Wolf Tales 12 (6 page)

It was easier than trying to think her way there. This way, she wouldn’t be just a ghost on the astral—she’d be herself. That would be much nicer.

Sparkly Eve always wore her pretty gown, and the best Lily had was her new princess nightgown with the silver sparkles all around the hem. She felt beautiful when she wore it, and even Mommy said that feeling good about yourself made you brave.

It must be working. Usually when Daddy used his angry voice, she did exactly what he said the minute he said it. She’d never blocked him before when he’d actually ordered her to do something. She stared at the cavern wall, thinking.

She’d done it now, and there was no way to avoid getting in trouble, so she might as well go through with it. He’d be proud of her when she showed him, though. He always was. She still remembered the time when Daddy’s smile had been trapped in Uncle AJ and she’d been the only one who could fix things.

That’s how she felt now—as if she was the only one who could help find those poor people who didn’t know they were Chanku. It was important to all of them, but if Lily didn’t do something about it, they’d just stay lost forever.

She couldn’t let that happen, and she was almost positive Daddy would agree. She held the flashlight with both hands and read the instructions carved into the cavern wall again. It was in that different language, the one Sparkly Eve had helped her with, but she was still learning, so it took her a little longer to figure it out. There were so many new things to learn. Some days her head almost hurt, like it was way too full of stuff.

Stuff she didn’t even tell Mommy and Daddy. Like a lot of the stuff that was in this story on the wall. She’d told them a little bit tonight, but she knew they thought she was making it up. That was the problem with grown-ups. They had a hard time believing when kids knew what they were talking about.

At least Alex believed her, even though he had to argue about everything.

She frowned at the words on the wall. Then, all of a sudden, the instructions made perfect sense. She set the flashlight down—no point in carrying it with her, since the sun was always shining where Sparkly Eve lived—stood on her toes so she could reach high enough, and flattened her palms against the two handprints on the wall.

Then she thought about Sparkly Eve and the beautiful pond with all the bubbles, and it happened! Just the way it was supposed to, the wall began to shimmer and glow and her hands slipped through into sunshine and a beautiful meadow surrounded by a dark green forest.

Daddy was probably still calling her. Lily glanced over her shoulder before stepping through the gateway, but she didn’t plan to be gone long. She might get into trouble, but she hoped not. Still, she’d been keeping a lot of secrets from Daddy lately, things he just wasn’t ready to deal with.

He worried about so many things, and not just about finding all the Chanku who were still lost, though she knew that was really bothering him now. She’d heard the stories about how Uncle Stef found Aunt Xandi and how Oliver found Adam just walking down a road, but what her daddy said was right. It was sad there were probably a lot more out there who didn’t know who they were, and he felt responsible.

Lily was certain she knew how to help him find them. She’d do anything she could to make things easier for Daddy, and for Mommy, too. It must be awfully hard to have so many people counting on you. Her daddy was an important man. He had business people and all the Chanku in the different packs, and little Lucia who cried a lot, and Gabe and Mac who were both holy terriers. That’s what Mommy called them, which kind of made sense because terriers were dogs and her little brothers did act like puppies sometimes.

At least Lily thought it made sense. She glanced over her shoulder once again at the dark cavern, which was really kind of spooky when you were down here all alone late at night, but Sparkly Eve would be waiting and sunlight glowed through the doorway she’d just opened.

With her mental shields tightly in place, Lily stepped through the shimmering gateway. Walking from the dark cavern beneath her father’s Montana home, she entered the astral plane.

Three small steps that carried her out of this world, into the magic of the Goddess’s special
where
and
when.

Anton glanced out the window of his study, stared blindly at the pale strip of violet rimming the eastern horizon, and rubbed his burning eyes. They’d searched all night and found nothing. Nothing at all. The only answer he refused to acknowledge, the only possibility he had for the lack of mental connection with his daughter was one he dared not voice.

If Lily were dead, he didn’t know if he could go on. She was young and perfect and had such a wonderful future ahead of her. She had saved his life on more than one occasion—what if he couldn’t save hers?

Keisha and Lucia slept alone in their big bed. Keisha was exhausted from worry, but she trusted him to find Lily.

