Chapter Nineteen
After Aidan and Quinn arrived back at the house the previous day, Aidan spent the rest of his day trying to hook up the webcam his dad gave to him before he drove off with his mom. Luckily, Quinn only required Aidan to help stow the meat in the ancient chest freezer in the detached garage. After that, Quinn was gone at his promised meeting with Keiran, and Aidan didn’t hear or see his brother, sister, or Holly for the rest of the day. He figured they must have gone out for dinner and taken a full day to connect with one another. It was just as well – he appreciated the chance to play some online games and check his email.
The webcam was a cinch to install and soon he was video chatting with DJ, whom he hadn’t spoken to since he left Utah.
DJ’s pudgy face filled up the screen, the familiar mole on his cheek bobbing as he spoke. Aidan could not help but stare at his friend’s mole as usual, and DJ called him on it. They knew each other so well. They first talked about all the latest rumors around the neighborhood, which obviously led to the biggest gossip – Aidan’s sudden move from home.
DJ couldn’t believe that the Tanners were moving so suddenly and begged Aidan to visit for the summer. DJ promised he could bunk at his house. It calmed Aidan to realize that there were people who still missed him and wanted him back – it was reassuring and a relief that maybe this could work out in the end.
After staying up late, one ear open and listening for Quinn to come back home, Aidan settled onto the hard futon. After the incident outside of Keiran’s shop, Aidan tried to imagine overhearing what the two men were discussing at their meeting. Keiran was insistent that Quinn had to be there – no matter how much Quinn protested. He never heard Quinn come back in the house, and it disappointed Aidan to be unable to learn anything.
Now, as Aidan sat on the edge of his bed and tied his shoes, he looked forward to whatever the new day would bring. It was already ten o’clock, but he had not set an alarm clock when he finally shut down the computer and went to bed at two that morning.
As Aidan stepped out of the office and into the hall, his hopes for a home-cooked breakfast wafted out the window as he failed to detect any telltale breakfast scents to which he had become accustomed. The house was equally quiet and deserted.
He walked into the empty kitchen.
“Hello?”
He spied a note at the center of the kitchen table. It was from Aunt Holly and indicated that Fallon and Kaylee were out again with Uncle Quinn. She was out on the lake working on her plants. He shrugged and threw the note in the trash.
After he finished a bowl of soggy cereal, Aidan headed out toward the lake to see if he could catch Aunt Holly and be able to spend the day speeding out on the water. He flung his sweatshirt over his shoulder and hustled out the door.
The crisp spring air bit at his face, but the sting on his arms reminded him of early season soccer games when the weather was unpredictably cool. He leisurely walked his normal path to the dock, taking deep breaths of air as he strode.
Next bend and I’ll be there.
Suddenly he heard Aunt Holly’s voice, but before he broke out in a run, he caught sight of her standing at the dock, talking to a black bird.
He couldn’t believe it!
Maybe she’s just on her cell?
He darted behind a tree and listened.
“I already told you once to stay away! I don’t know how much more patience I can have with you. Trust me, if I could have things my way, you would no longer be a thorn in my side.”
Aidan slowly peeked around the tree and saw Holly pointing at the crow, which was perched on a fallen log just feet away.
No freakin’ way! She can’t be talking to that bird. But he couldn’t deny what he saw before him. She was lecturing a bird. She’s gone nuts! Absolutely crazy!
“Stay away from Aidan or else I will make sure your absence is permanent.” Holly stormed off, taking another path from the dock which directly led to the greenhouse.
Aidan waited until he was sure Aunt Holly was long gone, and he walked to the dock. To his surprise, the bird was in the same place as before. He walked toward it, and it didn’t even move.
“What the heck was she doing out here?” Aidan looked around at the lake, the surrounding forest, and then back at the bird that still perched nearby. “Was it you?”
The bird tilted its head at him and hopped down onto the ground. Aidan took a step back.
“She really is a weirdo, isn’t she? Maybe that Erin chick was right about Holly.” Aidan came to the realization that he was, in fact, also talking to the bird. The crow at the gas station, the one in the woods, and the one he captured. And now another one?
It ruffled its feathers, the hidden iridescent blues and greens shimmering in the morning light. He could have sworn it was just his tired eyes, but Aidan thought the bird’s feathers were growing and fluffing out more than before. With each shake of the bird’s head and tail feathers, it seemed to enlarge.
Then the black bird trembled, shuddering and convulsing on the ground. It bulged and writhed, doubling – tripling, quadrupling in size – and suddenly the bird was no more. In an instant a girl stood in the bird’s place, her long black hair curtaining pale cheeks bedecked with freckles.
