A Faerie's Secret (Creepy Hollow Book 4) (23 page)

“It was the same man,” Dad says. He moves further into the room but doesn’t sit down. “I don’t understand how he got in. That home is protected by every defense I could get access to. I fought him off for a while—told Mom to run—but then he stunned me. I wasn’t aware of anything else until the moment I woke up.”

“And Mom? Do the healers know anything more?”

Dad crosses his arms. “Those geniuses can tell me only one thing: she’s sleeping.”

Vi makes a frustrated sound. “That isn’t very helpful.”

“The bottle,” I say, remembering suddenly. “There was an empty glass bottle on the floor near Mom. A small one, like the ones she puts her sleeping potions in.”

Furrows form across Dad’s brow. “Why would the man drug her to sleep? That doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” Ryn says. “It would make more sense if she drugged herself.”

“If she wanted to hide information,” Vi adds.

“What information could Mom possibly need to hide?” I ask. “She’s a librarian at a healer school. It isn’t exactly a top-secret organization.”

“I don’t care what the reason is,” Dad says. “I care that someone is threatening my family. I’m going to find this man and make sure he’s locked up where he can’t threaten anyone else ever again.” He places a hand on my shoulder. “Cal, you need to stay here for … I don’t know. A little while.”

“Where are you going?” I ask in disbelief. “You can’t just take off on your own mission. You don’t work for the Guild anymore.”

“No, but I have a friend who does.”

“My dad,” Vi says quietly. “So you’re going to finally talk to him, then?”

“I suppose I’ll have to if I need his help.” Dad was good friends with Vi’s father Kale for many years. After Draven’s reign ended and he discovered that Kale’s death had been an elaborate trick, he was furious. The two of them don’t speak anymore, so Dad must be desperate if he’s willing to ask Kale for help.

“You are aware that he works at the Seelie Court, aren’t you?” Ryn says. “He won’t know anything about this.”

“Probably not, but he has more connections than anyone else I know. He’ll be able to point me to someone who can help.”

“Dad, this isn’t the right way to go about—”

“I know what I’m doing, Ryn.” Dad hugs me briefly, then turns to leave.

“Wait.” Ryn’s voice is loud enough to stop Dad in his tracks. I watch my brother as he appears to debate his next words before finally saying, “You need to tell Calla.”

When no one moves or makes a sound, I say, “Tell me what?” Apprehension stirs up a sick feeling in my stomach. “Dad?”

Dad’s shoulders stoop slightly. Ryn walks to his side and says, “No one paid much attention to this case when it was just a break-in. I’m the only one who followed up on the info Calla gave us. But now that there’s been an assault and you’ve confirmed it was the same man who broke in before, they’ll look up all records of the name Tamaria. They’ll find what I found, and it won’t be long before Calla knows.”

“Knows what?” I demand. “Dad? Tell me what Ryn’s talking about.”

Dad turns slowly and says, “It isn’t my secret to share.”

“Then who’s secret is it?” When he doesn’t answer, I shift my gaze to Ryn. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

With a final look at Dad, Ryn crosses the room and sits on the edge of an armchair. “After the scarred man broke into your home several weeks ago, I looked up every Tamaria I could find a record of at the Guild. One was a mentor more than a century ago, one was a Fish Bowl setting designer, and one was a Seer. She trained at the Estra Guild a few decades ago. And guess who was in her class.”

“No way.”

“Your mother.”

I shake my head. “That isn’t possible. If my mother were a Seer, I’d know.”

“Your mother is a Seer, Calla,” Dad says. He leans against the back of the couch. “She was born with the Seeing ability. She’s always hated it. She went to the Guild because that is what good, law-abiding Seers are supposed to do: use their abilities to help the rest of fae kind. She was nearing the end of her first year when she had a … major vision. Something terrible. Something the Guild tried to force her to tell them about. She was traumatized by it and by whatever the Guild did to try and get her to talk. She left and hasn’t set foot inside a Guild since.”

“Okaaay,” I say, slowly lowering myself onto a seat.

“She has visions almost every day, while she’s awake and while she’s sleeping. She takes strong sleeping potions every night so she won’t remember the visions when she wakes, and during the day … well, you’ve seen the way she turns. Instead of embracing the visions, letting them pull her in, she’s found that if she physically turns away from them, she can resist them.”

The crazy circles Mom does sometimes. She’s stopping a
vision
every time that happens? “I don’t understand,” I say. “Why is this a secret? Why don’t I know this about her?”

“Because she doesn’t like this side of herself. She’d rather people didn’t know about it.”

“People? I’m her
daughter
! This is an integral part of who she is. How could she keep it from me?”

“Calla, you really don’t need to be this upset,” Dad says in the kind of patronizing tone he used to use when I was little. “It isn’t a big deal that she’s a Seer.”

“No. It isn’t.” My right hand tightens around the nearest scatter cushion. “It’s a big deal that you’ve both been lying to me: Mom has sleeping problems; Mom only ever went to Hellenway Business School; no one in Mom’s family has ever had anything to do with the Guild.
All of that is a lie.
”

“Calla—”

“How would you feel if you only found out
now
that I can project illusions into people’s minds? How would you feel knowing that I kept a major part of who I am a secret from you for all these years?”

Dad pushes away from the couch, shaking his head. “That isn’t the same thing.”

I stand up, clutching the small cushion tightly to my chest. “Of course it’s the same thing!”

“I didn’t want you to have to lie about something else!” Dad shouts. “You already have to keep your own ability a secret. Isn’t that enough responsibility?”

