Crimson Echo (33 page)

            I let out another deep breath and paused as Kane opened the front door. I wasn’t afraid of his family— I wasn’t even afraid of Sabrina anymore, I just wanted them to like me. This was a completely different world for me and I knew that I liked it more than I should and that’s why I
needed
them to like me.

“We’re here!” Kane shouted, pulling me through the foyer.

“You’re right on time,” I heard Aurora’s kind voice. “I’m just setting the table.”

“Where is everyone?” Kane asked, looking around the room.

“The boys are out back playing a game of soccer and Sabrina is upstairs getting ready.” She smiled.

            I looked out of the back window and into the backyard where Kole and Kaleb had assembled their own soccer team. On each side of the field there were at least eleven people, including the goalie. I couldn’t help but imagine how much fun my childhood would have been if I could have cloned myself twenty times over.

Kane gave Aurora a confused look.

“Tristan, where are my manners today?” Aurora darted around the table. “You’re so quiet I didn’t even know you were here. You have to speak up around this bunch.”

“
I’ll remember that,” I laughed nervously. “Thank you for having me over again today.”

“You’re welcome anytime.” She hugged me.
“Would you help Kane set the table while I go change?”

“Sure.” I nodded.

           I followed Kane into the kitchen where he was already pulling plates down from the cabinets. On each plate there was a beautifully monogrammed ‘E’, just like the ones I had seen on the gate and the window. I noticed that Kane grabbed seven sets of silverware and seven plates and I quickly counted on my fingers how many of us there was.

“Is someone else coming to brunch?”

“Oh, I forget to tell you that Stefan arrived this morning. You’ll get to meet him shortly.” Kane explained.

“Stefan is Sabrina’s fiancé?” I asked, trying to keep up with all the people in Kane’s family.

“Yes, that’s right.” He laughed under his breath as he quickly wrapped all seven sets of silverware in white cloth napkins.

            I tried to make myself look busy and went to the refrigerator and grabbed a carafe of orange juice and seven glasses from the cupboard— as I expected they were all etched with the family initial
s as well. I loaded everything up onto a tray and headed toward the dining room where Kane was placing plates at each place setting.

“What’s with all of the initials on everything?” I asked.

“Sabrina,” Kane rolled his eyes. “That was all her doing.”

“Oh, well it’s very pretty.”

“Remember when I told you we don’t sleep? Well, she went through a period where all she did was arts and crafts. We have an attic full of crap she made. You definitely don’t want to be near her at Christmas.” He laughed.

“You celebrate Christmas?”

“Of course we do. We love Christmas. Just because we’re witches doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate holidays.” He informed me.

“Well, that’s good.”

“Did you think that the only holiday we celebrated was Halloween?”

“Yes.” I laughed.

“You can go ahead and buy me some oven mitts for Christmas now that you know.” He joked.

“Why would you need oven mitts?” I hadn’t caught the joke.

“Because you have a fire starting boyfriend now.” He waited for me to get it and then laughed.

“Oh,” I laughed wit
h him. “That’s clever. I’ll put that on my shopping list.”

“This must be the Tristan I’ve heard so much about.” A man with short black hair said as he entered the room. His smile was warm and bright.

“Tristan, this is Stefan.” Kane introduced us.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Stefan gave me a hug and his stubble scraped my cheek. “Kane was right you are beautiful.”

“Thank you.” I glowered at Kane.

“If you’ll excuse me I really should get cleaned up before we eat.” He smiled again and ran up the stairs.

“He seems friendly… and tall.”

“Stefan’s like a big brother to me, sometimes a father.” Kane explained with a smile, but I could see the sadness in his blue eyes.

I wrapped and arm around Kane’s waist to comfort him. “With all of this magic, isn’t there a way to bring your dad back?”

“Not unless you’re a time traveler with a lot of juice.” He frowned. “Even then, I don’t know if it would be possible without completely altering history.”

“You were close to him, weren’t you?”

“He was my best friend in the entire world.”

“We’ll find a way.” I promised.

“I appreciate that Nancy Drew, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t. There’s no telling what we would bring back.” He kissed my forehead and I knew that was the end of that conversation.

            Just then Aurora glided down the stairs like a movie star. She changed into a gray, knit, sweater dress with a big belt around her waist. She had pulled her hair into an elaborate up do and replaced her moccasins with black heels. Suddenly, I felt extremely under dressed as I looked over and noticed Kane in a pale, blue oxford shirt and black slacks. 

“Why didn’t you tell me to dress up?” I whispered and slapped his leg inconspicuously.

“You’re the guest. You can get away with it. Be grateful that you didn’t have to.” He smiled

“Who’s ready to eat?” Aurora interrupted.

“I’m famished.” Stefan announced, walking down the stairs with Sabrina by his side.

“Good, you made it.” Aurora hugged him. “You’re practically a stranger around here.”

            Sabrina stood at the bottom of the stairs and stared at her fiancé with admiration, I’m sure it wasn’t far from the look I always give Kane. I felt better when I saw that Sabrina was wearing jeans as well— though she was still more dressed up than I was. The legs of her skinny jeans were tucked into her boots, her top was white lace and her hair was meticulously braided to one side.

“Will someone tell the boys that it’s time to eat?” Aurora looked at Kane.

“I’ll get them.” Kane nodded.

Sabrina walked over and stood beside me. “How are you doing with all of this? You’re not freaked out yet?” 

“I’m okay, how are you doing?” I noticed her fidgeting with her hands.

“Just some pre-wedding jitters that’s all. There’s so much to do and so little time.”

