Chapter 9
Sunday Morning, January 9th
Jerry tried to keep his voice under control as he explained to the woman on the phone that he had heard wolves howling outside his house the night before. She was an operator for animal control who was clearly inexperienced, but Jerry knew that she was trying to be helpful.
“I’m very sorry that he didn’t come to speak with anyone at the house, sir,” the operator said. “But according to our records, the agent was out there on Friday. It doesn’t look like he’s filed his report, but it should be in there by tomorrow.”
Jerry sighed, but managed to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “Is there anything in there at all about what he might have found? This was a large group of animals that we saw the other night. If they’re wolves, I’d imagine a pack that large can be pretty dangerous.”
There was a sound of typing on the other end for a moment before she responded, “I don’t see anything in there other than the time that he was heading over Friday morning.”
He sighed before saying, “Ma’am, I don’t mean to be pushy, but I have five children in this house and we’re sort of out in the boonies. If there’s a pack of wolves living in these woods, I need to know.”
“I am very sorry, sir,” she answered after a brief pause. “I have three of my own and I understand your concern,” she added sincerely. “I’m here tomorrow morning, and I promise you I’ll give you a call as soon as that report is in. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to keep the kids from being outside unsupervised.”
There was nothing else he could say. The operator was clearly doing everything she could, but she just didn’t have the report. “That’s not a bad idea,” he told her. “Thank you for your help. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome, sir,” she said before Jerry hung up the phone.
He walked into the living room from his bedroom and saw Billie and Louis sitting on the couch watching cartoons. He told them both not to go outside without either him or Harper until they could figure out what was going on with the wolves. They both looked sufficiently frightened by the mention of wolves that Jerry was sure they would obey him. Next, he walked past the room that Vaughan and Louis shared and saw Vaughan still asleep in his bed. Jerry smiled and shook his head. His middle child was definitely becoming a teenager based on the amount of sleeping he did. He vaguely remembered being that age himself, and most of those memories were of eating and sleeping. He moved on to Cole’s room, which was empty, but so was Harper’s. Jerry guessed that they had probably gone to the grocery store, which was Harper’s Sunday morning routine. He looked into Dinah’s bedroom and saw that it was empty too, which likely meant that she had gone to the store with them.
Jerry walked back into the living room and asked his youngest children if they had eaten breakfast and they shook their heads. He walked into the kitchen to fix them each a bowl of cereal, but noticed a pan covered with foil sitting on the stove. Even before he had peeled back the foil, the smell of cinnamon and cream cheese wafted up at him. Harper had left some of his famous cinnamon rolls for breakfast before he had left, which made Jerry smile. He called Billie and Louis into the kitchen and fixed them each a plate while he put on a pot of coffee.
The doorbell rang just as he pushed the start button on the coffee maker. Jerry frowned as he headed to the front door. They rarely had visitors this far out and never on a weekend in the middle of winter. He wondered if one of the children had invited a friend over and forgotten to tell him. He opened the door to see a pretty young blond woman standing on the porch. She was warmly dressed and had a beanie pulled over her head that had braided pigtails sticking out of either side.
The woman smiled as she made eye contact with him. “Good morning. My name’s Anna and I’m a student here in the U.S. visiting from Russia.” She had an obvious accent, but spoke perfect English. “I’m on a work scholarship and am selling magazines to help pay for my expenses.” She held up something that looked like a catalog as she said this, still smiling brightly.
Her breath steamed and Jerry noticed how cold it was outside for the first time. “I’m sorry, but that’s not really something we’re interested in,” he told her politely. He had a standing rule that no one in the house was to buy anything from solicitors. He had seen enough cases of burglars using solicitation as a means to get in the house to look for valuables that they would come back later to steal.
“Oh, I see,” Anna said, slightly crestfallen. She looked past him and her gaze grew distant for a moment, as if she was seeing something in the house.
Jerry turned around to see what she was looking at, thinking that perhaps one of the children had walked up to the door, but when he turned around, the foyer was empty. He turned back around in confusion, but she was looking at him again. The bright smile had returned and she was tucking the catalog back in her jacket.
“Well, thank you for your time, sir,” she said as she shrugged her shoulders. “You have a wonderful Sunday.”
She turned around and walked down the porch steps and around the corner of the house near the driveway. He closed the door as he lost sight of her and headed back for the kitchen. He had only taken a few steps before he felt guilt tugging him back to the door. She had seemed like a nice girl and he had let his prejudices make the decision to turn her away. He knew that he had no need for a magazine subscription, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford to indulge in one to help a starving exchange student. He opened the door and hurried down the porch steps and around the corner of the house.
Jerry looked around in confusion. The young woman was gone. He looked up the driveway, thinking that she had gotten into a car, but the driveway was empty. He knew that there was no way that a car could have made its way down the long driveway that quickly unless it had been going very fast, which in the snow wasn’t likely. What was stranger was that he could see no signs of tire tracks in the parking court near the front of the house, where the snow looked to be undisturbed. He walked over to the driveway near the garage, but the many sets of tire tracks there told him nothing. Both his car and Harper’s had been through the snow there enough times that he couldn’t have picked out individual sets if he tried. As he walked back to the front porch, he noticed two sets of footprints besides his own leading away from the porch. They were both slightly smaller than his, which could mean that one was from the young woman. One set moved down the driveway, but the other had moved past the garage and toward the forest near the house. He knew that they couldn’t be from Harper or his two oldest children, since they would have gone out of the house through the garage.
He looked down the driveway again, but it was empty of anything other than snow. He supposed that there was a chance that the young woman had run down the driveway before he had come back outside. He didn’t think that he had been inside long enough for such a thing to happen, but it was the only logical explanation that he could think of. That she had walked off into the woods toward James McCallister’s house was another possible explanation, but he hoped that wasn’t the case.
