Unlocking Adeline (Skeleton Key) (14 page)

“Well, then we leave, I’d imagine.” She turns again, and I tug a second time.

“Do you think she will know who I am?”

“I imagine so, she
is
a sorcerer.”
Smart-ass.
I finally allow her to make it to the door and as she raises her hand to knock, a burst of anxiety floods through my chest.

“Hello? Is anyone home?” I call out to the quiet house. I had to work a double because stupid Jake Winston decided not to show up for his shift at the diner. I throw my bag on the couch and head to the kitchen. My dad is sitting at the kitchen table, slumped over
, his hands cupping his face. It’s then I notice the bottle of liquor next to him.

“Dad?” I call out to him, not sure he even heard me come in. “Dad, are you alright?” Again, nothing. I walk toward him, and it’s when he lifts his head that I notice he’s been crying.

“Oh no, Dad, what’s wrong. Is it Mom? Did something happen?”

“No no, Addie Bear, it’s not Mom.” He pats the chair next to him, inviting me to sit. I do as requested and take a seat next to him.

“I went and saw an old friend today.”

“Oh that’s nice.” Not sure why that would be so upsetting. “From work?”

“No, longer than that, baby. Someone I never thought I would see again.” He begins to choke up, “but I did.”

“So why do you look so upset then? Was this a bad friend?” I have never really heard of my dad talk about past friends, so I’m not sure why he is so upset. He said he never went to school, so it couldn’t be an old college friend. “Did they hurt you in some way?”

“No, baby, she didn’t hurt me. She actually helped me. I needed help and she gave me exactly what I needed. Sometimes, Addie, sometimes in life ye have to make choices. Not all will be easy. I had to make a choice today. I hope it was the right one. I love ye, ye know that right?”

He is starting to scare me. “I do, you’re starting to worry me. Are you sure there isn’t anything wrong with Mom?”

He cups my face with his warm fatherly grip. “No, baby, everything is about to be great with Mom. I think she is going to get better. And we’re going to be that family again. The one where we all go out for fun dinners and take trips. Maybe we will even move far away. To a place where no one can find us and live life however we want. How does that sound? Would ye like that, Addie?”

I look at my dad, imagining us as a family again, healthy and happy. Where there is no sickness or sadness. No long nights and early mornings. A life where the weight on everyone’s shoulders can be bearable again. “Yeah, Dad, I would love that.” I smile. He offers a small smile in return and releases me from his grip.

“Good, baby. Good. I hope to give that to ye soon.”

He says no more. I leave him to his thoughts and head to my room. I stop and check on my mom, who seems fast asleep. I worry for my dad and the trouble that lies behind his hopeful eyes. I want that life he talks about so bad. I just hope he isn’t giving us all false hope.

Before I have a chance to abort this mission, the door flies open. While I am expecting a man with a long white beard,
I know, totally stereotyping
, instead I find a tiny, little woman with gray hair and pink highlights. I’m pretty sure she’s wearing some sort of
Hocus Pocus t-shirt
as she stands in the doorway. “The name’s Greta and yer late.”

Late? How is one late when they weren’t even expected? “I didn’t—”

“Two minutes late. Now hurry inside, before the town starts pulling out their stakes.”
What?
I turn around and see more townspeople creeping toward me.
And shit!
They have weapons. Okay, maybe just garden tools, but either way I practically push my way inside, plowing over the old lady. With Ellie quickly behind me, the door shuts on our heels.

“My, my, ye sure do bring out the best in this land.” She snickers as she walks over to her kitchen island. I follow her with my eyes as I notice a KitchenAid blender and an array of cooking ingredients. She walks over and as she stares into something, which looks like an
iPad,
I gape in shock. “I thought you people haven’t learned about technology yet?” I ask, mind boggled.

“Pfft.” She waves her hand at me, while scrolling down what looks like a recipe for
cake pops
? “There are just some things that are necessities, my girl. This new Pinterest app I have just discovered. Have ye used it? I have made everything under the sun from it!
Nailed it!”
she sings, as she cracks open two eggs, while two more fly up on their own, cracking themselves as they fall into the mixer.

This is not happening.
My jaw hanging low, I begin to survey her little home. It’s like a DIY nightmare. Things I have seen flooding the Internet and Facebook. Mason Jars filled with colored sand, melted crayon canvases, frames filled with tons of grumpy cat pictures.
Jesus.
“Is that a crock-pot?”

“Darn right it is. Just made me some slow-cooked chicken dumplings in that thing last night.”

I turn to her. “Wait. Isn’t that like cheating? Aren’t you supposed to be living in an era where this doesn’t exist? I certainly don’t see this luxury in the castle.” I mean, I could seriously have eaten a plate, or five, of some dumplings, instead of duck or pheasant or whatever that mystery meat was last night.

“Research, dear. I consider it research. Any who. Not to fret. Before ye leave I will have created a magnificent Reese’s peanut butter cake aligned with KitKats. Now, to why ye are here. How is yer father?”

The mention of my dad brings me back to the matter at hand. “Um, he’s fine. Well, not fine really. You see, I was told he came to see you some time back. Can I ask what he came here for?” Turning on the blender, I’m not sure she even heard the end of my question.

She stares at the mixing machine, as if forgetting we are even in the room. “He asked for a potion to heal yer mother of the sickness that lived inside her. But ye already know that, dear. Ye want to know
why
he did it.”

“I want to know why, yes. Did he know you could cure her?”