“Wha— what the heck?” Aidan stumbled backward, his eyes remaining fixed on the figure before him, and he landed with a hard thud on the ground. He scurried back as fast as he could, keeping his eyes trained on the wonder before him, until his back hit against a tree trunk.
The delicate girl in grey robes crouched down to the ground, staring at the dirt upon which she stood. “I’m sorry,” she said in a wispy voice. Before he could even respond to the shape-shifter before him, she lifted her head to reveal eyes filled with blood, a trickle of red rolling down her cheeks. Her lips were drawn tight and echoed sadness. She stared at him with her solid red gaze. Her thin lips opened and a sibilant voice spoke as though possessed, “Aidan Tanner, such is the first keen of your impending death. Upon the third keen you will meet your end.”
He felt a heavy weight in his chest; the woods around him seemed to swirl and pulsate, closing in on him as he lay huddled on the ground staring at what he was sure was a beautiful demon visiting him.
“Why me?” he cried at the girl, but she merely stood at her full height, winds swirling her grey cloak around her lithe frame.
Her closed eyes and blood-streaked face pointed to the heavens.
“What are you?” Aidan screamed at the lashing winds, begging for an answer from the porcelain girl.
Suddenly the ground swelled and shook, and Aidan grabbed the nearest tree, hanging on for his life. The girl, still staring at the sky, opened her mouth and let out a shriek so discordant that Aidan released his grip on the tree and covered his ears with both hands, his body in fetal position. His ears were bleeding in pain as he rocked on the ground, the high-pitched scream piercing the air.
Then just as suddenly as it had started, the screaming halted, the rumbling stopped, and the wind stood still like the eye of a storm. Aidan opened his eyes, still covering his ears. The girl was gone – not a stitch of her remained in the clearing.
But as he finally gathered himself and stood to examine his surroundings and see if there was any evidence to substantiate what had just occurred, he heard her voice echo through the trees, “You will die.”
Along the path he rushed, pushing limbs out of his way as he scurried back to the cabin. He rushed inside the house, full of terror and confusion. Holly, who was sitting on the couch reading one of her romance novels, looked up at the panting and pale Aidan.
She hurriedly set the book aside and rushed up to him. “What’s the matter, Aid?”
He shook his head over and over, barely believing what had happened, his ears still ringing. He hardly heard the words she spoke as his mind was still caught in a fog.
“Aidan!” Holly shook his shoulders, trying to wake him from his trance. “Aidan!”
; His eyes finally fixed on his aunt’s eyes. “It’s nothing,” he muttered, pushing her away from him, and bounded down to his room, slamming the door behind him.
She followed right behind, swinging the door open and not allowing him to escape as he so desperately wanted.
She’ll just think I’m insane. Who would even believe any of it?
“What’s going on, Aid?” her eyes pled with him.
“It’s nothing,” he diverted his eyes, trying to keep out the memory of the shaking, the noise, and the girl with the bloody eyes.
Could it be coincidence? He saw the bird on the way to Winchester, he saw it in the forest on that day he lost it with his dad, and he caught the bird in his trap. Now he knew with certainty that this was not chance and that it was all connected. In fact, a part of him knew it was that way all along. But for the bird to shift and become a person? For all of the rest to happen just minutes ago in the forest? That was all crazy hallucinations!
Holly sat next to him on the futon, putting her arm around his shoulders. “Tell me, Aid. Please.” She said it so calmly, so reassuringly – just like the way his mom would have said it if she were there.
“You’ll just think I’m being crazy.” He turned his head away from her and stared blankly at the computer desk.
“Can you at least give me a chance to have an opinion? You’ll never know until you tell me what’s wrong.” She patted his back and waited.
He figured he had nothing else to lose. If anyone in the family would come close to understanding, it would be Holly or no one.
“I was in the woods and came across a black bird.” He did not tell her about the fact that he was out there spying on her; he knew that wouldn’t go over very well.
“A crow?” Holly asked.
“Yeah, something like that.” Aidan shuffled his feet, worried that she may put things together and realize that he had been in the woods when she was by the dock. “So, I saw this bird and it suddenly… well… it kind of changed.”
Gosh, I feel so stupid.
Holly brushed his red bangs out of his eyes and asked, “Changed? What do you mean by changed?”
“It… well… I think there was an earthquake or something, and then the bird was just gone and a girl was there instead.”
Holly’s eyes narrowed. “A girl? And?”