“Dad? What are you doing out here?” Louis’ voice drifted down from the porch.
Jerry turned around to see his son standing on the porch in his house slippers and pajamas. His arms were crossed and he was shaking in the cold, which Jerry suddenly felt. Thoughts of the strange young woman were pushed aside then as he ran back up the porch and guided Louis back inside.
“I was looking for something,” he answered. “But it’s too cold out here. Let’s get back inside.”
He walked back into the house, ushering Louis ahead of him, before heading into the kitchen. Louis sat down as Jerry looked at Billie, who sat at the kitchen table, finishing her cinnamon roll while staring blankly at the table in front of her. She looked exhausted.
“Billie, are you still tired?” he asked.
She nodded in response, but continued to s
tare at the table as she chewed absently.
“Did you stay up late last night?” He had gone to bed before the children and Harper, so it was possible that she had stayed up past her bed time to watch the movie with the rest of the family.
She shook her head and swallowed the bite that she had been chewing. “I had a bad dream last night.”
He poured a cup of coffee and sat next to her at the table before using the spatula to serve himself a cinnamon roll. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head again, “That’s okay, Daddy. I think I’m just gonna go back to sleep for a little while.”
“Okay, honey,” he said as she climbed down from her chair. She walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek before heading out of the kitchen. Bad dreams were a part of parenting that he had handled with all of his children. Arianna had often sung the children to sleep when any of them had awoken in the middle of the night, but Jerry suspected that his singing would only make his daughter’s dreams worse.
Louis finished his roll and cleared his and Billie’s plates from the table before heading back into the living room. Just as he left, Vaughan walked into the kitchen, yawning hugely. His curly hair was in complete disarray and his eyes were still sleepy as he sat at the table and served himself.
“Good morning, Dad,” he said with a smile.
Jerry couldn’t remember the last time that Vaughan had smiled at him first thing in the morning. He thought again of how grateful he was that things were changing between them. He had been worried that Vaughan had fallen in with a wrong crowd at school or gotten involved with drugs. But now he knew that it had been his failure to communicate that had been the chief cause of the problem.
“Good morning, son,” Jerry said with a matching smile. He took a sip of his coffee, which was delicious, and thought what a good day it had started off to be. The encounter with the young woman on the porch had been a little odd and as he thought of her, he worried again that she had walked off into the woods that were possibly harboring a large wolf pack. He decided that he would call James McCallister a little later to see if she had gone by his house, just to be sure.
The phone rang at that moment and Jerry thought it would be ironic if Mr. McCallister was calling. He stood up and picked up the cordless headset from the counter.
“Sid, it’s me,” Larry said from the other side before Jerry could say hello.
He looked down at the base of the phone and the caller ID said the call was coming from the office. “Larry, what are you doing in the office on a Sunday?”
Larry chuckled. “I’m dedicated to my job, partner. You really should take a lesson from me and stop slacking and taking all of these days off, you know.”
Jerry sighed as he answered, “It’s the weekend, Larry. Just because you have nothing better to do, doesn’t mean that I don’t.”
“Well, I was calling to tell you that I got those lab tests back,” Larry said with mock indignation. “But, if I’m bothering you on your precious day off, you can wait until tomorrow to see them.”
“You’re a jackass, Larry,” Jerry said with a short laugh. “I’d like to hear the results. Please.”
“As you wish, oh relaxing one,” Larry answered. “So, the results came back in an e-mail and it said that there were three distinct fluid types. The first one was blood and definitely canine, which they sent to one of the labs at Colorado State University. They identified it as coming from a wolf – specifically, a gray wolf.”
“That makes sense,” Jerry interjected.
“Stop interrupting me,” Larry said before continuing, which made Jerry shake his head. “The other two samples couldn’t be identified positively, but the report said that one of them was similar to human blood.”
Jerry interrupted before Larry could continue, “Larry, how can something be similar to human blood? It’s either human blood or it isn’t.”
“I came to the same conclusion, professor,” Larry answered. “The report says that it matched human blood in every way except for two – there was no identifiable blood type or RH factor. They think the sample must have been contaminated somehow, so they asked if we wanted further analysis on it, so I responded that we did. I know what you’re thinking and I thought the same thing – it was a clean sample. But maybe they can find something if they dig a little deeper.”
“Good idea,” Jerry said. The only thing around the blood spots had been snow, which shouldn’t have contaminated either of the samples. He and Larry both knew how to identify possibly contaminated samples at crime scenes, but he acknowledged that it had been outdoors in the middle of the night. There was a chance, albeit a small one, that Larry could have missed something when he collected it. “I’ll take a look at the report tomorrow. Thanks for calling, Larry.”
“Wait a second,” Larry said as Jerry was pulling the phone away from his ear. “Don’t you want to hear about the third sample?”
Jerry had almost forgotten about the third fluid that they had collected, which had been the oily black substance. “Sorry, I forgot about that one. What did it say?”
“Well, that one’s the strangest one,” Larry said. “The report said that they couldn’t identify what it was. They asked the guys at Colorado State about that one, too and they couldn’t identify it either.”
Colorado State University had one of the best biology colleges in the country. Jerry found it surprising that there was anything they couldn’t identify.
“They said that it appeared to be biological in nature, but couldn’t identify if it was plant or animal in origin,” Larry continued. “They said that…wait a minute, let me read it to you.” He paused for a minute before continuing, “The sample appears to be biological in nature and in its structure appears to serve the same function as blood, namely nutrient delivery and metabolic waste transport. However, its cellular structure is completely different than any known type of blood. Concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the cells are similar to human blood, but it also contains rather large quantities of sulfur dioxide.” He paused for a moment before adding, “They want to know where the sample came from.”
