It took the troops less than three minutes to meet me outside. It made it easy when all your belongings kind of followed you along, which Mak helped coordinate. Once everyone was in place, I went ahead and sent us back to the cornfield. I figured I had its coordinates, so there wasn’t a need to figure out a new location, and even if the town had woken up, they probably wouldn’t be gawking at the cornfield when we arrived.
The instant I felt the corn around me, I also picked up the signatures of twenty uniques, who weren’t with our group. I went on instant alert and held my hands out to the side make sure no one rushed to do something foolish, but Joseph took off in a run towards the uniques. I understood his move, but I wished he would’ve waited an extra three seconds so we could get a handle on the situation.
“Do you think someone should go after him?” Rick asked as we listened to the corn stalks being flattened along Joseph’s path. I’d been so careful not to hurt the corn during our first visit that I almost yelled for him to watch where he was going.
“If he picked them up, I assume they’re his wolves, so he’s probably safe. Why don’t ten of you follow behind him at a safe distance just in case it’s a trap? Malphas isn’t here, and I don’t think any of his minions are, but they could’ve set something up.”
Ten wolf shifters followed after their leader, the species solidarity wasn’t surprising. They followed my commands, but they usually had to answer to Joseph, and wolves made up the majority of the troops.
“I thought you were worried about skin-walkers being involved.” Nate had more than likely seen the reason I thought skin-walkers were involved, so the hint of question in his statement wasn’t surprising.
“I saw a time when we were fighting against people who looked an awful like some of the guys and gals I’ve trained. Since I let Joseph roll out the patrols, I can’t say for sure if they were the ones who were missing from here yesterday, but I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“When you say ‘a time’ can you tell if the location was here?” Liam asked. “Maybe we should’ve sent more people after Joseph. The uniques could be under a spell.”
I shook my head. “It was during the big battle, so I think we’re fine. The lack of yelling and screaming tells me we’re probably okay, and I’m sure you can feel the unique tingles our troops are giving off.”
“I can, but I’m not as sure as you seem to be that Malphas isn’t lurking around. How sure are you that you’d feel him?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve only met the monster once, so I can only base my assertion on what I felt then. There is no way I’d miss the kind of power I felt at my wedding.”
I wasn’t in a big hurry to leave the rows of corn. They weren’t tall enough to make me invisible, but I was leery of going behind the corn. I didn’t appreciate having my picture taken, and somehow I felt a little more secure being within the boundaries of the corn.
“Is the plan to just stand here and wait for whatever new clue we need to find here stumble upon us? I hate to tell you this, baby girl, but the chances of that happening are slim.”
“Gee, you think, Freddie? I guess it’s a good thing I’ve decided the recently missing troops will probably have the clue.”
“But you don’t know that for sure. What if Malphas’ plan is to make us stand around like fools looking for pocket watches? If there’s one in the cornfield, I’m not going to spend all day looking for it.”
Rick started turning in a circle, and the general mood he was putting me in made me want to slap him. After having a decent breakfast, I wasn’t usually grumpy, but my brother had a way of rubbing me the wrong way. I knew it wasn’t really his fault; he was just really easy to blame when unexpected twists got me down.
I should’ve been happy that we didn’t have to fight against skin-walkers pretending to be our troops. The fact that they were back meant a future I’d seen had changed, which also should’ve been a good thing, since I was trying to change parts of the future, but I had an odd feeling about things.
“Before you two get into it, can I get a look at that pocket watch?” Mak asked.
I looked over my shoulder and watched him come around to the front of me, with his hand outstretched. I didn’t want to hand it over to him. I thought if there was anything to figure out about it, I’d be the one to do it.
I reached into my pocket and felt the warmth of the watch. There was something about the heat that felt familiar and it bothered me that it did, mainly because I didn’t know why. I pulled it out, quickly handing it over to Mak to hide any thoughts of me being more obsessed with it than I should’ve been.
Mak stared at the golden shine of the outside as he inspected it. I didn’t ask whether he thought it was warm. I somehow knew that was something reserved for me. When Mak opened the watch, I watched his face closely. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but I wanted to know the second he found it.
His expression didn’t really change; however, I knew whatever he was expecting was visible inside the watch. He could’ve just asked me to open it up and look inside, if that was all he wanted to do.
“I don’t know if it’s good news, but I don’t think the troops Joseph ran off after have any clues for you. As I expected after you figured out we were supposed to come back here, the watch will be our clues going forward.”
Mak left the watch open and handed it back to me. I saw what he was talking about before I had it back in my hand. The scene behind me in the photo had changed. Instead of barely knee-high corn, there was a wall of colorful rocks.
It was hard to make out exactly what it was. There wasn’t a lot of sense when it came to figuring out why a certain rock was in one place, other than someone thought they’d look good glued together. What they assembled was beautiful to look at, even in the very small quantity I was able to see.
“Okay. That seems a little random to me. I’ve never proclaimed to be a Malphas expert, but I didn’t think he was going to be generous enough to just tell us where to go. There can’t be a ton of grottoes in Iowa, and I would assume he’s at least marginally smart enough to know we know that.”
Unless there had been a grotto building marathon during the month I didn’t remember, I knew of a single large one in the state. Generally, I didn’t follow what priests did in their spare time, but one of my daughters had made sure some of the rocks she had a special affinity towards were included in the grotto.