“And she knew my name! I’ve never met her before, and she knew my name!”
“Are you sure that’s what you saw? I mean, you slept in kind of late today and maybe you just need to get some more rest—”
He couldn’t believe that now she was going to let this go. “Holly! Are you going to believe me or not? You’re the one who wanted to know!”
“I know, I know,” she said soothingly. “I just don’t want you to be so upset. It isn’t good for the soul.”
He shoved her arm off of him and stood up, too angry to just sit there and take her motherly bull. “But the girl said I’m going to die! Do you get that? She said I will die!”
Holly sat in thought, silent and composed.
“Well?” Aidan waited for her to start laughing at him. He waited for her to call him crazy or overly imaginative.
But neither one of those happened.
“This isn’t good,” she said more to herself than to him.
“Yeah! That’s what I was thinking!” his voice trembled.
“What color were her eyes?” she asked.
“Red – they were freakin’ bloody eyes!” He paced the floor, running his hand through his hair. He could not believe that this was even happening. He was sure that at any moment he would wake up from the very futon on which Holly sat.
Holly stood and walked to Aidan, staring at him with all seriousness in her eyes. “Then you better come with me. I didn’t think things would go this far, but there may be a way to keep this from happening.”
“You knew about this?” He looked at her with accusation in his eyes.
“I had my suspicions. What I need to know, Aidan, is if you trust me.” She held out her hand to him, and Aidan just stared at it.
Erin warned him about Holly not being what she seemed, but he had never expected to see a crow-girl and be told that he was going to die. But he knew he really had no other choice. Aidan would like to believe that the shape-shifter was just his imagination, but in his heart he knew that all of it was true. And if everything that happened was true, he was willing to do whatever it took to keep safe. Even if that meant trusting Holly completely.
He put his hand in hers, and Holly pulled him from the room, out of the cabin, and into the woods.
They were at the foot of the mountain in minutes, out of breath from dashing along trails. Holly looked around as if she was scouting for spies, held her pointer finger to her lips, and motioned for Aidan to go around the bend of the mountainside. He proceeded with Holly close behind, and as he went around the corner he came face-to-face with a dead-end to the trail – a wall of rock. Holly brushed past him and held her ear to the wall.
“What are you—” he began, but she held her index finger out at him to shush him, glaring at him with her cat-like eyes.
She rapped three times on the rock in three different places and the ground began to tremble.
“Step back,” she whispered in his ear.
Rocks shifted, stones turned, and what was once an impenetrable wall turned into a swirl of molten rock.
“After you.” Holly smiled and pointed Aidan to the burning circle on the wall.
“But how do I go through that?” he asked.
“Trust me, Aidan.” She gestured toward the vortex of lava.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered as he stepped to the shifting orange rock. He put his hand up to the wall and rather than feeling heat as he expected, the wall was cool. “What the heck,” he said as he stepped into the wall with his eyes closed.
I made it, he thought. I didn’t die.
Inside it was dark as night, and Aidan stopped in his tracks. “Now how am I supposed to see where to go?”
“Here,” said Holly from behind. She handed him a stone from over his shoulder, but it wasn’t an ordinary rock. It was crystal in size and shape, but glowed like a flare in the night.
The tunnel was sloping downward and as Aidan continued walking, the air became more damp and cool.
“How far are we going?”
“Just a bit farther.” He could feel her right behind him and heard the jingling of her bracelets echoing off the walls.
Bend after bend they took, going deeper into the heart of the mountain, until the passage opened into a wide room with a single closed door at one end.
“This it?” He moved the light around the room, pointing it at the walls to see if he missed anything.
“Yep, this is it.” She swiftly dodged around Aidan, snatching the light from his hands and moving to the door with delicate steps.
The door had no handle and no hinges in sight. Holly swirled her finger over the door too quickly for Aidan to tell what pattern she made as it moved. Slowly the metal door swung in, and they both stepped through the musty-smelling doorway.
Inside, the stone room was full of a warm candlelight. But there were no candles. Aidan looked about for the source and saw it in the corner of the room – a swirling orange orb like something one would see in a movie.
“Is that magic?” he asked, indicating the orb in the corner.
“Something like that,” Holly smiled as she closed the door behind them.
Opposite from the light source was a cot with a heavy patchwork quilt and a trunk at the foot of the bed. In the center of the ceiling, a circular grate was mounted – it appeared to be some kind of ventilation tube.
Holly opened a curtain on one wall which concealed a toilet and pedestal sink.