What if he failed her? Failed Lily. The boys would be waking soon. What could he say to Gabe and Mac? They idolized their big sister.

“You need to get some sleep, my friend.” Stef sat down on the sofa beside him and looped an arm around Anton’s shoulders. “She’ll turn up. She can’t just disappear.”

“I can’t find her mind.” Anton ran his hands through hair tangled from the long night of fruitless searching. “Her thoughts are always there, fluttering in the background like a tiny moth, bursting forward when she wants to connect, but always there. Where the fuck is she?”

He jerked his head around and caught Stefan’s sympathetic gaze. “Where, Stef?”

Stefan shook his head. “I don’t know.” He sighed. “When you and Keisha left, she was with us. After the kids had their baths, Xandi said she walked Lily to her room, fluffed her pillows, and left her reading her book. It was early enough that she didn’t think you’d mind if Lily stayed up a bit past her normal bedtime. You and Keisha were home less than half an hour later.” He let out a huge puff of air, as if their frustrating search had him holding his breath. Then he cocked his head to one side and stared at Anton. “Anton . . . has Lily ever consciously blocked you?”

Had she? He honestly didn’t know, though he’d not ever given it much thought. Slowly, Anton shook his head. “I don’t know for certain. She’s terribly powerful. Sometimes at night when I check on her before bed, I can’t read her, but I’ve never pushed to see if she’s actually blocking, or if it’s just her natural shield. I sense she might be. I imagine she could if she wanted to. But why?”

Sighing, Stefan rubbed Anton’s shoulders. “I’ve been thinking about when I was putting Alex to bed last night. He was rattling on about the storybook in the cavern, the one Lily was supposedly reading to him yesterday.”

Frowning, Anton stared at Stef. “Those old scratches on the walls? She told us some of it last night. It was obviously all fantasy. She was just fabricating a story for Alex’s benefit.”

“Was she?” Stefan stood and held out a hand. “I think we should go down and take a look at Lily’s storybook. The tale Alex told me was pretty outlandish. In fact, it was so far over the top, I’m inclined to wonder if Lily was making it up . . . or if, just maybe, she really was reading it.”

There was a fresh pot of coffee going in the kitchen, but the room was empty. Anton and Stefan each grabbed a cup before going down the stairs to the cellar. At the last moment, Anton stuffed a small flashlight in his pocket.

They’d left the cabinet that usually hid the cave entrance shoved to one side, so it was easy enough to enter the doorway and follow the narrow tunnel leading to the main cavern.

The electric lights they’d installed a couple of years earlier lit the tunnel with an eerie blue glow, casting dark shadows off the rough walls. After a short hike, Stefan led the way through a narrow fissure into the huge cavern beyond. He flipped a switch and light filled the area, reflecting off the pool at one end, the water spilling into it from an upper level, and the tiny crystals that sparkled across much of the ceiling.

The air was still, smelling of damp earth and fungus, and . . . Anton’s heart thundered in his chest. Wasn’t that . . . ? He jerked his head up, sucking in a deep breath, pulling all his Chanku instincts to the fore. “I can smell Lil—”

Stef interrupted. “Alex, too. Remember, they were here with us all afternoon yesterday.”

Anton felt as if someone had pulled his plug, as if all the energy that had kept him going throughout the long night had finally disappeared. He sighed and closed his eyes against the sting of tears. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Stef gave him a quick hug. “No. You’re thinking too much. C’mon. Let’s check out Lily’s storybook.”

They circled the pool. It was darker against this side of the cavern, out of the direct beams of light, but the series of carvings and drawings on the wall were still visible. Anton pulled out his small flashlight to study them closer. “I can’t believe we’ve never pursued this. The detail is fascinating. There’s a lot more here than I realized.”

Stefan ran his fingers over some of the etched symbols. “Alex said Lily can read what it says. She told him someone named Sparkly Eve told her how.”

“Lily was talking about Sparkly Eve last night. That’s her name for the Goddess Eve.”

“Our Goddess?” Stef raised one eyebrow.

“The same. She said she visits Eve in the pretty place between worlds.”