Jerry snorted as he answered, “So do we.” Jerry wondered how they could have gotten such a clean sample with the wolf blood, but contaminated the other two to the point that they couldn’t even be identified. “Okay. I’ll take a look at it in the morning. Thanks, Larry.”
“No problem, Sid. See you tomorrow,” Larry said before hanging up.
Jerry ran through Thursday night again in his head to see if there was something that he was missing that would explain the things that he couldn’t figure out. He knew that Harper was still keeping something from him, but he couldn’t imagine that anything his brother-in-law told him would shed any light on the mystery lab samples. But the fact that one of the samples had been positively identified as wolf blood actually caused him the greatest concern. He thought about calling animal control again, but knew that there would be nothing they could do unless they could confirm the presence of the animals themselves. He decided that he would forward the lab result to the animal control office in the morning and be sure to use his FBI e-mail address. That tended to get results quicker and he would take no chances when the safety of his children was in question.
He looked over at the clock and realized that it had been over an hour since he had first checked on the children and wondered where Harper and his oldest two were. He heard Vaughan clear his plate from the table and watched him walk from the kitchen. He decided to be helpful and clean up the kitchen before Harper and the kids got home.
Harper parked the car in the empty parking lot next to the Evergreen Lake House. He had woken up early that morning and made breakfast for the family before waking Cole up and telling him that they needed to talk. They had gone to breakfast and eaten in silence before driving over to the small lake near the center of town. After parking, Harper left the car r
unning so that the heater would stay on. Cole knew that his uncle didn’t seem to feel the cold, and it rarely bothered Cole either, but he liked the feel of it on his face. The heat and the gray sky outside made him slightly sleepy, so he sat up straighter in his chair. The temperature gauge on the dashboard said that it was fifteen degrees outside. The sky was slightly overcast, but the air had been otherwise still when they had walked to the car after breakfast.
Cole had a list of questions that he wanted to ask his uncle, but wasn’t sure where to start. The events of the night before were still fresh in his mind and they had been so unusual in their entirety that he couldn’t think of one thing that stood out more than anything else that would serve as a good starting point.
“Cole, we need to talk about last night,” Harper said, breaking the silence.
Cole stared back at his uncle, waiting for him to say something else. When he didn’t, Cole nodded in response. “Yeah, we do,” he answered as he continued to stare at his uncle.
“Where should I start?” Harper asked softly. It was clear that he was asking himself this question, but the question echoed Cole’s thought at that moment. So much had happened in the past few days that the list of questions in Cole’s mind seemed endless.
“What were those things in the woods last night?” Cole asked. In his mind, it was the logical place to start. It was the only thing that had happened so far that couldn’t have some other explanation that he had overlooked. The encounter with the creatures that had been so obviously…alien that it had made all of the unusual events of the past few days seem normal by comparison.
Harper nodded, acknowledging Cole’s question and seeming to agree that it was the best place to start. “Before I answer that question, I must ask one of my own,” Harper said as he looked at Cole. “Why did you go outside last night – what made you go to that spot in the woods like that?”
Cole stared back at his uncle and was surprised that he could meet the intensity of his gaze. He could sense that there was more to his uncle’s question, more that he was searching for than what he had asked. “Cody woke me up,” Cole answered, not sure what it was that his uncle was looking for. “And I followed him out to the woods. And then…you saw what happened after that.”
“Yes, I did,” Harper answered. “I think I’m not being clear in what I’m asking, though.” He was quiet for a moment before asking, “Cole, when we were out by the wood shed the other night and I asked you about the things you had been feeling recently, you told me you felt like there was something nearby that was searching for something. Do you remember that?”
Cole nodded in response. He had felt the feeling he had described to his uncle.
“What I’d like to know is…,” Harper asked, frowning in thought. “…has anything else happened recently that you would consider to be…unusual?”
Cole nearly laughed out loud as he considered his uncle’s question. Just about everything that had happened to him in the past few days had been unusual. At the same time, he knew exactly what his uncle meant. And yet a part of him was still reluctant to share everything that he had experienced. It made no sense for him to feel that way, but he did. He knew that his uncle only wanted to help him, as he had in the woods the night before. And based on what he had seen his uncle do while facing the creatures, how he had seemed to know what they were and what they wanted, he doubted that anything he said would surprise him. Finally, Cole decided that the only way he could fully understand what was happening to him and his family was to be as honest with Uncle Harper as he could. He opened his mouth and told his uncle about his encounter with the creature at school, how he had first met Aidan and his dream of the wolf pack that had eventually led him to the woods with Cody. When he finished, he looked at his uncle in silence.
“Have you always been able to hear the thoughts of animals?” Harper asked intently.
Cole nodded, but didn’t say anything as his uncle appeared to be deep in thought. Finally Cole asked, “What does it mean, Uncle Harper? Why am I able to hear what they’re thinking? And you didn’t answer my first question. What were those things we saw last night?”
Harper looked out the windshield at the lake for a moment in silence before responding to his nephew. “To answer your questions, there are some things that I must tell you,” Harper said as he looked at his nephew again. “These things aren’t going to be easy for you to hear, Cole. But in order for you to understand what happened last night, you must hear them.”
“Okay,” Cole answered hesitantly. He was suddenly afraid of what his uncle was about to say even though he had asked the question.
Harper sighed softly before speaking, “Cole, there are things about your mother…things about who she really was that you and your siblings don’t know.” He continued to stare at Cole, and the discomfort was obvious in his eyes as he spoke, though it was matched with determination. “Your mother wasn’t who you think she was…rather not exactly who you think she was.”
