By the third day I was beside myself. Justus proved to be more pigheaded than Tristan. He'd tried to sneak out several times and I'd taken to sleeping in his bedroom, resting against the door. The blizzard brought over three feet of snow but the accumulation didn't deter Justus from trying for the gates again and again.
He ignored me and my many attempts to speak to him. He was angry and so very sad. I wanted to hold him through his pain but he wouldn't let me to comfort him. The only time I refused to allow him to shrug off my touch was when he attempted escape. Even as he kicked and screamed, I patted him and soothed him the best I knew how until he exhausted himself. Afterwards he'd sleep for hours, like now, and I wondered if I was going about this the wrong way. Dealing with him sapped my energy and pushed at my patience.
Justus's siblings had crawled in bed with him and he allowed them to give him comfort. Sitting on the floor in front of the door, I dozed off and on listening to the children breathe. How did I get Justus to listen to me? What did I say? If I didn't get a handle on the situation he'd eventually give me the slip and then I'd be too late to retrieve him. I couldn't allow that to happen, but how to get past Justus's walls…
My thoughts moved to Tristan and what Gregori had said and what he hadn't said. My gut, my instinct argued Tristan wasn't gone. Everyone close to him knew the Earth adored him. I couldn't imagine she'd let him parish.
"You know when you frown like that you look really scary." Dawn lay at the foot of the bed on her side, her curls softly framing her small face.
I smiled. This was the first time any of the three spoke to me. "My apologies. My thoughts weren't happy ones."
Justus and Neoma moved, their breathing changing, and I suspected they listened to Dawn and me.
Dawn's sigh sounded as weary as I felt. "No one's thoughts are happy these days. What were you thinking about?"
Should I talk to her about my reasonings? They weren't appropriate for a child. Would she understand I was speculating but didn't have any real knowledge? When her expression closed down I went out on a limb. "You know your Uncle Tristan is my friend? We grew up together, went through our first change within the weeks of each other."
Dawn sniffled. "I saw him in my dreams. I wanted him to come home. Now he never will."
Marjan had explained to me what happened right before Tristan died. The Goddess Uttu, the Weaver of the Web of Life, had taken Dawn under her tutelage, commenting that Dawn would grow to be a great sage. Without understand why, my heart hurt for her.
"How do you know he's not coming back?" I asked not ready for the wall of silence to fall between us again.
Dawn wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Because I can't feel him any more just like I can't feel Randy."
Justus sat up, all pretense of sleep gone as he scowled at me. "Randy ain't dead!" I sensed how close to the surface his wolf hovered.
I ignored Justus's outburst. Curiosity ate at me. I shouldn't have asked but this felt important. "When did you stop feeling Randy?"
"Not long after he left. He was there and then suddenly he was gone." Dawn rolled over onto her stomach and placed her fists under her chin as she rested on her elbows. Her eyes were huge and filled with heartbreak. How did anyone say no to her for anything?
"Huh, that's interesting," I mumbled to myself.
If Dawn couldn't sense Randy once he crossed the gate into a different realm, then perhaps the same could be said of Tristan? I glanced at the children. Their expectant but wary expressions staring back at me. If I was wrong about Tristan and gave them false hope…I didn't want to be responsible for crushing them.
Letting out a long breath I said, "Randy crossed over to a place that isn't here on earth. I'm guessing probably about the same time you no longer sensed him, Dawn."
Justus sat up and leaned against the wall. "But Bixx said—"
I quickly held up my hand to keep him going further, afraid it would only lead to another argument just when he was finally speaking to me.
"I know what he said. The place Randy went to is very dangerous. The Land of the Dead is ruled by a very powerful queen and she hasn't been happy for a very long time. Randy went to ask for her help because he thinks she'd be a good friend to your uncle."
The quiet one, Neoma asked, "Then why is going there dangerous?"
That question had so many answers and many of them I wouldn't dare give to them. "Because even though he entered freely, he must have her permission to leave. And like I said before, she's not a happy Goddess right now."
"Are there any happy Goddesses?" Dawn mumble glumly.
I plastered on a grin that I hoped looked genuine. "I think Uttu is pretty happy."
"So if I can't feel Randy because he went to visit someone, then do you think I can't feel Tristan because he's somewhere else?" Dawn's gaze was intent, watching my every move, every expression.
She had to ask the hardest of questions, didn't she? I thought I'd left the testing back in the Halls of the Anunnaki Gates. "That's hard to know since I wasn't there to see what happened." I hedged. Dawn blinked rapidly, as if she was on the edge of crying. I panicked a little on the inside but kept my expression open.
"The pig hurt him with its tusks." She put her fingers on her bottom of her lip with both index fingers pointing up. "I saw it in my dreams. I dreamed he died in that room."