She finally turns off that damn machine, dumping the batter into a metal pan. Not bothering to answer my question, she puts the pan in her oven and sets a timer. “Sit, we have thirty minutes.” Becoming annoyed, I follow Ellie and take a seat on her futon, which has an Ikea stamp on it. I shake my head.
This is just so messed up
. I’m about to abort this mission once again, because I have a feeling I am not going to get any answers from this lady.

“Answers ye will get, now sit. So, ye sure do look like yer father. Ye have yer grandmother’s eyes,” she begins. “I would ask what yer grandmother thought of ye, but word travels fast, so ye don’t have to be a magician to know the answer to that.”

My shoulders slump at the reminder. I actually have living relatives and to be reminded how much they hate me sucks. “Yeah, well apparently, I’m not well liked in her eyes.”

“Oh, Berta will get over it. She is still pining over the loss of her son. And to see ye. To see her son in ye, I’m sure it was a shock. Berta was a beauty in her day. Ye look just like her when she was young.”

I perk up, wanting to know more. “I do?” Mean old woman or not, she still is my grandmother.

While Greta clicks her remote for the TV to go on, a soap opera floods the screen. I don’t turn to look, because I refuse to acknowledge one more thing wrong with this situation. “These two. They have been dancing around one another for weeks now. Ye would think the writers were so horny themselves they would finally just write the damn sex scene in already.”

That’s it. “Greta, I need to know—”

“He knew yer fate way before he used yer key to collect the potion for yer mother. He knew ye would end up here.”

The gasp that leaves my throat shocks me. “He knew? How?”

“Yes. He knew before he left Wren. Before he even met yer mother. He came to me one night. Young warrior he was. He was unsteady with his life. Not sure he wanted to continue to be a supreme leader of Wren. Certainly no interest in being a king.”

She totally lost me there. He was in line to become King? Her statement doesn’t line up with anything that I’ve learned since I’ve been here. “Wait, if he was to become King, what about Faith and William?”

She doesn’t turn to me, but picks up her remote to raise the volume. “No, no, pay attention. Yer father was a prince, but he was second in command. In the Book of Wren, it skips a generation. So even though he was a prince, it was his lineage that would bear the mark of the crescent moon. It was said that the king and queen would bear a son. Ye see? It was all already written in the book.”

I fall back into the futon. “So if he didn’t have any pressure to be King, then why did he leave?”

Greta shrugs her shoulders. “He wanted a different life. He had gone into different realms a few times by then, and he felt at home more in the other worlds than he did here.”

“So what did he want from you?”

“He wanted to know his future, of course. He was confused. He was afraid of making so many wrong decisions; he wanted to know if he should give up on finding what would make him happy.”

So my dad knew? He knew what life he had ahead of him. He knew the whole time I was growing up, where I would end up. Anger shifts through me like a raging tornado. “So this whole time, he knew someone would come for me and take me away from my home. Take me away from any chance of living a normal life on my own planet?” I’m fighting back tears. Tears of knowing the one person who was supposed to protect me, was the one guiding the path instead.

“Do ye know how ye got yer name?” Greta asks.

What?
What does that have to do with anything? “N… no.” I wipe the tears that have fallen. “I think my parents told me it reminded them of a place they visited once on their honeymoon.”

“Adeline means noble and kind. The first queen to ever set foot in Wren was named Adeline Marilina Wren. She wasn’t known for the typical womanly charades. She was known for her fierceness. While her flock stayed behind and knitted, she fought right alongside the Army of Wren. Her actions were severely frowned upon because that was not the duty of the queen. But Adeline refused to sit back and allow her men to do anything she was not willing to do herself. She was brave. She spent her entire life as Queen, fighting for what she believed in.

“When I told yer father what he had in store for his life, I told him that he would have a daughter. One that would be so noble and fierce, he would hold his head so high at her accomplishments. She would exceed any expectations he could ever have for her, and she would blossom into greatness. After hearing that, he broke down. He cried for a daughter he had never met, but already loved so deeply. He asked about ye. What ye would look like. The color of yer hair. Would ye have his eyes? He never once asked about his wife, or who she was. Just ye. He knew that his life, no matter what path he chose, it would lead him to ye. His greatest accomplishment.”

My tears have begun to freely fall down my face. “But I don’t understand. If he knew all these things, why did he risk having me taken away? Why did he come home, knowing they would find me?”

“I’m not done child. One of the questions he asked was what ye would grow up to be. And I told him what I saw. The truth. Ye were to be Queen. It was yer destiny. Whether ye were born in this realm or the next. Ye would bear the crescent moon mark. It was ye that would lead this land to the greatness it could be.”

“But… but I don’t want to be Queen! I don’t want to live here. I just want to go home and go to college. I want to become a teacher or a doctor.” I shake my head, my cries turning into sobs. I didn’t ask for this. Why would my father use that key, and put me at risk of being found, if he knew I would be taken?

“Adeline, yer father knew when they would come for ye. He was told that on yer nineteenth birthday that the key would appear for ye. That it was to summon ye home. If ye failed to accept yer destiny, then the chosen would come for ye. He knew it would take exactly one year for him to find ye.”

Putting together the timeline, it all makes sense. How not long after my nineteenth birthday my mom started getting better. Why the last two years Dad became so paranoid about me being out late, or without him. Not allowing me to stay out after my shifts at the diner. How after work on my twenty-first birthday, he insisted on me coming straight home. And how I didn’t listen. If I had, would I still be at home? Would Locke have found me?