Cole stared back in confusion, not sure what his mother had to do with anything that had happened the night before. He wondered briefly if his uncle was trying to change the subject. But then he remembered that it had been his idea to come out to the lake that morning, and Cole knew that however irrelevant Uncle Harper’s words seemed to be, there had to be a reason for them.
“What are you trying to say?” Cole asked softly.
Harper stared back in silence for a moment before answering, “Did you ever notice anything unusual about your mother…or about me for that matter?”
Cole wasn’t sure how to respond. Of course he had noticed unusual things about his uncle. His uncle was unusual. But in Cole’s eyes, his mother had been perfect in every way – more loving and caring of her children than any mother he knew.
“Sure,” Cole answered. “I mean, I guess I’ve noticed some things about you…but what does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with it,” Harper answered with a slight smile. “Cole, your mother and I are…different from your father,” he added as he nearly squirmed with discomfort.
Cole felt a flush of sudden anger as he realized what his uncle was so clumsily trying to say. He knew his father believed Uncle Harper was racist, but Cole had always assumed that his father’s belief was based on their strained relationship. But now he had heard from his uncle’s own mouth that his father had been right.
“I know you and mom are different,” Cole answered with frustration. “Anyone can see that. It’s a stupid thing to say and definitely has nothing to do with what we’re talking about!”
Harper looked back at him in surprise for a moment before recognition filled his face. “You think I’m talking about race?” he asked, his voice rising slightly in anger. “If so, then that is a stupid thing to say, Cole. This is much bigger than that, and for your information, I have nothing against any one race of humans!”
Something about the way his uncle said any one race of humans caught Cole’s ear. But it wasn’t just what he had said; it was how he had said it. For the first time in Cole’s life, he had made his uncle angry. He suddenly felt embarrassed by what he had said.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Harper,” he said softly. “I thought you were trying to say something bad about my father.”
“I suppose I deserve that,” Harper said as he looked down at his lap. He was silent as he stared down at his hands. And then he spoke, “I care about your father a great deal, Cole…though I haven’t been very good at showing it.” He looked up again, staring out the windshield again. Cole looked in the same direction and saw a breeze blow snow across the frozen lake. It blew in eddies that made the snow look like steam rising from the ice.
“Cole, it’s important that you understand what I’m trying to tell you, and perhaps I’m dancing around the subject when I should be direct.” He looked over at his nephew again, and Cole couldn’t look away.
/> “Cole, I’m not human,” he said simply. “And neither was your mother.”
Cole stared back at his uncle, waiting for some sign on his face that what he had said was a joke. But his expression was completely serious and Cole knew that he was telling the truth. He thought of the creature that had turned into a man the night before in the woods…a man who had looked just like his Uncle Harper. Sinister thoughts of shape-changing and body-snatching aliens popped into his mind; irrational thoughts that made the car feel very close and confining all of a sudden. He quickly dismissed these thoughts as he looked into the blue eyes of his uncle, eyes that were the duplicate of his mother’s, and eyes that he had known since he had been a small child.
“Well, what are you if you’re not human?” Cole asked as he stared wide-eyed at his uncle.
Harper stared back at his nephew as he gathered his thoughts. Finally, he spoke, “I am…the name we call ourselves is Aes Sidhe.”
It had sounded like es shee, and Cole couldn’t remember ever hearing such words. He stared back at his uncle, waiting for him to continue. “What’s an Aes Sidhe?” Cole asked when his uncle didn’t say anything.
Harper thought for a moment before responding, “The closest thing in English that describes what I am is fairy.”
Cole couldn’t help but smile as he asked, “A fairy? Like the ones who use magic and have wings? Or, are you trying to tell me you’re gay? If you are, that’s cool; though I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to use that word for it.”
Harper smiled as he answered, “I’m not trying to tell you I’m gay, though your approval is appreciated. And we’re not exactly as you described. None of us have wings, though how you would otherwise think of faeries is a fairly accurate description.”
Cole stared back at his uncle in silence. At first, he thought Uncle Harper was joking, trying to make light of the situation before telling Cole what he really meant. But as he looked into his uncle’s eyes he saw that he was telling the truth – at least, he believed what he was saying was the truth.
“And mom was one of these…these Aes Sidhe?” Cole asked, though he already knew the answer.
“Yes, your mother was Aes Sidhe, as I am,” Harper answered. Before Cole could say anything in response, he spoke again, “There’s more, Cole. To truly understand what’s happening to us right now, you must understand more about my people.”
Cole nodded, though he said nothing in response. He was so intrigued by what his uncle was saying that he didn’t want to interrupt him. He wasn’t quite sure yet if he believed what Uncle Harper was saying, but he wanted to hear all of it before he decided.
The wind blew against the car hard enough to rock it slightly as Harper continued, “Though we look just like humans, there are many differences between us. We are stronger and faster than most humans, and have an innate power that humans do not have. This power allows us to do things that humans would consider to be magic, though some humans have a similar kind of power.” He paused for a moment as he reached over and took a sip from his cup of coffee before replacing it in the cup holder at his side. “And we do not age as humans do.”
He said the last thing so casually that Cole wasn’t sure at first that he had heard him correctly. “Are you saying that you’re immortal?” Cole asked hesitantly.
“We can be killed nearly as easily as humans can,” Harper answered as he tilted his head. “But we do not grow old or get sick as humans do.”
Cole thought of what his uncle was saying and thought of how he had never known how old he was. He had always assumed that his uncle was in his late thirties, though he looked much younger. He knew that he was younger than Cole’s mother, but he realized suddenly that he had never known how old his mother was either.