I nodded, saddened someone so young had to see something so terrible. "But he didn't die in caverns. He was alive when they brought him out. Now I'm not saying he's alive or dead. Ack! I don't even know what I'm saying and I'm screwing this all up." I glanced away from the pups, pretty sure I was a complete failure.
Why did Randy think I could do this? Give me a sword or gun and I could use them with expert precision. Have a client walk in needing a security plan, hey, I was their man. Someone needed me to hunt down a rogue, no problem. But this, with the pups, was like having my soul bared and the pain was almost physical.
I stared hard at my clasped hands in my lap. "When your uncle and I were your age, we were building forts and breaking windows while playing ball in the backyard. He's my brother. He stood by me even when I acted like a complete idiot." All three of the children giggled, making me smile but I didn't look up, lost in old memories. "When I came back and was told he was dead … I… it didn't seem real. My gut says I'd know if Tristan was waiting for rebirth. We were told people saw what happened, and yet I find it really hard to believe, so maybe I'm not the right person to answer your questions about what happened to Tristan."
A small form plopped down in my lap, startling me. Instead of protesting, my arms automatically circled loosely around Dawn.
"Do you think Randy's dead?" Justus's voice warbled even as he put on a brave face.
I had to be honest. "No, I don't."
"Do you think he'll be back soon?" The hope in Justus's voice was something I couldn't snuff out with practicality or statistics.
"Gateway Kenwards are taught that all the other planes attached to ours have a passage of time different from our own. Where Randy went, he may have been there for a couple of days, and here, weeks have passed. I believed that whatever happens, Randy will never stop trying to come home. We have to trust he knows what he's doing and be patient. It also means you can't keep trying to go after him, Justus. Even if you can get to him, you may put his life in more danger than it already is. Randy's special, he can pass through to other places where you and I cannot. If you tried and were killed, what would Randy do when he came back?"
"I wished he'd taken me with him." Justus looked away disgruntled, but at least I'd given him something to think about. We fell into a companionable silence, so different from the past few days.
"Hey, who's up for eating some cookie dough?"
Their response wasn't as enthusiastic as I'd hoped, but the lure of something sweet did get them out of the room. I helped my mom make cookies when I was a kid and I remembered the easy fun of those afternoons, but I'd forgotten one vital fact: my mother knew what
she was doing. I did not.
When Justus's mother, Christie, found us in the kitchen, all four of us turned innocent faces to her. Then the children all pointed at me. "He did it."
The state of the kitchen wasn't that bad. Sure I'd dropped the flour on the floor but we scooped most of it back into the bag. And perhaps I was too strong for my own good when I popped off the stubborn lid to the sugar canister. The granules spread a bit over the all the counters. The potholder I left in the oven was an accident. The kitchen didn't smell too bad.
Christie helped us clean up. She tossed out the burnt cookies and the bag of flour before whipping up a new batch of batter. The sugar high that resulted afterwards was put to use building snow castles and tunnels the rest of the afternoon. That evening the pups fell into bed exhausted, and for the first time I didn't worry overly much about Justus trying to escape. But that didn't mean I trusted him completely.
As I was getting ready to spend another night on the floor against Justus's door, Christie appeared in the doorway holding a rolled sleeping bag. "I figured if you're going to continue to sleep here then I'd take mercy on you and bringing you this and the springy thing Captain Samuel said goes under it."
I accepted the rolls with a bone deep thanks. My body was still healing from the trials and the nights on the floor were brutal.
"See me in the morning and we'll get your ribs rewrapped." She turned to leave but then she stopped, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Thank you, for what you did today. They barely know me and I haven't been able to gain their trust yet. You have to remember they're just little people. Sometimes you may feel the need to sugarcoat things for them, but if you lie to them, even with good intentions, they'll always remember and everything afterwards is measured against that lie. You did well with them earlier. The children haven't been up to smiling the last couple of weeks. They had a good time and they really needed the distraction. So, thank you." Then she was gone.
The next day and then the following weeks the pups slowly let me in. It didn't take me long to realize that in order to become close to Justus, I had to include to his sisters as well. They were a package deal. The three little musketeers.
Justus struggled with his wolf and I imagined most of the trouble was due to the absence of his Twin Flame. Without giving the idea too much thought, I began to mentor him, teaching him how to balance his personality and his wolf's. We went on runs and I taught him how to stalk and hunt in both forms.
Upon learning Corey had been teaching Justus and Neoma warrior forms and katas before he left for Georgia with Tristan, I roused them from bed every morning and we went into the four-car garage to practice. Unless the weather was nice, then we practiced near the warriors. A few of them cheering Justus and Neoma on.
Time passed quickly, the seasons changed from winter to spring and there was no word or sign of Randy. But as long as I had hope, the children drew their hope from me. Then the news came Ushna wanted the children brought to him at Tristan's childhood home. I thought it was a bad idea, but he was our ruler--unofficially. As he commanded, Christie and I packed up the kids and with a large number of warriors we went on a road trip.
Chapter Four