“Can I help with anything?” I asked, not that she would let me do anything.

“I promised you that I would keep your duties to
a minimum.” She smiled. “Can you believe I will be Mrs. Stefan Leblanc in a week?”

“No, I can’t.” I swallowed hard. “I didn’t realize it was that soon.”

“It will be the perfect winter wedding.” She stared at her engagement ring.

           Kane walked through the back door and instantly I felt relieved. After finding out that Sabrina’s wedding was only a week away I began to panic. I thought I would have more time to prepare myself for such an event.
The thought of standing up at the altar with Sabrina’s family and a crowd of onlookers made my stomach turn.

“I’m pretty sure I only gave birth to one set of twins.” Aurora said as she gave Kole and Kaleb’s clones a sideways glance.

They complied and the twenty-two boys reverted back to just two. “I’m starving.” One of the twins announced.  

            Everyone made their way to the kitchen and grabbed a dish or two and brought it back to the dining room. Everything was sat in a long row down the center of a gold, table runner. There was more food on the table than I had ever seen for one meal.

           It was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were roasted hash browns with bacon and shallots, huge, streusel topped muffins with honey butter, a quiche covered in cheese and French toast with a side of strawberries— that was just one side of the table. The other side had a tray full of eggs Benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce, nearly a dozen homemade cinnamon rolls and smoked salmon with a spinach salad. I was in heaven.

            We all took a seat around the glass table and it just felt right. Ka
ne was on my right and Stefan to my left. Aurora sat at the head of the table as the matriarch of her beautiful family. It felt like Christmas and the entire Evans’ family was my gift— though I knew Kane was the only present I could actually keep.

            Kane and the rest of his family grabbed large helpings of almost every kind of food on the table— I really couldn’t figure out where they were putting it all.
I stayed away from the salmon, but I enjoyed the cinnamon rolls and orange juice. It was all going great until I started to feel dizzy.

“I think there’s something wrong with the orange juice.” I whispered to Kane.

“Oh no,” he laughed. “You’re drinking a mimosa.”

“
What’s that?” I closed my eyes so the room would stop spinning.

“It’s an alcoholic drink. How many have you had?”

“Three or four, I think.”

“Eat some
bread, that will help soak it up.” Kane rubbed my back. “I’ll get you some aspirin and a bottle of water.”

“Thank you.” I whispered as the pounding in my head started in.

Kane returned and handed me water and two round pills. “Here you go, take these.”

“Sorry about all of this.” I said as I threw the aspirin in my mouth and chugged the bottle of water.

“You’ve never had a drink before, have you?” He murmured.

“I have vodka with my cornflakes every morning.” I said sarcastically.
“No, of course not.”

“Just give it a few minutes and you’ll start feeling better.” He promised.

I looked up and everyone was staring at me. “I’m going to an AA meeting as soon as brunch is over.” I laughed nervously, trying to break the tension.

Everyone laughed and it made me feel less embarrassed about the whole situation.

            After I had sobered up and brunch was over I helped clear the table. All of the leftover food was packed up nicely in Tupperware containers and set aside for the homeless. How could anyone compete with this family? The bigger question was how could Seekers want to kill a family that donated food to the homeless?

A few of us are going downtown to drop off this food.” Aurora shoved the Tupperware into brown paper bags. “Do you want to go with us?”

“I think I’d better stay put for a while.” I took another gulp of water.

“Okay, Stefan and I will be back in a few hours. If you all need us, just give us a call.” She instructed.

“We’ll be fine.” Kane assured her.

            Stefan said his goodbyes to Sabrina like he couldn’t bear to be apart from her for more than a minute. A blue light shimmered around Aurora and Stefan and they were gone. I hung out in the kitchen and grabbed another bottle of water from the refrigerator. Kole and Kaleb ran off upstairs, Sabrina sat on the couch and Kane stuck close by me.

“Finally they’re gone.” Sabrina sighed. “I didn’t think they’d ever leave.”

I looked at Kane, but he just shrugged as Sabrina left the room.

“Kane, I need your help with this one.” Sabrina came back into the room with a big book in her arms.

“Sabrina wait, are you sure you want to do this?” Kane asked following her back into the kitchen.

“Of course I’m sure. I have to know if I’m making the right decision.”

            I watched silently as Kane tried to talk Sabrina out of whatever she was planning to do. She sat the old book down on the island in the middle of the kitchen and began gathering ingredients from the cabinets. Kane gave up and grabbed a metal pot from a rack in the ceiling and sat it on the st
ove.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea, but I can’t let you do this alone.” Kane turned the pages of the book to a particular spell.

“You can supervise, but just stay out of my way. I know what I’m doing.”

            Kane backed up against the counter beside me, folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. I kept quite as to not interrupt or distract Sabrina. Sabrina gave darting glances at Kane
every few seconds, but continued to work on her potion. After most of the ingredients were mixed into the pot she pulled a small notebook from her back pocket and began to write something.

“
My soul is weary, but my heart is strong. There’s a question that I can’t prolong. I seek the answer with this spell, so that these feeling no longer dwell.” She chanted and tossed the last of the ingredients into the pot and then looked over at Kane. “What, that was all I could think of off the top of my head.”

“I hope this doesn’t back fire.” Kane shook his head.

“It’ll be fine, stop worrying so…” Sabrina dropped to the floor.

“Sabrina!” Kane rushed to her and then stopped and backed away when two more Sabrina’s appeared.

“Can she multiply like your brothers?” I asked Kane as he stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen.