Return to the Shadows Read online

  “Fucking hell,” Mark swore, and I spun around.

  “Sweetheart, come here. It’s okay.” He was down on one knee, speaking slowly and calmly to a girl half hidden by a tall, thin brunette teenager. The child looked to be about eight or nine. Maybe. I cringed, disgusted to the depths of my soul. Focus on the child, I told myself. Think of her, see her, memorize every detail of her face. Don’t think about the nameless, faceless people in the other room. Remember what the monsters did to Aries. What they would surely do to the child Mark was trying to coax...to the rest of these girls, many undoubtedly stolen from their families. It had to stop. Tonight. Now.

  “Okay, ladies,” I began when the last of the women from the parlor had filtered into the kitchen to stand with those waiting for the auction, addressing the large crowd while Mark picked up the skittish and terrified child. “Listen up and listen good. There are bombs—explosives—rigged all over this property. You all have,” I paused, “three minutes to get out and away from this house before it blows. Does that door lead to the backyard?” I nodded toward the back of the kitchen. Heads nodded.

  “Great. Stay quiet, everyone, and go out that door. Run until you reach the edge of the forest. Don’t stop, don’t look back. There will be people waiting there to help you. Run straight back. Do not run by the guard shacks.”

  “Two minutes, Claire.”

  “Shit. Let’s go, people, and stay—”

  The stampede of screaming girls was deafening.

  “Quiet,” I finished lamely. “Shit, damn, hell!”

  “Claire!”

  “I’m sorry!” I yelled back.

  “Not that! Let’s get out of here!” Mark shouted back, shoving a heavy mobile counter that was covered in crystal flutes toward the door, blocking, at least temporarily, anyone from entering the kitchen.

  Blue liquid spilled from the delicate stemmed cups and sloshed over the rims of the ones that hadn’t been overturned onto the floor. I watched for a second as though frozen in place.

  Then my mind seemed to scream one minute left! in panic. We ran, following the shrieking girls into the night, ignoring the shouts of guards that were running around the side of the house. Aries, ever true to her word, along with the other fairies, began to pick them off one by one from the edge of the forest. Soldiers emerged from the dark woods and were hastily ushering girls deeper into the forest, to safety.

  We reached the trees edge just as the night burst into flames behind us. Everyone stopped to watch as bits and pieces of wood splintered and windows shattered. The guard shacks, the main house...all of it gone, along with its mistress.

  Aries walked toward us, stopped at the edge of the yard, and watched it burn for a full minute before nodding and walking away.

  “Let’s get these girls back to the shelter.”

  “And the little one?” I indicated the little girl who stared, transfixed by the flames and thick black smoke that curled into the night.

  “We should take her with us. For tonight at least. Until we can figure out where she belongs,” he sighed, shifting around to block the wreckage from her direct line of sight.

  “Good plan,” I nodded, slipped off my shoes, and with a final look back at the damage we had wrought, followed our group into the forest.

  Chapter Eleven

  Promises

  The trek back to Grandview flew by, literally, with the help of the fairies, and we hiked up the hill to Bob and Marta’s in what was probably less than twenty minutes. I pondered that as Mark, Aries, the little girl, and I took the porch steps two at a time and entered the house. It took about that much time to effectively put an end to Lydia’s entire operation, and to make a serious dent in the number of guards Kahn had spent years recruiting. It was still a lot to process, and there was no time to dwell on it right then.

  We hadn’t even had time to close the heavy lead glass front door behind us before a small blur of purple, sporting dark hair, flew into us and clung for all she was worth.

  “Mama! Mark!”

  “Ashley, baby!” I dropped down to scoop her up.

  “Eww, you smell like smoke,” she complained, her little nose wrinkled as she pulled away.

  “Sorry.” I shrugged, unsure as to how to explain that one. I was pretty sure telling her we just blew up a whore house would have been a major parenting faux pas. “Are you still glad to see me?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, it’s about time!”

  “Hi Marta, Bob.” Mark stood behind us, grinning.

  “I take it the night was a success?” Bob eyed us with equal parts concern and hope.

  “Yes,” Mark told the small group that gathered around us.

  “And who’s this?” Marta demanded, stepping forward.

  “We found her at the party.”

  “Son of a—”

  “Will you take her to the kitchen to get something to eat?” Mark quickly spoke over Marta’s outrage.

  “Of course. Give her to me. Come to Marta,” she crooned at the cowering child. “Everything’s okay now. You’re safe.”

  “Is that my new sister?” Ashley wanted to know.

  “Ah...” I glanced up at Mark.

  “Maybe,” he told my daughter with a wink. “Would you like that?”

  “Yep. You’ll be her new daddy too, right?”

  “Maybe,” he answered. “We’ll see. She might already have a family somewhere.”

  “What?” I demanded. “New daddy?”

  “Uh-huh. Mark said he would be my new daddy. Isn’t that great?”

  I spun around to face him. “You told her that?” I gritted through a smile that was for Ashley’s benefit alone.

  “It was supposed to be a secret.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “Hey, Ash, Bob says you have a surprise outside for your mom and Mark,” Aries called out from the dining room.

  “Oh, yeah—come on, guys!” The child bounded from the room, all smiles and exuberant energy.

  “Claire…”

  “This isn’t over, Mark. Not by a long shot,” I warned him. The nerve of the man to tell my child such a thing, I fumed.

  “Are you guys coming or what?” Ashley called from the back door.

  “Yes!” Mark and I answered together.

  “I mean to marry you, you know.”

  “Mark,” I whispered, floored at the announcement, though maybe I shouldn’t have been. What flowed between us was…special. It had been from day one and nothing, not even time and distance, had really diminished that.

  “Come on.” The words were soft spoken. “Let’s go see our big surprise.”

  The backyard was filled with fairies and nymphs, and a picnic table had been set up under a cluster of trees in the middle of the yard. They took a step back and seemed to whisper to the trees, and in the next instant, the entire area was bathed in soft, twinkling light.

  “Look, Mama! They’re real magic fairies! Just like Tinkerbell!”

  “Ah…” I gripped Marks shoulder for support and decided not to tackle that particular comment right then.

  “Ashley, did you plan this special dinner for us?”

  “Yep, and I cooked it too. Steak and taters. Well, Marta helped a little,” she added slyly.

  “Thank you, sweetheart. You’re the best kid in the whole world, you know that?”

  “Ashley, come on inside and give the grown-ups a little privacy. It’s time for a bedtime story,” Marta called out from the back stoop.

  “Coming! Goodnight, Mama! Goodnight, Mark!” she yelled, racing through the grass and up the porch steps with enthusiasm only a child could possess.

  “Come on, ladies, time to get some sleep; let these two have a moment alone,” Aries told her group.

  “Wait.” I stopped them. “Why did you guys go to so much trouble? And when?”

  “We set everything up earlier this afternoon before we left for Oxborough. We wanted the two of you to have a real date tonight,” Aries g
rinned.

  “Thank you, all of you.”

  “Goodnight.” The others waved before disappearing into the house, leaving Mark and me completely and blessedly alone for the first time all day.

  “Dinner?” He winked, gallantly pulling out a chair for me.

  “Yes, I’m starving,” I admitted. “I’m still mad at you, though.”

  “Are you really?”

  “No,” I sighed after a moment. “You shouldn’t have told Ashley something like that, though. You’ll get her hopes up. And if it doesn’t work out…”

  “But what if it does?”

  “I can’t stay here,” I reminded him. “Ashley and I will have to go back to our own world, eventually.”

  “Then I’ll go with you and Ashley.”

  “You don’t mean that.” I swallowed, not daring to hope.

  “I’ve meant every word I’ve ever said to you. Every promise.”

  “You’d go with us? What about your job here? The whole ‘warrior of the ruins’ gig—it’s kind of important, you know.” Honesty dictated I remind him of that, no matter how badly I wanted to say, “yes, follow us wherever we go.”

  “You’re more important.” His answer was simple.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just say you won’t disappear.”

  “Okay.” I nodded, feeling emotions I’d thought were only possibly to feel for my child and immediate family. Protectiveness, pride…love.

  After the steak and two glasses of wine, Mark offered his hand to me for the second time that evening.

  “Will you have a real dance with me, Claire?”

  “Of course.” I followed him to a big maple tree that was lit by a thousand tiny golden lights and we danced underneath its lush canopy.

  “You were amazing tonight.”

  “So were you.”

  And with that, the night melted away.

  ***

  I woke to the sound of birdsong and Marta moaning and groaning about drunks. The first thing I noticed was that sitting up took considerably more effort than I was used to; the second revelation came in the form of grass wet with morning dew plastered to my backside. We were outside. Mark lay next to me, quiet and still and staring down at me with the hint of a smile forming on his mouth.

  “Hey you.”

  “Good morning. I think,” I told him, wincing and trying to sit up for several long, embarrassing moments. Finally, I was forced to admit defeat and execute a most unladylike turn and roll, climb to my knees, then lean back into a crouch before finally standing up. Mark, damn him, didn’t suffer any such issues with his own mobility. All he had to do was bend at the waist and push off the ground and he was on his feet. Then again, he was probably in better physical shape than I was, though I was in better than average shape myself. Yesterday’s excursion must have taken more out of me than I’d realized.

  “Sore?” he asked, doing a slow perusal of my hunched over form. Then to Marta, “We aren’t drunk, or suffering the after-effects. Claire and I fell asleep out here, looking at the stars and talking.”

  “Who falls asleep in the backyard?” Marta shook her head, bending to retrieve a forest-green cloth napkin that had blown off the table sometime during the night before.

  “People who gaze at the stars under a full moon, people in love,” Mark told her, grinning like a fool.

  “Uh-huh. I’m sure all that went on out here last night was star gazing. No, no don’t tell me. Mark, don’t you dare tell me,” the old woman warned as Mark opened his mouth to reply.

  “I could really use a cup of coffee,” I broke in before the intimate details of my love life could be spilled all over the backyard in front of the woman who was, for all intents and purposes, Mark’s mother.

  “Where’s Ashley?” I asked, feeling a little guilty for falling asleep under the stars and, if the sun being high in the clear blue sky was any indication, sleeping in while other people took care of my little girl.

  “She’s in the kitchen with Sienna. They’re drawing pictures together.”

  “Thanks,” I said a bit sheepishly.

  “What are you thanking me for? I told you Bob and I would take care of her.”

  “The other child’s name is Sienna?” Mark asked as we followed Marta through the back door and into the brightly lit kitchen.

  “So she tells us. What are we going to do with her?” She lowered her voice, glancing pointedly at the pair of dark-haired children seated at the butcher-block table, a small array of colored charcoal pencils and two big sheets of paper between them.

  “Hi Mama, hi Mark!” Ashley chirped without taking her eyes off the picture she was so diligently working on.

  “Claire and I need to talk to the child,” Mark murmured, taking my hand and approaching the small table. Marta seemed to fade into the background, and from the corner of my eye I noticed her take out several mixing bowls and a large tin of flour.

  “Sienna?” Mark knelt down to address our newest charge, sighing when she all but jumped from her seat in response. “My name is Mark and this is Claire.”

  “I’m Ashley’s mom.”

  “We need to talk to you, Sienna. Will you come into the study with us?”

  Several tense, drawn out moments passed, and just when I was sure the child would refuse to go down the hall with us, let alone into the study, Ashley leaned close to her newfound friend and threw one tiny arm around the girl.

  “It’s okay, Seena. My mom’s really nice, and Mark is going to be my daddy someday. They won’t hurt you.”