“The astral?” This time Stefan straightened up and stared at Anton. “Lily’s traveled on the astral? Shit, man. She’s only six years old!”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a frustrated breath. Had he been in denial, treating some of Lily’s stories as childish fantasy merely because it was easier? Less terrifying?

“But if she’s on the astral . . .” Stefan shook his head. “Time is so different there. She’d have no idea how long she was gone, how far from home she really is.”

“I know, and I’m wondering . . .” Anton felt as if he anchored himself to the odd symbols covering the cave. He had to—his mind was flying in a million directions at once. “Could she have actually gone there? I mean, physically gone there? You and I have done it a couple of times, at least while Liana was Goddess, but generally when you visit Eve, it’s more a psychic visit. The corporeal body remains behind.”

“For most people it would. For any other child it would. We’re talking about Lily. This is the little girl who talked you out of taking that final journey to follow the light when she was still an infant. Not your average kid.”

Smiling for the first time in hours, Anton merely shook his head. No, Lily was far from an average kid. She was amazing, and suddenly, she didn’t feel nearly as far away. He peered at the drawings. There were pictures and obvious hieroglyphs, but smaller symbols as well that could have been letters, though in a language that made no sense at all to Anton.

“What’s it mean?” He gazed at Stefan. “Do you have any idea what it says?”

“No, but I’ll bet Alex could tell you. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to him last night, but he couldn’t stop talking about Lily’s storybook. Something about a spaceship comes to mind.”

“Did you say spaceship?” He had a little trouble wrapping his mind around that one.

Stefan nodded. “I did.” He glanced at his watch. “Alex will be up in another hour. Let’s you and me get cleaned up. It’s been a long night, and I have a feeling it will be an even longer day. Let’s shower, have some breakfast . . . what d’ya say?”

Anton nodded, only partially paying attention. He was following the etchings and paintings, surprised to see that the hieroglyphs appeared to be carved into the walls while the smaller symbols were drawn with what might have been charcoal. Done at a later date, maybe? It was hard to tell, but he could see that there was an actual format to the tale, if that’s what it was. And one of the drawings did look like a child’s rendition of a spaceship, or, more precisely, a flying saucer.

Or maybe it was a large serving plate. He almost laughed at the myriad routes his imagination was taking, but it was obvious there was a story here. He just wished he knew what it was.

Something clattered at his feet. He glanced at the ground to see what he’d kicked. It was a little flashlight covered in cartoon characters, the one Lily kept beside her bed. As he reached down to pick it up, he noticed footprints. Small, perfect little prints that looked exactly like the ballet slippers Lily insisted on wearing much of the time.

They were, after all, what princesses wore. She’d been adamant about that. The prints suddenly blurred, and Anton realized his eyes had filled with tears. Yesterday, when Lily and Alex were down here, both kids had been wearing tennis shoes. These prints were different. They’d been made since then. She had to have been here last night. The prints were fresh, her scent was fresh, so it hadn’t been all that long ago.

“What’ve you got?”

Stefan knelt beside him. Anton hadn’t even realized he’d fallen to his knees. “Lily’s prints. Look. Look where they go.” He pointed, and then he turned and looked directly into Stefan’s amber eyes.

“That can’t be right. How could she possibly walk into a wall of solid stone?”

“Shit.” Anton cleared his throat. “Last night when Keisha and I were with Lily, she was talking about Sparkly Eve. How she liked to visit the Goddess in her dreams. I suggested she go and see Eve when she went to bed. You don’t think . . .” He planted his hands on his knees and bowed his head.

“I think Lily understands more of what’s written on this wall than we’re giving her credit for. And I’m wondering if there might be instructions for traveling on the astral plane. Instructions she came down here to follow.”

Anton stood up and shoved Lily’s flashlight into his pocket. “I know if I call on Eve she’ll answer, but I’m exhausted right now, and I don’t want to make any mistakes. We need to talk to Alex first, but I don’t want to get him up this early. Let’s use the shower in one of the guest rooms so we don’t wake anyone. It was a long night, but there’s no way I can sleep now. I have no doubt we’re on the right track. I also have no doubt I know a little girl who’s going to end up grounded until she’s eighty.”