“But … being a Seer isn’t a bad thing. Why would I have to keep it a secret?”

“Being a Seer isn’t bad. But when a Seer breaks the contract she signed by refusing to reveal a vision that she’s been specifically trained to see and then flees with her family so the Guild can never find her—that is a bad thing.”

“She … what?” My disbelieving voice is little more than a whisper. “You’re telling me Mom is a Guild fugitive?”

“Essentially, yes. It’s one of the reasons I left the Guild. It’s the reason she wouldn’t hear of you joining the guardian training program for so long. She doesn’t trust anyone who works there, and she never wants her family to have anything to do with them again. So the fact that she decided you’d be safer there than anywhere else must mean there’s something she’s
very
afraid of.”

“She—that’s—I can’t believe you never told me any of this.”

“We decided you were too young to keep this a secret—”

“Too young? How long have I kept my Griffin Ability a secret, Dad? My entire life!”

“—and
then
we decided there was no point in bringing it up at all. Mom doesn’t like to talk about it, so …”

“So basically you were never going to tell me. That sounds like a
brilliant
plan, Dad. What did you think would happen when the Guild finds out?”

“They were never going to find out—until some lunatic showed up and brought her past to light.”

Dread coats my veins with ice. I look at Ryn. “Do they know already?”

“No. Like I said to Dad, the guardians who were assigned this case had far more important things to deal with than following up on a break-in, but now that there’s been an attack and someone is unconscious, the case will be bumped up. They’ll find out who your mother is within a day or two. They’ll certainly know by Monday.”

“And then what?” I squeeze the cushion tighter as I start to feel sick.

“Well they can’t do anything as long as your mother’s asleep. I’m not sure what the protocol will be once she wakes up. I’ll need to speak to the Seer representative on the Council.”

“And me? They won’t believe that I didn’t know about this. They’ll think I kept this from them.”

“You don’t know what they’ll think,” Dad says.

“I know they won’t want someone they can’t trust working for them. And my position at the Guild is already precarious with so many people thinking I shouldn’t have been allowed in. They’ll probably …” My voice wobbles as I consider the consequences once the Council finds out who my mother is. “They’ll probably ask me to leave.”

No, no, please, this is
everything
I’ve always wanted.

“Stop being so self-centered, Calla,” Dad snaps. “Your mother is in an enchanted sleep after being attacked, and all you’re thinking of is yourself and your own future?”

“
I’m
the one who’s being self-centered? If everything you’ve told me is true, then Mom is the one who’s self-centered. And a coward. Her visions could be used to save thousands of people over the course of her lifetime, and instead she drugs herself so she doesn’t have to see them. And yes, it’s
her choice
to do that, but don’t tell me it isn’t a selfish one.”

Dad strides across the room and stops right in front of me. “Don’t you dare speak about your mother that way,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “You have no idea what she’s been through with this supposed
gift
of hers—”

“What about what
I’ve
been through?” I demand, hot tears coalescing along my lower eyelids. “Living for years with a desperate fear of my own magic. My private thoughts splashed across other people’s minds. All the teasing and the meanness and the lies to cover up what I’ve done.
I didn’t want any of that either!
So don’t tell me I have no idea what Mom’s been through. I UNDERSTAND. I know what it’s like when you just want to be normal, but it’ll never be an option.” Heavy drops spill their way down my cheeks, and I hate that I can’t control the wobble in my voice. “But I’m not the one who’s hiding from what I can do. I’m the one who wants to
help
people, and if I can use my illusions to do that, then I will.”

“It was her choice not to tell you, Calla, and she had every right to—”

“
Why?
” I wail. “Why did she choose that? Why did she choose to lie when this is the one thing that could have brought us closer together and helped me to understand her—”

“Stop it,” Ryn says, loud enough to cut me off. “Both of you. This isn’t helping.”

“It certainly isn’t,” Dad says, looking angrier than I’ve seen him in a long time. “Not when the man who attacked my family is still out there. So thank you, Oryn, for your impeccable timing. Perhaps you’ll think twice next time before deciding when to reveal private information that has nothing to do with you.” Dad scribbles onto the wall and storms out of the resulting doorway. The wall seals up, and I fling my cushion furiously at it. It drops to the floor with a barely audible and highly unsatisfying thump.

I press my fists against my eyes, as if I could force the tears back. Without looking up, I ask, “How long have you known?”

Ryn is silent for several moments, which is how I know I’m not going to like his answer. “For about a month.”

“A month?” I look up, blinking away my tears so I can see him more clearly. “You’ve known about this for a month and you didn’t say anything?”

Vi steps closer. “Calla, we—”

“You knew too and you didn’t say a word.”

“You were doing all that training and studying,” Vi says. “We didn’t want to—”

“I don’t care!” I shout. “I don’t … I just …”

I don’t want to be here.

I don’t want to be mature.

I don’t want to
understand
.

I want to be angry and not have to feel guilty about it. Mom lied. Dad lied. Ryn and Vi found out, and they didn’t say anything until they had to. Don’t I get to be
angry
about any of that?

Not after what you’ve done.
Hypocrite.

I beat the insidious voice down where I don’t have to listen to it. “I’m leaving,” I announce. I stride across the room, grab my jacket from a hook on the wall, and push my arms into the sleeves.

“Calla,” Ryn says. “This isn’t the best time for—”

“Goodbye.”

A doorway melts into existence in front of me, and I step through it.

PART III

CHAPTER

TWENTY