I’d steeled myself for the
answer before asking the question, but was still unprepared. Tears
made my mother’s face swim before my eyes, and I blinked rapidly to
keep them from falling. I picked up a piece of broccoli with my
fingers and popped it in my mouth as a distraction.

“But you’d already made the decision
to adopt me by that point? I mean, even if Sam had lived, you still
would have raised me?” I was surprised by how even my tone was, how
calm I sounded discussing this.

“Yes. That was the plan from the
moment Sam decided to see the pregnancy through.”

“So she never wanted me?” Now my voice
broke. Everything I’d been holding inside had finally become too
much. No amount of blinking, or tearing my napkin, or promising
myself I could cry once I was alone, could stop the sobs and
waterworks.

I wrapped my arms across my stomach,
rocking back and forth in my chair. Mom was beside me in a flash,
gathering me in her arms and stroking my hair, something she hadn’t
done in over a decade.

“No, baby,” she mumbled against my
hair. “She did. She just knew she would never be able to take care
of you. She could barely take care of herself. But she did want
you. And your father and I wanted you. We love you. She loved
you.”

The fact she called me baby – Mom only
ever called me Endora or Endora Lee – made me cry harder. She
continued to stroke my hair and rub my back as she made what passed
for soothing noises. We stayed like that for a long time; it felt
good to let it all out. I hadn’t cried so hard since the day the
judge terminated my father’s parental rights.

Once I was no longer a
blubbering mess, Mom put water in the kettle and made two cups of
green tea. She disappeared into her home office while the water
heated, returning with a well-worn photo album. We sat together on
the living room sofa.
Mom held my hand and
told me stories about her younger sister - my birth mother - and
showed me pictures of the two of them from childhood. They weren’t
the stories I’d already heard, like about how Sam was irresponsible
and selfish. These stories were funny and sweet and made me miss a
woman that I never knew.

Mom apologized for keeping the truth a
secret for so long. Holding a grudge was too taxing, so I promised
to try and move past the lie.

“You should probably go to bed,
Endora; it’s late,” Mom said after our third cup of tea.

I rose to my feet, but Mom stayed
seated. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then
closed it without speaking. I waited, dreading whatever she might
disclose next.

“I spoke with James today,” she
finally said. “Regardless of what happened between us, I do want to
find your father. I told James that I will help in any way I can.”
She paused. “He has also offered to help find your biological
father if you want that. Samantha never told anyone who he was, but
we can try to find out. Take some time to think about it, though.
It is not a decision you need to make tonight.”

Did I want to meet my biological
father? I wasn’t really sure. There was so much going on in my life
that meeting a man who may not even know I existed, let alone that
I was his offspring, was daunting.

“I’ll think about it,” I promised my
mother. “And thank you for helping to find Dad.”

Mom squeezed my hand, then released me
to go to my bedroom. She stayed where she was, though. When I
looked back, she had picked up the photo album again and was
flipping through the pages.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

The following week was chaotic. Prom
fever had infected the entire senior class, or at least the entire
female half. All anyone talked about during lunch was where they’d
made dinner reservations and what type of boutonniere they’d
ordered for their date. The girls on the lacrosse team were so
preoccupied with describing their dresses to one another that Coach
Peters made us run sprints until we were wheezing too hard to
talk.

I bought two tickets from Megan
Malone, our class treasurer, before school on Tuesday morning. That
same day, Elizabeth informed us at lunch that her father had
offered to pay for the limo rental. Devon’s resolve to go stag held
strong even when Rick sent her a dozen roses and an “I’m sorry”
teddy bear. I’d never been more proud of my best friend.

I still didn’t have a dress, but Mom
promised that she would “take care of it.” I appreciated her
newfound interest in my life, though I was a little nervous about
what she would pick out. I had no idea what I’d do if it was
hideous – hopefully the gods would look out for me on this one. Mom
and I continued our truce, and she made every effort to be home
from work in time for late-night dinner.

Devon finished going through the
password-protected file on Dad’s laptop, finding a whole bunch of
random clues that led absolutely nowhere. The only ones that held
any interest for me were the six scanned receipts from a jewelry
shop in Hilo, Hawaii, all for dream catcher necklaces. This I found
odd, considering there had only been one necklace in the ornate
box. I tried calling the phone number on the receipt, not sure what
I intended to ask, but the phone just rang and rang.

On Wednesday, Kannon came over and we
went through more of Dad’s notes. Having Kannon in my bedroom was a
little unnerving; he’d never made it past the first floor on his
previous visits. But he appeared at ease as he perused the photo
collages and band posters that decorated my walls. I sat in my
computer chair, embarrassed by the pile of dirty clothes that
hadn’t quite made it into the laundry hamper but rather sat next to
the laundry hamper.

I showed him the sections that Devon
marked, the ones about the Daughters of Cassandra and the Apollo
Society, but his blank expression confirmed that he was telling the
truth when he said he’d never heard of either.

“Can I take these?” he asked holding
up the spreadsheet my father had made with names and contact
information for the other Egrgoroi he’d found.

“Sure,” I agreed, somewhat surprised
by his request. “Devon emailed them, but she hasn’t heard
back.”

Kannon smiled. “I’m willing to bet
that my resources are better than hers.”

“The other mysterious Egrgoroi that
you’ve met?” I teased.

“You got it.” He pulled out his cell
phone and checked the time on the display. “I should probably go
before your mom gets home.”

We collected all the books and
notepads and returned them to their hiding place underneath my bed.
Before we had a chance to say our goodbyes, with no warning, I
heard the front door close.

“Endora! I’m home!”

My heart actually stopped beating for
a brief moment. I nervously glanced between Kannon and the bedroom
door. This looked bad, really bad. Mom was going to kill me. I’d
never had a boy in my bedroom before, and while she’d never
strictly prohibited me from doing so, she’d never said it was okay
either. I considered shoving him in the closet, then realized that
would be fruitless since his Jeep was in the driveway. Kannon
laughed at my obvious panic.

“We weren’t doing anything
wrong.” He glanced at the bed skirt that concealed the evidence
we’d been doing something my mother wouldn’t approve of. “Okay,
well, we weren’t doing
that
.”

Honestly, knowing my mother, I wasn’t
sure which was worse – her thinking we were researching Egrgoroi or
her thinking we were getting busy in my bed.

“Endora?”

Crap, crap, crap. She was on the
stairs; I could hear her heels clacking on the wooden
steps.

“What should I do?” Kannon
whispered.

There was no time for me to answer.
Mom was at the bedroom door. It was cracked and she pushed it open
without knocking. The smile dropped from her lips when she saw
Kannon standing in the middle of the room.

“Hello, Mrs. Andrews,” Kannon said,
the only one of us not tongue-tied. He moved forward, and offered
his hand to my mother.

Ever the well-mannered politician, Mom
recovered quickly. “It’s nice to meet you, Kannon,” she said,
giving him a thin smile.

“We were just…” I had no lame excuse
for us being in my bedroom, so I just let my voice trail
off.

“It was nice to meet you, Mrs.
Andrews. I should probably go, but I’ll see you on Saturday.”
Kannon stepped closer to me and leaned down, kissing me softly on
the cheek. “Dream well,” he murmured.