“How old are you, Uncle Harper?” Cole asked quietly.
Harper smiled before answering, “Let’s just say that I’m much older than I look, as was your mother.”
Cole stared back at his uncle, hoping that he would elaborate, but he didn’t. And Cole knew that his single most important question had still not been answered. “Let’s just assume that I believe everything you’ve told me,” he said as he looked down at his hands. “You still haven’t told me what any of this has to do with what happened in the woods last night.”
Harper nodded before he spoke. “You’re right. To understand that, I must tell you something else about my people,” he said. “We are not from this world, though your mother and I were both born here. Our world was destroyed long ago, before humans on this world had even begun to gather in their early towns and villages. We fled here when our world could no longer support us, and at first we believed we had come alone.” He looked down in silence for a moment before continuing, “But we were mistaken.”
“Those things I saw in the woods last night…they followed you here?” Cole asked.
Harper nodded as he answered, “Yes, though followed is not the right word. It was those creatures who destroyed our world, and when they found the world where my people had gone to seek shelter from their destruction, they came here to finish what they had started. They found us here before your mother or I was born, and it started a war that has continued for thousands of years.”
“Why do they want to destroy you?” Cole asked as he thought of the creatures he had seen. There had been an aura of wrongness about them, and hearing that they were invaders of Cole’s world made sense. He realized with a start that his uncle and mother were members of a race of invaders, as well. But then he remembered the more accurate word for what they were. They were refugees.
“Why they want to destroy us, where they came from…” Harper said softly as he looked out of the windshield. “…these are all questions that I cannot answer because I do not know. But to understand why these creatures have taken an interest in our family, I must tell you about an ancient prophecy that affects both of our races. To understand the prophecy, you must understand that while there are many similarities between humans and Aes Sidhe, our peoples do not…mix.”
Cole looked at his uncle in confusion, not understanding what he meant by the word mix. He sensed a sort of disdain in Uncle Harper’s voice whenever he used the word human and wondered if he meant that the two peoples didn’t get along.
As if answering his unspoken question, Harper continued, “What I mean is that our peoples do not produce children. At least, it is extremely uncommon for this to happen. In fact, it has only happened three times during our history on this world.” Harper took another sip of his coffee before continuing, “When a child is born of human and Aes Sidhe parents, this child is special.”
As his uncle spoke, Cole realized that he was speaking of him and his siblings.
“The child of such a union inherits the best qualities of both races,” Harper continued, his tone becoming that of a teacher. “And this child also inherits a power that is unlike anything else in this world. When they accept this power, they embody everything the creatures you saw despise. The child represents light, order and life, where the creatures represent darkness, chaos and destruction. It is the destiny of the child to struggle against these creatures…these demons. And it becomes the mission of the demons to capture this child and use its power to eliminate the barriers between this world and the world from which the demons came. And if the demons were to succeed, this world and everything you know in it would be gone.”
Cole stared back at his uncle as he digested what he was saying. He felt like he had stepped onto the pages of some kind of fantasy novel with fairies, demons and prophecies. It required a suspension of disbelief that he would have found impossible to do if he hadn’t witnessed what he had the night before.
“The child is also able to draw others to them to aid them in this struggle,” Harper continued. “And it is for this reason that the child is known in our language as the Solas. It means light in our tongue, or more appropriately beacon.”
“And you think one of us is this…Solas?” Cole asked as he realized what his uncle was saying. The thought that he or any of his siblings could be what the demons were looking for terrified him.
“I think it’s you, Cole,” Harper said simply as he stared intently at him.
Cole stared back at his uncle in shock, though there was little doubt left in his mind that what he was saying could be true. He remembered his conversation with Dinah the day before and wondered something.
“Could there be more than one Solas?” he asked. “I mean, can there be more than one at a time?”
Harper thought for a moment before he answered, “I’ve thought about that, and I don’t know the answer. There have only been two other children who were the Solas in the history of the Aes Sidhe.” He looked suddenly suspicious and asked, “Cole is there something you know…something about one of your siblings?”
Cole thought about his promise to his sister and there was nothing he wanted less than to break it. But he also worried that his refusal to say anything could put her in danger. Cole knew that his uncle had saved his life in the woods the night before, that there was no way he could have stopped the demons if they had tried to take him. And he also knew that his uncle was the only one who would be able to protect Dinah in the same way.
“Cole, if you know something, it’s very important that you tell me,” Harper said sternly.
Cole wanted to tell his uncle, and opened his mouth to do so, but suddenly thought of something his uncle had said just moments before. “What happened to the other two children who were the Solas?” Cole asked.
Harper looked surprised by Cole’s question, and looked down briefly before raising his head again to look into his nephew’s eyes. “They died,” he answered softly. “The first one was killed before he could accept his power.”
“And the second?” Cole asked when his uncle grew silent again.
Harper sighed before responding, “The second sacrificed his own life when he was betrayed and taken by the demons.”
Cole heard the pain in his uncle’s voice and asked, “Did you know him – the Solas who gave his life?”
Harper looked down again and nodded before answering, “Yes, I knew him. His name was Harald.” He looked at Cole again, and the pain in his eyes was obvious as he added, “And he was just about your age when he died.”
Cole looked away from his uncle and out the passenger window as he thought of everything his uncle had told him. There were so many questions he wanted to ask his uncle, but he didn’t know where to start. And he didn’t know if the answers he would have received would have mattered anyway. It was too much for him to digest.
The sky over the mountains was darkening as he stared out the window and Cole looked over briefly at the clock on the dashboard before looking outside again. It was too early for the darkness to be anything other than an approaching storm, and he wondered if they would be getting a dumping of snow. The clouds looked ominous and seemed to add a negative portent to what his uncle had told him. He thought of Harald, a boy his age making the decision to sacrifice his own life to save the lives of so many others and he wondered if he would have had the strength to do the same thing if it had been him.
“Cole, you didn’t answer my question,” Harper asked softly, interrupting his train of thought. When Cole looked over at him in confusion, he clarified, “Is there something about one of your siblings that you’re not telling me? It’s very important that I know, Cole.”
His voice was calm and sincere, and Cole knew that he only wanted to know so that he could protect Dinah. Cole opened his mouth to tell him and was suddenly assaulted with a series of images that flashed through his mind – the sight of fur-covered legs flashing through the snow…the rushing of snow-covered trees…the shapes of wolves running through the trees ahead of him…and then from the other side of a road, the shapes that he recognized instantly as the demons. He had no idea where the images were coming from, but felt a sense of familiarity that reminded him of the dream he had had the night before, just before Cody had woken him. And then he knew the origin of the images – the wolf pack was trying to tell him something. When the final image hit him, he realized that he was being given an urgent warning. The image was of Dinah running through the woods and he realized with dread that she was in danger.
“Cole, what’s wrong?” Harper asked with concern as he saw the look on his nephew’s face.
“Dinah’s in danger!” Cole answered breathlessly as the images left his thoughts. He looked at his uncle and knew that the fear must have been plain on his face.
Harper slammed the gear shifter into drive and sped from the parking lot as Cole told him what he had seen.
Dinah ran along the road at a pace that even experienced runners would have been hard-pressed to match. The asphalt that was free of snow seemed to flow beneath her as her breathing settled into a steady rhythm. She had been able to run faster and faster in the past few months, though she rarely did so when people were around. She knew that she could maintain her current pace almost indefinitely, which would have caused too many people to notice if she had done it in public. But on the isolated road leading to her house there was little chance that anyone would see her. She had timed herself on just such a run the week before and had been stunned to realize that she had easily kept a pace of a five-minute mile for the entire five mile run between her house and Mr. McCallister’s house. For a runner her age to be able to keep such a pace was unheard of.
She loved pretty much any form of exercise, but running was her favorite. It was the one thing that cleared her mind better than anything. No matter what worries she had when she left the house, she knew that they would all be gone by the time she got back. The rhythmic pounding of her feet on the pavement and the counterpoint of her breath were a form of meditation to her that allowed her to push all other thoughts aside and focus on strictly moving forward.
She was grateful that the snow plow had been through recently, since it was impossible for her to run after a snowstorm. The air was bitterly cold, but she had barely felt it when she left the house and as her body warmed with exercise, she didn’t feel it at all. Even her breathing, which used to be difficult in the cold, was now no different than if she were running on a warm spring morning.
As she ran near the right side of the road, she noticed something moving in the trees to her right. At first, she couldn’t make out the shapes as they moved along at the same pace. But as the shapes moved closer to the road, she realized that they were some kind of animals running through the woods. When she slowed her pace a bit to try to make out what they were, she thought that the shapes were those of several large, running dogs. But when she realized at last what they were, she quickened her pace again. The shapes moving through the trees were wolves.
She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was as if a nature show had come to life and was running beside her. But this wasn’t a show and she realized that they were dangerous animals that could behave unpredictably. She remembered that Uncle Harper had mentioned something about wolves being in the woods the night that he had sent them all to the basement, and this only heightened her fear. Her uncle had been frightened that evening, something which she had never seen before. If these were the same animals that had caused such a reaction in her normally-unflappable uncle, then she had reason to fear them too.
She looked around her as she increased her pace slightly. She was more than halfway to Mr. McCallister’s house, so turning back now would mean a longer distance to run to safety. She knew that her best bet was to head for her neighbor’s house and hope that he was home. She looked over to her right again, hoping that the wolves had lost interest in her, but she immediately saw them, still keeping pace with her in spite of her increased speed. It was a little more than five miles from the Ambrose house to Mr. McCallister’s house, so she figured she had to run about two more miles to safety. Even at the fast pac
e that she was running, this was an easy distance for her and she was not worried about tiring too quickly. But the road could be uneven in patches, and she knew that if she slipped on the road or lost her footing and fell, the wolves could be on her in an instant. She tried to divert her attention between the road ahead and the road beneath her while still trying to watch the wolves through her peripheral vision.
Dinah heard a loud snapping sound to her left and she almost stumbled as she turned her head to see what had caused the sound. At first, she couldn’t see anything past the shadows near the bottom of the trees on that side of the road. But then she realized that the shadows themselves were moving. As her eyes were able to focus on the moving shapes, they resolved into additional wolf-shapes, running along at the same pace as her. Faced with wolves on either side of the road and another two miles to run before she would reach safety, Dinah felt panic set in. A rush of adrenaline filled her body as she began to run faster. She was nearly sprinting now, a pace that would prevent her from being able to see anything on the road that could cause her to fall. But she also knew that slowing down at all would put her in even greater danger.
She looked to her right and swore silently in frustration. The wolves there were continuing to keep pace with her. She looked to her left and felt a brief moment of hope as she saw the wolves there falling slightly behind. They moved closer to the edge of the trees and Dinah saw for the first time that these creatures were slightly different than the ones on her right. They were much larger and more heavily muscled and surrounded by a blackness that blotted out the forest behind them as they ran. She felt a stronger sense of fear of these creatures, as if she could sense their malicious intent toward her. They made the wolves on her right seem almost friendly by comparison.
When she turned again to her right, she could see the wolves there, running with their tongues hanging out. She wondered what the endurance of wolves was like and hoped that her newfound strength would help her outrun them. She glanced again to her left and could see no sign of the creatures that had been there just a moment before.
A scrabbling sound on the asphalt behind her made her look back briefly. What she saw there made her actually cry out in terror and she stumbled briefly before regaining her feet.
The creatures that had been in the woods to her left had moved their chase to the road and were now running no more than thirty yards behind her. She had counted three of them when she had looked back and all of them were creatures out of a nightmare. Their mouths hung open as they ran, with tongues hanging out of their mouths and yellow eyes seeming to glow with evil intent.
Dinah didn’t think she was going to make it and wondered briefly if she should stop and confront them. She knew that the predator drive in animals made them chase after something that ran away, and that many animals chose instead to stand their ground. This often gave them a greater chance for success in avoiding becoming their predator’s meal. But something told her that this would not be the case with the creatures behind her. She suspected that they would continue their chase until they brought her down. And the heavy muscles that she had seen covering each of them made Dinah doubt if even her phenomenal new strength would stand a chance against them.
She saw the opening in the trees ahead that marked the start of Mr. McCallister’s driveway. It was about a half-mile ahead, which she would cover quickly. But like the Ambrose house, the McCallister house had a long driveway that meant another quarter-mile for her to run before she could reach the house itself.
Movement to her right made her turn her head as she increased her speed yet again. She was now running as fast as she could, and the trees on either side of her seemed to blur as she flew past. She saw the wolves on her right leave the cover of the trees and run toward the road. It looked like they were running as fast as they could to catch her as they moved in behind her. They were closer to her than the creatures, but still at least ten yards behind her. Their labored breathing made Dinah wonder if they could keep such a pace for much longer. Her breath was coming quicker now and she knew that she could not run as fast as she was for any distance greater than her neighbor’s driveway. She said a mental prayer that Mr. McCallister was home and decided that she would start shouting for help before she reached the porch that wrapped around the front and sides of his house.
For the first time since she had left the house, she felt fatigue building up in her legs. Dinah tried to push the aching aside and not let her pace lessen, but she realized that she had slowed slightly. She heard a growling noise behind her and looked back to see one of the wolves pull ahead of the others. She thought that she had counted eight of the animals chasing her, but hoped that her fear had multiplied them. The three demon-looking creatures still ran behind the wolves, but had fallen slightly behind.
The wolf that had pulled ahead suddenly closed the distance between it and Dinah and snapped its jaws near her heel. Dinah screamed and pushed her body to run faster. She quickly slipped into the best sprinting pose that she knew as she turned the corner onto Mr. McCallister’s driveway. She knew that she had a quarter-mile left to reach what she hoped would be the safety of his house. She had sprinted such distances easily at track practice and hoped that her strength wouldn’t fail her now.
The air grew suddenly colder as she sprinted through the light snow, hoping that her feet wouldn’t slip. Luckily, the driveway had been recently plowed, so the snow was less than an inch thick. But Dinah knew that there could be numerous patches of ice covering the asphalt and hitting one of those patches would send her sprawling to the ground. If such a thing happened, she knew that she was dead. She noticed for the first time that the sky had darkened from when she had first left the house. She looked up briefly to see it covered with gray clouds, as if a snowstorm were about to hit. Dinah wondered at how such a mundane thing as her morning run could have turned in to her literally running for her life.
Dinah crossed the halfway point of the driveway and nearly cried with relief to see several lights on within the house. She hoped that it meant her neighbor was home.
She began shouting at the top of her lungs, “Help me! Please, help me!”
Dinah felt a brief moment of guilt at the thought that she could be placing her neighbor’s life at risk, but she had no other choice. She decided that if he opened the door, she would push him back as she ran in and lock the door behind her.
As if reading her thoughts, the front door opened and Mr. McCallister looked out and right at Dinah, who was closing on the last twenty yards to the house. His eyes widened in shock at what he must have seen behind her.
“Dinah!” he shouted frantically at her. “Hurry!”
Dinah ran up to the porch and jumped several feet before she touched down on the wooden planks. Mr. McCallister moved out of the way as he held the door open for her to run into the house. She ran past him and nearly into the back wall of his foyer as she heard the door slam shut behind her and the deadbolt ram into place.
Dinah turned around to face the door before collapsing onto the floor of the foyer, her breath coming in great, heaving gasps. She saw Mr. McCallister run to the hall closet, open the door and reach in to pull out a pump-action shotgun and box of shells. He ran back to the door and placed the ammo on a bookshelf next to the door before grabbing several from the box and quickly loading the shotgun. Small windows ran along either side of the door, and he looked out the one on the right.
“What…what are they…doing?” Dinah asked between gasps.
Mr. McCallister was quiet for a moment before responding. “Well, the wolves are standing on my front porch, which should be strange enough.” He looked back at Dinah with a half-smile on his face, which made her wonder if he was a little crazy. “But they’re not watching the house. They’re all facing those other things, which are pacing my front lawn.” He looked back out the window for a second before turning back to Dinah. “Dinah, do you know what
those things are out there?”
Dinah shook her head as she continued to try to catch her breath. “I don’t know…I think they’re wolves.”
Mr. McCallister shook his head before looking back outside. “The ones on the porch are wolves alright, though I haven’t seen any in Colorado since I was a kid. They shouldn’t be this far south. Still, I’d recognize them anywhere. But those other things…those aren’t wolves. I can’t tell what they are, but they sure as hell don’t look natural, if you know what I mean.”
“Tell me…about it,” Dinah gasped in reply.
“Are you alright?” Mr. McCallister asked as he returned his attention to her. “Can I get you something? Some water, maybe?”
She smiled at him as she answered, “Thanks, but I think…I’d rather have you stay there…with that shotgun for now…if you don’t mind.”
