Reunion (34 page)

"He came to me," Kiva explained, "in my hotel room in London."

"You're seeing the dead now?"

Kiva shook her head. "He was real, Hayley. As real as you or I."

The idea that Ren was somewhere close by, even if it was London, filled Hayley with a mixture of turbulent emotions, ranging from hope to anger. Ren had got her into this mess and he might be able to get her out of it, but he was apparently flitting about the world, dropping in on his mother for a visit in London, quite content to let his best friend rot here in Dublin with her life falling apart.

"Ren told you that, did he? That I've been to another reality?"

It occurred to Hayley that Kiva might be here to set her up. Had her father engaged the eminent Murray Symes to get to the root of her memory loss? And had Kiva been sent here to pretend they were friends so Hayley would confide her psychosis to her? Was there an ambulance parked down the street with a psych team and a straightjacket, waiting for Kiva's signal? Was Kiva wearing a wire?

Dear God, have I completely lost my mind?

"It's where Ren's been all this time."

"He told you that, too, did he?"

Kiva took a sip of her coffee and then a deep breath, as if she was forcing herself to remain calm. "Have you ever heard of Darragh?"

Hayley nodded slowly, aware she was treading on dangerous ground here, if she didn't want to admit the truth - even if Kiva seemed to have guessed it anyway. "He's Ren's brother, isn't he?"

"Ren's identical twin," Kiva said with a nod. "He's in prison, by the way, for kidnapping you and for ordering some accountant killed."

"I didn't know that."

"After you and Ren disappeared, Darragh came to my house pretending to be Ren."

"How long did he manage to fool you for?"

"Longer than he should have. Not as long as he imagines. Not that I wasn't ready and willing to be fooled. I so desperately wanted him to be Ren. I so desperately wanted Ren to be doing what the Gardaí claimed - keeping watch for some sleazy drug lord while he sold a trunk-load of cocaine. I wanted him to be a normal, troublesome teenager."

"You
wanted
Ren to be dealing drugs?"

"I wanted him to be doing anything, but what I feared he was actually doing."

"Which was?"

"Discovering who he really was."

Kiva was a good actress, even a great one at times, so Hayley knew she should be wary of her, but there was a ring of truth about her story.

"Did you turn him in? Is that why Darragh is in prison?"

"I turned him in, Hayley, but not to the Gardaí. I called the people who brought
me
to this reality. I told them he was here and that they should come get him, and then nine-eleven happened and the whole world turned pear-shaped. By the time my people got here, Darragh was in jail and his fate was out of our hands."

Hayley waited for Kiva to elaborate. She had no idea what nine-eleven meant.

It took Kiva a moment to realize she'd lost Hayley somewhere along the way. "I'm sorry ... you wouldn't know. There was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York just after you disappeared. It killed thousands of people. It was appalling, almost beyond description. The world really hasn't been the same since."

"What do you mean: 'the people who brought me to this reality?' Hayley desperately wanted to believe Kiva knew something about what had happened to her, but she'd witnessed Kiva join several different religions as she was growing up. Kiva once announced she was Cleopatra in a past life. It didn't seem possible that the same woman could know anything about what Hayley had been through, or that if she did know about it, that she could be such a ditz.

"I come from a different reality to this one. I was brought here when I was not much older than you."

"By who?"

"An organization called the
Matrarchaí
. My mother belonged to them and signed me up as soon as she gave birth to a girl. Once I got older and it was obvious I was going to be pretty, I was marked for bearing children. Turns out I can't. Your father rescued Ren while I was waiting to learn my fate. I'd been in this realm for a fair while by then. I had a life and an identity they'd carefully constructed for me and I wanted to stay. And I really did want to be an actress. Adopting Ren meant I could stay and follow my dreams."

Hayley didn't know what to say.

"They use magic in the realm I come from too, Hayley," she said, as if she understood Hayley's astonishment. "When the Gardaí interviewed Darragh after you and Ren disappeared, he was quite open about coming from another reality. He swore that's where they'd sent you to have your eyesight healed. Everyone thought he was mad."