“What is this place?” Aidan continued staring about, numerous questions running through his head.
“It’s a sanctuary of so
rts, Aidan. It isn’t much, but I think it will serve our purpose.” She rushed to a cabinet and opened the doors, revealing shelves of pantry items, dishware, board games, and bottled water. “Everything you need to be safe for three days. I think that’s how long we’ll need to keep you in here.”
It was as if she did the calculations in her head.
“Three days? How do you know three days?” He didn’t know how Aunt Holly knew everything she did, but obviously she had powers that he previously believed to only be found in fantasy books and Hollywood movies.
“Well, first Keen would be for today, so tomorrow would be the second, and the day after that would be the third and final call of your death.” She said it so matter-of-factly that it made Aidan’s hair stand on end.
“And if I stay in here I’ll be safe?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“You’re not sure?”
She shrugged. “Nothing can be one-hundred percent. But you have everything you need, and I’ll come back to check on you periodically. There are card games to keep you occupied between visits. This,” she guided him to the orb, “is a sunlight sphere. It contains as much energy as a solar flare and will serve every purpose of light, warmth, and cooking that you will need. Just merely think of what you want it to do, and it will do it. One word of warning; don’t try to heat it up too much or it may explode. And we wouldn’t want that.” She smiled and scurried about the room, fluffing the pillow on a single rocking chair, straightening the quilt, adjusting the hang of the bathroom curtain. He had to admit that it was strange seeing her act to normal in an obviously screwed up situation.
Aidan sat down on the bed, leaned forward, and rested his head in his hands. “I just don’t understand.” His voice welled on the edge of tears.
“Aw, Aid. Everything will be fine if you just do what I tell you to do.”
“But what is happening? What is this Keen thing? What was that girl in the forest? Why do you know about all of this? Are you going to even bother telling me or is this just another thing I just have to blindly obey?”
“Very well, I guess I can let you know a little bit about the Sidhe.”
“Sidhe?”
“Yes, the one you saw in the woods is more commonly known as a Ban Sidhe.”
“Ban Sidhe? Like the howling old women on Scooby-Doo?”
“Kind of, but not exactly. They’re part of the Sidhe realm—faery-type beings allowed to live on earth but in hidden communities. The Ban Sidhe you met is a young one, and if I’m not mistaken, you are her first kill.”
“Kill? She’ll kill me?”
“More or less.”
“Why? What did I ever do to her? How could that happen?”
“It’s the way it works, I’m afraid. Your family comes from an ancient Irish line that has been under the watchful eye of the Sidhe for centuries. Because of this connection, you have been targeted as part of their ritual – the blossoming of a new Sidhe into adulthood.”
“A ritual? I’m like some kind of sick sacrifice?”
Holly nodded, her face grim.
“And they can’t get in here, right?”
“Not as long as I have a say in it.”
Aidan thought it over. “Then I guess I’m stuck here?”
“For now. But it will all be over soon, and they’ll just have to find another sacrifice.”
“And where do they get another one?”
“Someone else in the bloodline.”
“Like a family member?”
“Possibly.”
“So my sister or brother, Uncle Quinn, or my parents could be next?”
“Again, possibly, but not likely.”
“How do you know they won’t just take Kaylee or Fallon?”
“Well, Aidan, honestly, they could.”
Aidan jumped up, “Well, then I guess I’m not staying in here, then!”
“I don’t think so!” She stepped in front of him, her hand pressed against his chest and holding him back. “You’re staying in here because it’s the only way to delay the ceremony so I can figure out what to do with the rest of your family. I have some power, but I don’t know how much I can halt the Sidhe forces. They are an extremely powerful group and should not be underestimated.”
“You expect me to just sit here, play cards, and wait to hope that my family is okay?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I expect. For now.”
“What about my mom and dad? They aren’t even in the state!”
“They’ll be fine. I can have Quinn keep them safe.”
“But Quinn’s with that crazy Keiran guy!”
“Don’t worry about all that – it’s beyond your understanding.”
“What’s beyond my understanding is how my life can go from crap to worse in just a few days,” Aidan sighed and lay down on the cot, covering his eyes with his arm.
“I’ll be back this evening, and I’ll have more for you then. In the meantime, I need to keep you safe and figure out what to do next.”
Aidan heard the door slide shut, a vacuum seal bringing relative silence to his chamber, and a few minutes later he heard the familiar rumble of the upper stone wall opening and closing as Holly left the mountain.
He stared about him, not sure what else to do but start rummaging around the cupboards to find something for lunch.