He chuckled before answering, “Good idea. By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone run that fast. It was like the devil himself was chasing you!” He looked back out the window. “Although by the looks of them creatures, that might be what was chasing you.”
Dinah finally felt her breathing starting to return to normal, so she stood up, walked over to the door and looked out the window to its left. What she saw there made the strange morning seem even stranger.
Mr. McCallister was right that the wolves were standing on the porch. But what he hadn’t said was that they were all standing on the front edge of the steps leading down to the lawn. They were all facing the lawn where the nightmarish creatures paced back and forth. The wolves were all crouched down, as if ready to fight and the ones whose faces she could see had their lips curled back, baring their teeth. What she at first thought was the vibration of the house’s furnace turned out to be the growls of the wolves heard through the window. The demon creatures continued to pace along the front of the lawn and they were also crouched down with their teeth bared. She wondered why they hadn’t charged, and noticed that there seemed to be some sort of invisible line that they refused to cross. She watched the strange behavior of the two groups and realized for the first time that it was likely that they had not been cooperating to try to bring her down as she had originally thought. As she watched the wolves completely ignore the house and the two humans within, she had a strange thought. It almost seemed like the wolves were…
“I swear it seems like the wolves are protecting us,” Mr. McCallister finished her thought. “Or more likely, protecting you.” He looked over at her as if expecting her to confirm his thought.
“Why would they be protecting me?” Dinah asked.
Mr. McCallister looked back out the window as he answered, “Good question.”
The standoff between the creatures and the wolves seemed to last for another five minutes before the creatures grew tired of waiting and slunk off into the woods near the house. The wolves maintained their post, but each of them sat or lied down on the porch. She thought that they had to be nearly as exhausted as she was. She thought again of how it had seemed like they were protecting her, but then remembered the one wolf that had snapped at her heels and thought that she was misreading their behavior. But then she remembered how close it had been and knew that it could have bitten her if it had wanted to. It had snapped at her heels when she had started to slow and her fear had made her run faster. And further away from the creatures.
Dinah felt something vibrate in her jacket pocket and realized that it was her cell phone. She reached in to answer it, but wasn’t quick enough to answer the call. The caller ID on the screen said that it had been Cole calling her, so she hit the redial button and held the phone to her ear.
It rang once before Cole answered, “Dinah, are you okay? Where are you?” He sounded frantic.
She felt a surge of relief at hearing her brother’s voice. “I’m at Mr. McCallister’s house. I’m okay, but Cole…something happened.”
“We’ll be there in five minutes,” Cole said and then hung up the phone.
Dinah looked at the time on the phone and was shocked to realize that she had left the house only half an hour before.
She felt Mr. McCallister’s eyes on her, so she looked over at him. “That was my brother, Cole. He said they’ll be here in five minutes to get me.”
He nodded before answering, “Okay. If you’ll excuse me, I need to make a call.” He walked into the kitchen, which had an entrance off of the foyer and pulled an old-fashioned corded phone off the wall. He quickly dialed a number and then held the receiver to his ear.
“It’s James,” his voice drifted over to Dinah. He spoke softly, but her sharp hearing could make out every word, in spite of the distance. “I think they’ve come, Mark. One of the children ran up to my front door with a pack of wolves behind her and those things behind them.” He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know what it means, but it can’t be good.” Silence again. “No, don’t come over here now. It’s probably too dangerous. Her brother’s coming to get her now. I’ll meet you at our spot after they leave.” He was quiet for a moment again. “Alright, see you in a bit.”
He replaced the phone on the wall and walked back into the foyer, still holding the shotgun in his hand. The way he carried it seemed to Dinah like he knew what he was doing, which surprised her. She had always thought of Mr. McCallister as a little bookish – not someone that would be familiar with how to quickly load and handle a large firearm. She thought of the strange conversation she had overheard and began to wonder if there was more to her neighbor than met the eye.
He walked over to the window and looked out briefly before turning back to her. “There are car lights coming down the driveway. And the wolves are gone,” he told her.
He unlocked the door and turned to her as he opened it. “Wait, here. I’m going to meet them at the porch steps.” The way he spoke to her made it clear that he expected her to listen, so she did. He closed the door behind him and Dinah could hear the thump of his shoes as he walked across the porch.
She stood up and walked to the window and could see her uncle’s minivan pull up near the front of the steps. Mr. McCallister walked down the steps and up to the van, but his head was turning back and forth as he did this, holding the shotgun pointed at the ground, but looking like he was ready to use it if he had to. She saw Uncle Harper get out of the driver’s door and walk over to speak briefly with Mr. McCallister.
“Dinah, you can come out now,” Mr. McCallister shouted over his shoulder a few moments later.
She opened the door and felt the cold air blast her face. It wasn’t even noon, but the sky was gray and cloudy, turning the air the color of dusk. She walked down the stairs and opened the side door of the van before climbing in. She realized that she had forgot to thank Mr. McCallister and leaned her head back out.
“Don’t mention it, dear,” he said to her with a smile before she could say anything.
Dinah waved back at him as her uncle thanked him as well before getting back into the van. She saw Cole staring back at her and he opened his mouth in what she was sure was going to be a question, but she shook her head at him and silently pleaded with her eyes for him not to say anything. He looked uncomfortable for a second before nodding and turning around to face the front of the car.
Dinah looked out the window at the trees on either side of Mr. McCallister’s driveway as the van drove along it. The gray half-light made the spaces between them seem to be full of ominous shapes. She had noticed this quality in the forests around her house before, but it had never caused her to be afraid. But today she had seen that sometimes those shapes were more than just a trick of the eye. Those shapes had come to life and she could never look at them the same way again.