"Except you."

She nodded. "Kerry knew the truth too, but what were we supposed to do? Tell the Gardaí Darragh was right? That you probably
were
in another reality having your sight healed by magic? They'd have locked us up alongside Darragh."

"
Kerry
knows about this?"

Kiva shrugged.

"She and dad were trying to have me declared dead."

"You'd been gone ten years, pet. We figured you liked it where you were and decided to stay, just as I decided to stay in this reality. It was your father, not Kerry, who wanted the matter settled. He doesn't know about any of this ... well nothing but what Darragh may have told him. He was just doing what one does a decade after one's child has been kidnapped and never seen again."

"Why hasn't Kerry said anything to me if she knows the truth?"

Kiva took another sip of the coffee and grimaced. Hayley figured it must be cold by now. "That gets us back to what I said earlier, I suppose ... she doesn't want me telling you any of this. Kerry has tried very hard to put her previous life behind her, Hayley. She doesn't want to go back to it. She doesn't want anything to do with it. Telling you the truth means opening up a lot of old wounds she thought healed over long ago."

"You don't seem to have that problem."

That made Kiva smile. "I'm not the pragmatist your stepmother is, pet. I know it's probably best to pretend ignorance. I know I should probably try to convince you that you've imagined it all. Or that you've just lost your memory for the past decade. But that won't alter what's happened to you, Hayley. Even worse, once word gets out to the press that you've reappeared, you'll become a freak show. Being an object of public scrutiny is not a life I would thrust upon my worst enemy. If I'd known when I was younger what I know now about the high price of fame, I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have chosen differently, myself."

Hayley thought that highly unlikely. Kiva loved being famous. "What am I supposed to do?"

"That's why I'm here, darling. To ask if you want me to petition the
Matrarchaí
to send you back."

"Send me back to what?" Hayley asked, angry she would even suggest such a thing. "I was gone a week, Kiva. I don't have a fabulous new life in another reality like you do, waiting for my return. I was gone a few days, and then they kicked me out and sent me home."

Kiva pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I thought Ren sent you to Darragh's friends to be healed."

"Some friends! I was met by a handsome Faerie prince, spirited away to
Tír Na nÓg,
dumped on his sister, tolerated until they got bored having me there and then sent home by a merman. I don't want to go back to that reality. I hate the Faerie." It took until that moment for Hayley to realize hate was exactly what she was feeling. That's what her tears were for. Not for her lost life, not for her missing years, but her betrayal by the Faerie who never warned her of the dangers of accepting their hospitality.

"Well then, darling, you'll fit right in with the
Matrarchaí
. Did you want me to arrange a meeting for you?"

Hayley was about to say yes, when another thought occurred to her. "Why is Ren back?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said you spoke to Ren in London. But he's been gone as long as I have. Why is he back now?"

She shrugged. "He didn't say, but if I had to guess, I'd say he's come looking for Darragh. I've always thought it strange he left him here in prison for so long."

"Then he'll have to come here. To Dublin."

"I suppose. Are you expecting him to look you up?"

Why would he?
Hayley thought.
He abandoned me to the Faerie and hasn't tried to find me in ten years
.

"I guess not."

"Shall I talk to the
Matrarchaí
for you then?"

Hayley couldn't decide, partly because she still didn't completely trust Kiva, and partly because she wasn't sure she wanted anything to do with any organization that dealt with magic and realities full of Faerie.

Magic and realities full of Faerie had brought her nothing but pain, so far.

"I don't know, Kiva."

"I understand," Kiva said, with a sympathetic nod. "I really do." She opened her purse and pulled out a card, sliding it across the kitchen table. "If you change your mind, give them a call."

Hayley looked at the elegant silver card and frowned. "This is for a modeling agency."

"I know. Tell them I told you to call. Ask for Mother. She'll understand."

Kiva closed her purse and rose to her feet. She smiled down at Hayley. "I know you think I'm a bit of a fruit-loop, Hayley. I probably am and you were always such a smart girl. I may not be as clever as you, but I was given a chance at a different life and I was smart enough to grab it. Don't let the same chance slip away, just because it's me that's bringing you the opportunity." She shouldered her purse and glanced at her watch. "God, is that the time? I'm supposed to be meeting Jon and Eunice for lunch. Be a pet and don't mention our little chat to Kerry, will you?"