  The heartfelt honesty in the reassurance, especially coming from another child, seemed to break through the last vestiges of resistance that Sienna was so obviously struggling with. She scooted her chair back and stood awkwardly in front of us. Mark and I shared a glance—she still refused to look directly at either one of us. What had been done to this child before we had found her? The possibilities were wrenching to consider.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone touch your paper,” Ash promised, though who was even around to touch the half-finished picture of a sharp-fanged stick figure was beyond me. With a final glance at the crudely drawn but grisly portrait, I turned to follow Sienna and Mark into the study.

  Sienna broke into a full run the minute she entered the room and the door closed behind the three of us, not stopping until she reached the sofa that bordered one wall. It was there that she plunked herself down, drew her knees up to her chest, and finally dared to look at us. The wary expression in her dark gray eyes nearly broke my heart, and a quick backward glance at Mark told me that he was affected in much the same way. That we would have to proceed cautiously with this one went without saying.

  “Mark?”

  “Maybe it would be better if you start,” he said with a nod.

  “Sienna, dear, you’re safe here. I promise that no one will hurt you. We only want to talk with you, so that we can figure out where you came from and where you belong. Will you talk with us?” I asked the girl, keeping my voice light and easy and pulling one of the high-backed chairs over to the couch. Behind me, Mark did the same, but positioned his a good couple of feet further from the sofa than mine.

  “Do you have any parents?” I questioned, forging ahead when Sienna remained woefully silent.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” I sat back, surprised for some reason. I guess I had expected the girl to have spoken up by now, to Ashley if not to us, if she had a mother and a father waiting for her...somewhere. If she had been stolen, as we had initially suspected.

  “Well...they must be missing you like crazy right about now,” I said.

  Mark frowned when Sienna merely shrugged and continued to look miserable.

  “Maybe they miss me.”

  “Oh...” What was going on here?

  “How did you end up at the auction?” I asked, trying another approach, though I wasn’t sure if she was old enough to know that she’d been bound for the auction last night or be a
ble to connect the dots and fully comprehend what that meant.

  “My mom put me in it.”

  Okay, so apparently she did know what I was talking about. And what kind of mother volunteered her own child for something like that? Somehow, I managed to suppress the rage that swept through my entire being like a hot flash from hell. One look at Mark’s stony expression told me we might not be so lucky to get the same silent acceptance from him. I shot him a warning glance, one which I could only hope said “don’t start ranting and scare the kid—at least not while she’s still in the room” before promptly turning my attention back to the little girl.

  “Why would your mother put you in the auction?”

  “She said it was time to earn a living, like her.”

  Like her, I thought, stunned. So Sienna’s mom had been one of Lydia’s girls, then. I took a moment to digest that one.

  “Do you know what your mother does for a living?” Mark asked in a voice that was at direct odds with the murderous rage in his eyes.

  “Mark,” I muttered under my breath. “Too far.” But Sienna answered anyway, eyes downcast.

  “Yes.”

  “I see,” Mark nodded, looking thoroughly disgusted now.

  “What about your father?” I had to ask, even though I felt that we could safely assume the answer to that particular question. It would be a miracle if the child knew who her father was. Then again, maybe the true miracle would be if she didn’t know her father. After hearing about the mother, it was almost scary to contemplate who Sienna’s dad might have been, assuming he was still alive, and that was if we could find him, or the mother for that matter. What a mess.

  “I don’t know.” She answered much as we anticipated, and I nearly breathed a sigh of relief. One less problem to worry about.

  “Okay,” Mark sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “That’s all we needed to know. You can go back to the kitchen now, if you’d like.”

  “Yeah,” I chimed in, trying for a positive tone. “I think I smell cookies baking.”

  “Okay...what’s going to happen to me?”

  “We’re going to talk about that, I promise,” Mark told her, kneeling once more so that he was at eye level with the girl. “Claire and I need to discuss a few things first. But I don’t want you to worry about anything. No matter what happens, we will make sure that you’re very well taken care of. And safe.”