No one involved in the project, not even the priest who started the painstaking work of building a massive, and beautiful, pile of rocks, knew that Mirari had a hand in its making. Anytime she could see her love of stones and jewels take shape, she made sure the best items for a particular construction were available.
Even when she gave away tons of her collection, what she had remaining weighed a few tons. It’d been a while since I’d seen any of the displays she kept, and I assumed they’d only grown over the years.
“I don’t like that you have knowledge of the places we’re being sent. I wasn’t aware of any ties you have with where we are now, but we both know of Sophia’s tie to the grotto in West Bend and your recent purchases in Amana.”
I wasn’t surprised Nate referred to our eldest daughter by her current name. In my mind I always reverted to her original name, but when I spoke about her, I used what she preferred. Theoretically we didn’t have to worry about changing our names anymore, but I hadn’t heard of many uniques reverting back to their original names.
“I hope you realize how wrong that came out. We’ve lived long enough that we know of every speck of dirt on this world. I agree that it’s weird that I have a connection of sort with the two locations we’ve been sent, but I’m choosing to believe that’s a coincidence. I can’t think of a single reason why we were sent here twice.”
At least I was saying that was what I believed. If I thought any different, I would’ve had to consider that Malphas was making the battle even more personal. It was bad enough that I’d allowed my sons and one of my daughters to jo
in the troops. They were lucky I hadn’t seen anything go wrong in their futures.
If I would’ve seen them even get a paper cut, I’d have found a way to lock them in a room somewhere. The different things I’d seen over the years indicated people were more than likely going to get hurt, but never them.
“If we’re just hopping around to places you know about, can’t you tell us where the big battle will be and take us there? I have a feeling we’re going to get really tired of this, real soon.” Liam sounded antsy.
I closed the pocket watch and tucked it into my pocket before I turned to look at him, and everyone else standing around as they waited for Joseph to get back. I knew Joseph had made it to his men and was already coming back, so it wasn’t like we had a ton of time with nothing to do, and I was sure Liam knew that.
If Mak hadn’t shown us the watch, I could’ve kept everyone busy doing some quick searching for clues. Since they knew the score, the chances of me keeping them occupied were slim.
“Did the she-devil ever show back up? Maybe she’d like to share what she knows about the situation, because I’m sure she knows more than she’s let on.”
I didn’t mind Eva being gone, but if it was going to cause Liam to be weird, I could put cotton balls in my ears and try to tune her out. Weird probably wasn’t the right word, but I didn’t think what I heard in his voice was because he wanted to get the fighting started. I knew he was antsy for that, but it wasn’t something he worried over.
“No. She sent me a little message last night saying we were going to have to deal with things without her, at least for a while. I know she’s not your favorite person, but I felt better with her around. Having one of the Fates right here with us tends to do wonders for moral support.”
He shrugged his shoulders and tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal. I understood why he felt the way he did, but it was something we’d have to agree to disagree about, because I thought the bickering between the two of us kept people on edge.
“I’m not exactly sure what she could’ve found more important than doing what she was capable of to make sure Malphas doesn’t get the upper hand as he has us jumping through his hoops.” My voice showed next to zero emotions. I knew going into things that Eva was the last person you wanted to have to depend on having your back.
“That’s probably why I’m a little perturbed by her right now. Calling to say something more important came up when there are lives at stake doesn’t sit well with me.”
I thought about screaming Halleluiah, but kept my excitement to myself. Anytime Eva did something to tick Liam off, the happier I got.
I felt Nate’s hand on my shoulder, so I turned to look his way. “Even though he was being a grump when he said it, Liam had a good point about trying to figure out where the big battle is going to take place from your memories. You already mentioned we’ve been everywhere on the planet, but there’s got to be something we can use to jump ahead a few steps.”
“I like that plan,” Rick chimed in. “If he’s going to send us around to fifty different places over a month’s time, I’d really like to avoid that.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, both of you. Do you really think I’d be standing in a cornfield if I knew where we were supposed to meet up with Malphas?”
There were times I thought my conversations went in circles, and I was definitely in the middle of one of those times. Everyone knew I’d racked my brain trying to figure out where to go. I wasn’t hiding the fact that I hated the idea of a scavenger hunt just as much as everyone else did.
“Maybe they’re right and the places we’ll go are all places you’ve been,” Mak said softly. “If that’s the case, maybe I can assist helping you awaken the visions you’ve seen.”
I didn’t know exactly what he was thinking, but using the words awaken and vision probably weren’t the best ideas. It made me think of the different scenes I’d watched when I started regaining my memories, none of which I had control over my body for, by far my least favorite thing in the world.
“I’d like to hear more about that idea, but let’s see if the guys and gals with Joseph picked up any hints, wherever they’ve been,” Nate suggested.
He’d felt me bristle and knew I’d need to warm up to the idea if I was expected to willingly partake in whatever Mak thought would help. We should’ve probably gotten clarification right then, so I could make a quick decision, but the troops behind us were excited to see that their comrades weren’t in pieces.
I admit that I was excited too, but we had a lot of things to work out, and I didn’t think the missing troops were going to be as big of a key as I once had. They were all smiles, which didn’t lead me to believe they’d been clued in on whatever Malphas’ evil plan was. That meant after a few questions, we had to get back to work, and that led us to The Grotto of the Redemption.
CHAPTER 10
There are days nothing makes sense