"If you want."

"And don't fret about Ren," she added, mistaking Hayley's silence for something it wasn't. "He'll be okay. He has powerful magic and I think he's learned a thing or two about how to use it these past few years."

"Will he come back through the same rift, do you think?"

"I suppose. It's easier than finding new rifts, I believe. Not that I ever had the ability to open a rift. Why?"

"Just wondering."

Kiva slipped on her large sunglasses and began to cover her hair with the scarf. "Well, don't wonder too long. And put that card somewhere safe."

"I will."

Hayley saw her to the door, closing it carefully after Kiva kissed her on the cheek and slipped outside, looking about dramatically before she ran to her Lexus and climbed inside.

As the car backed out of the drive, Hayley leaned on the closed front door for a moment, and then glanced down at the card Kiva had given her, before slipping it into the pocket of her jeans. She wasn't interested in Kiva's modeling agency. She had other plans.

Ren was coming for Darragh. Kiva said he would probably come through the same rift, which meant that sooner or later, Ren had to appear at the ruined stone circle in the rough at the Castle Golf Club, and when he stepped through the rift she would be waiting for him.

"Now what?" Pete asked as he looked about, wondering where they were. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew the location, and it would make sense if it turned out to be the place he thought it was. Marcroy had tossed them through a rift with very little forethought. Logically, he would send them to a location to which he'd previously opened a rift.

"We wait, I suppose," Logan suggested, brushing dried twigs from his shirt.

"For what, exactly?"

"The rift to open again?"

"There's a well thought out plan."

"I'm serious, Pete. Ren has to come back for Darragh. Count on it. We just need to be here when it happens. Unless of course, you want to stay in this reality."

Pete shook his head. That decision was long made. And Logan's logic didn't really work for Pete. "Ren just got ambushed by Marcroy Tarth. He could be dead by now."

His brother shook his head. "Marcroy doesn't want to kill him. He needs him to save the world, or something."

"When did he tell you that?"

"When he ambushed me coming back through the rift into our realm."

Pete smiled. "Our realm? You mean the ninja reality? I thought
this
was our realm?"

Logan thought on that for a moment and then shrugged. "I guess we've moved way beyond that now."

"Ironic, don't you think, that after a decade of searching, we arrive at this momentous conclusion a few minutes after we get dumped here with no way back."

"We have a way back," Logan reminded him. "If worst comes to worst, we just need to get to one of the
Matrarchaí
's
stone circles in the Enchanted Sphere."

"Not without a talisman to open a rift. Should we try scrying Trása or Nika out on the puddle phone?"

Logan shook his head. "Echo told me Marcroy was holding Trása prisoner. She didn't know what had happened to Nika. And we don't have anything magical to fire up the puddle phone with in any case."

"Christ ... you mean we're left with waiting for Ren?"

"Looks like." Logan glanced about and frowned. "We're at the golf club, aren't we?"

"I think so."

"Not a very good place to wait."

"And no guarantee Ren will come back through this rift anyway," Pete agreed. "How do we find him when he gets here?"

"We don't. We need to be where he's going to be when he comes back." Logan rubbed his forearms with his hands to ward off the cold. The wind had picked up. Although they were reasonably sheltered here, it was not going to be a fun place to spend the night. "Fancy yourself a seer, little brother? We're going to need one to work that out."

"Portlaoise Prison."

"What?"

"Darragh is an inmate in Portlaoise Prison."

Logan nodded, and began to look about for somewhere to sit. "Off you go then. I'll be waiting here when you get back."

"Very funny."

"If Darragh is in Portlaoise Prison, Pete, I am not going anywhere near the place. It's full of cameras, for one thing, and you and I have been disappeared for a decade. And
I
sure as hell am not going to do anything to get myself inside as an inmate on the off chance Ren might turn up to rescue me someday."